"Shrank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the retreat. Neither infantry nor cavalry could break it, although every man in the Southern command knew that the battle was lost. Yet they were resolved that it should not become a rout, and though many were falling before the Union force they never shrank for a ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and easy to take; the squatter women picked flowers and berries in the woods and sold them in the city and the men worked occasionally, as the fit struck them. But the winters were bitter and cruel. The countryside, buried deep in snow, made travel difficult. When the mercury shrank timidly into the bulb and fierce winds howled down the lake, the Silent City seemed, ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... the kraal, and went up to the principal hut. In front of the hut was something with an old sheep-skin kaross thrown over it. I stooped down and drew off the rug, and then shrank back amazed, for under it was the body of a young woman recently dead. For a moment I thought of turning back, but my curiosity overcame me; so going past the dead woman, I went down on my hands and knees and crept into the hut. It was so dark that ...
— Long Odds • H. Rider Haggard
... when they met again. To him it was the very least of her gifts. Her hair, that had the tender yellow of ripening corn, was worthy a cycle of sonnets, but pray leave the making of them to some one else! By daylight the jade-colored eyes seemed to shut out the world. The pupils shrank to pin-points. The green looked deep—as many fathoms as the sea. She was all Diana by daylight, a huntress, if you will, of the elusive epithet, but essentially a maiden goddess, who would add no sprightly romance to the chronicles of Olympus. By lamp-light she suggested quite another divinity. ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... The two boys shrank away in horror, and for some moments neither ventured to speak, while, as they clung together, each could feel his fellow suffering from no ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... was marked enough to be alarming at first; then the ludicrous feature of Fred's request struck him so forcibly that he burst into a laugh before whose greatness Fred trembled and shrank. ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... Rachel, you're a good woman!" says my lord, seizing my lady's hand, at which she blushed very much, and shrank back, putting her children before her. "I wish you joy, my kinsman," he continued, giving Harry Esmond a hearty slap on the shoulder. "I won't balk your luck. Go to Cambridge, boy; and when Tusher dies you shall have the living here, if you are not better ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... child of Nature would, and without love life would indeed be a failure. He walked slowly. She seemed in no hurry to reach home. Once she raised her glorious eyes to his, and he felt her hand quiver as she shrank from his ardent gaze. Another moment, and he would have declared himself, but, glancing ahead, he saw that her father and mother and John Webb had paused and ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... succeeded in carrying through the major portion of his reform programme. But he was opposed by the Republicans, by the professional politicians of the older parties, and by the entire hierarchy of administrative and judicial officials who shrank from impending investigation. His task was enhanced tremendously by the growing unpopularity of King Carlos, and in defense of the sovereign it was found necessary to deprive the House of Peers of its judicial functions, to replace the district and municipal councils ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... read him as one reads a barometer. He shrank visibly into his bulb, and the tone of his conversation marked a storm. I heard him mutter 'Diavolo!' under his breath, and then the mercury of his ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... Bunny shrank a little, as if something in the words pierced him. Jake's eyes, very bright but wholly free from anger looked straight into his. For some reason he ceased to strain against the compelling hands ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... poor man would stand, shaking and shrinking. I dare say, it would have pitied one's heart to have seen him; nor would he go back again. At last, he took the hammer that hanged on the gate in his hand, and gave a small rap or two; then One opened to him, but he shrank back as before. He that opened stepped out after him, and said, Thou trembling one, what wantest thou? With that he fell down to the ground. He that spoke to him wondered to see him so faint. So he ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... shrank back; he would have been glad if he could have disappeared in the walls. The ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... it about with her, ever saying it, through the whole day. She shrank, both for Sibylla's sake and her own, from the task she was imposing upon herself; and, as we all do when we have an unpleasant office to perform, she put it off to the last. Early in the morning she had said, I will go to Verner's Pride after breakfast ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... helped himself to sixteen runs, and then retired moodily to cover-point, where, in Adair's fifth over, he missed Barnes—the first occasion since the game began on which that mild batsman had attempted to score more than a single. Scared by this escape, Outwood's captain shrank back into his shell, sat on the splice like a limpet, and, offering no more chances, was not out at lunch time ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... discharging their arrows in turn, the Malays, with demoniac yells, rushed against the village. The advance, however, was arrested suddenly when they arrived at the abbatis. From behind its shelter, so deadly a rain of arrows was poured in that they soon shrank back, and bounded away beyond the circle of light, while taunting ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... Aias was weary, so many spears smote his armour, and he could hardly hold up his great shield, and Hector cut off his spear-head with the sword; the bronze head fell ringing on the ground, and Aias brandished only the pointless shaft. So he shrank back and fire blazed all over his ship; and Achilles saw it, and smote his thigh, and bade Patroclus make haste. Patroclus armed himself in the shining armour of Achilles, which all Trojans feared, and leaped into the chariot ...
— Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities • Andrew Lang
... followed. Even before those events the human intellect seemed to flag. The old classicism and the new Christianity never so wedded as to produce either an adequate civic virtue or a great intellectual movement. In the Dark Ages which followed, learning shrank into the narrow channels of the cloister, and literature almost ceased as a creative force. For almost a thousand years—from Augustine to Dante—Europe scarcely produced a book which has high intrinsic value for our time. When intellectual energy woke again in Italy and then ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... described them as, [431] "A small, dirty, miserable-looking race, who have the credit of devouring their parents, and when I taxed them with it they did not deny that such a custom had once obtained among them. But they declared they never shortened lives to provide such feasts and shrank with horror from the idea of any bodies but those of their own blood-relatives being served up to them." It would appear that this custom may be partly ceremonial, and have some object, such as ensuring that the dead ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... sometimes she was afraid, afraid of what this—all this that was in her heart—would lead her to do. For God told her of a strength which she had not known her heart possessed, which—so it seemed to her—she did not wish it to possess, of a strength from which something within her shrank, against which something within her protested. But God would not be denied. He told her she had this strength. He told her that she must use it. He told her that she would use it. And she began to understand something of the mystery of the purposes of God in relation to herself, and to understand, ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... true story, which should incline us more strongly to preserve the fair virtue of chastity. We who are of gentle blood should die of shame on feeling in our hearts that worldly lust to avoid which the poor wife of a muleteer shrank not from so cruel a death. Some esteem themselves virtuous women who have never like this one resisted unto the shedding of blood. It is fitting that we should humble ourselves, for God does not vouchsafe His grace to men because ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... The girl shrank back at sight of me, her eyes wide in astonishment, and then my antagonist was upon me. I parried his first blow with my forearm, at the same time delivering a powerful blow to his jaw that sent him reeling back; but he was at me again in an instant, though ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Israel; for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed." And his thigh was shrunken, so that the children of Israel in days to come abstained from eating "of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh." The spot where the struggle took place, beside the waters of the Jabbok, was named Penu-el, "the face of God." There was more than one other Penu-el in the Semitic world, and at Carthage ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce
... had gone but a little way, the noise of wheels reached her suddenly, and she shrank into the shadow beside the wall. A cloud of dust chased toward her as the wheels came steadily on. They were evidently ancient, for they turned with a protesting creak which was heard long before the high, old-fashioned coach they carried ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... He shrank from the note as from a lizard, while his lip quivered, and he tried to swallow his emotion down. Then ensued mutual expostulation, which he terminated by producing a knitted purse, which might have belonged to his grandfather—or ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... dark and unknowable. No self-questioning and no sting of conscience had any part in it. She had been happy, and she wanted to go on being happy; but now she was afraid she was going to be unhappy, and she shrank from unhappiness as from a toothache. I took her hand and kissed ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... last my senses returned, all was frightfully dark, and my mind remembering what had occurred, shrank from the idea of beholding more; yet curiosity overmastered all. Who, I asked myself, was this man of evil, and how came he within the castle walls? Why should he seek to avenge the death of poor Michel Mauvais, and how had the curse been carried ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... a trifle, but did not swerve. Of course, he had been informed by his mother of the suspicious action of the young lady who had been a member of that gentleman's party, and shrank, as any one in his position would, from the ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... and desires, as revealed, without outside influence, by themselves. The result of my refusing all methods of gratification save the most ordinary was that the girl, who must have known that she was not all right, but shrank from saying so in so many words, gave me a gonorrhoea, which lasted nine weeks and much interfered with my amours, as I naturally declined to run the risk of infecting my partner, a risk which to my certain knowledge many a young fellow has run, with disastrous consequence ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... back to the wharf in some elation. Twilight was gathering there and over the canal. She had rounded the corner of the store, when, happening to glance towards the Success to Commerce, moored under the bank a bare twenty yards away, she halted, and with a gasp shrank ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to the parish ever since the New York politicians had taken me into their favor. Anybody, he said, might go out upon and know the world, but few had the courage and daring to grapple with its difficulties. And then, the world was so wicked that men of reflection instinctively shrank from it. Notwithstanding my wild, visionary plans, he yet had hopes of me. But if I sought distinction in the political world, it would be well not to forget that it had at this day become a dangerous quicksand, over which a series of violent storms continually heaved. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... The road never heeded. A stream ran right across it, still it straggled on. Suddenly it gave up the minimum property that a road should possess, and, renouncing its connection with High Streets, its lineage of Piccadilly, shrank to one side and became an unpretentious footpath. Then it led me to the old bridge over the stream, and thus I came to Wrellisford, and found after travelling in many lands a village with no wheel tracks in ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... had told her she meant to take an early morning ride and might not be back in time for breakfast. With this bundle in hand she went out at the door, her courage all but failing at thought of the man with the horse at the threshold. She shrank from being seen ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... every shade of opinion existing in Ireland could be united was the Land Question," and of that question he took control. Naturally enough, Mr. Parnell, himself a landowner under the English settlement, shrank at first from committing himself and his fortunes to the leadership of Mr. Davitt. But no choice was really left him, and there is reason to believe that a decision was made easier to him by a then inchoate undertaking ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... about her ordinary duties just as if there was no hidden fire of pain consuming her heart; there was no word spoken by her or to her of all that had recently occurred; her mother and sister were glad to see her so continuously busy. At first she shrank from going up to Trelyon Hall, and would rather have corresponded with Mrs. Trelyon about their joint work of charity, but she conquered the feeling, and went and saw the gentle lady, who perceived nothing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... paleness settled on his face—his breath came short, and his lips got dry and parched—he could not speak nor stand, had not Harman supported him. He looked again at the blood with horror, and then at his mother, whilst he shrank up, as it were, into himself, and shivered ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... north-eastern frontier of France. Each sovereign found himself at the head of forty thousand men, and the Emperor's military ability was seen in his proposal for an advance of both armies upon Paris. But though Henry found no French force in his front, his cautious temper shrank from the risk of leaving fortresses in his rear; and while their allies pushed boldly past Chalons on the capital, the English troops were detained till September in the capture of Boulogne, and only left Boulogne to form the siege of Montreuil. ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... believers in Jesus as Messiah shrank with horror from such a revolutionary procedure. The fact that they were Palestinian Jews, who had never had their exclusiveness rubbed off, as Hellenists like Paul and Barnabas had had, explains, and to some extent excuses, their position. And yet their contention ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... subsiding at once into a gulf of intense silence. Marcia bowed her head with the rest; but her cheeks burned, and not only with a natural shyness. The eyes of all these kneeling figures seemed to be upon her, and she shrank under them. "I ought to have been asked," she thought, resentfully. "I ought to ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... seemed to speak. I can describe the impression that they made in no other way. I no longer wondered at Edmund's ability to converse with her, for I felt that, with a little instruction, and more of our leader's mental penetration, I could do it myself. At times I shrank from encountering her gaze, for I verily believed that she read my inmost thoughts. And I could see that thought came out of her eyes, but it escaped all my efforts to grasp it; it was too evanescent, or I was too dull. Sometimes I imagined that the meaning ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... doubt from mistaken considerations of kindness, partly because he shrank from losing her affection—to take effective steps to put an end to Vanessa's hopes. It would have been better if he had unhesitatingly made it clear to her that he could not return her passion, and that if she could not be satisfied with friendship the intimacy must cease. To quote Sir Henry ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... Don Isaac suddenly threw his arms round the Rabbi's neck, covered his mouth with kisses, leapt with jingling spurs high into the air, so that the passing Jews shrank back in alarm, and in his own natural ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... answered Sidney: and a sudden flash of lightning showed his countenance, ghastly, as if with the damps of Death. What could the brother do?—stay there, and see the boy perish before his eyes? leave him on the road and fly to the friendly light? The last plan was the sole one left, yet he shrank from it in greater terror than the first. Was that a step that he heard across the road? He held his breath to listen—a form became ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the siege of Evesham had been noised abroad. He told him that he was in communication with many other barons, and that ere long they hoped to rise against the tyranny of Prince John, but that at present they were powerless, as many, hoping that King Richard would return ere long, shrank from involving the country in a civil war. When Cuthbert told him that the daughter of his old friend was at a convent but a day's ride distant, and that he sought protection for her, Sir Baldwin instantly ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... too guileless to suspect the nature of Edward's courtesy, yet shrank from it in vague terror. All his beauty, all his fascination, could not root from her mind the remembrance of the exiled prince; nay, the brilliancy of his qualities made her the more averse to him. It darkened the prospects ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... shrank back upon the pillows in a revival of her terror. 'She never comed to no 'arm, p'leaceman. No, no, she never comed to no 'arm through me. I'd a darter once o' my own, Jenny Gudgeon by name—p'raps you know'd 'er, most o' the coppers did—as was brought up by my ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... prevented my leaving my room. The headach was true; and I had a reluctance equally true to see the "human face divine" for that evening at least. There was one exception to that reluctance, for thoughts had begun to awake in me, from which I shrank with something little short of terror. There was one "human face divine" which I would have made a pilgrimage round the world to see—but it was not under the roof of Mordecai. It was in one of the little cottages on which I ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... urchin shrank away, abashed, for it was Miss Connie's voice. Buck pulled himself together, touched his hat, and opened the carriage door. But the girl paused on the steps, and her voice was very sincere as she said: ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... that of a young girl of extreme beauty; evidently of middle rank. There was a sensitive refinement in her face, as if she almost shrank from the gaze which, of necessity, the painter must have fixed upon her. It was not over-well painted, but I felt that it must have been a good likeness, from this strong impress of peculiar character which I have tried to describe. From the dress, I should guess it to have been ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... off, wildly sobbing, yet still clinging to him in agonised entreaty. The man's face, with its crude ferocity, the untamed glitter of its fiery eyes, was still bent to hers, but she no longer shrank from it. The power that moved her was too immense to be swayed by lesser things. His attitude no longer affected her, one way or another. It had ceased to count, so that she only wrenched from ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... the almost utter absence of cultivation of the understanding of the people living there or in the surrounding country, who entered to obtain passes, or for other purposes. Scarce one of them at first appreciated the nature of an oath, which they all shrank from taking, or objected to, when proposed as a condition of obtaining either the passes or the protection they wished. They were not merely illiterate and untaught, but showed also an extremely low grade of reasoning power. There was, indeed, in most cases, but little development ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Coristine," he said, "bide there till I call you." Then he arose and went to the spot, but the woman, though he was in full view, took no notice of him. He stooped and touched her. For a moment she shrank, then looked up and saw it was not the person she dreaded. "Matilda Nagle," whispered the minister, "we must get poor Steevie away from here." Then he saw that her intellect was gone; no wonder that she was the mother of an idiot boy. "Oh, I am so glad you have come, Mr. Inglis," ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... at Charing Cross a feeling of desolation was upon her. A porter came to fetch her box, but Joanna—the great Joanna Godden, who put terror into the markets of three towns—shrank back into the taxi, loath to leave its comfortable shelter for the effort and racket of the station. A dark, handsome, rather elderly man, was coming out of one of the archways. Their eyes met and he at once turned his away, but Joanna ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... shrank from him, cursed him, reviled his name; but they respected his intellect, even in the early days when he used his power in an undisciplined way; yes, was painfully learning the ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... feeling, she thought how much happier had been her fate if, after years of bliss, the bell were now tolling for her funeral and she were followed to the grave by the old affection of her earliest lover, long her husband. But why had she returned to him when their cold hearts shrank from each ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... dull, monotonous vanity and vexation of spirit. The frosty wind had swept "that lustre deep from glen and brae," and the chill watery mosses alone looked green and fresh when the snow melted. It was the cold under which Joanna Crawfurd shivered and shrank; at least so she assured every friendly person who remarked that she was thin, and paler than ever. Mrs. Jardine had looked her in the face, nay, kept nervously glancing at her when she was visible at church, on the loch where the curling match was played, or in ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... or two before Christmas, when, in the evening, she glided in to her uncle's room and sunk down by his side—so unlike herself; so like a spirit—that the old sinner impulsively shrank away from her, and put out his hand ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... into a strength so delicate and lovely, that their white flesh, with their blood upon it, should look like ivory stained with purple;[86] and having always around them, in the motion and majesty of this beauty, enough for the full employment of their imagination, they shrank with dread or hatred from all the ruggedness of lower nature,—from the wrinkled forest bark, the jagged hill-crest, and irregular, inorganic storm of sky; looking to these for the most part as adverse powers, and taking pleasure only in such portions of the lower world ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... had pointed her out as one not likely to interfere or check the projects of popular ambition, and therefore the very fittest to bring forward as an excuse for their revolt. With every appearance of humility and deference, they offered her the crown; but the proudest and boldest shrank back abashed, before the flashing eye and proud majesty of demeanor with which she answered, "The crown is not yours to bestow; it is held by Henry, according to the laws alike of God and man; and till his death, you have no right to bestow, nor ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... more or less studied elegance at the hour when d'Arthez presented himself. This mutual fidelity, the care they each took of their appearance, in fact, all about them expressed sentiments that neither dared avow, for the princess discerned very plainly that the great child with whom she had to do shrank from the combat as much as she desired it. Nevertheless d'Arthez put into his mute declarations a respectful awe which was infinitely pleasing to her. Both felt, every day, all the more united because nothing acknowledged ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... one was dismounted. The other, holding his friend's horse, held also a pistol at the coachman's head, muttering lurid threats of what he would do if the coachman drove on. The dismounted man was half inside the coach where two women shrank from him, and thence his blusterous voice proceeded, "Now, my blowens, hand over, or I'll rummage you. A skinny purse? Come, now, you've more than that. What's under your legs, fatty? Stand up, I say. ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... is now standing at the outside of that door?' and she shrank from opening it. She deeply regretted that she had not requested her maid Susan to sleep with her, as she crept into bed, leaving a ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... heart." (94.) Justus Falckner, born November 22, 1672, was the fourth son of Daniel Falckner, Lutheran pastor at Langenreinsdorf, Crimmitschau, and Zwickau, Saxony. He entered the University of Halle, January 20, 1693, and studied theology under A. H. Francke. He completed his course, but shrank from assuming the tremendous responsibility of the ministry. On April 23, 1700, he acquired the power of attorney for the sale of William Penn's lands in Pennsylvania, and left with his older brother, Daniel, ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... lead in his stomach, a fiery throbbing in his young heart, a sickening craving for some expression of human love. The boyish tendrils, although touched in truth by spring frosts, were outreaching still for some object upon which to fasten; yet he shrank from human touch and sympathy on that voyage in the steerage lest in his grief and ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... have gone at once to lady Margaret and told her all; but she naturally and rightly shrank from what might seem an appeal to the daughter against the judgment of her father; neither could she dare hope that, if she did, her judgment would not be against her also. Her feelings were now in danger of being turned back upon herself, and growing bitter; for a lasting sense of injury ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... hundred and forty of them, when the first rain came; the rain that meant the end of summer. The yellow sun moved southward and the blue sun shrank steadily. Grass grew again and the woods goats returned, with them the young that had been born in the north, already half the ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... bravery and sincerity. I think he believed I would understand, but I never did; I never shall. The shock was more surprise than moral resentment. I could not believe at first that such a thing could possibly happen to—one of my own. I felt as if a plague had fallen upon me, and I shrank from every eye, from every touch ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... Patience shrank from the spectacle, and Rusha hung upon her, saying the soldiers would be there, and beginning to cry. At that moment, however, Tom Gates' voice came near shouting ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... my keys, but none of them fitted the lock. I gave up the attempt—indeed, my mind shrank from the idea of going through my employer's papers—but the desire of getting a key that would open the door was ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... But little Mawdlyn shrank back. "I am in great fear of all that cobweb, cousin Alys," she whimpered, and no scowls ...
— In the Border Country • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... two-thirds of Europe were under autocratic rule. It is the other way about now, and democracy means peace. The democracy of France did not want war; the democracy of Italy hesitated long before they entered the war; the democracy of this country shrank from it—shrank and shuddered—and never would have entered the caldron had it not been for the invasion of Belgium. The democracies sought peace; strove for peace. If Prussia had been a democracy there would have been no war. Strange things have happened in this war. ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... altogether disconsolate, with no notion of where next she should turn to, afraid to go home yet never once thinking of going to Miss Mary's refuge as she had promised, and the world was all dolorous round her, when a step sounded near the door. She started in terror and shrank into the darkest corner of the hut. The footstep came not quite close to the door; it was as if the stranger feared to find a house empty and hesitated before setting foot on the threshold. From where she stood she could not see him, though his breath was ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... was very angry with Prescott, and there was a statement he had made which would prove damaging to him if she repeated part of it without the rest. She shrank from this course, but her rancor against the man suddenly grew too strong ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... mariners lost in the cold and glaring regions of a journalistic Greenland: limitless plains of empty white paper extending about them as far as the eye could reach, while life depended upon their making these terrible voids productive; and they shrank appalled from the task, knowing no means to fertilize the barrens; having no talent to bring the still snows into harvests, and already feeling-in the chill of Mr. Martin's remarks—a touch of the frost ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... danger in his presence and she liked invoking it; but there was a certain coarseness, also invoked by her, from which she shrank, towards which she crept, step by step, again. She made no answer to his words. In her black dress and against the darkness of the wood, she was hardly more than a face and two small hands. There was a gentle movement among the trees; they were singing their welcome ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... Berserk instinct, took a rifle by the barrel and swung the stock above his head, Zaidie pulled her trigger. The bullet cut a clean hole through the smooth, hairless skull of the Martian. A dark, red spot came just between his eyes, his huge frame shrank together and collapsed in ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... merely an attempt. Lavretzky and Liza both felt this,—and Lemm understood it: he said not a word, put his romance back in his pocket, and in reply to Liza's proposal to play it over again, he merely said significantly, with a shake of his head: "Enough—for the present!"—bent his shoulders, shrank ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... of her tent was drawn aside and she shrank back upon her bed, shutting her eyes for fear lest they should fall upon the face of Jacob Meyer. Feeling that it was not he, or learning it perhaps from the footfall, she opened them a little, peeping at her visitor from between her long lashes. ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... were stretched to snapping point, and she shrank visibly. After all, she was very young, and there was that about this man that ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... muskets into the savages, and then seized spears and hatchets and rushed madly at them, striking and stabbing —determined at least to sell their lives dearly. For a moment the Indians in the black darkness shrank back from the fierce attack. But already Horst was killed and several of the crew were down with mortal wounds. The vessel seemed lost when Jacobs—a dare-devil seaman—now in command, ordered his men to blow up the vessel. A ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... Mr. Brunton were paralyzed with astonishment; instinctively they shrank from disturbing that solemn time by coming forward to speak with George and letting him recognise them; but with a united impulse, both quietly and solemnly knelt down and joined in the ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... here, and regarded his sister with what she felt was intended to be a significant look. She shrank from the confession that its meaning was Greek to her. "Well—and what next?" ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... fellow, with no merit except his savage valour, he made me feel his contempt and dislike from the first day I joined my battalion in garrison at the fort. It was only a fortnight before! I would have confronted him sword in hand, but I shrank from the mocking brutality of ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... Bridemaids and bridegroom shrank in fear, But I stood high who stood at bay: 'And if I answer yea, fair Sir, What man art thou to bar ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... whatever was her self-sacrificing purpose, she was still the rich heiress. The seal of secrecy had been broken, yet the situation remained unchanged; their association must still be dominated by it. And he shrank from the thought of making her girlish appeal to him for help an opportunity for revealing ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... defense—thousands of dollars spent, and Lord knows what wires pulled, to get him off. Man, you can't believe it! Don't you know she's going to fight us every inch of the way? You'll need every scrap of testimony you can dig up! And such an important piece as—" They were advancing up the hall. I shrank back and closed ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... it was that you began to explain to me that, although I might not be aware of it, the reason that I would not be your wife was that, having come from heaven, my nature was purer than that of earthly women, and shrank ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... figure rose from the shadows of the porch and came forward to meet us as we swung up to the curbing. I stifled a scream in my throat. As I shrank back into the seat I heard the quick intake of Von Gerhard's breath as he leaned forward to peer into the darkness. A sick ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... instinctively put her hand to her curls when she saw the three approach. Elinor patted her coronet braids. Mary blushed and shrank timidly into the depths of her chair, for she was very shy; and Billie, whose candid nature had no coquetry, looked ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... "His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground." "Suffer," He said, "this cup to pass from me"; and His strength came from the invisible. "Not my will," He cried, "but thine be done." With that sublime trust in God strengthening Him, He shrank not back for a moment; He took the cup and drained it to the dregs. This is the highest form of courage that there is. The weakest women have displayed it in face of appalling dangers. It is the courage of the martyr, the patriot, the reformer. There is a glory and ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... thoroughness. It was a family joke that in the garden she was never satisfied to dabble in her flower-beds like other people, but would always clear out what she called "the Irish corners," and attack bits of waste or neglected ground from which everybody else shrank. And amongst our neighbours in the village, those with whom, day after day, time after time, she would plead "the Lord's controversy," were those with whom every one else had failed. Some old village would-be sceptic, half shame-faced, half conceited, who had not ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... gallantry was made, hesitated to accept it. It much exceeded the reserve imposed on one of her station and years to allow of such homage from the other sex, though the occasion was generally deemed one that admitted of more than usual gallantry; and she evidently shrank, with the sensitiveness of one whose feelings were unpractised, from a homage ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... great courage and devotion, as many stories prove. Once, when some rats were being driven from a ship, a young rat was seen carefully making its way along a rope, with an old and feeble rat upon its back. It shrank from the stick in a seaman's hand, and it might easily have saved its own life if it had been willing to leave its companion. Instead of running away, however, it went on bravely and carefully in the face of danger. The gallant animal was allowed to reach a place of ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... it this time without any help from Tuly. The linkage fairly snapped together and shrank instantaneously to a point. Hilton thought of Terra and there it was; full size, yet occupying only one infinitesimal section of a dimensionless point. The multi-mind visited relatives of all eight, ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... clearly defined. Then, with a business-like "Ah! I had forgotten,"—admirably feigned,—she hastily removed the shawl from Madeline's shoulders, and the lace cape from her own; and she put the lace cape on Madeline, and covered it with the shawl. This time Madeline shrank, and would have forbidden the charitable surprise; but Miss Wimple moved as though to open ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... in the field on the other side of the heap; but his jest failed. The earnestness and devout emotion of the boy to the vision of reality which his imagination, aided by the hues of sunset, had thus exalted, were too much for the gross spirit of banter, and the speaker shrank back into his dust-hovel, and affected to be very assiduous in his work as the day was drawing to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... the marchese's paternal corrections must have sometimes taken a more practical shape than mere verbal upbraidings; for poor Bianca shrank back, throwing up one arm, as if to shield her face, and, with a wild cry of "Alberto! come to me!" fell into the arms of that tardy lover, who at that appropriate moment had made his appearance, unobserved, upon ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... quite finished," said Horace. The truth was that he was perfectly aware that the other would not be in sympathy with his ideas; and Horace, who had just been suffering from a cold fit of depression about his work, rather shrank from any kind ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... half-drawn curtain. A shadow flitted across the dormer window above him,—Mrs. Cranston's. The other windows in the upper floor were dark. He wanted to go in and commune with Cranston, the man of all others whom he most liked, but he shrank from ringing their bell at so late an hour. Elsewhere along the row many a window was brilliantly illuminated and the social life of the post seemed in full flow. The Cranstons were home-keeping folk as a rule, "not at all sociable," ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... one day that he managed to get out of the tower, he ran off to the Witch and asked her advice. Would a philtre serve as a spell to win her? Or, failing that, must he make an express covenant? He never shrank at all from the dreadful idea of yielding himself to Satan. "We will take care for that, young man: but hie thee up again; you ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... The hunchback shrank back; then laughed. "I, Triboulet!" he boasted. "'Ha!' said I, 'he's greater than the king!' whereupon Francis frowned, started, and answered the constable, refusing his claim. Not long thereafter the constable died in Spain, and ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... wrapped in the gloom of his own thoughts, preferred to remain where he was. Already he seemed to belong to the dark, to be a thing apart from his fellow-men. He shrank from companionship and sympathy as he shrank from the light. He longed to crawl away like a sick animal into some lonely corner and die. Whichever way he turned, the great specter of darkness loomed before him. At first he had fought, ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... shoulder. As it went on, laying bare the depravity of the boy's soul, the muscles of his face quivered a little, and presently, with just the suggestion of a flinching shudder in face and figure, he took his hand away and shrank back a little from the young man. I wondered as I watched him whether he was admitting to himself for the first time that this was the evil child of an evil woman, for whom there was no hope, or whether it was a revelation to ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... tribute brought; The zeal of high, adventurous thought, The tender awe in yielding aid, E'en of its own soft hand afraid! Stealing, through shadows, forth to bless, Her venturous service knew no bound; Yet shrank, and trembled, when success Its earnest, fullest wishes crown'd! This alien sinks, opprest with woe, And have you nothing to bestow? No language kind, to sooth or cheer?— No soften'd voice,—no tender tear?— ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... his tail, and looking as pleased as if he had restored obedience to a flock of unruly sheep. I shrank back from Scroggie, wishing Turkey, who was still at the other end of the ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... entrance to the cellar. It was narrow, and he lost time through his knapsack, and these are the occasions when your life depends on seconds. I heard the scream that I know only too well, and guessed where the beast would lodge, and called out to him "That's for us." I shrank back with my knapsack over my head and tried to bury myself in the corner ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Her woman's intuition told Nan that Donald McKaye was not to be depended upon to conserve the honor of the McKaye family by refraining from considering an alliance with her. Also, knowing full well the passionate yearnings of her own heart and the weakness of her economic position, she shrank from submitting herself to the task of repelling his advances. Where he was concerned, she feared her own weakness—she, who had endured the brutality of the world, could not endure that the world's brutality should be visited upon him because of his love for ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... democratically minded peoples if the constant terror of war exalts military preparations to the supreme place? Something has changed the Germany of other days which many of us loved even while we shrank from its militarist masters. Is it absolutely certain that nothing can change the spirit of democratic peoples? At any rate, America, which has experimented on a larger scale with cooperation—political, economic, and religious—than ...
— The Ethics of Coperation • James Hayden Tufts
... the verbal memory; and he was not given to hypothesis and experiment. It did occur to him that he could perhaps get some help by praying for it; but as the prayers he said every evening were forms learned by heart, he rather shrank from the novelty and irregularity of introducing an extempore passage on a topic of petition for which he was not aware of any precedent. But one day, when he had broken down, for the fifth time, in the supines ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... might be added) prove, as history proves too, what was the principal thought of the American Constitution-makers. They shrank from placing sovereign power anywhere. They feared that it would generate tyranny; George III. had been a tyrant to them, and come what might, they would not make a George III. Accredited theories said that the English Constitution divided the sovereign authority, ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... forth—dost hear? And when I bid thee go, thou'lt go; and when I bid thee come, thou'lt come; and when I say, 'Here, follow me!' thou'lt follow like a dog to heel!" He drew up his lip until his white teeth showed, and Nick, hearing them gritting together, shrank back dismayed. ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett |
