"Shrug" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her task was first to guess the identity of the sender. Who could have written to her? It was unheard of, a think for wondering jest, if only her lips had been steady and her heart beating with normal pulsation. With a shrug, she turned back from the seal to the address. She felt that some curious mistake had been made, that the letter was not for her at all, but for some other Jenny Blanchard, of whom she had never until now heard. Then, casting such ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... mischief," Mr. Roberts said on this same evening, as he closed the door with a bang, and a shrug of his shoulders. "Very few people will venture out this evening. Tode, if you want an hour or two for a frolic, now is your time to take it. After you have been up with the mail you can go where you like ...
— Three People • Pansy
... who asked me if I hadn't a sweetheart with whom to correspond. A feeling of inexplicable bashfulness tied my tongue, and I only replied with an enigmatic and haughty smile. And when they questioned me as to what I thought of the beauty of their little maidens, I would shrug my shoulders and disdainfully call ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various
... square hard look at Brownwell, and got a smile and a faint little shrug in return, whereupon, for the Larger Good, he replied "Yes," and for the Larger Good also, ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... young man's earnestness, M. de Kercadiou's pale eyes fell away. He turned with a shrug, and sauntered ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... say that this young person looks hardly old enough for the position, and you own she has no real experience. Would not a more elderly person be more suitable, considering that you are so seldom in your nursery? Of course, this is your department, but since you ask my advice——" with a little shrug that seemed to dismiss me and ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... said at length, with a shrug. "I apologise for the expression. But my opinion of ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... the stage of childhood, such as the Hottentots, Kaffirs, South Sea Islanders, and others like them, among whom it has been really successful. While, on the other hand, in India the Brahmans receive the doctrines of missionaries either with a smile of condescending approval or refuse them with a shrug of their shoulders; and among these people in general, notwithstanding the most favourable circumstances, the missionaries' attempts at conversion are usually wrecked. An authentic report in vol. xxi. of the Asiatic Journal ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... the Marshalsea said, with a shrug of modest self-depreciation, 'Oh! You might be like me, my dear Frederick; you might be, if you chose!' and forbore, in the magnanimity of his strength, to ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... this disturbance had been the practical seizure of the office of captain-general by Vasco Nunez de Balboa. Pizarro himself, and Juan de Saavedra, to whom he addressed his comment, had supported Balboa. Saavedra did not commit himself further than to answer, with a shrug, "Balboa can use the whip on occasion, we all know that. Ah, here he ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... Now, as Urbain's knowledge was much greater than that of the inhabitants of Loudun, this story gained general credence in the town, although here and there was to be found a man sufficiently enlightened to shrug his shoulders at these absurdities, and to laugh at the mummeries, of which as yet he saw ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... pretty shrug, "is there not a man for every woman? The baroness she thinks she is irresistible. She has money. She would like to buy you for a plaything—to marry you. But I say beware. She is more terrible than the keeper of the Bastile. And you—you are ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... easier. But I've made my break, and it's in the rules, as I understand them, that I've got to see it through. If he can get me now"—she gave a little shrug—"but he can't. I've come ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... bowed over his egg with the manner of one who utters a courtly compliment; but the lady pouted, and gave an impatient little shrug ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the drawing-room paper when I was first married," said Mrs Thornton, with a laugh and a shrug. "But, as one gets older, there are so many more serious things to cry over that one learns to be philosophical. I thought I might put some big, spreading branches in these old pots to cover the walls as much as possible, for ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... knight, musing; "but thou mistakest my intentions. I let him not go; howbeit, at worst I would only mark him in the ear, and turn him up again after this warning, peradventure with a few stripes to boot athwart the shoulders, in order to make them shrug a little, and shake ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... deserving and virtuous as his own fatherly interference in her affairs was disinterested and kind. "I did what I could for her—risking what might or might not be said," Mr. Pomeroy might add, with a hero's modest smile and shrug. And if nobody ever believed him, at least nobody ever ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... to give some history of Galatoire's as well as of the other two, but when I asked the patron for the story of his restaurant, he smiled, and with a shrug replied: "But Monsieur, the story is in ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... on in this absurd way," said she, with a shrug of her pretty shoulders, "and thinks himself so ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... stay with my boys at the first," said Marron, with a shrug of his shoulders. "But they can do their work alone now, and there is no fear that they ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston
... Turgeinov as the young man strode off. "That was intended especially for you, Mademoiselle. As for me, it does not matter." With a shrug. "I might stroll into the wood, be devoured by wild beasts, and who ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... a slight shrug. "At present there's nothing I loathe more than pearls and chinchilla, or anything else in the world that's ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... with a slight shrug of the shoulders, as if he deemed himself to be dealing with a harmless lunatic, ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... "Perhaps that's just as well," she returned, with a philosophic shrug. "The surprise will be all the pleasanter, I mean. For of course it's going to sell tremendously; especially if you can get the press ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... as if you'd always been here," replied Captain Eri. "Queer how soon we git used to a change. I don't know how we got along afore, but we did some way or other, if you call it gittin' along," he added with a shrug. "I should hate to have to try ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... a slight shrug of his shoulders that signified that he was indifferent as to the details of the arrangement, took the paper and began to run his eyes carelessly through it. Suddenly his expression changed. He gave a start of surprise, read a few lines ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... the unmistakable shrug of the shoulders); "we no have milk, no have ale, no have brandy, no have noting here: ah! we very poor peep' ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... Ted start, scalded by the splash of her self-directed anger, saw him try to convert his wince into a shrug. ...
— Tree, Spare that Woodman • Dave Dryfoos
... inanimate countenance. Do you know, Robert Audley, that with all your mock amiability, you are brimful of conceit and superciliousness. You look down upon our amusements; you lift up your eyebrows, and shrug your shoulders, and throw yourself back in your chair, and wash your hands of us and our pleasures. You are a ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... track!" declared the German. "But I vanted to go on—not go off—I vanted to go on der ships only dey vouldn't let me. However, better late than be a miss vot's like a bird in der hand," and with a shrug of his shoulders and a last wink at the newsboy, Mr. Switzer went out to the waiting train ...
— The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays - Or, The Sham Battles at Oak Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... will and a decided sense of right and wrong, which make intercourse difficult. A sensitive conscience is no addition to the amenities of the dinner-table. But when a man is willing to counter a deadly sin with a shrug of the shoulders, when between white and black he can discover no insupportable contrast, the probabilities are that he will at least humour your whims and respect your prejudices. And so it is that the Andalusians ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... cast. On the other side stood my notion of self-respect. I felt I must then and there and for ever decide whether I was a thing or a man. Yet, again and again I had voted for measures just as corrupt,—had voted for them with no protest beyond a cynical shrug and a wry look. Every man, even the laxest, if he is to continue to "count as one," must have a point where he draws the line beyond which he will not go. The liar must have things he will not lie about, the thief things he will not steal, the compromiser ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... is that this weakness of ours has become known. The singers feel they can give an American audience any slipshod performance. I have seen a favorite soprano shrug her shoulders as she entered her dressing-room and exclaim: “Mon Dieu! How I shuffled through that act! They’d have hooted me off the stage in Berlin, but here no one seems to care. Did you notice the baritone to-night? He wasn’t ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... seem to you that I was receiving his attentions with pleasure?" questioned Edith, with a repugnant shrug of her shoulders. "I assure you he had forced his company upon me, and I only endured it to save making a ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... manners!' murmured Lesbia, with a languid shrug of her shoulders, as she strolled back ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... his right to read so much as a fragment of this condemnatory document. If he began, what great name might not become forever dishonored in his thoughts?—Bah!—What need to fear for good men, after all? With a cynical shrug, he advanced to where the parchment hung; and then, referring each second to his key, began to read at the top of one of the narrow columns. After fifteen minutes, he drew the great table across the room, pulled pencil and ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... a suggestive shrug of his shoulders. "Blackton, I want you to do me another good turn. Tell the ladies anything you can think of—something reasonable. The truth is, I went through a window—a window with plenty of glass in it. Now how the deuce ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... pallid with fear, the other European residents of Sandakan seemed utterly indifferent to the danger to which they were exposed. But life in a land like Borneo breeds fatalism. As an official remarked, with a shrug of his shoulders, "After you have spent a few years out here you don't much care how you die, or how soon. Plague is as convenient a way of ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... were none," said the Father gently. "She left her vocation to me, and I decided for her to become a Sister of Mercy. I have little sympathy," with a shrug half argumentative, half deprecatory—"but little sympathy with the conventual system for spirits like hers. She would have wasted and worn away in the offices of prayer. She needed action. And she had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... the answer, with a shrug. "Better time to rest when all work is done. Me young; reindeers young—we rest ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... is amazed at the change within her. Burning to tell Aeneas her secret, yet withheld by womanly modesty, she endeavours to betray it indirectly by heaping extravagant gifts upon him. She counts over the list of her former suitors before him that he may see from the shrug of her shoulders that her affections are not placed elsewhere. Like Portia to Bassanio before he chooses the casket, she throws out hints, calls them back hastily, half lets fall the word, then breaks off the sentence, ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... gentlemen, the affair becomes serious, for lo, the approach of a doubtful election, and a trifle of clerical interference, like a seed upon the balance, might well—" the sentence was appendixed by an explosive shrug. ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... with a shrug and significant laugh, "am not to allow him to go. Behold in me an emissary of Love! You; would not have suspected a Mercury in your William, Catharine?" Within the last month he had begun to talk down in this fashion to her, accommodating himself ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... some corner or other; and if he parts with her as soon as his banns are cried, that is all you can expect. Do you think any mother in Belgravia would make a row about that? They are downier than you are; they would shrug their aristocratic shoulders, and decline to listen to the past lives of their sons-in-law—unless it was all in the newspapers, ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... your husband's," returned Mademoiselle, with a shrug and a malicious elevation of ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... we had elected to pass by our Zulu names in Zu-Vendis), she said, with a pretty shrug of her ivory shoulder. 'Nay, I know not; what is a poor woman to do, when the wooer has thirty thousand swords wherewith to urge his love?' And from under her long lashes she ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... asked Phanes, with an incredulous shrug of the shoulders. "Why the Persians are rulers over half the world already. All the great Asiatic powers have submitted to their sceptre; Egypt and our own mother-country, Hellas, are the only two that have been ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... fancy!" said Hubert, with a French shrug, "and my pretty sister shall have hers in spite of earth, air, fire, and water! And now, fair Leoline, for a brief time, adieu, ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... manner, even if the reason of it was not so clear to Pedro's mind, and his hot Latin blood flew instinctively to his face. But for that, he might have shown some concern or asked an explanation. As it was, he at once retorted with the national shrug and the ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... replied by an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders. "We know better than to interfere when she's in one of her ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... said Cassini, with that shrug which no shoulders but those of a Frenchman can ever give, "it is a matter of taste; and perhaps we have no right to dictate in such matters to persons who would think a week a long lease of life, and who, instead of seven days, may not have so many hours. As to the profanation, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... young fellow exclaimed, with a friendly shrug of his shoulders and a gleam of his white teeth; for it was easy to make friends with the genial artist. "And between the governors and the provveditori one may scarce draw breath! One's bread and onions—" ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... or 'Keep him very strictly.' And then, as soon as you are accustomed to look upon the prisoner as a dangerous man, all of a sudden, without rhyme or reason they write—'Set him at liberty,' and actually add to their missive—'urgent.' You will own, my lord, 'tis enough to make a man at dinner shrug ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a shrug, "I am not sorry. I found it very interesting, but of late those feelings of which I have told you have taken hold of me. I have felt as though a terrible shadow were brooding over ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... one. Bennington caught himself watching her with fascinated interest in silence. He began to find this one of her most potent charms—the faculty of translating into a grace so exquisite as almost to realize the fabled poetry of motion, the least shrug of her shoulders, the smallest crook of her finger, the slightest toss of her small, well-balanced head. She ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... it shot into its socket. A sound of retiring footsteps in the passage outside ensued, and the man was to all appearance a prisoner. Advancing to the table, he stood a moment looking down at the body; then with a slight shrug of the shoulders walked over to one of the windows and hoisted the blind. The darkness outside was absolute, the panes were covered with dust, but by wiping this away he could see that the window was fortified with strong iron bars crossing it within a few inches ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... all as to that," replied Adelaide. "There was a girl that came to stay with Nancy King last year; her name was Freda Noell. She believed in ghosts. She said she had once been in a haunted house. What is it, Briar? Why do you shrug your shoulders?" ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... Dan, with a shrug of his shoulders. "Just the same, I'm out of it, so I don't want anybody to vote ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield
... live better than many others, I have some gold and silver by me, and a shop well furnished, and shall be able to make a shift when many of my betters are starving. But I am grieved to see the coldness and indifference of many people with whom I discourse. Some are afraid of a proclamation, others shrug up their shoulders, and cry, what would you have us to do? Some give out, there is no danger at all. Others are comforted that it will be a common calamity and they shall fare no worse than their neighbours. Will a man, who hears ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... a shrug. "Nothing to get mystical about. Patterns. Just patterns. Every environment leaves the stamp of its matrix on the individual shaped in it. It's a personnel man's trade to recognize the make of a person, just as you would recognize the make of ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... by Rossini. It is now fifteen years since this pleasantry began to be invariably reproduced at the commencement of every winter, and always with the same success. One begins to meet in society a few Parisians who shrug their shoulders with an air of incredulity when you speak to them of the sea-serpent, but no one dares to evince the least skepticism touching the new opera of Rossini. We received this morning a letter from our correspondent at Bologna, and he furnishes ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... necessarily keep step with the campaigner, death staring him in the face throughout the campaign, yet the burgher endeavoured to show a cheerful countenance. In this he succeeded to a surprising degree. It is a characteristic of the Boer that he can meet frowning fortune with a smile or at least a shrug of the shoulders. He found that his best policy was to forget the reverse of yesterday. Flying to-day before the enemy, to-morrow he will rally, and charge that same foe ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... lane, and quite into town, by a legion of ghosts of their customers. Some shook their heads, and thought it a shame that the doctor should put Dolph to pass the night alone in that dismal house, where he might be spirited away, no one knew whither; while others observed, with a shrug, that if the devil did carry off the youngster, it would be but taking ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... Nicolas, with a shrug of his shoulders. "But I have made my agreement with the Austrian government; and when the war has been won, I shall ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... invite you both—at the same time!" she said, with a laugh and a little Parisian shrug; and then she looked at me again with a look that one would say was abominable or charming, according as one's particular ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... a shrug, "she was on her lonesome and so was I at the time. It was just before I went to Yorkshire, you know. Carrissima was in Devonshire and I was kicking my ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... it your own way," and Blake, with a shrug of his broad shoulders, began to wheel the ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton
... moment the servant stood with a slight smile on his face at the contradiction; then, with a shrug of his shoulders, he entered the public room of the tavern. Within the air was so thick with pipes in full blast, and the light of the two dips was so feeble, that he halted in order to distinguish the dozen figures of the occupants, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... scornfully. An expectant look in Watusk's eye arrested him from saying more. "He's trying to find out how much Nesis told me," he thought. Aloud he said, with a shrug like Watusk himself: "Well, I'll be glad when it ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... covered her face, as if of satisfaction at good news; then, shrugging her shoulders, she languidly asked: "Is she missing?" and added, "Helas! then others have an absent child, as well as I," and shook her head; and, with another shrug, continued, as if subsiding into herself, and in a tone of combined decision and sadness: "I know nothing of the lady, nothing of my boy. Heaven grant my son is safe, my poor Narcisse, and that he may not return and meet his cruel father, who so hates him;" and she brushed ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... house of his, with the gable festooned with the real ivy that Bruce Marshall's great-grandmother had brought with her from England. Judith thought contrastingly of Eben King's staring, primrose-colored house in all its bare, intrusive grandeur. She gave a little shrug ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... looked round at this bit of country for two months"—with a shrug of the shoulders. "I should have sought your bright eyes could see all what sere is to see in ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... a shoulder shrug. "Once more they run at me after you go," says he, "and then come our brave Greek General with big army and chase Turks away. And the Captain say why am I such big fool as to stay behind. That is all I know. Three weeks ago I am discharged from being soldier. ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... or inquiry, was directed squarely at Ester, and received no other answer than a shrug of the shoulder and an impatient tapping of her heels on the bare floor. Under her breath Ester muttered, "Disagreeable ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... again with his bilingual vehemence and Parisian gestures. (Some people never can talk French without trying to shrug shoulders.) Brandishing his dessert-knife, he shouts, 'Avancons, mes amis! go ahead, my boys! En avant! Excusez-moi,' and scatters scraps of French about, till Leech cries, 'There, don't talk like a lady's-maid, Ponny; why can't you speak English?' And, to change ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... up out of the apartments, and carry them to the barrier outside Paris (yes, sir); I bring them back to the persons to whom they belong; I lay them down. I know how to arrange a room; I make the beds; I colour the inlaid floors of the apartments; I watch a sick person through the night and day (a shrug) for so much a day (a shrug), and for the night also (a shrug); I agree as to the price with those persons who employ me, for five francs the night, eight francs for the twenty-four hours, when they do not feed me; besides, I watch the dead in the apartment during the twenty-four ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... bland determined oration ended, Crook McKusick, the hook-nosed leader, glanced at her with a resigned shrug and growled: "All right, ma'am. Anything for a change, as the fellow said to the ragged shirt. We'll start a Y. M. C. A. I suppose you'll be having us ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... that shrug meant. He searched his mind for a plan and found none. Better die fighting than yield, or risk the vengeance of Friedrich von Stein. If he could get the doctor away from the desk where he controlled the blue-white flame there might be a chance to do something. Von Stein ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... change has come over him," she said. "He does nothing but shrug his shoulders and say 'Le diable!' and 'The fool!' Last night I could hardly sleep because of his growling. I wonder what bad spirit has ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... discretion who will deal with my foreign correspondence, make a fair copy in English and summarize the complaints which these good people make. You quite understand," he said with a shrug of his shoulders, "that mankind is not perfect, less perfect is womankind, and least perfect is that section of mankind which employs servants. They usually have stories to tell not greatly to their masters' credit, ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... money, said, "Shylock, do you hear? will you lend the money?" To this question the Jew replied, "Signior Antonio, on the Rialto many a time and often you have railed at me about my moneys and my usuries, and I have borne it with a patient shrug, for sufferance is the badge of all our tribe; and then you have called me unbeliever, cutthroat dog, and spit upon my Jewish garments, and spurned at me with your foot as if I was a cur. Well then, it now appears you need my help; ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... at his wife a shrug of the shoulders which M. Leblanc did not catch, he continued with an emphatic and caressing ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... a reluctant shrug. "If you insist, and if Manning okays it. But is it a good idea? Direct contact with a mind ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... shrug. "What other course is open to him? He wrote to them that such work as he has done is the very worst he ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... still for a moment, rapt, it would seem, in contemplation of an unpleasant vision. Then with a shrug of his shoulders he moved to the fireplace and turned on ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... woman—had loved like that in a prose novel before; nobody at all except Des Grieux, and he is but as a sketch to an elaborate picture. She will wander after Pallas, and would like to think that she would like to be of the train of Dian (one shudders at imagining the scowl and the shrug and the twist of the skirt of the goddess!). But the kiss of Aphrodite has been on her, and has mastered her whole nature. How the thing could be done, out of poetry, has always been a marvel to me; but I have explained it by the supposition that the ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... strong as to indicate partiality, and furnish ground of appeal. He therefore uses language, perhaps in reference to the credibility of a witness, which looks fair and even colorless on paper, but by the tone or emphasis in which some vital word is uttered, or with the aid of a shrug or glance, carries to those whom he is addressing an unmistakable conviction that he means it to be taken in a certain sense. Any such judicial action, however, is rare, and would be looked upon with disapprobation by the bar.[Footnote: ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... morning—he came to the breakfast table in the same mood of mind. "Now I must try what I can do," said his wife to the same friend whom she had consulted the day before; she now began to reason with her husband, and soothe and persuade him; he answered only by a forbidding look and a shrug of the shoulder. She then boldly snatched away his book, and dauntlessly abode the storm. The storm was not long in coming—his own fiend rises up not more furiously from the side of Eve than did the ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... say that would have weight with men of this stamp? Should he tell them of the glory that would accrue to his and their country by the discovery of the Western Sea? At this they would only shrug their shoulders. Should he tell them of the unseen forces that drew him to that wonderful land of the West—where the crisp clear air held an intoxicating quality unknown in the East; where the eye foamed on and on over limitless expanses of waving green, till the ...
— Pathfinders of the Great Plains - A Chronicle of La Verendrye and his Sons • Lawrence J. Burpee
... silent, reserved men of Spain, with whom a foreigner might mingle for half a century without having half a dozen words addressed to him, unless he himself made the first advances to intimacy, which, after all, might be rejected with a shrug and a no intendo; for, among the many deeply rooted prejudices of these people, is the strange idea that no foreigner can speak their language; an idea to which they will still cling though they hear him conversing with perfect ease; for in that case the utmost that they will concede ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... with diamonds. His voice was naturally hoarse and loud, but with infinite industry he had brought himself to a pronunciation shrill, piping, and effeminate. His conversion was larded with foreign phrases and foreign oaths, and every thing he said was accompanied with a significant shrug. ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... himself with his bourgeois excellences and his great good citizenship has not the Gallic sparkle in his mentality. He never deeply knew the soul of Quebec. He was too much concerned with its practical and useful politics to be conscious of its passions. From the shrug of his shoulder, and a certain twinkle in his eye when he mentioned diplomacy with clerics, one surmised that among the clergy he was the master among politicians who must walk warily. But he was too stout, too thrifty, too much of a high type of budgeteer to be spiritually ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... the Eleventh on the boards? He probably never spoke louder than a physician at a consultation—no, not when he confronted the Duke of Burgundy. He would have to glide noiselessly from scene to scene, a whisper here, a look there, and perhaps a shrug of the shoulder or scarcely perceptible motion of the hand; yet, all through, it would be evident that he was the snake on two legs, the anointed Mephistopheles, the intellect without the feeling—and, with all that, he could not be the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... illumine the acts of this secretive race began slowly to dispread its rays; and, as statement followed statement, they saw that all had known of the business: that all had been down to Belthorpe: all save the wise youth Adrian, who, with due deference and a sarcastic shrug, objected to the proceeding, as putting them in the hands of the man Blaize. His wisdom shone forth in an oration so persuasive and aphoristic that had it not been based on a plea against honour, it would have made Sir Austin waver. But its basis was expediency, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... words he made the slightest shifting movement, only a lifting shrug of the shoulder, yet in his palm lay a six- shooter. He had slipped it from his trousers band with the ease of long practice and absolute surety. Judge Stillman gasped and backed against the desk, but McNamara idly ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... cave of Adullam[obs3], indignation meeting, "winter of our discontent" [Henry VI]; "with what I most enjoy contented least" [Shakespeare]. V. be discontented &c. adj.; quarrel with one's bread and butter; repine; regret &c. 833; wish one at the bottom of the Red Sea; take on, take to heart; shrug the shoulders; make a wry face, pull a long face; knit one's brows; look blue, look black, look black as thunder, look blank, look glum. take in bad part, take ill; fret, chafe, make a piece of work[Fr]; grumble, croak; lament &c. 839. cause discontent ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... a French gesture, a shrug of his thin shoulders, which caused me to suspect he was ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... was, Frank thought he could see Atwater shrug his shoulders and look to him for the required explanation. For Abram was a fellow of few words, and Frank was ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... with a final angry shrug and expectoration, permitted himself to be ushered out of ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... about them. To such an extent does this hold good, that certain persons are privileged to be vulgar and rude, to say impertinent things and make remarks that would ostracize a less fortunate individual from the polite world for ever; society will only smilingly shrug its shoulders and say: "It is only Mr. So-and-So's way." It is useless to assert that in cases like these, people are in possession of their normal senses. They are under influences of which they ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... gave vent to a fresh shower of tears at this encouraging remark, and made Miss Philomela shrug her shoulders ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... answered her husband, with an expressive shrug of the shoulders. 'The Egertons have always been a ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... opined Trenchard with a shrug, and had caution dug into his ribs by Blake's elbow, whilst Richard made haste to prove him wrong by saying ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... as we drove up the lawn, eyed me attentively, saying to the footman, It will be so, John, you may depend upon it.—John answer'd only by a shrug.—What either meant, I shall not pretend to divine.—As I came near the house, I met Mr. Jenkings almost out of breath, and, pulling the string, he came to the coach-side. I was hurrying home, my dear ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning
... led to them were so thickly festooned with spider webs and dirt, that it did not seem possible that anyone had passed through for a dozen years. Finding no sign of habitation, either human or spiritual, I finally turned back to the house with a philosophic shrug and the reflection that Cat-Eye Mose's nocturnal vagaries were ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... to be taken for thieves," he said with a shrug of his shoulders. "Look here, Auguste, just run down to the corner of the street and bring back a gendarme. The gentleman can explain to the concierge in his presence, and then we shall be at liberty to get ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... especially the fond mother, looks sharply round for the so-evidently merited applause, as an actor of the name of MUNDEN, whom I recollect thirty years ago, used, when he had treated us to a witty shrug of his shoulders, or twist of his chin, to turn his face up to the gallery for the clap. If I had to declare on my oath which have been the most disagreeable moments of my life, I verily believe, that, after due consideration, ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... With a shrug of his shoulders, Jim asked him that question in Mr. Ollendorf's French method, about the pink-and-green overcoat ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips
... saw Halley shrug his shoulders is of very little importance. But he hurried to the helm, put it hard down, while Wilson, leaving the line, hauled at the main-topsail brace to bring the ship to the wind. The man who was steering received a smart blow, and could not comprehend ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... mechanically as the car drove off. His mind was already busy with the problem suggested by Miller's appearance in these parts. For the first few minutes of his drive he was back again in the turmoil which he had left. Then with a little shrug of the shoulders he abandoned this new enigma. Its solution must be close ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... news for a fellow knocked out like Jack after making such a plucky fight for his life and saving his lieutenant," answered Bill with a shrug of his ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... with a shrug of the shoulders and went back to the kitchen and sat down at the table, all set for breakfast. She took up her fork and cut off a bit of waffle. She placed it in her mouth. Her eyes went ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... you say that nobody had an interest in doing Carboys some sort of mischief in order to prevent that wedding from being consummated, Mr. Narkom," said Cleek with a shrug of the shoulders. "Certainly, Van Nant would have been glad to see a spoke put in that particular wheel; though I freely confess I do not see what good could come of preventing it by doing away with Carboys, as he would then be in as bad a position as ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... instant the mysterious gleam far back in Blake's eyes died out. There was the hard, low note in Philip's voice which carried conviction and Blake knew he was ready to play the hand which he held. With a grunt and a shrug of his shoulders he stirred up the dogs with a crack of his whip and struck out at their head due west. During the next half hour Philip's eyes and ears were ceaselessly on the alert. He traveled close to Blake, with the big Colt in his hand, watching ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... to overtop you, mon ami," laughed Lorimer with a lazy shrug. "By Jove, I am sleepy, Errington, old boy; are we never going to bed? It's no good waiting till it's dark here, ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... remarked another with a shrug. It was a saying to which Mackay had become accustomed. For it was one of the shameless proverbs ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith
... height as she spoke, and her dark eye flashed out from beneath the shadow of the deep borders of her widow's cap. A stranger would have gazed on her with admiration, but her son turned away with a slight shrug of the shoulders and a curling lip, as he said to himself, "My mother may feel all this, for she manages the estates, and she bestows the influence—while I amuse myself. Mother," he added aloud, "they say there is fine sport in the neighborhood of the Glen, ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... ways, sir," said I, with a shrug of the shoulders, to imply that the answer might be too tedious to listen to. "I have studied to be a priest, and I have served as a 'rat' in the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... fences and walls, and variegated with the diverse crops of well-tilled fields, and on its bay-side are occasional small wharves for pleasure-boats. Fifty years ago it was very different, and, (though, perhaps, I may be an old fogey and have that grey-hair fashion of thinking, with an expressive shrug, "Ah, things are not as they were when I was a boy!") I must say, far more beautiful to my eyes than it is now. You have seen a bold, handsome-bearded, athletic sailor-fellow, with a manner combining the sunniness of calms, the dash of storms, and the romance of many strange lands about ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... that was a shrug. She was, as I think I have said, a very shrewd person. I have since had reason to believe that she could, if she had chosen, have relieved my mind very considerably, but at the moment she thought it was ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... wince or kick with impatience. "Shuck"; to shrug up the shoulders, expressive of dislike ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... shoulders in a kind of half-shrug. It was at once a gesture of relief and of dismissal, so without more ado I said, "If there's nothing further you want, I'll make off now. If you want me any time I'll be pottering ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... to keep aloof from him. The Tories did not love revolutionary dynasties, and the Whigs being in office could not sanction a pretender, and one who, they significantly intimated with a charitable shrug of the shoulders, was not a very scrupulous one. The prince himself, though he was not insensible to the charms of society, and especially of agreeable women, was not much chagrined by this. The world thought that he had fitted up his fine house, and ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... supplied the Native Son quickly. "As well forget that other name. And," he added with the shrug which the Happy Family had come to hate, "as well forget the story, also. I am not hungry for the feel of a knife in my back." He smiled again engagingly at Andy Green. It was astonishing how readily that smile had sprung to life with ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... a pity he did not write in pencil," said he, throwing them down again with a shrug of disappointment. "As you have no doubt frequently observed, Watson, the impression usually goes through—a fact which has dissolved many a happy marriage. However, I can find no trace here. I rejoice, however, to perceive that he wrote with ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... shrug: "Wait until I give you an opportunity. Floyd and I don't make fools of ourselves for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... which I had timidly approached the same subject with Alan. Lucy was not a Mervyn, and not a person to inspire awe under any circumstances. My instincts were right again, for she turned away with a slight shrug of her shoulders. ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... he cried with a smile and a shrug of his shoulders. 'You'll learn better by and by. And if he did die in the street, what then? What is that ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... answer by an equivocal smile, and a shrug, that seemed to say—there's no accounting ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... of our days (such is Wellington) sees nothing one single inch beyond the field of battle; and he is so observant of discipline, that if I ordered him to be flogged in the presence of the allied armies, he would not utter a complaint nor shrug a shoulder; he would ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... the officer demurred to their surrender, turned on him so fiercely that the man thought better of it and departed with a shrug of his shoulders, as I supposed to make ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... Mendicant, with a shrug, which sets all his coats and bags in motion—"Och! och! The Big House, inagh! Musha, do you want me an' the childhre here, to be torn to pieces wid the dogs? or lashed wid a whip by one o' the sarvints? No, no, avourneen!" (with a hopeless shake of the head.) ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... not," said Mary, with a shrug of contempt; "but I shouldn't like to be a common vulgar man ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... he, "though Sir Jasper would hardly seem in a drinking humor," and, with the very slightest shrug of the shoulders, he turned back ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... a large supply of more or less correct history at hand, and this one, being a philosopher, adds his own theories to further obscure the truth." This in the most perfect English, accompanied by a shrug of the shoulders entirely French. "Chenonceaux being Diane's chateau and this her own room, what more natural than that her cipher should be here, as Rousseau says? And yet, as Honore de Balzac points out, this same cipher ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... a shrug and a keen, inquiring look in the doctor's eyes. "I've shown it to Case, and he says 'Tonio has only one object in life now, in or out of the post, and that is to square accounts with Willett, who was ass enough to strike him. This ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... with a shrug. If any other man had hinted to him, in the most graceful and allegorical manner, that he lied, it would have been better for that man if he had not spoken. But he forgave Tyson many things, and for many reasons, one of these, ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... Rabeira with a genial shrug, "so much cheaper for me. But do not talk on the beach, dere's good boy, or you make trouble-palaver ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... not much question of dignity; it is a matter of necessity," said the Chevalier, with the trace of a shrug. ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac |
