"Shrug" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with a laugh and a shrug of his shoulders. "Were you under the impression, Cousin Roscius, that law and justice were ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... never for an instant dreamed I should be suspected—the slight similarity in some of the writing to some of mine was more or less accidental, though she admits she had tried to model her script on mine because she admired it ... as she admired all my poor faculties," said Chloe, with a little shrug of her shoulders. "I really believe she used my pens and paper without any idea of the harm she was doing me—in fact, if such a supposition could be entertained for a moment, I don't believe she had any very clear idea what she was doing beyond a fixed ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... a little pout and shrug to her shoulder. "The Solicitor-General then opened the case for the prosecution," said she. "You are going to cross-examine me, Clara, so don't deny it. I do wish you would have that grey satin foulard of yours done up. With a little trimming and a new white vest it would look as good ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... time proposing to let the people choose in the matter of the prize, but he is silenced by his colleagues. They now want to know where Walter has learnt the art of poetry and song, and as he designates Walter von der Vogelweide and the birds of the forest, they shrug their shoulders. ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... surplice. Baldassare brooded, chewing straws. What a clear colour that girl had, to be sure! What a lissom rascal it was! A fine long girl like that should be married; by all accounts she would make a man a good wife. If he were a dozen years the better of four and fifty he might—Then came a shrug, and a "Ma!" to conclude in true Veronese Baldassare's ruminations. Shrug and explosion signalled two stark facts: Baldassare was fifty-four, and Vanna had ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... taxicab, and one of the other men had his foot upon the step. With a shrug of the shoulders, the young man accepted the inevitable and obeyed. Brightman leaned out of the window, gave a direction to the driver, and the taxicab was driven slowly in through the assembling crowd. Richard leaned back in his corner and glared ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... cast a shadow over his commercial career, or even weaken his social position. If, by the loud folly of Hawkehurst, some evil rumour about him should float as far eastward as the Stock Exchange, who would be found to give credence to the dark report? Men would shrug their shoulders and shake their heads incredulously; and one of these wise men of the east would remark that, "A fellow in Sheldon's position doesn't do that kind of thing, you know;" while another would say, "I dined with him at Greenwich last summer, and a remarkably good dinner ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... that at first they may shrug their shoulders, and laugh us to scorn; but when they have left us, and, being alone, reflect a little on what we have told them, you will see them flutter back like decoyed birds, saying to us, 'We should like to hear you speak again about those things which you brought ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... shrug of the shoulders and a peculiar gesticulation with his hand, as if he were throwing something away, while he looked at them both sidewise through his half-closed eyes: "You are fatigue so soon? You vant to ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... vaults into the street. The mass upon the floor fetches a last agonizing shrug, and a low moan, and is dead. The murderer stands over him, exultant, as the blood streams from the deep fracture. In fine, the blood of his victim would seem rather to increase his satisfaction at the deed, than ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... was no appeal from her tone, and with a slight shrug he recovered his composure, took her hand, which he kissed with a practised air, and calling out from the threshold: "I say, Newland, if you can persuade the Countess to stop in town of course you're included in the supper," left the room with his ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... right," replied Tom, with a shrug of his broad shoulders. "Fellows can think what they like about me. I don't blame them. But you can't expect me to ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... looking steamships than this one," Steve returned, pointing with a shrug of his shoulders at the ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... affirmative, and a little boy was commissioned to show me to my apartment. It was a snug, clean, and comfortable little old-fashioned room at the top of the castle. As soon as we had entered, the boy, who appeared to be a shrewd, good-tempered little fellow, said with a shrug of the shoulder, 'If it was going to bed I was, it shouldn't be here that you'd catch me.' 'Why?' said I. 'Because,' replied the boy, 'they say that the ould masther's ghost has been seen sitting on that there chair.' 'And have you seen him?' 'No; but I've heard him washing ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... a shrug. "Being a woman, you have divine right to monopolise a man,—if the man is fool enough to submit to it. Nature is determined that you women shall not escape your real trade. That is why she takes care to make every one of you a bourgeois at heart. And ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... Ambrose scornfully. An expectant look in Watusk's eye arrested him from saying more. "He's trying to find out how much Nesis told me," he thought. Aloud he said, with a shrug like Watusk himself: "Well, I'll be glad when it ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... Won't ye hear that, now?" she laughed with a shrug. "An' how should I know? I guess if Susan Betts could tell the end of all the beginnin's as soon as they're begun, she wouldn't be hangin' out your daddy's washin', my boy. She'd be sittin' on a red velvet sofa with a gold cupola over her head a-chargin' five dollars apiece ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... with a half shrug, upon the cheerless room, with its bit of a table and the one chair and the low, curtainless window, and then her eyes fell upon the scantily-clad little girl by her side; and then she shivered, as the dampness of her clothes ...
— Little Alice's Palace - or, The Sunny Heart • Anonymous
... sir); I bring them back to the persons to whom they belong; I lay them down. I know how to arrange a room; I make the beds; I colour the inlaid floors of the apartments; I watch a sick person through the night and day (a shrug) for so much a day (a shrug), and for the night also (a shrug); I agree as to the price with those persons who employ me, for five francs the night, eight francs for the twenty-four hours, when they do not feed me; besides, I watch the dead in the apartment during the twenty-four hours that ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... a disconsolate shrug of his shoulders as if he had no liking for the scheme being thus tabooed, "s'pose it's jest like you put it, Jack, though I own up I was hopin' we might make a pot o' coffee. Just the same we got plenty o' fresh water along, even ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... is," he decided with a shrug, implying that all the four quarters were equally to his mind. He was pocketing the coin, when footsteps approached, and he lifted his head. It was the woman returning. She halted close to him with an undecided manner, and ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... him, but that he was a slave belonging to somebody in the town. And upon my expressing surprise at his having left his own beautiful and pleasant country for this dreary distant region, he answered, with a shrug and a smile, 'Oui, madame, c'est vrai; c'est un joli pays, mais dans ce pays-la, quand un homme n'a rien, c'est rien pour toujours.' A property which many no doubt have come hither, like the little French knife-grinder, to increase, without ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... and noticed it by one of those smiles so peculiar to him—a shake of the head and shrug of the shoulders, while he uttered "Que voulez-vous, Sire, chacun a son vingt Mars?" referring to the unexpected arrival ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... a resigned shrug. "You are always right in your calculations, my dear Harrison," he said; adding, with an ambiguous intonation, "And I suppose I am to salute in you the American scholar of ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... enough, that one can delight ninety-nine hundredths of the audience without any real effort. I could sing 'The Lost Chord' and move the whole Drill Hall at Brixton to tears. But there might be one man there who knew, you or Hermann or some other, and at the end he would just shrug his shoulders ever so slightly, and I would wish I had ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... Peaches accomplished a shrug that was wonderful, and gazed at the ceiling, her lips closed. Mickey watched her a second, then he began softly: "Flowersy-girl, I don't see what you mean! I don't know why you act like this! I don't know what's to ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... absorbed by the blue cloud, and who, as a sponge can take up but a definite quantity of water, had but a definite measure of anxiety, displayed no more emotion at this answer of the skipper than was expressed by a slight shrug ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... gaze with a shrug, and produced the paper. Northwick read it all once more. "I'm your prisoner," he said, returning the paper. "You can put the handcuffs ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... a little shrug of the shoulders, "I can hardly tell you. The phrase seemed to come out of its own accord. I have felt from the beginning that it was in pain and—starved, though why I felt this never occurred to me till ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... graduates of the Albe Bellgarde, may shrug their laced shoulders at the boisterousness of Allen in England. True, he stood upon no punctilios with his jailers; for where modest gentlemanhood is all on one side, it is a losing affair; as if my Lord Chesterfield should take off his hat, and smile, and bow, to a mad bull, in hopes of ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... whom to correspond. A feeling of inexplicable bashfulness tied my tongue, and I only replied with an enigmatic and haughty smile. And when they questioned me as to what I thought of the beauty of their little maidens, I would shrug my shoulders and ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various
... the girl did not answer. Then she put the paper which had held the biscuits carefully into the cupboard by the fireplace, and as she did so he saw her raise her shoulders with an involuntary and expressive shrug. ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... laugh and shrug their shoulders: that tale has been told so often in these parts during the past year: the good folk have ceased to believe in it. It has almost become a legend now, that story that the Emperor was coming back—their Emperor—the man with the battered hat and the grey redingote: the ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... loaves of bread, a long list. Having finished, she destroyed, by burning, a number of papers watching until the last ash had turned from dull red to smoking gray. The code-book she hesitated over, but at last, with a shrug of her shoulders, she returned it to its ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... part of it is that this weakness of ours has become known. The singers feel they can give an American audience any slipshod performance. I have seen a favorite soprano shrug her shoulders as she entered her dressing-room and exclaim: “Mon Dieu! How I shuffled through that act! They’d have hooted me off the stage in Berlin, but here no one seems to care. Did you notice the baritone to-night? He wasn’t on the key once during ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... fellows at the club, of what they would say when the jocund news came that Billy Magee had gone mad on a mountainside, He thought of Helen Faulkner, haughty, unperturbed, bred to hold herself above the swift catastrophies of the world. He could see the arch of her patrician eyebrows, the shrug of her exquisite shoulders, when young Williams hastened up the avenue and poured into her ear the merry story. Well—so be it He had never cared for her. In her superiority he had found a challenge, in her icy indifference a trap, that lured him on to try his ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... receive a fair lady's refusal with a good-natured shrug, as merely the result of a bad venture, and hope for better luck next time; but to a greater number this is impossible, especially if they are played with and deceived. Walter Gregory pre-eminently belonged to the latter ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... Loud, Haughty, Gentle, Soft, Lewd, and Obsequious by turns, just as a little Understanding and great Impudence prompt him at the present Moment. He passes among the silly Part of our Women for a Man of Wit, because he is generally in Doubt. He contradicts with a Shrug, and confutes with a certain Sufficiency, in professing such and such a Thing is above his Capacity. What makes his Character the pleasanter is, that he is a professed Deluder of Women; and because ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... you are," she said softly. "You accept defeat with the grace of a victor. I believe that you would triumph as easily with a shrug of the shoulders. Haven't you any feeling at all? Don't you know what it is like ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... with a shrug of his powerful shoulders. "It's just like you, Brick, to spoil a festibul-day with your low idees! Why don't you keep them idees for a rainy day? Just lay up them regrets and hankerings for the first rainy day, and then be of a piece with the heavens and earth. 'If you can't stay ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... that his personal safety never gave him a thought. He soon bade us good night. The Ogdens shrugged their shoulders and were amused. That was their way of taking it. Dr. MacBride sat too heavily on the Judge's shoulders for him to shrug them. As a leading citizen in the Territory he kept open house for all comers. Policy and good nature made him bid welcome a wide variety of travelers. The cow-boy out of employment found bed and a meal for ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... smile that irradiated his handsome, virile countenance, Sir Walter held out his hand to clasp his cousin's in token of appreciation. Captain King expressed no opinion save what might be conveyed in a grunt and a shrug. ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... among them, and by his angry looks and gesticulation called their attention to the words of Fenelon. Then meeting the eye of the cure, who sat beside the altar, he made the same signs to him, to which the cure replied by a deprecating shrug of the shoulders. Fenelon changed color, but continued his sermon. [Footnote: Information faicte par nous, Charles Le Tardieu, Sieur de Tilly, et Nicolas Dupont, etc. etc., contre le Sr. Abbe de ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... him, when he was at a loss for any other argument: "And your wife, Champdelin? Are you not afraid that she will have her revenge and pay you out in your own coin?" his only reply was a contemptuous and incredulous shrug of the shoulders. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... eyebrow-elevations, because it was "not exactly the thing to get out, you know"; but if it wasn't to get out, why did he let it out? and so from my dark corner I watched him as a cat does a mouse, and the lamp-light shone full upon him, and I understood every word and shrug, and I am going to tell it all to the world. I translated that the holy father had been "skylarking" in a boat, and in gay society had forgotten his vows of frugality and abstinence and general mortification ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... rise and position. For some minutes Ivan stood debating within himself as to his right to read so much as a fragment of this condemnatory document. If he began, what great name might not become forever dishonored in his thoughts?—Bah!—What need to fear for good men, after all? With a cynical shrug, he advanced to where the parchment hung; and then, referring each second to his key, began to read at the top of one of the narrow columns. After fifteen minutes, he drew the great table across the room, pulled pencil and paper towards him, and ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... who seems to have gained the mastery over her affections with a strange suddenness, is but blind to her charms because dazzled by Violante's. She is prepared to aid in all that can give her rival to Peschiera; and yet, such is the inconsistency of woman" (added the young philosopher, with a shrug of the shoulders), "that she is also prepared to lose all chance of securing him she loves, by ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... course! Naturellement! [With a shrug.] C'est une affaire de famille. [To BERTRAM, who is now at the door on the left, his hand on the door-handle.] Come back, Bertie. [Repeating her wry smile.] I shall be glad to receive your congratulations ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... He gave a contemptuous shrug: "Wait until I give you an opportunity. Floyd and I don't make fools of ourselves ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... bit, he commenced finding fault with this one and that, the men would shove their tongues in their cheek and shrug their shoulders. They did not pay the slightest regard to anything he said; while the more bolder spirits, perhaps, of the stamp of Jim Chowder, winked openly the one to the other, expressing an opinion in a sufficiently loud enough tone for him to hear that 'if he ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... my revenge—and a fine bit of property eminently suited for a summer residence—all for a bit of old, rusty sentiment," he said with a shrug. "I didn't suppose I was capable of such a mood. But then—little Lisbeth. There never was a sweeter girl. I'm glad I didn't go with the boy to see her. She's an old woman now—and Neil Jameson's widow. I prefer to keep my old ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... he shook his head), "and monsieur speaks argot very well." (A shrug.) "Perhaps he knows more than he credits himself with. Perhaps" (and here his wink was diabolical)— "perhaps monsieur knows the ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... Nan, "Your darling mother. I adore her!" and Nan, contemptuous of her mother for thinking such trivial pretence worth while, and with Rosalind for thinking malicious exposure worth while, would shrug her ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... accustomed, how it was that an Englishman should be in France when the uncompromising war between the two nations had naturally exiled all Englishmen from France, as it had all Frenchmen from England. No doubt the explanation seemed impossible to Roland, for he had replied with his eyes, and a shrug of the shoulders: "I find it quite as extraordinary as you; but if you, mathematician as you are, can't solve ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... said, turning away with a shrug of his shoulders. "Unpractical as ever, ain't you? Think it over, my son. Glad to have met you, Mr. Priest, and as I'm always busy I guess Dubois and I will start for home ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... never took to that ould dog," Says he, wid a shrug av his slats, "So we've got us a new dog from Galway, And och, he's the ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... window with a little shrug of the shoulders. Even as he did so, there came a faint knocking at the door. His servant had already retired. For a moment it seemed to him that it could mean but one thing. While he hesitated, the handle was softly turned and the door opened. To his amazement, it was Penelope ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... deafening roar which never ceases all day long, a hurrying, a striving and eagerness to clear the stock and gain money. If the prices were fixed, business would soon be done. But if you have taken a fancy to a Kurdish mat and ask the price, the tradesman demands a quite absurd sum. You shrug your shoulders and go your way. He calls out another, lower price. You go on quietly, and the man comes running after you and has dropped his price to the lowest. In every shop bargains are made vociferously in the same ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... Mademoiselle. "But what will you?" with a little shrug. "It is not every day that our Principal makes a birthday! As for me, I am glad I bought my ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... With a shrug MacLean joined him. "As you please," he said. "I have in spirit moved with you through London streets. I never thought to walk with you ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... my clerk he would be back to breakfast," said the landlord; adding, with a shrug of the shoulders: "That was two hours and a half ago. He can't ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... said the young man with an angry shrug, for really her interference with his affairs seemed to be quite unjustifiable. "But I am not going to bring a woman I respect into the ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... garrison town and a University town," said Henry, with a shrug of his shoulders. "There are eight barracks in Dublin ... it's the most be-barracked city in the Kingdom.... Oh, we're terribly moral, we Irish. As moral as ostriches. If you pick up a Dublin newspaper, it's a million to one you'll ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... an ugly shrug. "I tell you, Molly, I've always been impressed with the idea mothers cared more for their children than fathers, but I'm over that now since ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... moment, then leaned over and kicked the skins into the corner. "Why these words?" I asked, with a slow shrug. "Does the leg thank the arm for its service? Does the mouth give flatteries and presents to the tongue? We of Michillimackinac are all of one body. My brother must be drunk with the bad rum of the English traders, that he should come to me in this way. No, if my brother has anything ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... Charley, You have wearily listened, I fear; As yet not an answer you've given Save a shrug, or an ill-concealed sneer; Pray, why, when I talk of my marriage, Do you watch me with sorrowing eye? 'Tis you, hapless bachelor, Charley, That ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... Our guide points out some of the prisoners, and invites us to look in at them through their little square windows. Strange to say, he does not seem to be at all conversant with the nature of their offences. 'Dios sabe!' accompanied by a shrug of the shoulders, is invariably the commandant's reply to any query respecting a particular prisoner. 'Dios sabe' may, however, signify a great deal more than 'Heaven knows;' and, perhaps, the commandant chooses not ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... Miss Arbuckle, with a little sigh. "But that would be too good to be true. It was only an old family album, Billie. But there were pictures in it that I prize above everything I own. Oh, well," she gave a little shrug of her shoulders as if to end the matter. "I'll get over it. I've had to get over worse things. But," she smiled and patted Billie's shoulder fondly, "I didn't mean to burden your young shoulders with my troubles. Just run along and forget all ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... guarantee. Other portents are adding themselves to the whispers of offensive—the stopping of leave, the failure of the post, the obvious change in the officers, who are serious and closer to us. But talk on this subject always ends with a shrug of the shoulders; the soldier is never warned what is to be done with him; they put a bandage on his eyes, and only remove it at the last minute. So, "We shall see."—"We ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... life and the truth together again; there is only one—right-doing. Let rule begin again with the sublime control of the intellect. I am a man like the rest, a man like you. You who shake your head or shrug your shoulders as you listen to me—why are we, we two, we all, so foreign to each other, when we ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... a great teacher, but he has the power to ask awkward questions so characteristic of Andreev, Artsybashev, and indeed of all Russian novelists. We cannot answer him with a shrug of the shoulders or a sceptical smile. He shakes the foundations of our fancied security by boldly questioning what we had come to regard as axioms. As the late M. de Vogue remarked, when little children sit on our knee and pelt us with questions ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... then but eviction, and Waymark more than once knew what ideal philanthropy, there was nothing for it every now and it was to be cursed to his face by suffering wretches whom despair made incapable of discrimination. "Where are we to go?" was the oft-repeated question, and the only reply was a shrug of the shoulders; impossible to express oneself otherwise. They clung desperately to habitations so vile that brutes would have forsaken them for cleaner and warmer retreats in archway and by roadside. One family of seven, a man and wife (both ill) with five ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... often wondered why she was going to marry Bixby instead of Charley Greengay. She knew that Charley would go further in the world. Indeed, she had often coolly told herself that Percy would never go very far. But, as she admitted with a shrug, she was "weak to Percy." In the capable New York stenographer, who estimated values coldly and got the most for the least outlay, there was something left that belonged to another kind of woman—something that liked the very things in Percy ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... McGuire," replied Ylario, with a shrug of his shoulder. "I theenk he no live one, two month ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... behoove a Jew to become so intimate with a goy, and a Governor at that. They claimed that the Rabbi labored only to promote his own private ends; but, as these malcontents were among the first to seize the opportunity of bettering their condition, Mendel could afford to shrug his shoulders ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... When a disputant was desirous of throwing a doubt upon the veracity of his opponent, and getting summarily rid of an argument which he could not overturn, he uttered the word Quoz, with a contemptuous curl of his lip, and an impatient shrug of his shoulders. The universal monosyllable conveyed all his meaning, and not only told his opponent that he lied, but that he erred egregiously if he thought that any one was such a nincompoop as to believe him. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... comes down to table. He places a note before Kate) The few words, Squire, (she takes the note) Ah! don't read 'em till I've gone. (Kate replaces the note with a shrug of the shoulders. Christie rises—to Fel.) Good-bye, ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... with Tremour; at the Third he durst salute him Boldly; and at the Fourth Rencounter Monsieur Reynard steals a Shin Bone of Beef from under the old Roarer's Nose, and laughs at his Beard. This Fable came back to me, as with a Shrug and a Grin (somewhat of the ruefullest) I found myself again (and for no Base Action I aver) in a Prison Hold. I remembered what a dreadful Sickness and Soul-sinking I had felt when doors of Oak clamped with Iron had first clanged upon me; when I first saw the Blessed Sun made into ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... And now what have you got to say?" Here there was another shrug of the shoulders. "I suppose you think because you are a rich man that you may do whatever you please. But you'll have to learn the difference. ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... said Nicolas, with a shrug of his shoulders. "But I have made my agreement with the Austrian government; and when the war has been won, ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... who could let the means excuse the end. She neither liked nor was accustomed to see her enterprises balked,—to see doors remain closed in her face. Doors indeed had a habit of flying open at her approach. Besides, the fellow's manner,—his initial stare and silence, his tone when he spoke, his shrug, his exhortation to patience, and something too in the conduct of his back as he departed,—hadn't it lacked I don't know what of becoming deference? to satisfy her amour-propre, at any rate, that the ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... were—very badly burnt. The waiter looked at them for a moment—threw her a contemptuous glance, clearly intended to provoke war—"Chi non ha appetito {17} . . . " he exclaimed, and was moving off with a shrug of the shoulders. The Signora recognising a challenge, rose instantly from the table, and catching him by the nape of his neck, kicked him deftly downstairs into the kitchen, both laughing heartily, and the husband and sister joining. I never saw anything more neatly done. Of course, in a ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... monsieur," replied the concierge, with an expressive shrug. And the clack of his sabots was soon ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... a bondwoman. What I beheld in truth yesterday I have seen in dreams—the discourteous hand put forth to seize thee and the power back of it to enforce its demand. And yet, I would not wish thee old and uncomely, for that, too, is a curse to the bondwoman," she added with a reflective shrug ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... what you've so often been eloquent about," she returned with an indulgent shrug—"the way we simply stir people's souls. Ah there's where life can help us," she broke out with a change of tone, "there's where human relations and affections can help us; love and faith and joy and suffering and experience—I don't ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... seen perfectly well the extreme unconvincingness of Mrs. Stapleton, and had been genuine enough in his little shrug of disapproval in answer to Maggie's, after lunch; yet that lady's remarks had been sufficient just to ignite the train of thought. This train had smoldered in the afternoon, had been fanned ever so slightly by two ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... Macumazahn,' answered the chief, with a shrug of the shoulders; 'first let the white man ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... object?" Phillips turned away with a shrug. "I'm surprised, that's all—after what you said this morning. Isn't your interest ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... Gerard into the church, but had a good shrug first. There they found the demoniac forced down on his knees before the altar with a scarf tied round his neck, by which the officiating priest held him like a dog ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... It was entertaining to see the Duchess of Bedford and Lady Bute with their respective forces, drawn up on different sides of the room; the latter's were most numerous. My Lord Gower seemed very willing to promote a parley between the two armies. It would have made you shrug up your shoulders at dirty humanity, to see the two Miss Pelhams sit neglected, without being asked to dance. You may imagine this could not escape me, who have passed through the several grradations in which Lady Jane Stuart and Miss Pelham are and have been; but I fear ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... don't know what can be done," said the storekeeper, with a shrug of his shoulders. "There are very few things that boys of your age can do, and it is so easy to obtain boys that people are not willing to pay much ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.
... probably be forced from control of the firm," the older man growled. "But nobody has suggested surrender on any terms. Nobody, thus far." He glared at his officer son who took it with an easy shrug and swung a leg over the edge of his father's desk in the ...
— Mercenary • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... inside and inter what he called his parlor, he looks around like he was proud of it (By jo! I'd be afraid ter shrug my shoulders in it, 'twas so small) an' says he: 'What d'ye ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... unmistakable shrug of the shoulders); "we no have milk, no have ale, no have brandy, no have noting here: ah! we very poor peep' here." (Poor ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... on, Luba, go on," he said as he forced her to sit down again. She went on playing, while Papa, his head on his hand, sat near her for a while. Then suddenly he gave his shoulders a shrug, and, rising, began to pace the room. Every time that he approached the piano he halted for a moment and looked fixedly at Lubotshka. By his walk and his every movement, I could see that he was greatly agitated. Once, when he stopped behind Lubotshka, ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy
... of the laughter, the shrug, the jibe That would rise at her back in the nave when she should pass As another's avowed by the words she had chosen to inscribe ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... the remark with a shrug. "I still say that while we have been astonished, frightened, puzzled and frustrated, we have not been seriously threatened. Our water and food and air are virtually unlimited. Our ability to live with one another under emergency situations has been ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn
... the manor on their great-grandmother's side, and Van Something-or-others on the side of a great-great-uncle by his second marriage, and who perhaps have never chanced to be asked to the Hilbroughs' receptions, shrug their shoulders, and tell you that they do not know them. But Mrs. Hilbrough does not slight such families because of the colonialness of their ancestry. Her own progenitors came to America in some capacity ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... If he wasn't,"—with a shrug of his shoulders,— "Lady Joan Fayre would be Lady Joan Temple Barholm, and the pair would be bringing up an interesting family here." He looked about the room, and then, as if suddenly recalling the fact, added, "By George! you'd be selling newspapers, or ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... contraire, monsieur, les bains are most excellent—primitive, of course, simple, and quite of ze people. But, monsieur le gouverneur is no more young. When one is no more young,"—with a deprecating shrug,—"parbleu, it is imposseeble to enjoy everything. Monsieur le gouverneur, I do assure you, make ze conclusion most ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... thing to be satisfied," said Mr. Shelby, with a slight shrug, and some perceptible ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... you'd always been here," replied Captain Eri. "Queer how soon we git used to a change. I don't know how we got along afore, but we did some way or other, if you call it gittin' along," he added with a shrug. "I should hate to have to ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... To the small whisper of the as paltry few And subtler venom of the reptile crew, The Janus glance of whose significant eye, Learning to lie with silence, would SEEM true, And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh, Deal round to happy ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... pass belief. But we know they are not fictions; they were actualities. To push them out of recollection into forgetfulness is to unlearn one of the chief lessons that History can teach us—the lesson of warning. The atrocities of biological experimentation can no more be dismissed with a shrug of incredulity than one can sneer at the agonies of Gerard or Damiens because they, too, suggest a heartlessness in the men of that time which our finer ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... dykes of convention between them was a horrible thing to them both. Mr. Twist had none of the cruelty of the younger generation to support him: he couldn't shrug his shoulder and take comfort in the thought that this break between them was entirely his mother's fault, for however much he believed it to be her fault the belief merely made him wretched; he had none of the pitiless black pleasure to be got from telling himself it served her right. ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... turn to shrug shoulders, and he did it inimitably, turning his back on Schubert and helping Will support me to the door. The feldwebel stood grinning while I held to the doorpost and they dragged Brown to his feet. He made no offer to help us in any ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... have a large supply of more or less correct history at hand, and this one, being a philosopher, adds his own theories to further obscure the truth." This in the most perfect English, accompanied by a shrug of the shoulders entirely French. "Chenonceaux being Diane's chateau and this her own room, what more natural than that her cipher should be here, as Rousseau says? And yet, as Honore de Balzac points out, this same cipher is to be found ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... listen with some impatience when the name of Eugene Valmont is mentioned. I recognise this as quite in the order of things to be expected, and am honest enough to confess that in my own time I often hearkened to narratives regarding the performances of Lecocq with a doubting shrug of ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... Bethune gave a shrug of impatience. "And the gold is still in the hills, and we are no nearer to it than we were ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... order to keep me from sponging on my wife. They are admirable men. They represent the sanity and decency of the world pronouncing judgment on the fact. No Brodrick ever blinked a fact. When people ask the Brodricks, What does that fellow Prothero do? they shrug their shoulders and say, 'He has visions, and his ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... us up as hopeless, with a resigned shrug of his shoulders. He vanished into his lair, consulted a superior officer, and after a long delay returned with the news that we must pay ten centimes, probably as a penance for our mulish stupidity in ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson |
