"Cringe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... waiting outside," answered the boy, with trepidation. It was part of the law that the lion of the ante-room should cringe like a cold monkey, more or less, as soon as he was out of his private jungle. "Oh, Tallerman," cried the Sunday editor, "here's this Arctic man come to arrange about his illustration. I wish you'd go and talk it over with him." By chance he picked up the scrap of paper with its cryptic ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... one, with disgust at its own vileness, and the miserable contrast between its aspirations and attainments, its pretences and its efforts. At least, that would be the death fit for a life like mine—a death of disgust at itself. We claim immortality; we cringe and cower with the fear that immortality may not be the destiny of man; and yet we—I—do things unworthy not merely of immortality, but unworthy of the butterfly existence of a single day in such a world as this sometimes seems to be. Just think how I stabbed at my ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... the world from the eyes of the immigrant who has lost all his illusions of the land where dollars grow on the street and where everyone has an equal chance to be president, and if you do not cringe in abject humility, you are not unlikely to be insufferably self-asserting, considering that the world has robbed you and that now it is your turn to get all that is coming to you. So you make loud demands in a rude, ordering voice. The nurse is there ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... of mankind is this: Calm and serene and unconcerned to court Fate's heaviest blows, and then, when these have fallen, To whine and cringe, bewailing one's sad lot.— Such folly we will none of, thou and I. For now I seek King Creon, to proclaim My right as guest-friend, and to clear away These clouds of dark distrust that threaten storm.— Meanwhile, take thou the babes and get thee hence Without the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the girl's part to carry her point, he stamped his foot imperatively, to emphasize some command, and, with a look which made her cringe like a whipped cur before him; when, shooting a glance of fire and hate at Edith, she turned away, with a crestfallen air, and went, ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... Harding, I have suspected this abomination; the taint was in her blood. You know those Papists, Harding, how they cringe, how shamefaced they are, how low in intelligence. I have heard you say yourself they have not written a book for the last four hundred years. Now, why do you ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... begg'd like one both blind and lame; "My only friend, my dear," said she, "You see 'tis mere necessity Hath sent me to your house to whelp: I die if you refuse your help." With fawning whine, and rueful tone, With artful sigh, and feigned groan, With couchant cringe, and flattering tale, Smooth Bawty[3] did so far prevail, That Music gave her leave to litter; (But mark what follow'd—faith! she bit her;) Whole baskets full of bits and scraps, And broth enough to fill her paps; For well she knew, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... base knees in the court And servilely cringe round the gate, And barter their honour to earn the support Of the wealthy, the titled, the great; Their guilt piled possessions I loathe, while I scorn The knaves, the vile knaves who possess 'em; ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... passage:—"Some divines have consistently rejected all geology and all science as profane and carnal; and some even, when pretending to call themselves men of science, have stooped to the miserable policy, of tampering with the truth, investing the real facts in false disguises, to cringe to the prejudices of the many, and to pervert science into a seeming accordance with popular prepossessions." I cannot believe that this will be regarded as justifiable language: it seems scarce worthy of a man of science; and will, I fear, only be accepted as good in evidence that the ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... crouched at the far side of the rope-ladder doorway. Carmena had bent her head to pass under the massive lintel. Lennon followed Elsie to the side of the doorway opposite Farley. The lawyer-ranchman appeared to cringe, yet he held to his position and even attempted an ingratiating smile as he rasped ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... makes the mob cringe before Coriolanus. When he appears, the stage directions show that the "citizens steal away." (Act ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... xxvii. 5). They believe that the Lord has yet many things to say unto them, and they are willing and glad for Him to say them by whom He will, but especially by their leaders and their brethren. While they do not fawn and cringe before men, nor believe everything that is said to them, without proving it by the word and Spirit of God, they believe that God "gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... boundaries, is usually known as Love. As Avarice makes but a sorry theme for the romantic writer, Love is the subject that must principally claim your attention. All the world loves a lover, while the miser is despised even by those who cringe beneath the power of his gold. Study the women, my lad, and when you know them thoroughly begin your great novel ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... a penetrating glare, as though he sought to read the secrets of his soul. The captive met his look calmly and defiantly, and for a moment there was a silent duel. But Bert's gaze remained level, and the captain, a little disconcerted at his failure to make his prisoner cringe, resorted ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... the most aristocratic, yet he never compromises the dignity of an American citizen, which he contends is the highest distinction a man can have in Europe, and there is not a doubt but he commands the respect of the exclusives here in a tenfold degree more than those who truckle and cringe to European opinions and customs. They love an independent man and know enough of their own heartless system to respect a real freeman. I admire exceedingly his proud assertion of the rank of an American (I speak from a political point of view), for I know ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... embark on his career of international madness and prosecute it with the rage of a demon is not entirely clear. A vision of himself as the Napoleon of southern South America, who might cause Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay to cringe before his footstool, while he disposed at will of their territory and fortunes, doubtless stirred his imagination. So, too, the thought of his country, wedged in between two huge neighbors and threatened with ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... honor'd and blest By former ages, who else— Such, so soulless, so poor, Is the race of men whom I see— Seem'd but a dream of the heart, Seem'd but a cry of desire. Yes! I believe that there liv'd Others like thee in the past, Not like the men of the crowd Who all round me to-day Bluster or cringe, and make life Hideous, and arid, and vile; But souls temper'd with fire, Fervent, heroic, and good, ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... and that, but for their adulation and their doctrine of passive obedience, he would never have ventured to be guilty of such tyranny. Their chief business, during a quarter of a century, had been to teach the people to cringe and the prince to domineer. They were guilty of the blood of Russell, of Sidney, of every brave and honest Englishman who had been put to death for attempting to save the realm from Popery and despotism. Never had they breathed a whisper against arbitrary power till ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... construction. The cock-of-the-roost sits aloft like Jupiter on an unsharable seat, holding your fate between two thongs of inconstant leather. Helpless, ridiculous, confined, bobbing like a toy mandarin, you sit like a rat in a trap—you, before whom butlers cringe on solid land—and must squeak upward through a slit in your peripatetic sarcophagus to make ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... "I know them, and you met them at Succoth. The poor are miserable wretches who cringe under the lash; the rich value their cattle above all else and, if they are the heads of the tribes, quarrel with one another. No one knows aught of what pleases the eye and the heart. They call me one of the richest of the race and yet I shudder when I think of the house ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... is a manly and very independent personage. As a rule his master is more afraid of him than he is of his master. Yet, according to the picture drawn of him by the Socialists, he is a timorous, cowardly, whining, pitiful creature who has to cringe ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... the old, low, broad-eaved houses that cringe down to the very street, out into the open again. The air was fierce and savage. On one side was a moorland, level; on the other a sweep of naked hill, curved concave, and sprinkled with snow. I could see how wonderful it would all be, under five or six feet of winter ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... is the letter of application. The applicant should state simply his qualifications for the place he wants. He should not make an appeal to sympathy (sob stuff) nor should he beg or cringe. He should not demand a certain salary, though he may state what salary he would like, and he should not say "Salary no object." It would probably not be true. There are comparatively few people with whom money is no object. If it is the first time the applicant ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... wor his bond, for he hated a lie, An sickophants doubly despised; He wor ne'er know to cringe to a rich fly-bi-sky, It wor worth an net wealth 'at he prized. Aw shall ne'er meet another soa honest an true, As aw write ther's a tear i' mi ee; Nah he's gooan to his rest, an aw'll give him his due,— He wor allus a ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... one's feet, fall at one's feet; craven; crouch before, throw oneself at the feet of; swallow the leek, swallow the pill; kiss the rod; turn the other cheek; avaler les couleuvres [Fr.], gulp down. obey &c 743; kneel to, bow to, pay homage to, cringe to, truckle to; bend the neck, bend the knee; kneel, fall on one's knees, bow submission, courtesy, curtsy, kowtow. pocket the affront; make the best of, make a virtue of necessity; grin and abide, grin and bear it, shrug the shoulders, resign oneself; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... church hostile to me from the first, and during your trial and sentence these persons have used every effort to spread a feeling against me. How wide it is I can not tell, but I know it is strong. It may end my work here, for I will not cringe to them. They ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... am king! All lesser fry Must cringe, and crawl, and cry to me, And none have any rights but I,— Except the right ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... the trebling of the Assessed Taxes on inhabited houses, windows, male servants, horses, carriages, etc. The trebling of these imposts took the House by surprise, and drew from Tierney, now, in the absence of Fox, the leader of Opposition, the taunt that Pitt had to cringe to the Bank for help. A few days later Pitt explained that the triple duty would fall only upon those who already paid L3 or more on that score. If the sum paid were less than L1 it would be halved. Those who paid ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... germ tinge edge urge huge serge judge singe ledge large barge fudge lodge dodge ridge cringe lunge budge hedge badge sledge nudge wedge fringe range bridge merge grudge trudge mange smudge charge plunge ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... her cringe in the deep chair. She was losing her clear, sweet vision of that blessed night when Gaston and she had stood transfigured! If only she could have held to that, all would have been so simple—but with that fading glory gone she ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... do it with a boy's eyes? The tongs are too long and heavy to bring around to his pipe; but with them he pulls out a coal of the right size, picks it up between thumb and finger and puts it into his pipe bowl. I stand close beside him, and although he doesn't cringe, I do, and almost feel my fingers burn. He winks out of the corner of his eye at me and says, 'Your old daddy is tough isn't he?' and shows me the end of his thumb calloused and hard as the knurl of white oak; only fire could clean it to the original skin. He shakes out his ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... hypocrite, Byron, nor will I, for your pleasure, ever suffer you to call me names, if you wish me to be your friend. If not, I cannot help it. I am sure no one can say that I will cringe to regain a friendship that you have rejected. Why should I do so? Am I not your equal? Therefore, what interest can I have in doing so? When we meet again in the world, (that is, if you choose it,) you ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... compromise the truth, Let us not cringe so much in fear That foes may whisper to our youth That we have failed in courage here. Lord, strengthen us, that they may know Our spirits follow ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest
... and the bullets sing From the mad machine-guns chattering; Black smoke rolling across the mud, Trenches plastered with flesh and blood— The blue ranks lock with the ranks of gray, Stab and stagger and sob and sway; The living cringe from the shrapnel bursts, The dying moan of their burning thirsts, Moan and die in the gulping slough— Where are the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various
... "Cringe—why, he doesn't know the meaning of the word. Hatchments! To commemorate that sniveling tramp and his, fraternal duplicate. And he is going to send me the remains. The late Claimant was a fool, but plainly this new one's a maniac. What a name! Mulberry ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... his aspect was nearly that of a man. He held his head erect, the cringe disappeared from his back, the obsequiousness from his manner. Then while an eye might wink, he took on the appearance of a snake with high-held ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... is and what is not disreputable in this conventional world. It is not considered disreputable to cringe to the vices of a court, or to accept a pension wrung from the industry of the nation, in return for base servility. It is not considered disreputable to take tithes, intended for the service of ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... and stars! Whip him.—Were't twenty of the greatest tributaries That do acknowledge Caesar, should I find them So saucy with the hand of she here,—what's her name Since she was Cleopatra?—Whip him, fellows, Till like a boy you see him cringe his face, And whine aloud for mercy: ...
— Antony and Cleopatra • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... seem crotchety, dear. Indeed, it is no pretense on my part. You cannot imagine how that man Ventana persecuted me. The mere suggestion of any one's paying me compliments and trying to be fascinating is so repellent that I cringe at the thought. And even our sailor-like captain will think it necessary to play the society clown, I suppose, seeing that we are young and ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... as they beheld the feat, and when he had lowered the weapon and silence was restored, he continued, defiantly, while his breath came quick and short: "And where do the talkers, the parleyers seek to lead us? To cringe like dogs, who lick their masters' feet, before the men who cheat us. Count Mannsfeld will come to-day; I know it, and I have also learned that he will bring everything except what is our due, what we need, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... disloyalty; be without place or power while others beg their way upwards; bear the pain of disappointed hopes, while others gain the accomplishment of theirs by flattery; forego the gracious pressure of the hand, for which others cringe and crawl. Wrap yourself in your own virtue, and seek a friend and your daily bread. If you have in your own cause grown gray with unbleached honour, bless God ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... its unresisting hinge Threw wide her hospitable door, To one whose spirit did not cringe Though he was weak, and knew he bore No right ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... his general contention for fixing more exactly the province of the legislative and the executive bodies. Carlyle's view that we should find a way to public life for men of eminence who will not cringe to mobs, has made a step towards realisation in further enfranchisement of Universities. Other of his proposals, as the employment of our army and navy in time of peace, and the forcing of able-bodied paupers into "industrial regiments," have become matter ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... to his opportunity to show her that he was answerable to no one for his conduct. He enjoyed her chagrin; he was moved to internal mirth over her impotent wrath; he took a savage delight in seeing her cringe from the evidence of his apparent brutality. He grinned ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... simplicity, I had imagined," said the Professor, bitterly. "I can only tell you that it was not so, that I was met at every turn by incredulity, born partly of stupidity and partly of jealousy. It is not my nature, sir, to cringe to any man, or to seek to prove a fact if my word has been doubted. After the first I have not condescended to show such corroborative proofs as I possess. The subject became hateful to me—I would not speak of it. When men like yourself, who represent the foolish curiosity of ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... him bowing down to somebody whom he does not really believe in; when we see him yielding to forces which he does not himself respect; when living is more to him than living well; when there is a threat which can make him cringe, or a bribe that can make his tongue speak false—then we feel that the manhood has gone out of him, and we cannot help looking on his fall with sorrow and with shame. The penalty which follows moral cowardice is nowhere more clearly stated than in these severe and solemn lines which Whittier wrote ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... efforts of these nobler spirits, then settles back upon the ease and comfort of that position, and turns her small artillery on her own sisters? I feel a sense of shame for American literature, when I think how our literary women shrink, and cringe, and apologize, and dodge to avoid being taken for "strong-minded women." Oh, there's no danger. I don't wonder that their literary efforts are stricken with the palsy of weakness from the beginning. I don't wonder that our magazines are filled with diluted stories, in which sentimental ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... with the Renaissance there came about a strange mingling of crime and corruption, aestheticism and immorality, yet the Church was never abandoned for an hour. When enlightenment came, people began to doubt the spiritual power of the Papacy. They did not cringe to it so servilely as before. Religion was not violently embraced as in the Middle Ages, but there was no revolt. The Church held the power and was still the patron of art. The painter's subjects extended over nature, the antique, the fable, allegory, ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... heed of my looks," he was saying. "I desire them up yonder to think that I abuse you. Look as a man would who were being abused. Cringe or snarl, but listen. Do you remember once when as lads we swam together from Penarrow to ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... the Alondiga, and two I saw whiling away the time making lace! Several of them tagged my footsteps, eager for some errand. One feels no great sense of security in a country whose boyish, uneducated, and ragged guardians of order cringe around like beggar ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... no joke at all," Lind said, gloomily. "Those Swiss people are craven. What can you expect from a nation of hotel-waiters? They cringe before every bully in Europe; you will find that, if Bismarck insists, the Federal Council will expel Armfeldt from Switzerland directly. No; the only safe refuge nowadays for the reformers, the Protestants the pioneers of Europe, is England; and the English do not know it; they do not ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... philosophy of endurance, and the possibility of things being endured. We do live out our years, and get and bear it all. And the scars do not show much outside; nay, even we ourselves can lay a finger on the place, after a little time, without a cringe. ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... possession put to try once more What thou and thy gay Legions dare against; Whose easier business were to serve thir Lord High up in Heav'n, with songs to hymne his Throne, And practis'd distances to cringe, not fight. To whom the warriour Angel soon repli'd. To say and strait unsay, pretending first Wise to flie pain, professing next the Spie, Argues no Leader, but a lyar trac't, Satan, and couldst thou faithful add? O name, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... heroes seek renown in arms, Pant after fame, and rush to war's alarms; To shining palaces let fools resort, And dunces cringe to be esteem'd at court: Mine be the pleasure of a rural life, From noise remote, and ignorant of strife; Far from the painted belle, and white-glov'd beau, The lawless masquerade and midnight show; From ladies, lap-dogs, ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... very scene of his abominations. We must triumph over him on the tossing ocean, and teach him that America, not Britannia, rules the waves. Would that we all stood on some staunch ship, to do battle with our young right-arms. Then should Englishmen cringe before us; then would we doom to sudden destruction their boasted admirals and flimsy fleets. Down with the English! down ...
— The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... ardent heroes seek renown in arms, Pant after fame and rush to war's alarms; To shining palaces let fools resort And dunces cringe to be esteemed at court. Mine be the pleasure of a rural life, From noise remote and ignorant of strife, Far from the painted belle and white-gloved beau, The lawless masquerade and midnight show; From ladies, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... It perish'd, and all perish'd with it. Ambition? Wealth left nothing to add to my social condition. Fame? But fame in itself presupposes some great Field wherein to pursue and attain it. The State? I, to cringe to an upstart? The Camp? I, to draw From its sheath the old sword of the Dukes of Luvois To defend usurpation? Books, then? Science, Art? But, alas! I was fashion'd for action: my heart, Wither'd thing though it be, I should hardly compress 'Twixt the leaves ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... ordinary erring man, conscious of things done which should not have been done, and other things equally numerous left undone, he was too oppressive. One conscience is enough for any man. The employer of Master Bean had to cringe before two. Nobody can last long against an office-boy whose eyes shine with quiet, respectful reproof through gold-rimmed spectacles, whose manner is that of a middle-aged saint, and who obviously knows all the Plod and Punctuality books by heart and orders his life by their precepts. ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... their cudgels more firmly to give him a good drubbing. What fun it will be to bring them down upon his broad shoulders, and see him cringe! ...
— Harper's Young People, October 5, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... mingle in Fashion's full herd? Why crouch to her leaders, or cringe to her rules? Why bend to the proud, or applaud the absurd, Why search for delight in the friendship ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... Cringe, scrape no more, ye city-fops, Leave off your feasting and fine speeches; Beat up your drums, shut up your shops, The courtiers then will kiss your breeches. Arm'd, tell the Popish Duke that rules, You're free-born subjects, not ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... surrounded by admirers, and whose vanity is hourly feasted with all the luxuries of studied praise, is easily persuaded that his influence will be extended beyond his life; that they who cringe in his presence will reverence his memory, and that those who are proud to be numbered among his friends, will endeavour to vindicate his choice ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... you can cringe, and fawn, eh? back with you!—the girl, I say." For poor Emily, wild with fear, was clinging ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... struggle, an' never to cringe or fall— Still I worked for Charley, for Charley was now my all; And Charley was pretty good to me, with scarce a word or frown, Till at last he went a-courtin', and brought a ...
— Farm Ballads • Will Carleton
... by the German spy, Lieut. Carl Lody, at his court-martial in London, was that "he would not cringe for mercy. He was not ashamed of anything that he had done; he was in honour bound not to give away the names of those who had employed him on this mission; he was not paid for it, he did it for his country's good, ...
— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell
... Sivad fitted the first arrow to the string, and Stern was about to apply the torch, a rattling crash from above caused all to cringe and ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... while surging through my mind came one after another the explanations of the hitherto inexplicable. Denison seemed almost to cringe in the chair, weak ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... assassins, to take his life. A quick motion from Elsa, whose trust returns when she sees her beloved in danger, permits Lohengrin to parry the first blow with his sword, and Frederick of Telramund soon lies dead upon the floor, while his accomplices cringe at Lohengrin's feet imploring his pardon. Day is dawning, and Lohengrin, after caring tenderly for the half-fainting Elsa, bids the would-be assassins bear the corpse into the presence of the king, where he promises to meet Elsa ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... "rare fun would it be,—and what do you call this? You dare twit your sister with cowardice!—you who sneaked off yesterday like a fox because you had not the spirit to look an old man in the face!—you who bully the weak and cringe to the strong!—you who have the manners of a bear with the heart of a pigeon!" Every sentence was accompanied by a violent shake, which almost took the breath from the boy; and Jonas, red with passion, concluded his speech by flinging Johnny from him with such force ...
— False Friends, and The Sailor's Resolve • Unknown
... to him. In a second she had quelled the threatened weakness. "I have made this house a paradise. I have made it a place in which you may find happiness if you care to seek for it here. At night I shudder and cringe, because I am the coward you would try to reform. I hide nothing from myself. I am afraid to be alone in this house. But I ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... girl cringe and whine, And cower in the weeping air— But, oh, she was no kin of mine, And so I did ...
— Nets to Catch the Wind • Elinor Wylie
... only able to come and see you now by offering to undertake a special business mission for my employer at Paris. It is drudgery, at my time of life, after all I have gone through—but my hard work is innocent work. I am not obliged to cringe for every crown-piece I put in my pocket—not bound to denounce, deceive, and dog to death other men, before I can earn my bread, and scrape together money enough to bury me. I am ending a bad, base life harmlessly at last. ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... tone shocked her. She was not without an unphrased feeling that death was so sacred or at least so solemn a subject that it should be treated with reverence. Any jesting upon it made her cringe, and the light mention of it seemed to her ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... marched a distance unknown to him, although it seemed long, they commenced to beat their drum, and raise the scalp halloo. The next village was near; they were calling for the gauntlet, and the stake. This made his flesh cringe, and pricked him to action. Now, or never! With a great spring and a wild whoop ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... up or chained, a thousand are strained and overworked compared to the few basking in idleness, dying from rich living; and with all of them, whether fat or lean, the soul is more spoiled than the body. A superstitious respect keeps them cowed under their burden, or makes them cringe before their master. Servile, slothful, gluttonous, feeble, incapable of resisting adversity, if they have acquired the miserable skills of slavery, they have also contracted its needs, weaknesses and vices. A crust of absurd habits and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... creatures who got so that in time they didn't even want to go over the side, who might have grown into honest, free men, but who, instead of that, learned only to live for the day when they too would have the power to make their inferiors stand around and cringe and whine." ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... Norbanus said warmly, "though for you the promotion is perilous. To be Nero's friend is to be condemned beforehand to death, though for a time he may shower favours upon you. He is fickle and inconstant, and you have not learned to cringe and flatter, and are as likely as not to anger him by your ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... loyalty and contempt for slackers of all kinds, and when she let it loose on that audience in her one grand outburst she electrified it. Susan always vows she is no suffragette, but she gave womanhood its due that night, and she literally made those men cringe. When she finished with them they were ready to eat out of her hand. She wound up by ordering them—yes, ordering them—to march up to the platform forthwith and subscribe for Victory Bonds. And after wild applause most of them did it, even ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Valentin owes me something, and does not pay. I have a hold on him. He had better not show me any offensive airs!' You must bow to your creditors, and moreover bow politely. 'When are you going to pay me?' say they. And you must lie, and beg money of another man, and cringe to a fool seated on his strong-box, and receive sour looks in return from these horse-leeches; a blow would be less hateful; you must put up with their crass ignorance and calculating morality. A debt is a feat of the imaginative that they cannot appreciate. A borrower is often carried away ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... the Sun's early Beams attract and warm, So Ladies with their easie glances Charm; Vain Coxcombs cringe with transport and surprize, Feel kindling Fire, and feed upon their Eyes; 'Till like the Sun, the dazling Nymphs display Meridian heat, ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... were not blinded by the light of a royal Presence. You saw in him only an amiable and lovable young man, who was to succeed the most virtuous and lovable of sovereigns, Victoria. You, Colonel Carvel, were not one to cringe to royalty. Out of respect for the just and lenient Sovereign, his mother, you did honor to the Prince. But you did not remind him, as you might have, that your ancestors fought for the King at Marston Moor, and that your grandfather was once an ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... wind that unceasing roars, While cringe the trees from its wrath in vain, And the lightning-flash, And the thunder-crash, And skies, from whose Erebus depths outpours In slanting ...
— Fleurs de lys and other poems • Arthur Weir
... happened: hundreds and hundreds of wee lights began dancing outside the window, making the room bright; the hands of the clock began chasing each other round the dial, and the bolt of the door drew itself out. Slowly, without a creak or a cringe, the door opened, and in there trooped a crowd of the Good People. Their wee green cloaks were folded close about them, and ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... plunging in the sun; Uncrowned three lilies with a backward swinge; And standing somewhat widely, like to one More used to "Boot and Saddle" than to cringe ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... transformation, or alter To the likeness of courtiers whose consciences falter At the smile or the frown, at the mirth or the rage, Of a master whom chance could inflame or assuage, Our Lady of Laughter, invoked in no psalter, Adored of no faithful that cringe and that palter, Praise be with thee yet from a ...
— Poems and Ballads (Third Series) - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... not ride with him; at least she would not crouch and cringe and hide her eyes. She would watch him as he rode, watch him as he fought, watch him to the end even though he slipped from ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... this day I resolve me,—for King Raedwald will cringe not, nor lie!— I will bring back the altar of Woden; in the temple will have it, hard by The new altar of this your white Christ. As my ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone
... front of us half a dozen sets of false teeth, arranged in a horrid circle around a cigar-box full of extracted molars such as made one cringe, grinned bitingly out of a glass case before the dentist's office door. The effect was of ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... to gall thee, that I named him. That thing, that nothing, but a cringe and smile; That woman, but more daubed; or, if a man, Corrupted to a ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... beside his cringe, and shrink back, and looking down saw the look upon her sweet frightened face; following her glance his own face hardened into what might have been termed righteous wrath. But not a word did he say, and neither did he apparently notice the ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... could not write it, he could not even think about it! And there was the soul of Corydon calling to him, there were all the heights of music and poetry—and instead of climbing, he must torture his brain with hack-writing! He must go down to the editors, and fawn and cringe, and try to get books to review; he must study the imbecilities of the magazines and watch out for topics for articles; he must rack his brains for jokes and jingles—he, the master of life, the bearer of a new religion, the proud, high-soaring eagle, ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... Pixley took him from the train, the dog was led through crowds of people and bustling, noisy streets that made Jan cringe and cower. At last they reached a place where water stretched so far that it touched the sky, and the water kept moving all the time. This frightened him, for he had never seen any water excepting in the little lake at the ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker
... my royal fell; I took the Hyrcan tiger by the scruff And tore him piecemeal; my hot bowels laughed And my fangs yearned for prey. Earth was my lair: I slept on the red desert without fear: I roamed the jungle depths with less design Than e'en to lord their solitude; on crags That cringe from lightning—black and blasted fronts That crouch beneath the wind-bleared stars, I told My heart's fruition to the universe, And all night long, roaring my fierce defy, I thrilled the wilderness ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... sport than running down wolves or mountain lions, for there was the superior intelligence of the game to be considered. No man knew what turn the ingenuity of desperation might give the human mind. The hunted might go out in one last splendid blaze of courage, or he might cringe and beg, with white face and rolling eyes. In the case of Macdonald, Dalton anticipated something unusual. He had tasted that unaccountable homesteader's spirit ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... flattery? O'er plains they ramble unconfin'd. No politics disturb the mind; They eat their meals, and take their sport, Nor know who's in or out at court; They never to the levee go To treat as dearest friend, a foe; They never importune his Grace, Nor ever cringe to men in place; Nor undertake a dirty job, Nor draw the quill to write for Bob: Fraught with invective they ne'er go To folks at Pater-Noster Row: No judges, fiddlers, dancing-masters, No pickpockets, or poetasters, Are known to honest quadrupeds, No single brute his fellows ...
— English Satires • Various
... whole list," he interrupted. "None of them will ever get a pennypiece out of me. More than half the money given to them goes to keep a lot of lazy, patronising officials in luxury—I know—I've come in contact with them when they have been cadging after me for subscriptions. They cringe till they find out there's nothing for them, and then they snarl. I've no time for that sort of people, ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... change; Effects are chain'd to causes; generally, The rascal born will like a rascal die. His Prince's favours follow'd him in vain; They chang'd the circumstance, but not the man. While out of pocket, and his spirits low, He'd beg, write panegyrics, cringe, and bow; But when good pensions had his labours crown'd, His panegyrics into satires turn'd; O what assiduous pains does Prior take To let great Dorset see he could mistake! Dissembling nature false description gave, Show'd him the ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... despicable race, Like wandering Arabs, shift from place to place. Vagrants by law, to justice open laid, They tremble, of the beadle's lash afraid; And fawning, cringe for wretched means of life To Madame Mayoress or ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... doer of dirty work; ame damnee [Fr.], tool; reptile; slave &c (servant) 746; courtier; beat [Slang], dead beat [Slang], doughface [U.S.], heeler [U.S.], homme de cour [Fr.], sponger, sucker [Slang], tagtail^, truckler. V. cringe, bow, stoop, kneel, bend the knee; fall on one's knees, prostrate oneself; worship &c 990. sneak, crawl, crouch, cower, sponge, truckle to, grovel, fawn, lick the feet of, kiss the hem of one's garment, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... holder of the decisive note in the affairs of that great department store known as "The Colossus," may not by design have carried an air that would indicate the man to whom small tradesman regarded it as a mark of good breeding to cringe, but even in a place where his name was not known his appearance would strongly have appealed to commercial confidence. That instinct which in earlier life had prompted fearless speculation, now crystalized into conscious force, gave unconscious ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... spouse, is one of the sort that finds a new religion every few months and is now in the first fast furious throes of her latest, which is some form of psychomania, whereof the high priest is one Beverley, a plausible ringletted charlatan of alcoholic tendencies (Sludge the Medium, without his cringe and snarl), who ekes out his spasmodic visitations of genuine psychic illumination with the most shameless spoof. This ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916 • Various
... She may see that in my character or disposition to which she is altogether uncongenial, and may have made up her mind not to keep my company any longer. Or she may feel herself, all at once, above me. And I'm not the one, I can tell you, to cringe to any living mortal. I am as good as she is, ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur
... lived, and known, and seen, I have but one word, one cry—Away! Away! Let me get away from it! Let me get away from cities, let me get away from men, let me out of my cage! Let me go with my God, let me forget it all—put it away forever and ever! Let me no longer have to plot and plan, to cringe and whimper, to barter my vision and ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... Anathoth, and the murder in your hearts. Ye that have worshipped the shameful thing and burned incense to Baal—shall I cringe that ye devise against me, or not rather pray to the Lord of Hosts, 'Let me see Thy vengeance on them'? And He answereth, 'I will bring evil upon the men of Anathoth, even ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... cringe, sir saint," she sneered. "Having cast me off and taken up holiness, you have the right, of course." And with that she moved past me, and down the terrace-steps without ever turning her head to look at me again. And that was the ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... changed them, they say in a wonderful way, To toys, for his Christmas cheer. The big dolls stare with a goblin air, The small ones cringe with fear. ...
— The Goblins' Christmas • Elizabeth Anderson
... being which his father had hardly crushed in his own heart? For what, forsooth, shall a Negro want with pride amid the studied humiliations of fifty million fellows? Well sped, my boy, before the world had dubbed your ambition insolence, had held your ideals unattainable, and taught you to cringe and bow. Better far this nameless void that stops my life than a ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... two chicks that are left to me close under my wing. And never once, since Pee-Wee went, have I actually punished either of my children. It may be wrong, but I can't help it. I don't want memories of violence to be left corroding and rankling in my mind. And I'd hate to see any child of mine cringe, like an ill-treated dog, at every lift of the hand. There are better ways of controlling them, I begin to feel, than through fear. Their father, I know, will never agree with me on this matter. He will always insist on mastery, open and undisputed mastery, ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... to please, Must humbly crawl upon his knees, And kiss the hand that beats him; Or, if he dare attempt to walk, Must toe the mark that others chalk, And cringe to all ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... claim upon her; to shut the door upon all other possibilities; to smutch the whiteness of her soul and render her unworthy of any man whom she might some day come to love. To remember that in her secret thought she had actually contemplated being Stanford's wife made her cringe. ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... side door, and a dog sprang from around a corner and barked, but he spoke, and the dog's tail became eloquent. He was patting the dog, when the door opened and a man stood looking at him. Immediately the taint of the prison became evident. He had not cringed before the dog, but he did cringe before the man who lived in that fine white house, and who had never known what it was to be deprived of liberty. He hung his head, he mumbled. The house-owner, who was older than he, was slightly deaf. He looked ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... mechanism and continue the movement, they were suspended by their arms, and at each revolution of the wheel received new wounds on their members, until, in the language of that law so grossly outraged in their persons, they "languished and died." Ask you if a cringe of this murderous nature went unvisited, and if no inquiry was made respecting its circumstances? The forms of justice were observed; the handmaid was present, but the sacred mistress was far away. A coroner's inquest was called; for the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... burden forth to drink? You herd your oxen, each one in his stall? You whip and goad until they heed your call? You own, and use? Are these your cattle? Think! Although the while they cringe to you and shrink. And watch their fate in your least finger fall, Mistake not, lest they rise and ravage all, And your vast piled-up power ...
— Selected Poems • William Francis Barnard
... see the stable to-morrow. That'll keep. They must have had a time of it! The walls are marked and splintered as high as I can reach. And I don't believe Kit'll cringe when Griz passes ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... his house was rotting somewhere near by, though I've never seen it, not having been far enough in that direction. He ran towards me upon the path; his feet, shod in dirty white shoes, twinkled on the dark earth; he pulled himself up, and began to whine and cringe under a tall stove-pipe hat. His dried-up little carcass was swallowed up, totally lost, in a suit of black broadcloth. That was his costume for holidays and ceremonies, and it reminded me that this was the fourth Sunday I had spent in Patusan. All the time of my stay I had been vaguely aware ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... on her been so slight, after all? "She despises me. She hates me!" And in his heart he despised and hated himself. He cursed his poverty, his lack of resource. "Why am I, the evangel of this faith, dependent on others for revelation. Why must I beg and cringe for money, for power?" He was in the full surge of this flood of indignant query when ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... the past, its good and ill, and we all have a touch of superstition, like a syphilitic taint. To eradicate this tyranny of fear and get the cringe and crawl out of our natures, seems the one desirable thing to lofty minds. But the revivalist, knowing human nature, as all confidence men do, banks on our superstitious fears and makes his appeal to our acquisitiveness, ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... cringe and crook the supple knee, And beg thy life of me, thine enemy, Whom thou, a moment since, didst doom to death. I will not breathe suspicion's lightest breath Against thy vaunted fame: and even though Before all men thou'st sworn thyself my foe, And pledged thyself wrongly to wreak ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... wasn't my mother, I'd hit you down for that," he said, clenching his fists. "What do you know about things to talk to me like that? Who are you to take his side and cringe to him? If you can't judge him, there's plenty that can, and it's you who are pig-headed, not me, because you don't see I'm fighting your battle for you. It may seem too late to fight for you; but it's never too late to ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... were drunk." Kent nodded gravely, and his lips curled as he watched the other cringe. "She called me a liar," he added, ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... shot at Donna Ana a terrible glance, which caused the latter to cringe. Evidently, the duenna stood in considerable awe of ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... man!—and what dull creatures were the wife and daughter!—mere echoes of their lord and master. She had behaved badly, of course; in a few days she supposed the report of her outburst would be all over the place. She did not care. Even for Roger's sake she was not going to cringe to these ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... for and adored her husband as if he had been the best and tenderest of gentlemen. Providence has its mysteries; but if there be one that taxes faith and staggers patience more than another, it is the long misery that makes a good woman cringe and writhe and agonize in silence under the utter rule and life-long sovereignty of a bad man. Perhaps such women do not suffer as we fancy; for after much trial every woman learns that it is possible to love where neither ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... we may become, instead of allowing it to grovel around in the very unpleasant circumstances in which some people are liable to find themselves. The outward vision is transient, the inner vision can build eternal realities. "Are we to beg and cringe and hang on the outer edge of life,—we who should walk grandly? Is it for man to tremble and quake—man who in his spiritual capacity becomes the interpreter of God's ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... stone from a catapult,—rules a church with iron rods, organizes, denounces, intrigues, executes, keeps an unarmed soldiery to do his behests, and hurls ecclesiastic thunders at kings and emperors with the grand audacity of a commission presumedly divine, while Greeks cringe, and Jews blaspheme, and heathen flee into, or away from, conversion; and the Church itself canonizes this spiritual father, this Sphinx-son of an instinct and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... waved his hand with the pistol in it around at the circle of uncowering men, although the mere movement made Nehemiah cringe with the thought that an accidental discharge might as effectually settle his case as premeditated and deliberate murder. "Ye dun'no' none o' us. What air ye ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... not, I distinctly saw him cringe at my shot," hotly said another. "There's always a peculiar look a tiger has when he gets his death-wound: it's unmistakable ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... Croix," and every sentence stung like the lash of a whip, "those are cowardly words, unworthy a French gentleman and soldier. Did you leave all your courtesy behind in Montreal, or dream that in this wilderness I should cringe to any words you might speak? You wish the truth; you shall have it. Three days ago, through an accident, I drifted, in an oarless boat, out from the river-mouth at Fort Dearborn to the open lake. None knew of my predicament. A storm blew me helpless to the southward, ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... hatch ledge swarm bright fitch latch wedge thwart plight hitch patch fledge bilge budge fosse breadth twinge bridge judge thong breast print ridge drudge notch cleanse fling hinge grudge blotch friend string cringe plunge prompt knell swift ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... spirit—as to my lords and masters; that I shall have no other God but this congregation; that I shall deny my own conscience for theirs; that I shall go about the trivial, nonsensical things they call my pastoral duties, in fear and trembling; that my ministry is to cringe when they speak, and do their will regardless of what I feel to be the will of Christ! Faugh!" Big Dan drew himself erect. "If this is what the call to the ministry means, I am beginning to understand some things that ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... time to find whether my doubts on the subject were well founded or not. Enough for me to know that my yeomen ancestors did their duty in war and peace, were honest, straightforward, God-fearing men and women, who owned their own lands, and never knew what it was to cringe before ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... remain enthusiastically ignorant of my existence; to the moral ones upon whom Beauty exercises a lascivious and corrupting influence; to the moral ones who have relentlessly chased God out of their bedrooms; to the moral ones who cringe before Nature, who flatten themselves upon prayer rugs, who shut their eyes, stuff their ears, bind, gag and truss themselves and offer their mutilations to the idiot God they have invented (the Devil take them, I grow bored with laughing ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... idol down from its altar, made of dead men's bones, and see what a flutter there is in the camp, how new laws are made and old laws shoved aside, and new laws fixed over, and the highest and the lowest will lie and cringe and drag themselves on their knees in front of it to protect it and worship it. Don't talk to me about your wood idols; they hain't nothin' to be compared to it. They stay where they're put, they don't ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... pretty little wife, who would sit on his knee and kiss him, saying, "Poor old boy, you are tired now;" therefore an emotional and distorted apprehension of things, a tendency to think himself a wronged and persecuted person, and under much bravado and swagger the cringe that is so ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... our delay. New guns were seeking position, which was scarcely taken before there was a puff of smoke and their iron message. Heavens! what a vicious sound those shells had! something between a whiz and a shriek. Even the horses would cringe and shudder when one passed over them, and the men would duck their heads, though the missile was thirty feet in the air. I suppose there was some awfully wild firing on both sides; but I saw several of our men carried to the rear. But all this detail is ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... one of those who fawn and lie, and cringe like spaniels to those a little higher, and take revenge by ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... drift upward nearer the surface, the wide round eyes turning and twisting in their sockets, ever watchful for food and danger. Without warning a terrific splash scatters them, and when the ripples and bubbles cease, five frightened sunfish cringe in terror among the water plants of the bottom mud. Off to her nest goes the kingfisher, bearing to her ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... is better than I could have wish'd it; Fortune, I think, is fallen in love with me, Answering so right my expectation. By this time Appetite is at the table, And with a lowly cringe presents the wine To his old master Gustus; now he takes it, And drinks, perchance, to Lingua; she craftily Kisses the cup, but lets not down a drop, And gives it to the rest: 'tis sweet, they'll swallow it: But when 'tis once descended to ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... an itinerant tinker was also an itinerant political preacher, and seeing that he could prevail nothing by secular pleas, he betook himself to his spiritual armory, and in a voice of sour derision that made Bessie Fairfax cringe asked the doctor if he had yet received the Devil's Decalogue according to h'act of Parliament and justices' notices that might be read on every wall?—and he proceeded to recite it: "Thou shalt remove the old landmarks, ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... on the sofa at the foot of the bed. She was trembling violently. She sat looking on the ground and trying to control her limbs. A sort of dreadful humbleness surged through her, as if she were a guilty creature about to cringe before a judge. She trembled till the sofa on which she was sitting shook. She caught hold of the cushions and made a strong effort to sit still. The handle ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... you, Dorothy. Don't you see I'm in deadly earnest? Must my former frivolity dog my steps through life? When I call to mind that I made fun to you of his serious purpose in life, the thought makes me cringe and despise myself." ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... going straight into the jaws of death! My comrade stands just there beside that tree. I would gladly have given Reynard the wink, or signaled to him, if I could. It did seem a pity to shoot him, now he was out of my reach. I cringe for him, when crack goes the gun! The fox squalls, picks himself up, and plunges over the brink of the mountain. The hunter has not missed his aim, but the oil in his gun, he says, has weakened ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... band Of feeble spirits cringe and plead To the gigantic strength of Greed, And fawn upon his ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... Doth heaven with all its splendors lie; Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, We Sinais ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... win. Now by the wells whereof our fathers drank And by the Gods they worshipped, hear our prayer, Grant this petition: since alike in woe, Alike in poverty and banishment, Partakers of one destiny, thou and I Cringe to the stranger for a dwelling place. Whilst he at home, the tyrant, woe is me, Laughs at us both in soft luxurious pride. Whose might, so thou wilt favour my design, I will lightly scatter in one little hour; And plant thee in thy ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... becomes necessary for an attorney to assert his rights and privileges to the judge himself. Do not shrink from it. It is your duty to your client, your profession, and the cause of justice. Never cringe to a court. Never cringe to any one. He will despise you for it, and properly so. Remember the dignity of your profession. Erskine, in his first case, rebuked a prejudiced and perhaps an unjust judge with such vigor that England ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... has the bridle of Mansoul in his hand?' And this I took special notice of, that the inhabitants, notwithstanding all this, could not—no, they could not, when they see him march through the town, but cringe, bow, bend, and were ready to lick the dust of his feet. They also wished a thousand times over that he would become their Prince and Captain, and would become their protection. They would also one to another talk of the comeliness of his person, and how much for glory and ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... the Arabs, for these sons of the desert at least address their flatteries to the girls whom they are eager to marry, whereas the Greek and Roman poets sought merely to beguile a class of women whose charms were for sale to anyone. One of these profligate men might cringe and wail and cajole, to gain the good will of a capricious courtesan, but he never dreamed of bending his knees to win the honest love of the maid he took to be his wife (that he might have male offspring.) Roman love was not romantic, ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... and it would come; a grisly thing, a specter born in the black caverns of terror; a power primeval, cosmic, shadowing the tortures of the lost souls flung out to chaos and destruction. It was cruel iron-hard; and hour after hour they would cringe in its grasp, alone, alone. There would be no one to hear them if they cried out; there would be no help, no mercy. And so on until morning—when they would go out to another day of toil, a little weaker, a little nearer to the time when it would be their turn to be shaken ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... you fool!" she said fiercely, panting for breath with which to end me. "Oh, you dream-child, you moonraker, what are you doing in a world where men work for their pleasures and women have to cringe for the scraps? What was I to do when Porfirio shut me out of doors, and you—you, who had caused it, refused to come with me? Was I to spread my wings and fly straight into the lap of the Madonna? ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... it!" Pitiful beyond most piteous things is the grovelling tendency of that section of human nature which has not yet been educated sufficiently to lift itself up above temporary trappings and ornaments; pitiful it is to see men, gifted in intellect, or distinguished for bravery, flinch and cringe before one of their own flesh and blood, who, having neither cleverness nor courage, but only a Title, presumes upon that foolish appendage so far as to consider himself superior to both valour and ability. As well might a stuffed boar's head assume ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... with only such blundering, well-meant assistance as her mother could give her. She had found out that the world cannot pause to help the stricken, or to give a hand to the fallen, but that it always has leisure to cringe and make way for ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... asks for, does not at all represent their idea of charity. They expect any fairly well-to-do person, such as a shopkeeper, to give sufficient food for the whole community for one day, and they sit in his house till they get it. They do not stand at the door and salaam and cringe, like the ordinary mendicant. They boldly enter in uninvited and demand alms. They are much disliked on account of the largeness of their wants. But they are also feared on account of the terrible nature of their denunciations if they do not get ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... is cooperative, as is every other phase of the mental life of men. We gather courage as we watch a fellow worker face his danger with a brave spirit, for we will not be outdone. Amour propre will not permit us to cringe or give in, though we are weary to death of a struggle. But also we thrill with a common feeling at the sight of the hero holding his own, we are enthused by it, we wish to be with him; and his shining example moves us to a fellowship in courage. We find courage ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... thy prayer, cringe to each ruler of the day. I care for Jove less than nothing; let him do, let him lord it for this brief span, e'en as he list, for not long shall he rule over the gods. But no more, for I descry Jove's courier close at hand, the menial of the new monarch: beyond all ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus |
