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More "Shirk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... judgment to come by telling us that we are our own judgment here. The latter part of the statement is not the whole truth, but there is truth in it. The strain brings out the strength there is, but shirk it and we have weakness. Do as we like rather than do as we ought, and the price must be paid in loss of manhood. Everything we gain for selfishness we must ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... himself to be an honest man and will not shirk his part in the common cause"—the lame man tried to ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... did not shirk any of the other expeditions nor the garrison duty, but always marched with the foremost and retreated among the last. You ought to estimate from such considerations, those who live well and in order, and not hate a man for wearing his hair long. For habits of ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias
... is apt to be perplexing to the reader who looks for system or a definite and reasoned statement of doctrine; but his aphorisms are all the more fitted to impress readers who are not inclined to criticism, and might shirk an elaborate argument. It is difficult, accordingly, to select from him a series of propositions that would give a general idea of the complete transmutation of morality which he demands. So far as I can make out, there ...
— Recent Tendencies in Ethics • William Ritchie Sorley
... home, Patrasche; it is time thou didst rest, and I can quite well push in the cart by myself," urged Nello many a morning; but Patrasche, who understood him aright, would no more have consented to stay at home than a veteran soldier to shirk when the charge was sounding; and every day he would rise and place himself in his shafts, and plod along over the snow through the fields that his four round feet had left their print upon so ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... in the first place, that the Government of the United States does not shirk responsibility. It puts the code into the hands of its officers "for the government of all persons attached to the naval service," and is doubtless prepared to stand by the rules contained in it, as being in accordance with international ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... Planters or sons of planters, many of them men of fortune, soldiering was a hard task to which they only became reconciled by reflecting that it was "niddering" in gentlemen to assume voluntarily the discharge of duties and then shirk. The 8th, Colonel Kelly, was from the Attakapas—"Acadians," the race of which Longfellow sings in "Evangeline." A home-loving, simple people, few spoke English, fewer still had ever before moved ten miles from their natal cabanas; and the war to them was "a liberal ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... and had been so placed that poverty, even, such poverty as mine, was a curse to me. You know what I gave up because I feared that curse. Was I to be foiled at last, because such a creature as that wanted to shirk out of his bargain? I knew there would be some who would say I had been false. Hugh Clavering says so now, I suppose. But they never should say I had left him to die alone ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... bloated with clothes, but that northerly air, it seemed to be fingering our very skins. Yet there was hardly wind enough to fill the sail. Ricketty-rock, ricketty-rock, went the sweeps between the thole-pins, as we rowed to the fishing ground six miles or so away. Not one of us wished to shirk the heavy work. 'Twas indeed our only source of warmth. The sun was setting. The moon began to rise. The sea was all of a ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... sit like a giant above all human affairs for the next two decades, and the speech of Mars is blunt and plain. He will say to us all: "Get your houses in order. If you squabble among yourselves, waste time, litigate, muddle, snatch profits and shirk obligations, I will certainly come down upon you again. I have taken all your men between eighteen and fifty, and killed and maimed such as I pleased; millions of them. I have wasted your substance—contemptuously. Now, mark you, you ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... to be held the 12th of June. If it should shirk its responsibility, and not put a strong suffrage plank in its platform, pledging itself to use all its educational powers and all its party machinery to carry the amendment, then I shall have no respect for any woman who will speak or ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... I've helped to put away every man, woman and child that has died in this settlement since I was grown, and I ain't goin' to shirk my duty to Brother Thompson—not that I ever expected to do it for him." She babbled on, gently urging me from the room, where her presence was the last blinding ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... to her forthwith—by post; the usual expedient of those who shirk "scenes." He furthermore took the precaution to add that ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... Maker out. Work, the Titan; Work, the friend, Shaping the earth to a glorious end, Draining the swamps and blasting the hills, Doing whatever the Spirit wills— Rending a continent apart, To answer the dream of the Master heart. Thank God for a world where none may shirk— Thank God for the ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... workwoman will not encumber herself with too many tools; but she will not shirk the expense of necessary implements, the simplest by preference, and the ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... horror at some of the names chosen to serve on committees. "If a secretary proves inefficient, the others will very soon call her a 'slacker,' and she will have to reform or resign. It will be a question of public opinion. A girl may shirk her lessons in school and her classmates don't much care, but if she shirks the work she has undertaken to do for a society they will be very indignant. These clubs are an elementary object-lesson in community life, ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... here to face calmly the necessity of doing away with a human life. I didn't shirk it for a moment. That's what a short twelvemonth has brought me to. Don't think I am reproaching you, O blind force! You are justified because you are. Whatever had to happen you would not even have ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... had succeeded in putting an end to neighborly interference, the nest began to show a deplorable disinclination to "stay put." Whether the material could not be properly fastened, or whether the bird was so demoralized as to shirk ordinary precautions, the fact is, that every breeze shook the little structure, and four completed nests of this unnatural sort fell, one after another, in ruins to the ground. Then motherly instinct came to the ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... was my duty. Not many people do their duty in this world, but though I'm a very poor man, I won't shirk it—no, I won't shirk it.' He rubbed his hands together slowly, and nodded across the hearth to his niece. Instead of being pleased, as she ought to have been, with this announcement, she gave a quick little shiver. 'My brother John—your father, ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... possessed. It must be owned, and no one was more ready to confess it than himself, that his literary attainments were by no means of a high order. "We don't spin tops" is a favorite saying amongst artillery officers, indicating that they do not shirk their duty by frivolous pursuits; but it must be confessed that Servadac, being naturally idle, was very much given to "spinning tops." His good abilities, however, and his ready intelligence had carried him successfully through the curriculum ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... with all other forms of work [Roosevelt wrote years after], so on the round-up, a man of ordinary power, who nevertheless does not shirk things merely because they are disagreeable or irksome, soon earns his place. There were crack riders and ropers, who, just because they felt such overweening pride in their own prowess, were not really very valuable men. Continually on the circles a cow or a calf would ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... slipshod, evasive, hypocritical work? Can you afford to shirk, or make-believe or practise pretense in any act of life? No, no; for all the time you are molding yourself into a deformity, and drifting away from the Divine. What the world does and says about you is really no matter, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... been more rapid than in Kansas, yet I do not lose sight of the fact that thousands of foreigners are each year added to the voting population, whose ballots in the aggregate defeat the will of our enlightened, American-born citizens. Besides, it is a too convenient way for a legislature to shirk its own responsibility. If the demand is made, I hope it may be done in connection with that for ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... WEMYS, VAUGHANS,—half-fledged sinners, Who shame us by their imitations; Who turn, 'tis true—but what of that? Give me the useful peaching Rat; Not things as mute as Punch, when bought, Whose wooden heads are all they've brought; Who, false enough to shirk their friends, But too faint-hearted to betray, Are, after all their twists and bends, But souls in Limbo, damned half way. No, no, we nobler vermin are A genus useful as we're rare; Midst all the things miraculous Of which your natural histories brag, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... they're not in your line, and I know you hate them. But you're dead right. I dare say I'll tell you something that will astonish you before long. But I'm not doing anything to be ashamed of. I haven't made any mistake; and if I had, I shouldn't shirk the payment." ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... the worst term of reproach that can be applied to a sailor. It signifies a skulk, a shirk,— one who is always trying to get clear of work, and is out of the way, or hanging back, when duty is to be done. "Marine'' is the term applied more particularly to a man who is ignorant and clumsy about seaman's work,— a greenhorn, a land-lubber. ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... and make them more devoted to their rulers. It is, therefore, not surprising that the Jews, trained in the spirit of a century-long repressive legislation, have remained in the category of those subjects, who are less accurate in the discharge of their civic duty, who shirk their obligations towards the State, and do not fully join Russian life. No less than six hundred and fifty restrictive laws directed against the Jews may be enumerated in the Russian Code, and the discriminations and disabilities ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... abstain; be temperate, and pray; Fast if thou wilt; and yet, throughout the day, Neglect no labour and no duty shirk: Not many hours are left thee for thy work - And it were meet That all should ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... slave is seen in the light of history to be the dearest kind of labor. It was frequently said after the war that the emancipated Negro would be worthless as a laborer; that he was naturally lazy, shiftless, and a shirk, and that he would relapse into a vagabond. But, as a matter of fact, far more good work has been done in the South since the war than before, and for the most part the Negro has done it. Great crops of cotton, sugar, rice, tobacco, corn, and other staples have been raised and marketed; ...
— The American Missionary - Vol. 44, No. 3, March, 1890 • Various
... of the kind that'll shirk on me when my back's turned, or steal from me if he gets a chance, or betray any trust I put in him. He's as poor as blue-John and as proud as Lucifer, but he's as straight as the barrel of that old gun. He's got Kentucky blood in him, ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... annoyance. May I not rely wholly upon you, Stewart? Just trust you to manage these obstreperous cowboys and protect my property and Alfred's, and take care of us—of me, until this revolution is ended? I have never had a day's worry since I bought the ranch. It is not that I want to shirk my responsibilities; it is that I like being happy. May I put so much faith ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... beings are so ill-treated is due absolutely to the cupidity of one man, and to the apathy of the rest of the world. And it is due as much to the apathy and indifference of whoever may read this as to the silence of Elihu Root or Sir Edward Grey. No one can shirk his responsibility by sneering, "Am I my brother's keeper?" The Government of the United States and the thirteen other countries have promised to protect these people, to care for their "material and moral ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... in the world of man, no one can live without occupation. Lack of sufficiently worthy work is one of the crying evils of our day, among both boys and girls. Every thing is done to make labor less, or to turn it completely into pleasure,—to shirk it, or to scorn it. The sewing-machine has made the good sewer a phenomenon. Our grandmothers used to rip their dresses and linings with sharp scissors: a good jump from a carriage will send us right out of a modern costume. Teachers learn the lessons now, and the pupils take notes ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... the free men of England should no longer be seized by the King's special mandate or warrant, it being contrary to their rights and liberties and the laws of their country. At first the King returned an answer to this petition, in which he tried to shirk it altogether; but, the House of Commons then showing their determination to go on with the impeachment of Buckingham, the King in alarm returned an answer, giving his consent to all that was required of him. He not only afterwards departed from his word ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... pay the rent. I should have liked to tell her this, but the mystery of the affair gave a piquancy to their deed of kindness which the ladies were unwilling to give up; and at first Martha had to shirk many a perplexed question as to her ways and means of living in such a house, but by-and-by Miss Matty's prudent uneasiness sank down into acquiescence with the ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... become entirely dependent on her. But though she loved and admired him, she no longer relied on him, as she had once done; he had a queer way of failing her at the big moments of life, and now, to-day, she felt it too bad of him to shirk the moment of Godfrey Radmore's return. His presence would have made everything easier, for he had never admitted either to himself or her, that Godfrey had behaved in ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... have much to do," he said to himself, as he noted the big face look up and meet his eye through the glass. "There is something I cannot shirk—a vital relation out of the past of both ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... traditions, are able to respect those of other nations. Internationalism is an understanding between the decadent elements in each country—the conscientious objectors, the drawing-room Socialists, the visionaries—who shirk the realities of life and, as the Socialist Karl Kautsky in a description of Idealists has admirably expressed it, "see only differences of opinion and misapprehension where there are actually irreconcilable antagonisms." This is why at times of crisis ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... if they are working well and their crop promises to be large, he will permit and even encourage them to draw upon him liberally; it is only a partial failure of the crop, or some intimation of the negro's intention to shirk his obligations, that induces his country factor to preach the virtue of self-restraint, or moralize upon the advantages ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... the young nobleman continued, "the Miss Rackstraws came out quite strong; really they did now, upon my honour. It was quite a quiet thing. Lady Merriborough hadn't even got a new gown on. Lady Anne, you shirk London society this year, and we miss you: we expected you to give us two or three things this season; we did now, really. I said to Tufthunt, only yesterday, Why has not Lady Anne Newcome given anything? You know Tufthunt? ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... want to shirk; you want to leave me to get out of the mess for myself. Oh, of course, you're not legally involved; I am aware of that; you can leave the sinking ship if you ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... notice that he was posted a member of the Council General of the Commune. After standing as candidate for four months, he had been elected unopposed, after several ballots, by some thirty suffrages. No one voted nowadays; the Sections were deserted; rich and poor alike only sought to shirk the performance of public duties. The most momentous events had ceased to rouse either enthusiasm or curiosity; the newspapers were left unread. Out of the seven hundred thousand inhabitants of the capital Evariste doubted if as many as three or four thousand still ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... into these people's minds that they could shirk this care that had fallen on them. To keep Morely's fall a secret would save his wife from terrible grief and pain, and would give the poor broken man a better chance to retrieve the past; and kept from her it must be, at whatever cost ...
— Stephen Grattan's Faith - A Canadian Story • Margaret M. Robertson
... time, but neither his intelligence nor disposition corresponded to his outward appearance; he was at once violent and feeble, indolent, narrow-minded, and sensual, and was easily swayed by his courtiers and mistresses. The idea of a war had no attractions for him, and he was inclined to shirk it. His uncle Artabanus exhorted him to follow his inclination for peace, and he lent a favourable ear to his advice until his cousin Mardonius remonstrated with him, and begged him not to leave the disgrace of Marathon ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... fitted?' 'Well, it would have been cowardly to back out. We borrow the ideas of these Frenchmen, of association as opposed to competition, as the true law of industry and of organizing labor—of securing the laborer's position by organizing production and consumption—and it would be cowardly to shirk the name. It is only fools who know nothing about the matter, or people interested in the competitive system of trade, who believe or say that a desire to divide other people's property is of the essence of Socialism.' 'That may be very true, but nine-tenths of mankind, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... you going to do about this? It is largely your business. You cannot shirk it and say that you send the boy to school, and it is the teacher's business to ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... Who has not at some time or other lain sleepily in bed of a morning and gone through in thought the processes of getting up, until a louder call or an alarum bell has awakened the realisation that the task is not yet begun? Who has not been tempted to shirk practice of some sort in thinking of a prize? Who has not sometimes built expectation higher and higher until his demands of fate have become so great that, in despair of making good, he has let the whole plan slip away into the valley ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... many I have been obliged to shirk this year, for the sake of living almost solely with "Cecilia," none have had less patience with my retirement than Miss Palmer, who, bitterly believing I intended never to visit her again, has forborne sending ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... of his brethren at every street-corner!" continued she. "Well; I didn't mean to dabble in witchcraft to-day, further than the lighting of my pipe; but a witch I am, and a witch I'm likely to be, and there's no use trying to shirk it. I'll make a man of my scarecrow, were it only for the ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... Curlew' in ten days," Raed remarked. "And I don't think we had better leave here, to go off any great distance, till we feel sure she's not coming back for us. If she's not back in two weeks, I shall think we have got to shirk for ourselves." ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... me on the mantel-block, There ticks a busy little clock— The measurer of time. It never stops or tries to shirk; Unceasingly it plies its work With ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... them, and in this regard it is lawful for man to possess property. Moreover this is necessary to human life for three reasons. First because every man is more careful to procure what is for himself alone than that which is common to many or to all: since each one would shirk the labor and leave to another that which concerns the community, as happens where there is a great number of servants. Secondly, because human affairs are conducted in more orderly fashion if each man is charged with taking care of some particular thing himself, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... against our sacred front They muster, miles on miles, I am resolved to stick the brunt," Said bold HORATIUS BYLES; "For Liberty I'll take my stand, Just like a stout Berserk, And still defend with bloody brand Our glorious Right to Shirk. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 12, 1916 • Various
... weather for travelling," said Bob Birnie tentatively. "I have not said it before, lad, but when ye own yourself a fool to take this way of making your fortune, ten thousand dollars will still be ready to start ye right. I've no wish to shirk ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... Drummond. Wing's carbine can be utilized. He can post Moreno down the gorge at the second bend to command that approach and put little McGuffey, the recruit, at the next bend to command Moreno and send a bullet through him if he shirk or swerve. ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... all relish the mission before him; he was, however, too manly to shirk it. Hence that evening, directly after dinner, he made his way to the mansion of Mr. Arthur Presby Carter, the wealthy owner of the Echo, Burmingham's most ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... is a duty I cannot shirk. I will consult the doctor about it. I will make him see that I both understand and shall insist upon my rights in this matter. But you may tell Miss Doris that I will sit out of sight, and that I shall not obtrude myself unless my name is brought up ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... the New York Academy. This disposition of my future suited me. A removal from my relatives would enable me to dispose of my time as I pleased, without fear of detection. As long as I paid my Academy fees, I might shirk attending the lectures, if I chose; and as I never had the remotest intention of standing an examination, there was no danger of my being "plucked." Besides, a metropolis was the place for me. There I could ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... loneliness. Even in the desert there was a world to consider. Vanity that had bled to death, pride that had been crushed, availed her not here. But something else came to her support. The lesson of the West had been to endure, not to shirk—to face an issue, not to hide. Carley got up, bathed, dressed, brushed and arranged her dishevelled hair. The face she saw in the mirror excited her amaze and pity. Then she went out in answer to the call for dinner. But she could ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... grant you," replied Dr. Cairn, "but a duty—a duty, boy, and one that we must not shirk. I, alone among living men, know whom, and what, lies there, and my conscience directs me in what I do. His end shall be that which he had planned for you. Give me ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... individual the average soldier is a sneak, a shirk, a failure, a coward. He is only valuable as he is licked into shape. It is pretty much the same in business. It seems hard to say it, but the average employe in factory, shop or store, puts the face of the clock to shame looking at it; ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... no intention of immediately using it. For the time being, the general rejoicing among the ladies made it possible for even a shirk like Gleason to be among them a good deal. They could talk of nothing but how splendid it was to be with the regiment, and how admirably this or that officer had behaved, and one would suppose that such conversation would have been galling to an able-bodied listener; ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... this appeal—or shall I say command- -was directed, flushed a fine colour under so many eyes, but immediately began her ingenuous tale. She had already related it a half dozen times into as many sympathising ears, but she was not one to shirk publicity, for all her retiring manners and ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... cowardly to shirk a duty. Perform your part in the struggle as becomes true Scouts—as becomes men who have been born and reared in ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston
... scorned the business, and Robt. M., would cut off his right hand, rather than engage in it. He only meant that other people should do what would degrade him. He was not a good citizen, and did not intend to be. As for his Reverence, he would shirk his Christian duties; would not pray by that lamppost, or any other lamp-post, for the success of slave-catchers. He had turned his back upon Paul, and had fallen from grace since preaching his famous sermon. The gentlemen ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... fell full upon her—upon a white, strained face with passionate, unkissed lips, and eyes that looked bravely into his, refusing to shirk the ultimate significance which ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... much for all of us I can't be mean enough to shirk any longer. I'll see Lizette to-morrow," she vowed, as the car stopped at her door. She stood for a moment on the steps looking after it before she went in. It had been only "common humanity" to send the girl ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston
... few deserters from the army—whom I might encounter at any turn in the road. The prospect was not alluring, yet a glance aside at the profile of Washington, now bending low over a mass of papers, instantly stiffened my resolve. It was work I had no excuse to shirk—indeed no inclination—so I returned Hamilton's ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... Charley with a smile. "I fear he will have to have his little lesson before he gets in that frame of mind. Walt," he continued earnestly, "I do not want the responsibility but I am not going to shirk it now that it is thrust upon me. Frankly, though, I can't help wishing that this trip was over and we were safe ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... fits the other one pat." Rap! Rap! Bang! "What a hideous clatter! Blaise seems determined to batter That poor old turkey into bits, And pound to jelly my excellent wits. Come, come, Martin, you mustn't shirk. 'The night cometh soon'—etc. Don't jerk Me up like that. 'Essence de la Valliere'— That has a charmingly Bourbon air. And, oh! Magnificent! Listen to this!— 'Vinaigre des Quatre Voleurs'. Nothing ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... be a secret unto itself; a clear, serene composure of truth, mingling so freely and smoothly with the issues of life, that while, and perhaps even because she is herself unconscious of it, she is never once tempted to abuse or to shirk her trust, though it be to play the attorney in a cause that makes so much against herself. In this respect she presents an instructive contrast to Malvolio, who has much virtue indeed, yet not so much but that ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... an unrestricted day Impediments admit. Work is not work To our employes, but a merry play; They do not ask the law's excuse to shirk. Ah, no, the canning season is at hand, When summer scents are on the air distilled, When golden fruits are ripening in the land, And silvery tins are gaping to be filled. Now to the cannery with jocund mien Before the dawn come ...
— Are Women People? • Alice Duer Miller
... every day This lazy boy would shirk, And never lift his hand to do A bit of useful work. His clothes were always on awry, His shoe-strings left untied, His hair uncombed, his teeth uncleaned, Alas, he had ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... of that, comrade," he faltered. "I was thinking I was going like some of our poor chaps; but I don't want to shirk. There, I'll ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... shiny in that pool— Throw in a stone, and you will hit the moon. Listen, the church-bell ringing! Do not say We must go back to-morrow to our work. We'll tell them we are dead: we died to-day. We're lazy. We're too happy. We will shirk. We're cows. We're kettles. We'll be anything Except the manikins of time and fear. We'll start away to-morrow wandering, And nobody will notice in a year.... Now the great sun is slipping under ground. Grip firmly!—How the ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... life thrown open to new, however vague, possibilities. At present he was convinced that Andrew Peak had done him a service. In this there was an indication of moral cowardice, such as commonly connects itself with intense pride of individuality. He desired to shirk the combat with Chilvers, and welcomed as an excuse for doing so the shame which another ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... my experiences has affected my judgment on the general morale of the educated young men of our country. In not a single case did I ever have an assistant who tried to shirk his duty to the government, nor do I think there was more than a single case in which one tried to contest my judgment of his own merits, or those of his work. I adopted the principle that promotion ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... with the old man; awkward! In short, my dear friend, my dear Bella," (Losely could be very coaxing when it was worth his while) "you just manage this for me. I have a fellow in the next room waiting to breakfast: as soon as breakfast is over I shall be off to the race-ground, and so shirk that ranting old bore; you'll call on him instead, and settle it somehow." He was out of the room before she ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... as to have even a taste for some sort of creative work, and to develop it; to express your own personality in something tangible, and to be encouraged to do so. Do understand me, Auntie and the rest; it isn't that I want to shirk, but I do want to specialize on what I do best! I'll wash dishes if it's ever necessary, but why must I wish a whole pantry on myself when either Burt or I could pay our proportionate share of a hotel dish-washer, or butler, or whatever ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various
... not think so, for he motioned away a bowl of the delightful mixture, though it was proffered him by the fair hands of Mrs. Mudge. The lady was somewhat surprised, and said, roughly, "I shouldn't wonder if he was only trying to shirk." ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... notice if there was aught in her manner to denote verification of the miserable gipsy's story. He would put an end to such feeling, if 'twere there. He sent word if he might see her for himself, and be assured her illness was not feigned, in order she might shirk the duty—like a wicked sister—of presenting her fair face for the enlightenment of the gloom that seemed about to penetrate, from ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... and much will rightfully be expected from us. We have duties to others and duties to ourselves; and we can shirk neither. We have become a great nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relations with the other nations of the earth, and we must behave as beseems a people with such responsibilities. Toward all other nations, large and small, our attitude must be one of ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... your advice, Simon," said this strong-minded old lady, in a hard, clear voice. "I dare say I sha'n't act upon it, but I want it all the same. I've no secrets from either of you; but as the head of the family I don't mean to shirk responsibility, and my opinion is, she must go. Susannah, no weakness. My dear, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Nina, run up-stairs again, we ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... painters, but we believe that poetry should render particulars exactly and not deal in vague generalities, however magnificent and sonorous. It is for this reason that we oppose the cosmic poet, who seems to us to shirk the real difficulties ...
— Some Imagist Poets - An Anthology • Richard Aldington
... "Shirk it? Why should I?" He stood aside to let her pass in. "I've nothing to be ashamed of. I don't wear the garment of respectability, but then I'm not stark naked. Every man clothes himself in some article of faith, virtue ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... you prefer to shirk it," he said. She flushed a little. "But I don't shirk. I'm not ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... content to trudge the road And willingly to draw my load— Sometimes to know the spur and goad When I begin to lag; I'd rather feel the collar jerk And tug at me, the while I work, Than all the tasks of life to shirk As ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest
... here, who cried if they were hit, were always eating cakes and sweet things, and sung out when they went to bed for the maid-servant to put on their night-caps; these sort of fellows are seldom worth much, either in school or out of it. They fudge their lessons and shirk their work at play; regular do-nothing Molly Milksops, ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... that class, in this country, who devote themselves to the high duties of their station, regardless of its pleasures, than in any other: men who recognize practically the responsibility of their rank, and do not shirk from them; men who think they have something to do, and something to repay, for the accidents of birth and fortune—who, in the senate, in the field, or in the less prominent, but not less noble, career of private life, act, as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... no wonder, then, that, with laborers, many of whom are disposed to shirk their duty, the last working is too often poorly and inefficiently done. With more reliable labor, such as is to be had in the Northern and border States, better ...
— The Peanut Plant - Its Cultivation And Uses • B. W. Jones
... I shirk the psychology of such a moment, for my belief is that the striking clocks struck out all power of thought and feeling, and that I played my poor part the better for that blessed surcease of intellectual sensation. On the other hand, I was never more alive to the purely ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... that the more eminent Shakespearian scholars in London had even an opportunity to look at it closely.[G] The attacks upon the genuineness of the writing on its margins Mr. Collier was at once too ready to regard as impeachments of his personal integrity, and to shirk by making counter-insinuations against the integrity of his opponents and the correctness of their motives. He attributes to the pettiest personal spite or jealousy the steps which they have taken in discharge ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... House was not to any of them the pleasantest of affairs, on those occasions when it was Mrs Grove's intention to distinguish herself, and astonish other people, by what she called a state dinner. Graeme, who was not apt to shirk unpleasant duties, made no secret of her dislike to them, and caught at any excuse to absent herself with an eagerness which Fanny declared to be anything but polite. But, sitting at table in full dress, among dull ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... no one at all who was used to speaking that knew the subject. The few who knew were either out of town or at a great distance. He did not know how to reach them in time. Besides, there was something about Michael that just would not let him shirk a situation no matter how trying it was to him. It was one of the first principles he had been taught with football, and before he reached his boarding place, his chin was up, and his lips firmly set. Anyone who knew him well would have felt ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... is unbefitting and a little cowardly for Duke Alessandro to shirk the duties of his station for verse-making and eternal pleasure-seeking. Now if I ...
— The Jewel Merchants - A Comedy In One Act • James Branch Cabell
... a week as mine have been 'arrowed, one can't feel thankful. I will send these 'ere things back by Jarvey. Well, ladies and gentlemen, let me bid you good evening. The performance 'as already begun and we professionals cannot shirk business." ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... embodied in the poetry of every language. Take the oak, for instance, and we find it always standing as a type of strength and endurance. I wonder if you ever thought of the single mark of supremacy which distinguishes this tree from all our other forest-trees? All the rest of them shirk the work of resisting gravity; the oak alone defies it. It chooses the horizontal direction for its limbs, so that their whole weight may tell,—and then stretches them out fifty or sixty feet, so that the strain may be mighty enough to be worth ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... said Dunn. "Look here, Teresa! Without knowing it, you lifted me out of hell just now; and because of the wrong I might have done her—for her sake, I spare you and shirk my duty." ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... play," he said, with a mixture of mischief and vexation in his tone. "Foster, don't shirk; you have taught Abbie, now go and help her fight it out like a man. Come, take yourself over there and get her out of this scrape. I'll take care of Ester; she looks as though she had ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... for the toast Of confidence before our guest, The loyal song, the manly boast Your splendid faith to manifest. In works of art and livelihood Shirk not the creed, "What's ours is good," Dread not to have ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... house. What a situation for a man!—for a philanthropist—for a lover of right and truth—for a magnificent designer and schemer! Not to dare to look in the face the Religion which he adored and which he had offended; to have to shirk down back lanes and alleys, so as to avoid the friend whom he loved and who had trusted him—to have the house which he had intended for his wife, whom he loved passionately, and for her ladyship's company which he wished to entertain ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... an erring sinner's state, Which is useful in removing All the ills of human fate; If there's any glorious custom Which our faults can dissipate, And can casually thrust 'em Out of sight and make us great; It's the plan by which we shirk Half our matu-ti-nal work, The glorious institution of always ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... blunted her sensibilities. As usual with the strongest natures in their hours of depression—and none so strong as to escape these—she could then look for no help except from herself. Those accustomed, like her, to shirk no responsibility, no burden, to invite others to lean on them, and to ask no support, if their fortitude gives way find the allowance, help and sympathy so easily accorded to their weaker fellow-creatures nowhere ready for them. The exclamation wrung from one of the characters ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... man to shirk responsibilities. It is true, dark days had come to him, when a crushing burden had well-nigh smothered him, and a bullet to still his fevered brain had seemed far sweeter to Paul than all else life might hold for him. But Paul was strong and young. He learned his lesson well—that Time cures all ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... oak, throw their limbs out from the trunk horizontally. As Dr. Holmes says: "The others shirk the work of resisting gravity, the oak defies it. It chooses the horizontal direction for its limbs so that their whole weight may tell, and then stretches them out fifty or sixty feet so that the strain may be mighty enough to be worth resisting." Some trees have limbs which ...
— Arbor Day Leaves • N.H. Egleston
... Law I must request Less noise while we're having a well-earned rest. For the Judge and the Usher never must shirk A well-earned rest in the middle of work. It's the duty of both they are well aware To preserve their precious lives with care; It's their duty, when feeling overwrought, To preserve their lives ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... with her in the night. She had given me her confidence about her family affairs because she counted me as a new ally, however ineffective, coming in unexpectedly to fight against the Jervaises. She had acknowledged my worship of her because she was too clear-sighted and too honest to shirk my inevitable declaration. But I could not doubt that she rated me as unworthy of her serious attention. Her whole attitude proclaimed that her one instant of reaching out towards me had been a mistake; one of the many impulses ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... this; for, though well aware he could take no advantage of his resolution, and that if nothing was done to correct the effect of it, a great deal of excitement would be produced in the colony, he nevertheless tried to shirk the question when asked by John Russell to say distinctly what he meant to do, and showed that his only object was to create a difficulty, whatever might be the consequences, and to exhibit himself to the country as the successful asserter of ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... keenly awake. A tapping, metallic sound at once arose either upon his chair or Viola's, and the horn, or whatever it was, floated dimly into view, then vanished, and a moment later the voice of the chief "control" entered his right ear: "Man of science, do not shirk your duty. Here now we offer you a chance to solve the great ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... fashionable summer attire, and accompanied by a young lady of some charms. Reardon had formerly feared encounters of this kind, too conscious of the defects of his attire; but at present there was no reason why he should shirk social intercourse. He was passably dressed, and the half-year of travel had benefited his appearance in no slight degree. Carter presented him to the young lady, of whom the novelist had already heard as affianced ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... world the morning-dew Moved like a hymn and sang to us: "Go now, fulfill Your destiny and joy; Each in the other, both in that Italian boy, And he in you, like flowers in a hill!" ... She was the nearness of imperfect God On whom in her perfection was at work. Lest I should shirk My share, I asked her for His blessing and His nod— And His breath was in her shining hair like the wind ...
— The New World • Witter Bynner
... he had to accede to Mr. McKinley's request that he should go back and become Secretary of State. He knew the work would be too much for him, and told me so quite simply and unaffectedly, but he was never a man to shirk a duty. During his term of office, he and I were constantly in touch with each other by letter. Though Hay did not write long letters, he contrived in his short notes to say many poignant things,—often in the form ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... stupidity, and even vice and virtue on an equality in point of comfort. For the rest, if property is impossible on account of the desire to accumulate, communism would soon become so through the desire to shirk. ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... Doctor Hugh had discovered, was morally not very brave. She was afraid of people and though the Willis will was as strong in her as in any of the others, she would not come out openly and demand her way. Rather Sarah would do as she pleased and shirk the consequences wherever possible. The doctor had had several little talks with her on this subject of fear and he was gradually teaching her to acknowledge her mistakes and wrong doings and patiently explaining at every opportunity the rules ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... social, less interested in my neighbors and in the body politic, more inclined to shirk civic and social responsibilities and to stop my ears against the brawling of the reformers, is ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... of all, good comrade," I observed pleasantly to the tripping presence at my elbow, "is that these countrymen of yours who shirk to climb a flight of steps, and have palms as soft as rose petals, these wide ways paved with stones as ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... west of the mountain range and every spur its gun. And many a rickety son of a gun, on the tides of the future tossed, Will tell how battles were really won that History says were lost, Will trace the field with his pipe, and shirk the facts that are hard to explain, As grey old mates of the diggings work the old ground over again — How 'this was our centre, and this a redoubt, and that was a scrub in the rear, And this was the point where the guards held out, and ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... consideration. She should be known to be honest, honorable, competent, healthy, and personally clean in habits and dress, and she should be tactful, obliging, and she should attend to her own affairs strictly. She should not be a gossip; she should not shirk her work or pry into family affairs that do not concern her; and she should not drag into the conversation her own personal or ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... a right to expect of the American boy is that he shall turn out to be a good American man. Now the chances are strong that he won't be much of a man unless he is a good deal of a boy. He must not be a coward or a weakling, a bully, a shirk, or a prig. He must work hard and play hard. He must be clean-minded and clean lived, and able to hold his own against all comers. It is only on these conditions that he will grow into the kind of American man of whom America ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... which the fit have to bear has often been referred to by Dr. MacGregor, who states in one of his reports, "Wives and husbands, parents of bastards, all alike are encouraged by lavish charity (falsely so called) to entirely shirk their responsibilities in the well grounded assurance that public money will be forth-coming to keep them and their families in quite as comfortable position as ...
— The Fertility of the Unfit • William Allan Chapple
... worse position, and compelled to meet it as I best might; for this was one of the necessities of an office which I had voluntarily taken on my shoulders, and beneath which I might be crushed by no moral delinquency on my own part, but could not shirk without cowardice and shame. My subsequent fortune was various. Once, though I felt it to be a kind of imposture, I got a speech by heart, and doubtless it might have been a very pretty one, only I forgot every syllable at the moment of need, and had to improvise another as well as I could. I ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Billy, when he'd done, "and now you'll please to work, I read the Bible often—but I don't my duty shirk, The pumps they are not choked yet, nor do we yet despair, When all is up or we are saved, we'll join with you ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... public charity or dependent on her widowed sister, who is too proud to see her go to the poor house; and this is just the trouble with a lot of people; they not only have their own burdens to bear but somebody else's. You may call me an old fogy, but I would rather live cheap and dress plain than shirk my burdens because I had wasted when they had saved. You and John Hanson are both young and have got your health and strength, and instead of buying sealskins, and velvets and furbelows, you had better be laying up for a rainy day. You have no more need for a sealskin cloak ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... want of me," answered Oswyn shrewdly. "You said in your note that it was on a matter of vital importance to a friend of mine. I haven't so many friends that I can afford to shirk a little trouble in a matter which vitally concerns one of them. May I ask, in the first place, who is ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... mean a fight," agreed the French captain, "but an officer of the French army will not shirk an ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... because you want to shirk the truth. You're almost glad—presently you will be very glad. You never did want to care—not from the first. Caring got in your way. You will be free now." She waited, and then added very quietly, without anger: "I love you. I ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... lick o' work I strike, 'Long about this time of year! I'm a sort-uh slowly like, Right when Ingin summer's here. Wife and boys kin do the work; But a man with natchel wit, Like I got, kin 'ford to shirk, Ef he has a ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... leisure, loneliness and love. Wish I could take you; but fame travels fast,— A man of much newspaper-paragraph, You scare domestic circles; and beside Would not you like your lot, that second taste Of nature and approval of the grounds! You might walk early or lie late, so shirk Week-day devotions: but stay Sunday o'er, And morning church is obligatory: No mundane garb permissible, or dread The butler's privileged monition! No! Pack off to Paris, nor wipe tear away!' Whereon how artlessly ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... out a large frying-pan, the one utensil which shared with his "billy" the privilege of supplying him with a means of cooking his food. The work he was engaged upon was something of a strain. It seemed so unnecessary. Still, the process was his habit of years, so he did not attempt to shirk it. But he looked up with relief when he heard voices, and a glad smile of welcome greeted Jim and ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... accepted, even though they entail national sacrifice, because laid at the nation's door, like Cuba, or forced upon its decision, like the Philippines. I see too clearly in myself the miserable disposition to shirk work and care, and responsibility, to condone the same in nations. I once heard a preacher thus parody effectively the words of the prophet—"Here am I, send him!" And I have heard attributed to the late Mr. John Hay an equally telling allusion to certain of our ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... it calls loudly to every parent and every teacher for a solution. The health and happiness of the coming generations depend upon the right education of the present one, and this responsibility the home and the school can neither shirk nor shift. We take great unction to ourselves for the excellence of the horses, pigs, and cattle that we have on exhibition at the fairs, but are silent as to our failures in the form of children, that drag out a half-life in our hospitals. In one state it costs ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... had retired to the Isle of Skye; and on being applied to, knew no more of the West Diddlesex Association than Queen Anne did. General Sir Dionysius O'Halloran had abruptly quitted Dublin, and returned to the republic of Guatemala. Mr. Shirk went into the Gazette. Mr. Macraw, M.P. and King's Counsel, had not a single guinea in the world but what he received for attending our board; and the only man seizable was Mr. Manstraw, a wealthy navy contractor, ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... gentlemen's parks near Lunnun, where they make mountains just to look at; that must be much of a muchness with these here chaps. I never drift far from Wappin', when I'm at home, and so I can't say I've seen these artifice hills, as they calls them, myself; but there's one Joseph Shirk, that lives near St. Katharine's Lane, that makes trips regularly into the neighborhood, who gives quite a ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of thing is not at all to be wondered at. It has gone on since the dawn of time with college theses, clergymen's sermons, the orations and official papers of statesmen. Whenever a man is confronted with an intellectual task that he dare not shirk, and yet has not the intellect or the interest to perform, the first thing he thinks of is to hire some one to do it for him, and this demand has always been great enough and widespread enough to make it profitable for some one to organise the supply on a commercial basis. What interests ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... a number of short treatises, indicating certain laws and principles which Mary thought needed to be more generally understood and more firmly established. That a woman should not shirk the functions, either physical or moral, of maternity; that artificial manners and exterior accomplishments should not be cultivated in lieu of practical knowledge and simplicity of conduct; that matrimony is to ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... But such expressions often spring from pure selfishness, and sometimes exhibit a sinful disregard for the happiness of other people. Nothing makes it right to ease yourself at the expense of others, or to shirk burdens by shifting them to other shoulders. Some are clever at that, but such action may be positively sinful. On the other hand, God can deliver us from that anxious care and foreboding and unrest with which so many good ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... forget that when I ask you to do all this, I, who am not given to practising deception, am asking you to go on practising yours. I am urging you to shirk the consequences of your wrong-doing—to enjoy in the world an untarnished name after you have tarnished your life. Do not think I forget that! Still I beg you to do as I say. This is another of the humiliations you have led me to: that although I am ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... a good or bad educational center. It does its work in spite of every effort to shirk or supplement it. No teacher can entirely undo what it does, be that good or bad. The natural joyous opening of a child's mind depends on its first intimate relations. These are, as a rule, with the mother. It is the mother who "takes an interest," who ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... contributed something toward it. Those who had wherewithal to give in money or kind, had given. Those who had nothing else to give gave their labor. She guessed the present onlookers had already done their share of giving, and were now there to see that their less fortunate brethren did not attempt to shirk their responsibilities. ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... thoroughly, and by an honest pride in their community as a whole. The members of a decaying community are, for the most part, languid and indolent; their very gestures are dawdling and slouching, the opposite of smart. They shirk work when they can do so, and scamp what they undertake. A prosperous community is remarkable for the variety of the solid interests in which some or other of its members are eagerly engaged, but the questions that agitate a decadent community are for ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... her how little she had got from him, she heard the roll of his coach wheels whirling him back again to Dublin. I believe few doctors grow so accustomed to the ghastly eclaircissement as not very willingly to shirk ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... he said; "your friend looks as if he needed it badly. We want every man we can get," he added; "there's terrible work before us, and nobody should shirk. If you can do no more, you can carry ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a short, thin cry and moved as if to go to the fallen girl, but just then he saw Hamilton's sword pass over again into his right hand, and knew that there was no time for anything but death or fight. The good priest did not shirk what might have made the readiest of soldiers nervous. Hamilton was known to be a great swordsman and proud of the distinction. Father Beret had seen him fence with Farnsworth in remarkable form, touching him at will, and in ministering to the men in the fort he had heard them talk of the Governor's ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... you, Miss Pat," said Elinor, the day before the party, "is that you know when to stop. I simply haven't accomplished a thing the last two days, and yet I couldn't have the courage to shirk the Academy. You stay away joyously, and ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... of bacteriology a micro-organism is to blame for appendicitis. If this were true it would relieve humanity of all responsibility. There is a disposition on the part of man to shirk responsibility and the germ theory is not the first theory of vicarious atonement that he has spun. Those who wish to shirk all kinds of responsibility by adopting the germ theory and by making micro-organisms the scape-goat may do so, but I would advise all sensible people to keep in ...
— Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment • John H. Tilden, M.D.
... said, "and I can't help thinking that it is just as well. One cannot shirk his responsibilities, Harry, and you are an Alton—of Carnaby. You see, nobody could take your inheritance from you, nor, though you did your best, could you give it away, and there is, I fancy, only one meaning to that. Fate ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... moved his hand convulsively. "Don't you worry, padre," he said faintly; "I've been—confirmed." The lips tightened a second with pain, and then: "Reckon I won't—shirk. Have ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... courage in holding on," one of them said. "The march was nothing to us seasoned men, but it must have been trying to you, especially as your feet cannot have recovered from yesterday. I see that you will make a good soldier, and one who will not shirk his work. Another week, and you will march as well as the ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... young sir!" said the Iron King, speaking hoarsely, faintly, yet with strong determination. "Do you call yourself a soldier or a shirk? Let me tell you that it is the first duty of a soldier to obey orders, at all times, under all circumstances, and at all costs! If you had been a married man, and your wife had been dying—if you had been a father, ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... do a thing Is do it when you can, And do it cheerfully, and sing And work and think and plan. The only real unhappy one Is he who dares to shirk; The only really happy one Is he ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum
... said Mrs Jefferson, rallying her energies, "but we should not shirk its consideration for that reason. I quite agree with Madame Zairoff that people don't think half seriously enough of their real natures, the mysterious inner something which we all feel we possess, ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... exchange would make an excellent subject for the artist. He delights to paint us a row of Venetian bead stringers or a band of Sevilhan cigarette makers, but why does he shirk a bevy of industrious girls working a telephone exchange? Let us peep into one of these retired haunts, where the modern Fates are cutting and joining the lines of electric speech between man and man in a ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... the result would be a bath, which they bore with fortitude, for fear of getting Anne into further trouble. They even made good resolutions about washing themselves, which they kept for a few days; then, however, they began to shirk again, and had again to be scrubbed. The resolutions of a child must be shored up by kindly supervision, otherwise it is hardly likely that they will cement ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... said Chaffery. "There's truths you have to grow into. But about this matter of Lies—let us look at the fabric of society, let us compare the savage. You will discover the only essential difference between savage and civilised is this: The former hasn't learnt to shirk the truth of things, and the latter has. Take the most obvious difference—the clothing of the civilised man, his invention of decency. What is clothing? The concealment of essential facts. What is decorum? Suppression! I don't argue against decency and decorum, ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... to find in her a powerful ally. It was only natural for him to think this. Ever since the beginning, men have assigned to women the role of the dissuader, the drag, the hinderer. It is always the woman, tradition tells us, who persuades the man to be a coward, to stay at home, to shirk a difficult ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... very hopeful of success. In this state business men are generally satisfied, and your support is so strong that, even if inclined, the Conkling Republicans will not dare oppose or shirk the contest. I hear different stories about Conkling, but believe that in due time he will do what he can, though his influence is greatly overrated. A too active support by him would excite the prejudices of hosts of people here who are ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... our work be heavy, we shirk From nothing beneath the sun; And toil is sweet to those who can eat And rest when the day is done. In the Sabbath-time we hear no chime, No sound of the Sunday bells; But yet Heaven smiles on the forest aisles, And God in the woodland dwells. We listen to notes ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... dear, if any ill consequences arise from this piece of folly of yours, remember, I shirk ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... cried a good deal, and begged me to be prudent and not overtax my strength; and then she talked about you, and hoped I should help you as much as possible, as though I meant to shirk any part of my duty. I do not think she really disapproved, only she seemed nervous and timid about it; but I ask you, Esther, how I could help offering my services, when Mrs. Smedley told me about the neglected state of the parish, and how few ladies ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... emperor you scorn, Seems to my mind a monarch born, Worthy to lead a column; I'll warrant he could talk and work, And, neither being used to shirk, Was rarely ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... "I sometimes 'lows thet what ye read me outen ther old book kinderly kindled some fret inside me.... Hit's es ef ther blood of ther old-timers was callin' out an' warnin' me thet I kain't suffer myself ter shirk ... or mebby hit's ther way old Hump and ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... candidate for Parliament, and the Government was warned that it was alienating its best friends. The Pall Mall Gazette voiced the general feeling. "What is the evidence that an Oaths Bill would injure the Government in the country? Of one thing we may be sure, that if they shirk the Bill they will do no good to themselves at the elections. Nobody doubts that it will be made a test question, and any Liberal who declines to vote for such a Bill will certainly lose the support of ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... toasts. It was a Gargantuan feast befitting a great occasion. Could we men of to-day have done it justice and sat it and the toast list out, I wonder. It took place over forty years ago, when the endurance of the race was, perhaps, greater than now; or why do we now shorten our banquets and shirk the bottle? ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... ground. We are talking of present things. I'm not going to pester you, not going to ask you to marry me even—" again she was aware of his smile though his speech sounded grim—"until you have honestly answered the question that you are trying to shirk. Perhaps you won't thank me for reminding you a second time of a conversation that you and I once had on this very spot, but I must. I told you that I had been waiting for my turn. And you told me ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... reply. "I am the last man to wish you to shirk your duly; but you cannot have the temerity to declare that this young and tender creature can by any possibility be considered as at all likely to be implicated in a crime so monstrous and unnatural. ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... readily understand what a thorough exercise and diversion of an intellectual and social kind this was, for they were neither of them men to shirk from close gripes, or trifle and flourish with their weapons; they laid on and spared not. And then my uncle had generally some special nut of his own to crack, some thesis to fling down and offer battle on, some "particle" to energize ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... brethren at every street-corner," continued she. "Well, I didn't mean to dabble in witchcraft to-day further than the lighting of my pipe, but a witch I am and a witch I'm likely to be and there's no use trying to shirk it. I'll make a man of my scarecrow, were it only ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... true," returned Bax, with an approving nod; "that's just the point which I'd like you and me to stick to: when we see things to be wrong don't let's shirk sayin' so as flat as we can; but don't let us go, like too many shallow-pates, and say that we know who's wrong and why they're wrong, and offer to put them all right on the shortest notice. Mayhap" (here ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... shirk the psychology of such a moment, for my belief is that the striking clocks struck out all power of thought and feeling, and that I played my poor part the better for that blessed surcease of intellectual sensation. On the other ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... whom this appeal—or shall I say command- -was directed, flushed a fine colour under so many eyes, but immediately began her ingenuous tale. She had already related it a half dozen times into as many sympathising ears, but she was not one to shirk publicity, for all her retiring manners ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... helped to put away every man, woman and child that has died in this settlement since I was grown, and I ain't goin' to shirk my duty to Brother Thompson—not that I ever expected to do it for him." She babbled on, gently urging me from the room, where her presence was the last blinding touch ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... but just his doing it proves that it can be done, if anybody is willing to try. Don't shirk that way, Alan; it isn't like you. You can do it just as well as he can, and I mean you shall, some day, if ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... operation should, if possible, be left to a labourer, who, for the sake of a small remuneration, would probably be very glad to do it after his ordinary working hours. Even an enthusiast cannot but consider digging as the most laborious of all gardening work, and will take especial care to shirk it whenever possible. In fact, real garden drudgery of all kinds is better done by a labourer, no matter how simple and easy such work may superficially appear to our young folk. Good work, as we all know, can only be done by ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... too hot for him, and he left the community and kept by himself; but he soon returned to the others again. His little body was bursting with courage to live the life, and would not let him shirk it; he must take his chance—eat ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... of view it is easy to cheat society, and deprive it of its due. We can shirk our social obligations; we can dodge subscriptions; we can stay at home when we ought to be at the committee meeting, or the public gathering; we can decline invitations and refuse elections to arduous offices, and at the same ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... the colonel. "I make it a rule to shirk no plain duty. If I ought to have a house warming, I will have it. And you shall be my social mentor. What sort of ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... and the massacre of St. Bartholomew had roused the indignation of Englishmen to the highest pitch. They were ready for any risk in open war against France and Spain, but Queen Elizabeth was always trying to shirk responsibility; and so the sea-captains who would avenge the wrongs done to the Protestants were obliged to run the risk of being condemned ...
— Newfoundland and the Jingoes - An Appeal to England's Honor • John Fretwell
... slavery in the federal territories, he is right to say so. But he should, at the same time, brave the responsibility of declaring that, in his opinion, he understands their principles better than they did themselves; and especially should he not shirk that responsibility by asserting that they "understood the question just as well, and even ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... He persevered through much difficulty; which he described six weeks later, with characteristic glance at his own ways when writing, in a letter from the office of his journal. "I came here last night, to evade my usual day in the week—in fact to shirk it—and get back to Gad's for five or six consecutive days. My reason is, that I am exceedingly anxious to begin my book. I am bent upon getting to work at it. I want to prepare it for the spring; but I ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... delay the diplomatic encounter. 'Twas vain to accuse the others of tactlessness, and shirk the exhibition of his own tact. He exhibited it most convincingly by not informing the others that he was about to put ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... undeniable private evidence. Those who are not Catholics put them aside simply as incredible. They assume that they cannot be true, and therefore that they are not true. Press them in argument, and they will shirk your most stringent proofs. You can make no impression upon their wills. They will believe any thing but that God has interrupted the course of nature in favour of any one but themselves. In short, ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... plan of the Maker out. Work, the Titan; Work, the friend, Shaping the earth to a glorious end, Draining the swamps and blasting the hills, Doing whatever the Spirit wills— Rending a continent apart, To answer the dream of the Master heart. Thank God for a world where none may shirk— Thank God for ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... world. It was not the matter of the work, but the mind that went into it, that counted—and the man who was not content to do small things well would leave great things undone. The beasts before him did not shirk their labour because it was clay and not gold dust that trailed behind the plough; why should he? And where was happiness if it sprung not from the soil? Where contentment if it dwelt not near to Nature? For what was better than these things—the clear air of sunrise, ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... that everything was satisfactory, commanded Ling to set the caravan in motion, himself remaining behind until the last cart had left the village, in order to make sure that, at the last moment, none of the drivers should shirk the risks and ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... Amanda did not shirk her portion of the necessary work, but rebellion was in her heart as she noted her mother's ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... a farmer boy, a tiller of the soil, I liked the work—I never was a chap to shirk from toil. But I thought I'd choose a broader life (I must have been an ass). I took on in the Army—and now I'm ...
— Rhymes of the Rookies • W. E. Christian
... for idle discussions of a mere literary nature," our other self returned. "I am very full of the subject which I have sprung upon you, and which I see you are trying to shirk." ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... as strangest of all, good comrade," I observed pleasantly to the tripping presence at my elbow, "is that these countrymen of yours who shirk to climb a flight of steps, and have palms as soft as rose petals, these wide ways paved with stones as hard ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... and we'll teach him to know A tee where no tannin can lurk; The soldier may come, and we'll promise to show Some hazards a soldier may shirk; The statesman may joke, as he tops every stroke, That at last he is high in his aims; And the clubman will stand with a club in his hand That is worth every club ...
— Songs of Action • Arthur Conan Doyle
... my sister Naomi's eyes. If Thou wilt answer this prayer, Lord, I will promise Thee anything. I will be Thy faithful servant, I will be an obedient son, I will learn my lessons well at school and never shirk. I will no more throw stones at stout Solomon nor even call him names. I will promise anything Thou mayst ask of me, if Thy Messiah will only open my sister Naomi's eyes. Hear my prayer, O ...
— Christmas Light • Ethel Calvert Phillips
... Charles's hands dropped from his face and clinched themselves together; "but I cannot go by what any one thinks unless I think so myself as well. I can't take other people's judgments. When God gave us our own, he did not mean us to shirk using it. What you say is right, but there is something which after a little bit seems more right—at least, which seems so to me. I cannot look at the future. I can only see one thing distinctly, now in the present, and that is that I cannot break my word. I never have been able to ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... nor did he hear anyone else laugh. He had expressed the opinion that many of them held at that moment. Stonewall Jackson was driving them on in the darkness and the light that he furnished them was a flaming sword. It was worse to shirk and face him, than it was to go on and face the cannon ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the past. What in the sapphire volume of the skies Is writ by God's own finger misleads none, But him whose vain and misinstructed eyes, They mock with misinterpretation, Or who, mistaking what he rightly read, Ill commentary makes, or misapplies Thinking to shirk or thwart it. Which has done The wisdom of this venerable head; Who, well provided with the secret key To that gold alphabet, himself made me, Himself, I say, the savage he fore-read Fate somehow ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... to go back up there, Saunders. That was one period of my life that is constantly before me. I may as well speak of it and be done with it. You always seemed to shirk the subject, and I have hesitated to mention it, but there is no one else I could question. The last time I heard of Dolly Drake she was still unmarried. Is there ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... for none knew better than they the implacably savage nature of the brutes they were about to contend with, or the deadliness of the peril to which they were so light-heartedly exposing themselves. Yet not one of them manifested the slightest disposition to shirk the encounter: possibly they all knew that to perish upon the horns of a buffalo would be preferable to the punishment that surely awaited them should they disgrace themselves and their king by showing fear in the ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... in which resolve and distaste were mingled. She had crossed the frontier, but she was not in Paris yet. I couldn't shirk the thing twice, knowing as I did her charm, her beauty, her air of proud, spirited graciousness—all the tools that equipped her. I couldn't, if I was ever again to hold my head before a Frenchman, let her pass ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... in full working order in the spring of 1919 now falling into rust and disrepair. He would not be able once a week or so to attend All-Russian Executive and hear discussions in this parliament of the questions of the day. No one tries to shirk the fact that the Executive Committee has fallen into desuetude, from which, when the stress slackens enough to permit ceremonial that has not an immediate agitational value, it may some day be revived. The bulk of its members have been at ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... toil, labor, strive; drudge, slave; operate, manipulate, perform; ferment, effervesce. Antonyms: shirk, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... these windy uplands, and indoors one still sits close to the fire. These are the days of booming gales over the sheepwolds, and the afternoon ride with Shotover becomes an adventure. I am not one of those who shirk bicycling in a wind. Give me a two-mile spin with the gust astern, just to loosen the muscles and sweep the morning's books and tobacco from the brain—and then turn and at it! It is like swimming against a great crystal river. Cap off, ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... a slightly dull, laboured, almost emotionless letter. Always willing to shirk correspondence, he persuaded himself that the letter called for no immediate answer. After all, it was not to be expected that a very young girl whom a man had met only twice in his life could hold his interest very long, when absent. However, he meant to write her again; thought of doing ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... "I don't tell lies, I hope—and I don't shirk things. But you see that I can stultify my own acts. I believed, and acted on my belief; and then I ceased to believe, and acted on that. I cannot trust myself—I ought to be ashamed to say so, and I ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... de corps, their jealousy of their own name and record, and the knowledge, by actual experience, that the British ships sailed no faster and were no better handled than their own, had no desire to shirk a conflict with any foe, and having tried their bravery in actual service, they made it doubly formidable by cool, wary skill. Even the younger men, who had never been in action, had been so well trained by the tried veterans over ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... is the father of feeble endeavor, The parent of terror and half-hearted work; It weakens the efforts of artisans clever, And makes of the toiler an indolent shirk. It poisons the soul of the man with a vision, It stifles in infancy many a plan; It greets honest toiling with open derision And mocks at the hopes and the ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... committees want to shirk their duties. I, being only a committee of one, and self-constituted, feel as if I'd had quite enough of exploring downstairs. But what on earth Cousin Dempster is making such a fuss about, I have no idea. One would think there was something dreadful ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... the news to her forthwith—by post; the usual expedient of those who shirk "scenes." He furthermore took the precaution to add that ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... about you, Miss Pat," said Elinor, the day before the party, "is that you know when to stop. I simply haven't accomplished a thing the last two days, and yet I couldn't have the courage to shirk the Academy. You stay away joyously, ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... other forms of work [Roosevelt wrote years after], so on the round-up, a man of ordinary power, who nevertheless does not shirk things merely because they are disagreeable or irksome, soon earns his place. There were crack riders and ropers, who, just because they felt such overweening pride in their own prowess, were not really very valuable men. Continually on the circles a cow or a calf would get into some thick ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... old man; awkward! In short, my dear friend, my dear Bella," (Losely could be very coaxing when it was worth his while) "you just manage this for me. I have a fellow in the next room waiting to breakfast: as soon as breakfast is over I shall be off to the race-ground, and so shirk that ranting old bore; you'll call on him instead, and settle it somehow." He was out of the ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... manner of my gait which marks my noble breed; I am content to trudge the road And willingly to draw my load— Sometimes to know the spur and goad When I begin to lag; I'd rather feel the collar jerk And tug at me, the while I work, Than all the tasks of life to shirk As ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest
... personal success but would not shirk a duty or harm any one in any way to gain that success, at all times he forgot his own personal importance and was ready to do ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... Shakspeare's sublime simile of the "cloud-capp'd towers," in the Tempest. In one part of the play, Strepsi'ades, who has been nearly ruined in fortune by his spendthrift son, goes to Socrates to learn from him the logic that will enable him "to talk unjustly and—prevail," so that he may shirk his debts! He finds the master teacher suspended in air, in a basket, that he may be above earthly influences, and there "contemplating the sun," and endeavoring to search out "celestial matters." To the appeal of Strepsiades, Socrates, interrupted ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... ourselves, first of all, and to the very utmost, that we and our children may share in all its benefits. Yes; exert ourselves to the utmost, to break the yoke of ignorance. If we demand more leisure, more ease in our lives, let us show that we don't deserve the reproach of wanting to shirk that industry which, in some form or other, every man, whether rich or poor, should feel himself as much bound to as he is bound to decency. Let us show that we want to have some time and strength ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... and this minute I'm on my way to see her." Miss Lacey made the declaration impressively. "He ought to be here himself. But I won't shirk my duty if he does his. She's come clear from Illinois, and I don't know what for. I wish I was like some folks and could let her shift for herself; but she isn't twenty yet, and I haven't got the heart. I haven't been smart, I saw that afterward; for if I'd gone to Judge ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... upon her—upon a white, strained face with passionate, unkissed lips, and eyes that looked bravely into his, refusing to shirk the ultimate significance which underlay ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... inclined to look askance upon uncle Rutherford's demands upon his heart and his purse. These, to tell the truth, were not infrequent; for our uncle, believing that young people should be led to the exercise of active and unselfish charity, and seeing that Norman was inclined to shirk such claims, was constantly presenting them to the boy, with a view to training him in the way he ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... lose sight of the fact that thousands of foreigners are each year added to the voting population, whose ballots in the aggregate defeat the will of our enlightened, American-born citizens. Besides, it is a too convenient way for a legislature to shirk its own responsibility. If the demand is made, I hope it may be done in connection with that for municipal and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... argued, some for and some against,— And they progressed no further than they were when they commenced. Until in a burst of eloquence a queer little piece of punk Arose in his place and said, "I think we ought to show some spunk. And I for one have decided, although I am no shirk, That to-day is a legal holiday and not even ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... without some show of displeasure, and often of temper. None are exempt. It is not hard work, and yet every one objects to doing it. The third and fourth classes, by regulations, are required to do the policing. When I was a plebe, the plebes did it all. Many indeed tried to shirk it, but they were invariably "hived." Every plebe who attempted any such thing was closely watched and made to work. The old cadets generally chose such men for "special dutymen," and required them to ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... with a smile. "I fear he will have to have his little lesson before he gets in that frame of mind. Walt," he continued earnestly, "I do not want the responsibility but I am not going to shirk it now that it is thrust upon me. Frankly, though, I can't help wishing that this trip was over and we were safe back in ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... refusing to do so; further, that the free men of England should no longer be seized by the King's special mandate or warrant, it being contrary to their rights and liberties and the laws of their country. At first the King returned an answer to this petition, in which he tried to shirk it altogether; but, the House of Commons then showing their determination to go on with the impeachment of Buckingham, the King in alarm returned an answer, giving his consent to all that was required of him. He not only afterwards departed from his word and honour on these points, ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... usually starts from a wonderful tea-house where Uncles have grown rich. Miss West didn't mean to shirk her duty. In most things the begoggled lady was a visionary with a theory that if you don't talk about a thing it does not exist; and like most of her kind she swept the disagreeables into a dust heap and made for the high places where all was lovely. And yet she had toiled ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... him," she said, thoughtfully. "But you should do your part. Don't let him be always the giver and you the taker. I'm afraid you shirk on him ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... ask you if you had noticed. Don't try and shirk my question, please. Will you pledge your oath that they weren't ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... chance before. It was at Mrs. Westmore's own suggestion that I took her over the mills, and feeling as I do I should have thought it cowardly to shirk the chance of pointing out ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... would, in a minute. The others shirk it—unless you resist. He's a devil. He keeps them going. Without him they would have done nothing but talk. I've got chummy with him. What can you do when you are with a man like the fellow I am with now. Bamtz is terrified of them, and they know it. He's in it from funk. Oh, Davy! ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... Nora. "I'm not ashamed to admit that I am very hungry too. It's the people who are never able to eat at the table, and then go off and feed up in the pantry, who always manage to shirk their work." ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... forgotten," says he, sententiously, during a pause. "You all seem strangely oblivious of the fact that last night there was a ball in this house. Why shirk the subject? I like talking," says Mr. Potts, superfluously, "and surely you must all have something to communicate concerning it. Thanks to our own exertions, I think it was as good a one as ever I was at; and the ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... coal-carrying, floor-scrubbing, and other civilian pursuits. The word "fatigue" is a shibboleth with, the British private. Persuade him that a task is part of his duty as a soldier, and he will perform it with tolerable cheerfulness; but once allow him to regard that task as a "fatigue," and he will shirk it whenever possible, and regard himself as a deeply injured individual when called upon to undertake it. Our battalion has now reached a sufficient state of maturity to be constantly on the qui vive for cunningly disguised ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... set to the task of dragooning into order the unruly mass. Half the men have spent their advance, and mean to run as soon as the ship arrives. They intend to do as little as they can,—to "soger," and shirk, and work against the ship all they can. The captain cares only to make a quick passage and get what he can out of the crew. Community of interest there is none. Brutal authority is pitted ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... Chywidden, arrive at Jews'-house? I am afraid we can not do so without a jump or two; all we can do is to show that they are jumps which language herself is fond of taking, and which therefore we must not shirk, if we wish ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... surely here is its real meaning—to flatter the people by telling them that their failures are somebody else's fault. For if a nation declares it has reached its majority by instituting self-government, then it cannot shirk responsibility. ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... times when I shan't know that she isn't happy—a lack of perspective or something. If ever there comes a time like that and you know of it, don't spare me. I have taken the responsibility of her youth upon my shoulders and I am not going to shirk. It will be ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... because it was my duty. Not many people do their duty in this world, but though I'm a very poor man, I won't shirk it—no, I won't shirk it.' He rubbed his hands together slowly, and nodded across the hearth to his niece. Instead of being pleased, as she ought to have been, with this announcement, she gave a quick little shiver. 'My brother John—your father, I mean—and I have not met for a ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... make them more devoted to their rulers. It is, therefore, not surprising that the Jews, trained in the spirit of a century-long repressive legislation, have remained in the category of those subjects, who are less accurate in the discharge of their civic duty, who shirk their obligations towards the State, and do not fully join Russian life. No less than six hundred and fifty restrictive laws directed against the Jews may be enumerated in the Russian Code, and the discriminations ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... much work is done By clown and kaiser, by serf and sage; All sow and some reap, and few gather the heap Of the garner'd grain of a by-gone age. By sea or by soil man is bound to toil, And the dreamer, waiting for time and tide, For awhile may shirk his share of the work, But he grows with his dream dissatisfied; He may climb to the edge of the beetling ledge, Where the loose crag topples and well-nigh reels 'Neath the lashing gale, but the tonic will fail— What does it profit?—Wheels ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... once started on restrictions, drew article after article, until it seemed that manacles were put on the masters' hands. To these restrictions the decadence of Brussels is ascribed, but that were like laying a criminal's fault to the laws of the country. Primarily must have been the desire to shirk, the intent to do questionable work. And behind that must have been a basic cause. Possibly it was one of those which we are apt to consider modern, that is, the desire to turn effort into the coin of the realm. All of the enormous quantity of orders received by Brussels in the days of her ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... intended to shirk the consequences of her misdemeanour was only too clearly proved to Janice, when later she went to her room to prink for supper, for lying on her dressing stand was the miniature. Shocked as Miss Meredith was at the sight, she lifted and ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... is too strict for their fancy. They would rather be in the town, rather starve in a workshop, or ruin their lungs in a factory, because there they have more freedom—that is, they can go on the spree all night and shirk their work all day, if they like—they can play the gentleman, and think themselves as good as any general or minister. Under these circumstances, it is no wonder that they soon come to want, and instead of admitting ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... Cardigan's way of teaching his boy financial responsibility. All that he possessed he had worked for, and he wanted his son to grow up with the business to realize that he was a part of it with definite duties connected with it developing upon him—duties which he must never shirk if he was to retain the rich redwood heritage his father had been so eagerly storing ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... found the world quite as he would like it. You will be sure to have burdens laid upon you that belong to other people, unless you are a shirk yourself; but don't grumble. If the work needs doing and you can do it, never mind about the other one who ought to have done it and didn't; do it yourself. Those workers who fill up the gaps, and smooth away the rough spots, and finish up the jobs that others leave undone,—they ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... of us shirk this question is the lamentable want of the habit of living by principle and reflection. Most men never see their life steadily, and see it whole. They live from hand to mouth, they are driven this way and that way; they adapt means to ends In regard to business ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... young children played at work, And thus learnt to work well, And now their duties they ne'er shirk, Which is all I've to tell, ...
— Sugar and Spice • James Johnson
... matter. Times have changed. Things are not as they were thirty years ago. To allow a great and valuable wild fauna to be destroyed and wasted is a crime, against both the present and the future. If we mean to be good citizens we cannot shirk the duty to conserve. We are trustees of the inheritance of future generations, and we have no right to squander that inheritance. If we fail of our plain duty, the scorn of future generations ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... own favorite escape. Of course we should never shirk a problem that must be decided, but let us always wait a reasonable time for it to decide itself first. The solving that is done for us is invariably better and clearer than any ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call
... to grow into. But about this matter of Lies—let us look at the fabric of society, let us compare the savage. You will discover the only essential difference between savage and civilised is this: The former hasn't learnt to shirk the truth of things, and the latter has. Take the most obvious difference—the clothing of the civilised man, his invention of decency. What is clothing? The concealment of essential facts. What ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... not listen to God or their conscience or even their instinct in the matter, who live comfortably apart from the evil places, and so hear only now and then a message from the dying wafted on the sable wings of cholera or typhus. Is it not shabby this, to shirk their share of the work and the trouble, and to leave it to be done by softer hearts ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... this, and the little smile she gave were to give me to understand that this weakness had descended in the family. I felt my heart contract; my self-imposed task was a harder one than I had anticipated, but I could not shirk it now. "Did this wine-cellar you mention run all the way to this house?" I lightly inquired. "I stumbled on a passage leading here, which I thought you ought to know is now open to any one in Mayor Packard's house. Of course, it will be closed ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... the proposition which I present. It is primarily pacific: yet it is firm and unyielding. It courts a peaceable adjustment, yet it does not shirk war, if ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... use: we're sure to be always meeting them. And besides, I'll be hanged if I'm going to shirk the Hickses. I spent five whole months on the Ibis, and if they bored me occasionally, ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... granted, therefore, that the Assistant Commissioner knew what he was about in uttering his satisfaction at the Superintendent's choice of an assistant. Possibly he had the earlier bond robbery in mind, and expected now that another "mystery" would be solved. Scotland Yard guards many secrets which shirk the glare of publicity. Some may never be explained; but by far the larger proportion are cleared up unexpectedly by incidents which may occur months or years afterward, and whose connection with the original ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... remained. A score of times, during the past quarter of an hour, he had all but determined to throw up this unsavoury affair and to let Severac Bablon do with him as he would. Now, he stifled all scruples and was glad that the task had been required of him. He would shirk no more, but would go through with the part allotted him in this strange comedy, lead ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... or on that of the enemy. A dangerous question, this!—a question posed again and again by the jingoes and the fanatics of history, and invariably answered according to the dictates of their own convenience. And yet a question which we dare not shirk, a question which a Carlyle, a Ruskin, a William Morris would not have hesitated to formulate. Does Britain stand for an Idea? Is it true that we are fighting in the main for the cause of Liberty and Democracy, for progress in Europe and ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... and told his driver. Mr. B. was not acquainted with the way the staple is usually prepared for market, concerning which I had taken pains to inform myself before leaving home, and the negroes had taken the chance to shirk. I started off to take the tour of Ladies Island and see their cotton. I visited about a dozen cotton-houses during the day along the east side of the island, and rode on to Cuthbert's Point to sleep with Joe Reed ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... forward just before the release, and the other is to draw the hand away from the face in the act of releasing. Keep your fingers flexed and your hand by your jaw. All the fingers of the right hand must bear their proper share of work. The great tendency is to permit the forefinger to shirk and to put too much ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... we must put it in practice. We are reducing all her other views to practice, and we must not shirk ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... confession of their faith, and acknowledgment of their sin. The history of Israel was typified in this history, and the lessons it teaches are lessons for all churches, and for all God's children for all time. If we shirk our duty of witnessing for Him, or any other of His plain commands, unfaithfulness will be our ruin. The storm is sure to break where His Jonahs try to hide, and their only hope lies in bowing to the chastisement and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... that," said the artist, softly. "Of course I shouldn't have agreed with you. I beg pardon for having done so, but now that we are here, you are not to shirk your share of the duties. I want you to search around and ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... "it would not do for you to have a sailor lad. Your tender heart would break with the anxiety. He's a nice, upright fellow, and he will never shirk a duty. But you——" What ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... by the thought of the excuses she would have to invent. And not a word, till Mr. Manisty was safely started on his way to that function at the Vatican which he was already grumbling over, which he would certainly shirk if he could. But, thank Heaven, it was not possible for ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... therefore, be accepted only by men who possess the rare power of combining their beliefs into a logical whole. Most people contrive to shirk the consequences, either by some of those evasions which, as Edwards showed, amount to asserting the objective existence of chance, or more commonly by forbidding their reason to follow the chain of inferences through more than a few links. The axiom that the cause of a cause is also ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... skulking of that sort on board this vessel. You want to shirk your duty. Turn out lively, ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... off toward the door and halting, remarked: "Yes, may think better when he's by hisse'f, but not as fast. When he's got thinkin' to do that he don't want to do he mout shirk it if left by hisse'f. Well, I'll give you a leetle mo' time, but not much. My plan is that when you've got a bad piece of work on hand, git through with it as soon as possible. I'm goin' down the road a piece an' will drap in on my way back," and as he passed out he looked back and added: ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... working well and their crop promises to be large, he will permit and even encourage them to draw upon him liberally; it is only a partial failure of the crop, or some intimation of the negro's intention to shirk his obligations, that induces his country factor to preach the virtue of self-restraint, or moralize ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... Doctor (Tom, by the way, even in the bosom of his family, always thought and talked of his father as the "Doctor")—as for the Doctor, well, Tom was inclined to shirk the risk of more tete-a-tetes than he could possibly help with so formidable a personage, even though he was ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... that the children of some strolling players used to have a hard time of it, but my mother was not one to shirk her duties. She worked hard at her profession and yet found it possible not to drag up her children, to live or die as it happened, but to bring them up to be healthy, happy, and wise—theater-wise, at any rate. When her babies were too small to be left at the lodgings (which ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... not shirk any of the other expeditions nor the garrison duty, but always marched with the foremost and retreated among the last. You ought to estimate from such considerations, those who live well and in order, and not hate a man for wearing his hair long. For habits of this ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias
... passion to carry it into action, and feeling and passion are only to be generated in sufficient volume among the masses, where the vested interests of all kinds are less tremendous. You upper-class folk have your part, of course. Woe betide you if you shirk it—but——' ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and as for good 'ealth, I've no doubt That the treadmill is jolly salubrious, wich that is mere turning about, Upon planks 'stead o' pedals, my pippin. No, wheeling as wheeling's 'ard work, And that, without larks, is a speeches of game as I always did shirk. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various
... home-coming Elmer and the other children found more time to shirk, and, seeing his eagerness and ability to do so many things that he had not before understood, the family forced the poor little tired form to work far beyond its strength. But without complaint Edwin strove to do all the work assigned ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... that the household is made up of mixed elements, and things might be lost; the second is that the preparations are under no particular control, with the result that, when the time comes, the servants might shirk their duties; the third is that the necessary expenditure being great, there will be reckless disbursements and counterfeit receipts; the fourth, that with the absence of any distinction in the matter of duties, whether large or small, hardship ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... line. Already it has entirely disappeared in my own person. With wealth and position it will be to me at home as though it were not; and when my dear mother passes away it will disappear entirely and be speedily lost to memory. I do not mean by this to shirk the position of the colored man, of which I have had a bitter taste. I only mean to show you the brightness and hope of my situation. I trust that you will approve of the course which I have marked ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... postpone, and by loss of character parry the evil for a short space; but not long, depend upon it. You and I may not see it, but our children will, and be obliged to meet the struggle man to man, which we may now shirk. By God alone can we be saved from such consequences; may He shed his power and grace upon ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... much silent, unobtrusive self-denial, an hourly devotion which finds no detail too minute. The soup warming before the fire must be watched. Am I the kind of woman, do you suppose, to shirk such cares? The humblest task may earn a rich harvest of affection. How pretty is a child's laugh when he finds the food to his liking! Armand has a way of nodding his head when he is pleased that is worth a lifetime of adoration. ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... think you will. It's your way of glossing over the ethical position. It's the sort of way a woman always does gloss over her ethical positions. You're all dependents—all of you. By instinct. Only you good ones—shirk. You shirk a straightforward and decent return for what you get from us—taking refuge in purity and delicacy and such-like when it comes ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... Shield sxildo. Shield sxildi, sxirmi. Shift (garment) cxemizo. Shift movi, transporti. Shilling sxilingo. Shin tibio. Shine brili. Shingle sxindo—eto. Shining brila. Ship sxipo. Ship ensxipigi. Shipwreck sxippereo. Shipwright sxipfaristo. Shire graflando. Shirk eviti. Shirt cxemizo. Shiver tremeti. Shoal fisxaro. Shock frapo. Shocking terura. Shoe sxuo. Shoes, boots, etc. piedvesto. Shoot (tree) brancxeto. Shoot (to bud) gxermi. Shoot (a gun) pafi. Shoot (to kill) mortpafi. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... Each day it calls loudly to every parent and every teacher for a solution. The health and happiness of the coming generations depend upon the right education of the present one, and this responsibility the home and the school can neither shirk nor shift. We take great unction to ourselves for the excellence of the horses, pigs, and cattle that we have on exhibition at the fairs, but are silent as to our failures in the form of children, that drag out a half-life in our hospitals. In one state ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... alternative. Good Lord, man!"—with savage irritability—"you don't suppose I'm enjoying it, do you? But I've no way out. I took a certain responsibility on myself—and I must see it through. I can't shirk it now, just because pay-day's come. I can do ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... by dynamite of the militiamen who perished at midnight in shaft No. 7 of the Wahoo Fuel Company's mines, I take full responsibility. I have assumed a leadership in a strike which caused these deaths. I shirk no whit of my share in this outrage. Yet I preached only peace. I pleaded for orderly conduct. I appealed to the workers to take their own not by force of arms but by the tremendous force of moral right. That ten thousand workers respected this appeal, ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... women might take example from these little creatures," said Temperley, who, in common with many self-sufficient persons, was fond of recommending humility to others. "They never attempt to shirk their lowly tasks on the plea of higher vocations. Not one turns from the path marked out by our great Mother, who also teaches her human children the same lesson of patient duty; but, alas! by ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... courage and a conscience. She felt that she must not shirk the consequences to herself ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... whether the South possessed a dubious right of secession, because that dispute, in case it came to a head, could only be settled by war; but whether a democratic nation could on democratic principles continue to shirk the problem of slavery by shifting the responsibility for it to individuals and localities. As soon as Lincoln made it plain that a democratic nation could not make local and individual rights an excuse for national irresponsibility, ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... courage without a moment's change in her routine and on insufficient sleep can only be explained by the twin facts that she came of hardy peasant stock, and, like all French children, no matter how individual, was too thoroughly imbued with the discipline of "The Family" to shirk for a moment the particular task that war had brought her. This iron discipline of The Family, one of the most salient characteristics of the French, is largely responsible for the matter-of-fact way in which every soldier of France, reservist ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... grandmother is nearing the close of her earthly pilgrimage. She may go at any time. Dr. Reed hath given us notice, and death is a sad and awesome matter even for little ones. So mother said she would rather have no added cares, though she would not shirk any duty." ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... a nasty bit of a temper, Joyce." Jared's eye gleamed. "I hope you ain't going to take the first chance you get to shirk your duty ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... can as little have Unity of Sentiment as they can be real friends, except to a very slight extent, desiring as they do unfair advantage in things profitable while they shirk labour and service for the common good: and while each man wishes for these things for himself he is jealous of and hinders his neighbour: and as they do not watch over the common good it is lost. The result is that they quarrel ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... passed, a month which it is safe to say was neither satisfactory to Sam nor his employer. The deacon discovered that the boy needed constant watching. When he was left to himself, he was sure to shirk his work, and indulge his natural love of living at ease. His appetite showed no signs of decrease, and the deacon was led to remark that "Samuel had the stiddyest appetite of any boy he ever knew. He never seemed to know when he ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger
... yourself.' But such expressions often spring from pure selfishness, and sometimes exhibit a sinful disregard for the happiness of other people. Nothing makes it right to ease yourself at the expense of others, or to shirk burdens by shifting them to other shoulders. Some are clever at that, but such action may be positively sinful. On the other hand, God can deliver us from that anxious care and foreboding and unrest with which so ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... their posterity. But there are other duties which must be accepted, even though they entail national sacrifice, because laid at the nation's door, like Cuba, or forced upon its decision, like the Philippines. I see too clearly in myself the miserable disposition to shirk work and care, and responsibility, to condone the same in nations. I once heard a preacher thus parody effectively the words of the prophet—"Here am I, send him!" And I have heard attributed to the late Mr. John Hay an equally telling allusion to certain of our moralists, who would ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... more like Switzerland! You don't suppose Dad turns back at the snowline when he's doing a climb? We're in luck to have the chance of a little snow. I wish there'd been a keen frost, and we could have tried an ice axe somewhere. Pluck up your courage, Meg! You'll never do the Matterhorn if you shirk ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... unbefitting and a little cowardly for Duke Alessandro to shirk the duties of his station for verse-making and eternal pleasure-seeking. Now ...
— The Jewel Merchants - A Comedy In One Act • James Branch Cabell
... sex I passed over as lightly as possible. I did, however, try to give her the idea that love is the great continuer of life. The subject was difficult, and my knowledge inadequate; but I am glad I didn't shirk my responsibility; for, stumbling, hesitating, and incomplete as my explanation was, it touched deep responsive chords in the soul of my little pupil, and the readiness with which she comprehended the great facts of physical ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... and selected a profession. I determined to study medicine at the New York Academy. This disposition of my future suited me. A removal from my relatives would enable me to dispose of my time as I pleased, without fear of detection. As long as I paid my Academy fees, I might shirk attending the lectures, if I chose; and as I never had the remotest intention of standing an examination, there was no danger of my being "plucked." Besides, a metropolis was the place for me. There I could obtain excellent instruments, the newest publications, intimacy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... cried Marchmont, shaking his fist at the great steamship in a paroxysm of disappointed rage. "It's only an excuse to shirk your duty! We've brought them out to you, and you've got to take them! I'll report you to ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... so he spent a little of his time in visiting among the neighboring planters, and a good deal more in "pottering" among his mother's flower beds. Visiting was the hardest work he had ever done; but he knew he couldn't shirk it without exciting talk, and there was talk enough about him in ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... education of any two men of fifty years being precisely alike, in every particular and in all their results. The soul's problems are not to be solved by theories. Such was not the practice of the Great Physician; "surely, He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." Theories shirk that. "In all their affliction, He was afflicted; in His love and in His pity, He redeemed them." And precisely in this way his ministers are now to follow up his practice. Our age is growing less and less tolerant of formality,—less and less willing to accept metaphysical disquisition in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... he fed Horse, Chickens and Pig And afterwards milked old Cow. For Farmer must work, he never can shirk! Today he is working, right now, right now! Today he is ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... the thin procession through narrowed lids. In theory he condemned equally the blind obstinacy of the authorities, who went on tightening the screw, and the foolhardiness of the men. But—well, he could not get his eye to shirk one of the screaming banners and placards: "Down with Despotism!" "Who so base as be a Slave!" by means of which the diggers sought to inflame popular indignation. "If only honest rebels could get on without melodramatic exaggeration! As it is, those good fellows ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... Democratic Congress in Erfurt, 1891, deserves mention. It is a passage from a speech delivered by the elder Liebknecht in the Reichstag: "As regards the defence of the Fatherland all parties will be united when it is necessary to meet an outside enemy. In that moment no party will shirk its duty." ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... rocks are under the eye of alert navy men and volunteers, the latter being civilians who have spent their lives by the sea. They know their business, and even though they are volunteers, the discipline is rigid. But they are not the type of men to shirk their duty, for they would take it as missing a God-given opportunity if their eyes were closed at the time they could help their country most. After travelling around part of the coast-line, a stranger leaves with the opinion that ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... achieve, consummate, execute, perform; transact; perpetrate, commit; translate, render; suffice, answer; fare, prosper; vouchsafe, grant; (Colloq.) cheat, overreach, swindle, defraud. Antonyms: shirk, evade. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... greedy for the toast Of confidence before our guest, The loyal song, the manly boast Your splendid faith to manifest. In works of art and livelihood Shirk not the creed, "What's ours is good," Dread not to ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... part of the community you enjoy the good roads, streets, schools, libraries and many other things; therefore, you have no right to shirk your duty in not helping to maintain your government. If we enjoy the good things in this life without doing our part to have them ...
— Citizenship - A Manual for Voters • Emma Guy Cromwell
... Washington County in anti-excise proceedings, 51; elected to legislature, 54; low opinion of Gallatin concerning, 54; tries to shirk responsibility, 69; then determines on extreme measures, robs mail, 69; calls for armed resistance, 70; unable to countermand order, 70; assumes office of major-general, 72; his harangue to the insurgents, 73; at meeting at Parkinson's Ferry, 78; advocates armed resistance, ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... men who are to be the leaders, spend their hours in riotous living? No, never! Will they be false to duty? No, never! Will they shirk? No, never! Will they be disloyal to self, to home, to country, ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... deplore, indeed, that a preceding Administration has involved us in responsibilities almost beyond the power of statesmen to grapple with successfully; but that is the habit of preceding Administrations, and now that such measures are beyond recall we shall not shirk their consequences. The recent annexation of Mercury by Russia, and the presence in Jupiter of a German emissary, whose ulterior object, though the Press of that country states him to have gone there solely for the ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... and pray; Fast if thou wilt; and yet, throughout the day, Neglect no labour and no duty shirk: Not many hours are left thee for thy work - And it were meet That all ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... to put your threepenny-bit in?" said Jolland; "I won't if you don't. Sometimes, you know, when the plate comes round, old Grim squints down the pews to see we don't shirk. Then I put in sixpence. Have you done your hymn? I do hate a hymn. What's the use of learning hymns? They won't mark you for them, you know, in any exam. I ever heard of, and it can't save you the expense of a hymnbook unless you learnt all the hymns in it, and that would ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... my dear," said the colonel gently. "And I am not going fishing merely to shirk a responsibility. But I have to think some of these puzzles out quietly, and fishing is ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... that President Wilson has rendered a conspicuous service to the Allies by compelling them to face the formidable difficulties of the problem of peace. Henceforth it will be impossible for our rulers to shirk those difficulties. They will have to give us something more tangible than mere vague and solemn abstractions, than mere rhetorical phrases and catchwords: they will have to depend on the support of public opinion. The ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... work, Martha!—God's work! Haven't I babbled in the pulpit long enough about fatherhood and brotherhood, that I should shirk His irony when He takes me ...
— The Servant in the House • Charles Rann Kennedy
... shields from their necks, and taken the lances blazoned in quarterings; they all at once rush on to the ford; and the enemy lower their lances and ride quickly to strike them. But Alexander and his comrades knew well how to pay them back; and they neither spare them nor shirk nor yield a foot before them; rather each strikes his own foe so doughtily that there is no knight so good but he must void his saddle-bow. The Greeks did not take them for boys for cowards or for men bewildered. They have not wasted their first blows; ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... one, but our hero did not shirk the task before him. He half dragged and half carried the unconscious lady to the nearest staircase and almost ...
— Joe The Hotel Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.
... say BROWNING and BURT, But to "raise the whole race" can't be done in a spurt, And while Nature provides us with genius and clown, There is nought to be gained by mere levelling down. So the plan of PROCRUSTES, my boys, will not work, Or will benefit none save the sluggard or shirk. Oh yes, the bold bully stands swaggering there With the axe in his hand, and his head in the air, Type of heedless Compulsion, the shallow of pate, Who man's freedom would sell to a fetish of State. Self-help ...
— Punch, Volume 101, September 19, 1891 • Francis Burnand
... regard it is lawful for man to possess property. Moreover this is necessary to human life for three reasons. First because every man is more careful to procure what is for himself alone than that which is common to many or to all: since each one would shirk the labor and leave to another that which concerns the community, as happens where there is a great number of servants. Secondly, because human affairs are conducted in more orderly fashion if each man is charged with taking care of some particular thing himself, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... a cold heart. Why that cold sign? Ah, I don't wonder you try to shirk the confession. You feel in your soul how ungenerous a hint is there. And yet, barber, now that I look into your eyes—which somehow speak to me of the mother that must have so often looked into them before me—I dare say, though you may ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... he can work; So can I! So can I! Strain and long hours he will not shirk. Nor do I, nor do I. But he may work at his sweet will; So they say, so they say. Whilst I must toil my pouch to fill; A long day, a long day! So there's some difference I see ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various
... hear that Anthony, though he did shirk the welcome on the quay, behaved admirably, with the simplicity of a man who has no small meannesses and makes no mean reservations. His eyes did not flinch and his tongue did not falter. He was, I have it on the best authority, admirable in his earnestness, in his sincerity and also in his ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... of your statesmen and higher officials, military and naval, are suffering from kidney diseases, which weaken their courage and will-power, and make them shirk all responsibility as far ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... that the arrangement which he proposes is for only such time as is necessary to provide adequate religious instruction for the natives. Then the full amount of tribute may be collected, and the encomenderos will enjoy all their revenues. Most of them will shirk their obligations to the Indians, as they have done in the past, unless they are compelled to meet them; and Salazar thinks that they will be more ready to provide religious instruction if they are restricted from collecting the tributes ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair
... fur you, 'Liphalet: it 's a shame, you a-goin' ag'in' me, after all I 've done to make Freddie material fit for the Lord's use. Jest think what you 'll have to answer fur, a-helpin' this unruly boy to shirk his dooty." ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... that there's your work To keep your heart and head From thoughts that lurk in them who shirk Their daily round to tread. But she goes bold who feels the hold And colour of her love Laid on her task like water-gold From the lit ...
— The Village Wife's Lament • Maurice Hewlett
... lovable, gracious towards men, because we receive grace from God. We owe it to our Lord and to our fellows, and to ourselves, to be magnets to attract to Jesus, by showing how fair He can make a life. Joseph in prison found work to do, and he did not shirk it. He might have said to himself: 'This is poor work for me, who had all Potiphar's house to rule. Shall such a man as I come down to such small tasks as this?' He might have sulked or desponded in idleness, but he took the kind of work that offered, and did his best by it. Many young ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... forbids the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the federal territories, he is right to say so. But he should, at the same time, brave the responsibility of declaring that, in his opinion, he understands their principles better than they did themselves; and especially should he not shirk that responsibility by asserting that they "understood the question just as well, and even better, than ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... from representing her as she really is. The suffragist is a true product of our era of liberty. Having received the same education as man, she knows and does not shirk her responsibilities towards her family; but at the same time she is free from prejudice and deems it her duty to cooeperate with man in all work concerning social reform and the public welfare of the community in which she lives. She believes that for the very ...
— The Woman and the Right to Vote • Rafael Palma
... No—he couldn't shirk it! Come what might, he would see this through and force himself to act in every respect as he would have acted were Ocky not involved. She was clean and straight herself, even if misguided loyalty ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... pervaded with young healthy men, with the red cross on their arms, who are supposed to be making themselves useful in some mysterious manner, but whose main object in being here is, I imagine, to shirk military service. The ambulance which is considered the best is the American. The wounded are under canvas, the tents are not cold, and yet the ventilation is admirable. The American surgeons are far more skilful in the treatment of gun-shot ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... answered awkwardly, feeling that he was not getting on very well. "I know how kind you are and that you wouldn't shirk any trouble. ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... a smile. "I fear he will have to have his little lesson before he gets in that frame of mind. Walt," he continued earnestly, "I do not want the responsibility but I am not going to shirk it now that it is thrust upon me. Frankly, though, I can't help wishing that this trip was over and we were safe back in town ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... no use: we're sure to be always meeting them. And besides, I'll be hanged if I'm going to shirk the Hickses. I spent five whole months on the Ibis, and if they bored me occasionally, ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... Joe. Now, I leave you in charge. Keep a sharp eye on the men—especially on that lazy fellow who has a tendency to sleep and shirk duty. If the rock in the fair-way is got ready before my return, blast it at once, without waiting for me. You will find one of Siebe and Gorman's voltaic batteries in my lodging, also a frictional electrical machine, which you can use if you prefer it. In the store there is a large supply of ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... that should not deter us,—surely!" Lord Henry rejoined. "Everything relating to parenthood is responsibility, why shirk that last ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... said; 'we are never placed in circumstances where it is impossible to serve our Master. I sometimes wish a little more of the martial spirit could be instilled into many Christians. A true soldier does not shirk or shrink from the front in battle, but a Christian is very apt to hide his colours if he ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... last-named consideration, Mr. Aylett, I believe, thoroughly, as you do. I have already told you that I invite, not shirk, the investigation you propose. I now repeat my offer of whatever facility is at my command for carrying this on. No honorable man could do less. Unless I mistake, you wish now ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... with you and Vesta; but malice is no part of my nature, and I am quite ready to overlook the neglect. You and Vesta must miss Phoebe sadly, and be very lonely, and I feel it a duty that I must not shirk to come and show you both that to me, at least, blood is thicker than water. One drop of Darracott blood, I always say, is enough to establish a claim on me. It is a long time since I have been ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... spent in palm-wine, rum, and wassail; one must begin by humouring Africans, under pain of being considered a churl; but the inevitable result is, that next day they will by some pretext or other shirk work to enjoy the headache. That old villain, "Young Prince," becoming very fou, hospitably offered me his daughter-in-law Azizeh, Forteune's second wife; and he was vigorously supported by the Nimrod himself, who had ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... has a duty in this matter. Times have changed. Things are not as they were thirty years ago. To allow a great and valuable wild fauna to be destroyed and wasted is a crime, against both the present and the future. If we mean to be good citizens we cannot shirk the duty to conserve. We are trustees of the inheritance of future generations, and we have no right to squander that inheritance. If we fail of our plain duty, the scorn of future generations surely ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... obstreperous cowboys and protect my property and Alfred's, and take care of us—of me, until this revolution is ended? I have never had a day's worry since I bought the ranch. It is not that I want to shirk my responsibilities; it is that I like being happy. May I put so much ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... your turn to keep guard, and Thorn's to tell his romance. Come, don't try to shirk; it does a man good to talk of such things, and ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... but to retire. Two o'clock had just struck; nearly three hours had been spent in fruitless search. Roland, rehabilitated in the estimation of the gendarmes and the dragoons, who saw that the ex-novice did not shirk danger, regretfully gave the signal for retreat by opening the door of the chapel ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life; the life of toil and effort; of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shirk from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... of his time, but neither his intelligence nor disposition corresponded to his outward appearance; he was at once violent and feeble, indolent, narrow-minded, and sensual, and was easily swayed by his courtiers and mistresses. The idea of a war had no attractions for him, and he was inclined to shirk it. His uncle Artabanus exhorted him to follow his inclination for peace, and he lent a favourable ear to his advice until his cousin Mardonius remonstrated with him, and begged him not to leave the disgrace of Marathon ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... four armored gunboats, Essex, Commander Wm. D. Porter; Carondelet, Commander Walke; St. Louis, Lieutenant Paulding; and Cincinnati, Commander Stembel; as well as the three wooden gunboats, Conestoga, Lieutenant Phelps; Tyler, Lieutenant Gwin; and Lexington, Lieutenant Shirk. The object of the expedition was to attack, conjointly with the army, Fort Henry on the Tennessee, and, after reducing the fort, to destroy the railroad bridge over the river connecting Bowling Green with Columbus. The flag-officer deplored that scarcity of men prevented his coming ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... comin behund it'll have a chonce o' overtakkin me, an' if aw wor go in faster it might think aw wor tryin to get aght o'th' way on it: an' whativer fowk may say, awm net one o' them 'ats feeard o' wark, for aw nivver put misen aght oth' way to shirk owt yet." ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... They've too much of what I call thick-skinned honesty for that. It's the temper of the time to resent nothing,—to be mealy-mouthed and mealy-hearted. Jurymen are afraid of having their own opinion, and almost always shirk a ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... ever found the world quite as he would like it. You will be sure to have burdens laid upon you that belong to other people, unless you are a shirk yourself; but don't grumble. If the work needs doing and you can do it, never mind about the other one who ought to have done it and didn't; do it yourself. Those workers who fill up the gaps, and smooth away the rough spots, and finish up the jobs that others leave ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... Congress in Erfurt, 1891, deserves mention. It is a passage from a speech delivered by the elder Liebknecht in the Reichstag: "As regards the defence of the Fatherland all parties will be united when it is necessary to meet an outside enemy. In that moment no party will shirk its duty." ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... culminating point, when one day—mother, children, and maid all out—he stole up softly to the children's nursery. This small attic room, close to the roof, low, insufficiently ventilated, was altogether too much for Sandy. The time had come for him to act, and he was never the man to shirk action in any way. Charlotte Harman was all very well; that dying father of hers, whom he pronounced a most atrocious sinner, and took pleasure in so thinking him, he also was well enough, but everything could ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... meet, a clearer and humbler understanding of our human limitations. We must also clearly realize as makers of the future, that as the Church has its special dangers of conservatism, cosiness, intolerance, a checking of initiative, the domestic tendency to enclose itself and shirk reality; so the cultus has also its special dangers, of which the chief are perhaps formalism, magic, and spiritual sloth. Receiving and conserving as it does all the successive deposits of racial experience, ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... (soldier) is the worst term of reproach that can be applied to a sailor. It signifies a skulk, a shirk,— one who is always trying to get clear of work, and is out of the way, or hanging back, when duty is to be done. "Marine'' is the term applied more particularly to a man who is ignorant and clumsy about seaman's work,— ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... soon forgotten," says he, sententiously, during a pause. "You all seem strangely oblivious of the fact that last night there was a ball in this house. Why shirk the subject? I like talking," says Mr. Potts, superfluously, "and surely you must all have something to communicate concerning it. Thanks to our own exertions, I think it was as good a one as ever I was at; and the old boy"—(I need scarcely say Mr. Amherst has ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... by Lieutenant Gwin, fired from ten minutes to three o'clock until ten minutes to four upon Breckenridge's brigades, and, joined by the Lexington, commanded by Lieutenant Shirk, fired later upon the portion of Bragg's command close to the river-bank, for thirty-five minutes. This fire drove a battery from its position, threw Gibson's brigade and a portion of Trabue's brigade into disorder, killed ten and wounded many of Wood's brigade, killed and wounded a number of ...
— From Fort Henry to Corinth • Manning Ferguson Force
... criminal aggression." The phrase was seized eagerly by those who were opposing the annexation of the Spanish possessions. After the war with Spain had begun, the President changed front on the ground that destiny had placed a responsibility upon the American people that they could not shirk. Taking this view of the situation, the President had only one course open to him—to insist upon the annexation of the Philippines, Porto Rico and Guam. This was the course that was followed, and on April 11, 1899, these territories were officially ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... then begins a fall of snow, making the crow, who skims away so close above the ground to shirk the wind, a blot of ink upon the landscape. But though it drives and drifts against them as they walk, stiffening on their skirts, and freezing in the lashes of their eyes, they wouldn't have it fall more sparingly, no, not so much ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... captainship, even if pushed to excess, reposed upon some ground of reason. But even terror and admiration of the captain failed us before the end. The men wearied of the hopeless, unremunerative quest and the long strain of labour. They began to shirk and grumble. Retribution fell on them at once, and retribution multiplied the grumblings. With every day it took harder driving to keep them to the daily drudge; and we, in our narrow boundaries, were kept conscious every moment of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the way, get out of the way; evade, elude, turn away from; set one's face against &c. (oppose) 708; deny oneself. shrink back; hang back, hold back, draw back; recoil &c. 277; retire &c. (recede) 287; flinch, blink, blench, shy, shirk, dodge, parry, make way for, give place to. beat a retreat; turn tail, turn one's back; take to one's heels; runaway, run for one's life; cut and run; be off like a shot; fly, flee; fly away, flee away, run away from; take flight, take to flight; desert, elope; make off, scamper ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... farmer should always plan to economize labor, which is the great item of expense upon a farm. By this is not meant that he should strive to shirk or avoid work, but that he should make the least amount of work accomplish the greatest and most profitable results. Labor-saving machinery on the farm is applied, not to reduce the number of hours of labor, or to make the owner a man of leisure—who is, generally, ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... man knows as well as does the good man how to work, But one takes pride in every task, the other likes to shirk; With just as little as he can, one seeks his pay to earn, The good man always gives the bolt ...
— All That Matters • Edgar A. Guest
... that he may die, but never that he'll shirk; If death shall want him death must go and take him at his work; This splendid sacrifice he makes is filled with terrors grim, And I have many thoughts of fear, but ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest
... out. Work, the Titan; Work, the friend, Shaping the earth to a glorious end, Draining the swamps and blasting the hills, Doing whatever the Spirit wills— Rending a continent apart, To answer the dream of the Master heart. Thank God for a world where none may shirk— Thank God ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... what you want of me," answered Oswyn shrewdly. "You said in your note that it was on a matter of vital importance to a friend of mine. I haven't so many friends that I can afford to shirk a little trouble in a matter which vitally concerns one of them. May I ask, in the first ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... besought his neighbors to do the same, I could wish that his praying would choke him. Are we worthy to be saved—that is the question. If we expect God to furnish the flannel and the shoe leather, we are not. That is our part of the great task. Are we going to shirk it and fail? ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... mother with Evelina. The two women stood as far apart as a little, meaningless song stands from a great symphony. One would fire a man with high ambition, exalt him with noble striving—ah, but had she? Was it Evelina's fault that Anthony Dexter was a coward and a shirk? Cravenly, he began to blame the woman, to lay the burden of his own shortcomings ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... answered Mr. Eversleigh, with a tone of sullen despair. "I am utterly ruined, Carrington. It's no use trying to shirk the truth. I am a doomed wretch, a beggar for life, and the sooner I throw myself over one of the bridges, and make an end of my miserable existence, the better. According to Millard's account my uncle's infatuation for that singing-girl grows stronger and ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... was not a man to shirk responsibilities. It is true, dark days had come to him, when a crushing burden had well-nigh smothered him, and a bullet to still his fevered brain had seemed far sweeter to Paul than all else ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... her forthwith—by post; the usual expedient of those who shirk "scenes." He furthermore took the precaution to add that the matter ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... it be wholly true, rejected if it be wholly false, wisely sifted and turned to account if it embrace a mixture of truth and error. Of late years the study of the nervous system, and its relation to thought and feeling, have profoundly occupied enquiring minds. It is our duty not to shirk—it ought rather to be our privilege to accept—the established results of such enquiries, for here assuredly our ultimate weal depends upon our loyalty to the truth. Instructed as to the control which the nervous ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... young nobleman continued, "the Miss Rackstraws came out quite strong; really they did now, upon my honour. It was quite a quiet thing. Lady Merriborough hadn't even got a new gown on. Lady Anne, you shirk London society this year, and we miss you: we expected you to give us two or three things this season; we did now, really. I said to Tufthunt, only yesterday, Why has not Lady Anne Newcome given anything? You know Tufthunt? They say he's a clever fellow, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... individual and joint responsibility for the happiness, cheerfulness, good nature, and general social tone of their home; and to help at these points should become a part of their religion. They should be stimulated to share in the care of the home, and not to shirk their part of its work. They should be interested in the home's finances, and come to feel a personal responsibility for saving or earning as the situation may require. They should have a definite part in the hospitality which the home extends to its friends and neighbors, ...
— How to Teach Religion - Principles and Methods • George Herbert Betts
... autres maeurs." You are a very odd mixture. You will go to the ends of the earth on the scent of big game; but you shirk all social exertion with a cynical laziness. You will come from Damascus at a stretch without sleeping, and think nothing of it; but you find it a wretched thing to have to exert yourself to ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... mistakes are made in child government. One is the indulgence of a soft, vacillating policy by the parent which permits a child to shirk his duties and to escape from the natural results of his misdeeds. Through the parent's taking upon his own shoulders the consequences of the child's wrong-doing, the child is lured into the false belief that duty may be shirked, responsibility set aside, ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... man makes me angry. I know your type inside out. You overwork and shirk exercise, and let your temper run away with you, and smoke strong cigars on an empty stomach; and when you get indigestion as a natural result you look on yourself as a martyr, nourish a perpetual grouch, and make the lives of everybody you meet miserable. If you would put ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... replied the ranger. "If I had thought you were trying to shirk, I'd have had you out of bed ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... the upbringing an' edication of un. I mean him to be brought up to a power o' knowledge, for theer's nothin' like it. Doan't you think I be gwaine to shirk doin' the right thing by un', Miller, 'cause it aint so. If 'twas my last fi'-pun' note was called up for ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... that we have more men of that class, in this country, who devote themselves to the high duties of their station, regardless of its pleasures, than in any other: men who recognize practically the responsibility of their rank, and do not shirk from them; men who think they have something to do, and something to repay, for the accidents of birth and fortune—who, in the senate, in the field, or in the less prominent, but not less noble, career of private life, act, as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... and asked me to lend him money to get back. I made answer: "I should not have enough left to go forward; you ought indeed to have thought of this on leaving Florence; and if it is because of your feet that you shirk the journey, we will find a return horse for Rome, which will deprive you of the excuse." Accordingly I hired a horse; and seeing that he did not answer, I took my way toward the gate of Rome. When he knew that I was ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... mathematically; and it would be a great advantage if, by virtue of the shield, a large number of the combatants could be considered safe. The opponents of the measure gave it as their opinion that the men would shirk quitting the protection of the shield; or that, at any rate, they would take aim so hurriedly that their accuracy must necessarily suffer. Well, one might equally well argue that the infantry would refuse to leave their trenches. The other objection was more convincing: shooting would become ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... hardened young sinner at thirteen. The Manor licked me into shape. Speaking generally, I suppose the tone of the house insensibly communicated itself to me. The Manor was cock-house at games and work. I began by shirking both. But the spirit of the Hill was too much for me. I couldn't shirk that. Some jolly old boys, we all know them and like them, are always saying that their early school-days were the happiest of their lives. They're fond of telling this big lie just as they're settling down to their claret. I really ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... here—why, I have five hundred with me. Take it, Lou. There's more behind it, but the colonel mustn't think that there's as much money in the mines as people say. No idea how much living costs up here. Heavens, no! And the prices for labor! And then they shirk the job from dawn to dark. I have to watch 'em every minute, I ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... getting out of Kitty's luggage, for Aunt Pike was one of those unfortunate persons who never fail to come to words with porter or cabman, who, in fact, rub every one the wrong way to start with by taking for granted that they are trying to shirk their duties and to ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... you do, you're trying to shirk; but I won't have it. You want a taste of the rattan. ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... neighbourhood for two days, off and on, in search of his man; and now, by careful watching, like an amateur detective, he had run his prey to earth by a dexterous flank-movement and secured an interview with him where he couldn't shirk ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... the marriage-tie, and did his best, by his verses, to forward the policy of Augustus in his effort to arrest the decay of morals by enforcing the duty of marriage, which the well- to-do Romans of that day were inclined to shirk whenever they could. Nay, the charm of constancy and conjugal sympathy inspired a few of his very finest lines (Odes, I. l3)—"Felices ter et amplius, quos irrupta tenet copula," &c.,—the feeling of which is better preserved in Moore's well-known paraphrase than ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... hear someone appreciate the other side for a change. I'm young; I've got all my life to live. If I were a boy I should be allowed to choose. Surely! surely, I ought to have some say in my own affairs! Don't shirk now, Tom, but speak out and say what you think. If you are going to be a Principal you ought to be able to give advice, and ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... affected my judgment on the general morale of the educated young men of our country. In not a single case did I ever have an assistant who tried to shirk his duty to the government, nor do I think there was more than a single case in which one tried to contest my judgment of his own merits, or those of his work. I adopted the principle that promotion should be by merit rather than by seniority, and ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... always a blank page opposite the one on which I am writing. After correcting the manuscript, it is put in typewriting and again revised. There are also two revisions of the proof. While I do not shirk the tasks which approach closely to drudgery, especially since my eyesight is not so good as it was, I also obtain expert assistance. I find that when a page has become very familiar and I am rather ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... Kansas I am responsible for the well-being of the ship, her crew, and her passengers. I could never forgive myself if I left those men to the mercy of the Indians. I cannot permit either you or Tollemache to take a risk which I shirk. Boyle and Walker must remain on board—lest I fail. Now, Christobal, don't make my duty harder. Shake hands! I am proud to ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... know that nine-tenths of your statesmen and higher officials, military and naval, are suffering from kidney diseases, which weaken their courage and will-power, and make them shirk all responsibility as far ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... moment's rest till I came here. I didn't want to come. I thought John Thomas should come himself, and I told him plainly that I was ready to do anyone a favor if I could, but if he wanted me to come because he was afraid to come himself, I was just as ready to shirk the journey. And he laughed and said he was not feared for any woman living, but he did want to make his first appearance in his best clothes—and that was natural, wasn't it? So I came for the two lads." Then she looked at the girls with a smile, and said in a comfortable kind of way: "You'll ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... the others were at all afraid to have run the risk. It was from no desire to shirk the danger that they had appointed Ossaroo to undertake it; but simply because, once outside, the shikaree would be far better able to find his way down the mountains: and in his native language could readily communicate ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... owing to her giving notice and also being very fussy about cake taken from the pantrey, I am one to go always where needed. I also felt that a member of the Corps should not shirk Duty, even a Chauffeur's ear. I therfore got my hot water bottle and some slippers, etcetera, and we went to ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... indispensable. Then there were the tent, blankets and cooking utensils to be looked after. Of course, the guide would carry much of this dunnage, yet our girls were no weaklings, and no one of them expected to shirk carrying her fair share ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... some swingling-tow for a bonfire? The quill-wheel, and the spinning-wheel, and the loom are heard no more among us. The last I knew of a certain hetchel, it was nailed up behind the old sheep that did the churning; and when he was disposed to shirk or hang back and stop the machine, it was always ready to spur him up in no uncertain manner. The old loom became a hen-roost in an out-building; and the crackle upon which the flax was broken,—where, oh, where ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... be free," she said, each word coming with an effort, "as much on your account as on my own." Then, and it seemed to me merely a truly feminine attempt to shirk responsibility, she added, "I am glad my going will ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... is no gift of mine; and I was resolved to shirk any new opportunity, but in the next and larger Sunday-school I found myself in the rear of the assemblage; so I was very willing to go on the platform a moment for the sake of getting a good look at the scholars. On the spur of the moment I could ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... reg kom," yes, but not if we shirk our responsibilities. "Alles sal reg kom" if we are true, staunch, and honourable, if with perseverance and patient endurance we fulfil our duty when its demands upon us ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... sir," said the Squire, who, so far from being pleased, was irritated and disturbed by the proposal. "I ask you to do your duty, sir, and not to shirk it," the head of the house said, with natural vehemence, as he stood with that circle of Wentworths round him, giving forth his code of ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... as soon as I liked in the morning. After having taken a cup of tea I took my leave, and slept in the boat. Some of the men came at night as promised, but others did not arrive until the next morning. It took some time to divide my baggage fairly among them, as they all wanted to shirk the heavy boxes, and would seize hold of some light article and march off with it, until made to come back and wait until the whole had been fairly apportioned. At length about eight o'clock all was arranged, and we started for our walk to Mr. ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... say which Gillian most looked forward to: Mysie's presence, or the absence of the supervision which she imagined herself to suffer from, because she had set herself to shirk it. She knew she should feel more free. But behold! a sudden change, produced by ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of life. The work of great poets and artists and musicians, the lovely scenes of earth, these seem to have no place inside systematic religion, to be things rather timorously permitted, excused, and apologised for. Men need something richer, freer, and larger. They do not want to shirk their duty or to follow evil; but many things seem to be insisted upon by religion as important which seem unimportant, many beliefs spoken of as true which seem at best uncertain. It is not that such people are disloyal to God and to virtue, but they feel stifled and confined in ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... assertion that "a nigger won't work without whipping." I know that this is not true of the negroes as a body heretofore. A fair trial should be made of free labor by preventing a resort to the lash. It is true that there will be a large number of negroes who will shirk labor; and where they persistently refuse compliance with their contracts, I would respectfully suggest that such turbulent negroes be placed upon public works, such as rebuilding the levees and railroads of the ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... given us, and much will rightfully be expected from us. We have duties to others and duties to ourselves; and we can shirk neither. We have become a great nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relations with the other nations of the earth, and we must behave as beseems a people with such responsibilities. Toward all other nations, large and small, our attitude ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... is very faint in our family line. Already it has entirely disappeared in my own person. With wealth and position it will be to me at home as though it were not; and when my dear mother passes away it will disappear entirely and be speedily lost to memory. I do not mean by this to shirk the position of the colored man, of which I have had a bitter taste. I only mean to show you the brightness and hope of my situation. I trust that you will approve of the course which I have marked out, and give me some credit for courage in meeting and conquering the grisly terror, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... were the sons of sin, Created to shally and shirk; Hem lay 'round and Haw looked on While God did ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... and the other children found more time to shirk, and, seeing his eagerness and ability to do so many things that he had not before understood, the family forced the poor little tired form to work far beyond its strength. But without complaint Edwin strove to do all the work assigned to him and to make every move count so that ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... Colonel, was not the man to shirk an unpleasant five minutes, so he made straight for the Colonel's private office. In spite of his courageous advance, Broussard felt very much as Sergeant McGillicuddy described himself when in the abhorred ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... cigarette. This I threw away half smoked and again approached the table of death. I began to feel a strong natural disinclination to swallow the stuff. "This," said I, "is sheer animal cowardice." I again uncorked the phial. A new phase of the matter appeared to me. "It is the act of a craven to shirk the responsibilities of life. Can you be such a meanspirited creature as not even to have the courage to live?" "No," said I, "I have a valiant spirit," and I set down the bottle. "Bah," whispered the familiar imp of suicide at my elbow. "You are just afraid ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... the matter ended; but in a day or two rumours of the rebellion had reached Clarke. Strong steps had to be taken; and Clarke was not the man to shirk his duty. ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... thought of trying to follow him back to England, to shirk the increasing terrible duties behind the reorganized but harassed armies. The wounded seemed to drop through ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... whose support is required by court order, allotments are compulsory, and must not be less than $15 a month and not more than one-half of his pay. The Company Commander is responsible for finding who comes under this rule. By this arrangement soldiers cannot shirk the support of dependents. The government will double the amount allotted by each soldier, to a limit of $37.50 a month. In cases where the soldier allots half of his pay the government will add to the allotment according to the following scale, even though it more than doubles the amount ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... rate, pleased him. To avow an enthusiasm, or an affection, generally seemed to him an indelicacy; only two or three people in the world knew what was the real quality of his heart. Yet no man feigns shirking without in some measure learning to shirk; and there were certain true indolences and sybaritisms in Ashe of which he was fully and contemptuously aware, without either wishing or feeling himself able to break the ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... nor t'other," she answered. "I thought to find you mad naturally; but I'm not the sort to shirk my duty, whatever you are. For better, for worse I took you, and I'd meant, if I found you cracked, to put you away nice and comfortable in a proper asylum, where they'd look after you, as became an unfortunate man with good friends. But you're not mad, only deceived by a damned ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... older," said Chaffery. "There's truths you have to grow into. But about this matter of Lies—let us look at the fabric of society, let us compare the savage. You will discover the only essential difference between savage and civilised is this: The former hasn't learnt to shirk the truth of things, and the latter has. Take the most obvious difference—the clothing of the civilised man, his invention of decency. What is clothing? The concealment of essential facts. What is decorum? Suppression! I don't argue against ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... from one member of the city government to the other, and unable to obtain relief, in sheer desperation, he gave up hope and abandoned his effort for justice. But under the commission form of government, none of the officials can shirk responsibility. Each is in charge of a department, and if there is inefficiency, it is easy to place the blame where ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... "and I can't help thinking that it is just as well. One cannot shirk his responsibilities, Harry, and you are an Alton—of Carnaby. You see, nobody could take your inheritance from you, nor, though you did your best, could you give it away, and there is, I fancy, only one meaning to that. Fate is too strong for you. You will redeem Carnaby ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... careful consideration. She should be known to be honest, honorable, competent, healthy, and personally clean in habits and dress, and she should be tactful, obliging, and she should attend to her own affairs strictly. She should not be a gossip; she should not shirk her work or pry into family affairs that do not concern her; and she should not drag into the conversation her own personal ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... was the rub! Not one short, sharp pang, and over—all fire quenched in cool mists of death and unconsciousness, but long years to come of daily, hourly, paying the price; incessant compunction, active punishment. A prospect for a martyr to shirk from, and for a woman who has made ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... States the native birth-rate tends to decline, while the rate of immigrant foreigners greatly exceeds it. The higher the degree of comfort and luxury in the home the smaller the birth-rate seems to be a principle of social experience. There are selfish people who shirk the responsibilities and troubles of parenthood, and there are social diseases that tend to sterility, but the childless home is always an incomplete home. Children are the crown of marriage, the enrichment of the home, ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... jolly well jiggered, and as for good 'ealth, I've no doubt That the treadmill is jolly salubrious, wich that is mere turning about, Upon planks 'stead o' pedals, my pippin. No, wheeling as wheeling's 'ard work, And that, without larks, is a speeches of game as I always did shirk. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various
... dockyard people. Though I would rather have gone afloat at once, this was, I found, a great advantage, as I had thus an opportunity of seeing her masted, rigged, and fitted for sea. Officers are often glad to shirk this, for it is far from pleasant work, and Portsmouth is not the most delectable of residences. I should advise all midshipmen not to miss an opportunity of seeing a ship fitted out, if they possibly can. They will find it will save them an immense deal of after trouble, ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... of you? Can't you dissipate his fears? Did the bugle ring out vainly for the British Grenadiers? Once the regiment was famous for its deeds of derring-do, And you followed where the flag went when on alien winds it flew. Has the soldiers' "oath of duty" been forgotten, that you shirk, Not the face of foe, we're certain, but this ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 19, 1890 • Various
... we call all what a'n't white folks. Our folks can tell 'em right smart. They can't shirk out if it's only marked by the seventeenth generation. You can always tell 'em by the way they look—they can't look you in the face, if they are ever so white. The law snaps 'em up once in a while, and then, if they're ever so white, it makes 'em prove it. ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... gorce's dank and bleak 'Mid shatter'd mounts that devil's split! To mourn in plasmic Temple's fold With gyving sod no King can shirk! A spangled pomp of Death's gray peak Where owls and lizards blink and sit As curdling cries of monsters cold Pierce hollows deep until they irk, Each surf-thrown afrite's eclipsed dome. And cursing clans that felt the heat That dwale obscured in shadows vague, Clash thro' the broken forest ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... King Zahr Shah in jubilee: A King albeit thou leave thy life to win * One look, that look were all sufficiency: And if a pious prayer thou breathe for him, * Shall join all Faithfuls in such pious gree: Folk of his realm! If any shirk his right * For other ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... 108 are rather obscure. What the king says in 107 seems to be that you two have referred your dispute to me who am a king. I cannot shirk my duty, but am bound to judge fairly between you. I should see that kingly duties should not, so far as I am concerned, become futile. In 108 he says, being a king I should discharge the duties of a king, i.e., I should judge disputes, and give, if need be, but never take. Unfortunately, the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... the having a room of your very own will not prove a temptation to you to shirk your duty; that your privileges will not block your view of your duties. Come down now, and help Mary, in return for all the help ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... men made it gay not only for the young ladies, but also for a certain young married lady, when she managed to shirk her rather filial duties to her husband, who was much about the verandas, purblindly feeling his way with a stick, as he walked up and down, or sitting opaque behind the glasses that preserved what was left of his sight, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... was no help for it, so, with a sickly smile, he put his name to the fatal document in big and shaky letters. Then Muller called another man, who instantly tried to shirk on the ground that his education had been neglected, and that he could not write, an excuse which availed him little, for Frank Muller quietly wrote his name for him, leaving a space for his mark. After this there ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... the Law I must request Less noise while we're having a well-earned rest. For the Judge and the Usher never must shirk A well-earned rest in the middle of work. It's the duty of both they are well aware To preserve their precious lives with care; It's their duty, when feeling overwrought, To preserve their lives ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... frankness, for it was only by frankness on his side that Diane would be able to carry out his wishes on hers. The responsibility imposed upon him by his wife's death, he said, was one he had never wished to shirk by leaving his child to the care of others. Moreover, he had had his own ideas as to the manner in which she should be brought up, and he had put them into practice. The results had been good in most respects, and if in others there ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... people from the capitalistic world thrown upon their hands was very much as it would be with us if we had the same number of Indians, with all their tribal customs and ideals, thrown upon our hands. They say they will not shirk their duty in the matter, and will study it carefully; but all the same, they wish the incident had ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... by hour the fight goes on, Till the silent battle's won; Vainly do Bacilli shirk When their deadly foe's at work; Every microbe faints with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 30, 1890. • Various
... never be," answered Mr. Eversleigh, with a tone of sullen despair. "I am utterly ruined, Carrington. It's no use trying to shirk the truth. I am a doomed wretch, a beggar for life, and the sooner I throw myself over one of the bridges, and make an end of my miserable existence, the better. According to Millard's account my uncle's infatuation for that singing-girl grows stronger and ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... I resolved to hold over the adventure for the following day, and I returned to the welcome and the caresses of little Weena. But next morning I perceived clearly enough that my curiosity regarding the Palace of Green Porcelain was a piece of self-deception, to enable me to shirk, by another day, an experience I dreaded. I resolved I would make the descent without further waste of time, and started out in the early morning towards a well near the ruins of granite ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... Ned replied. "I promised the governor to stand by him to the last; and as he has scarce a soul on whom he can rely, it is clearly my duty to do so. It is not for me to shirk doing my duty as long as I can, because I fear that the day ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... who shirk their responsibilities, it is the minority which does the work and assumes the power. The majority having resigned, the minority becomes sovereign, and public business, abandoned by the hesitating, weak, and absent multitude, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Gladstone's Government to send General Gordon to the Soudan in January 1884 were, as has been clearly shown, the selfish desire to appease public opinion, and to shirk in the easiest possible manner a great responsibility. They had no policy at all, but they had one supreme wish, viz. to cut off the Soudan from Egypt; and if the Mahdi had only known their wishes and pressed on, and treated the Khartoum force ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... and fearless even in adversity, he did not shirk the responsibility of the campaign; declaring, that disastrous and bitter as it had been, ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... as yet struggling for very existence, the practical effect of such teachings may well have been deemed politically dangerous. When things came to such a pass that the forces of the colony were mustered for an Indian campaign and the men of Boston were ready to shirk the service because they suspected their chaplain to be "under a covenant of works," it was naturally thought to be high time to put Mrs. Hutchinson down. In the spring of 1637 Winthrop was elected governor, ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... countries, and we think we may safely say, that we have more men of that class, in this country, who devote themselves to the high duties of their station, regardless of its pleasures, than in any other: men who recognize practically the responsibility of their rank, and do not shirk from them; men who think they have something to do, and something to repay, for the accidents of birth and fortune—who, in the senate, in the field, or in the less prominent, but not less noble, career of private life, act, as they feel, with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... He won't shirk it. But he's hurted proper; you might let Jan Grimbal knaw, 't will ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... somebody else that should say it. Most of our workmen are putting every ounce of strength into this urgent work for their country, loyally and patriotically. But that is not true of all. There are some, I am sorry to say, who shirk their duty in this great emergency. I hear of workmen in armaments works who refuse to work a full week's work for the nation's need. What is the reason? They are a minority. The vast majority belong to a class ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... injure himself. It is the fashion now to get rid of a judgment to come by telling us that we are our own judgment here. The latter part of the statement is not the whole truth, but there is truth in it. The strain brings out the strength there is, but shirk it and we have weakness. Do as we like rather than do as we ought, and the price must be paid in loss of manhood. Everything we gain for selfishness we ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... big for you? Then you caught sight of a pair of shoulders that looked to you broader than yours—the muscles developed by years of exercise—and you were pretty thankful to shift the load on to them? You didn't want to shirk—Heaven forbid!—but you just felt you didn't know enough to deal with the ...
— On Christmas Day In The Evening • Grace Louise Smith Richmond
... things, Arthur, because they're not in your line, and I know you hate them. But you're dead right. I dare say I'll tell you something that will astonish you before long. But I'm not doing anything to be ashamed of. I haven't made any mistake; and if I had, I shouldn't shirk the payment." ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... going to shirk her duty. These children were to be Irene's guests, and they must be immediately put into their right position. She turned, therefore, to her little friend and touched her on ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... then what great and brave men I bequeathed to him! They did not shirk the public burdens; they were not idlers, rogues and cheats, as they are to-day; their very breath was spears, pikes, helmets with white crests, breastplates and greaves; they were gallant souls encased in seven ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... dine out to-day, and I would fain shirk and stay at home; never, Shylock-like, had I less will to feasting forth, but I must go or be thought sulky. Lord M. and Lady Abercromby called this morning, and a world of people besides, among others honest Mr. Wilson, late of Wilsontown, who took so much care of me at London, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... scaler was active in his work, when once he began it, and could keep up with the skidding. But now he displayed a strong antipathy to the north wind on the plains. Of course he could not very well shirk the work entirely, but he did a good deal of talking ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... murmured. "That busy brain is never still. No, Comrade Brown, I do not propose to write the whole paper myself. I do not shirk work when it gets me in a corner and I can't side-step, but there are limits. I propose to apply to a few of my late companions of Park Row, bright boys who will be delighted to come across with red-hot stuff ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... to do a thing Is do it when you can, And do it cheerfully, and sing And work and think and plan. The only real unhappy one Is he who dares to shirk; The only really happy one Is he ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum
... even their instinct in the matter, who live comfortably apart from the evil places, and so hear only now and then a message from the dying wafted on the sable wings of cholera or typhus. Is it not shabby this, to shirk their share of the work and the trouble, and to leave it to be done by softer ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... sons of sin, Created to shally and shirk; Hem lay 'round and Haw looked on While God did all ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... this election of mine is, after all, an ordinary affair. I take it, and what is to come after it, just as other men do. I have accepted your party and your programme, and I mean to stick to them. I see that the political situation is difficult and exciting, and I don't intend to shirk. But I am no more going to slay my private life and interests at the altar of politics than my father did when he was in Parliament. If the revolution is coming, it will come in spite of you and me. And, moreover—if you will let me say so—I am convinced that your modes of procedure ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... temperate, and pray; Fast if thou wilt; and yet, throughout the day, Neglect no labour and no duty shirk: Not many hours are left thee for thy work - And it were meet ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... may have helped. The affair on Dee-side took place December 18th, 1684. On the 11th of the same month (just after Renwick's proclamation of war) a party of men, headed by James Macmichael, murdered Peter Peirson, minister of Carsphairn, at his own door. Wodrow cannot shirk this fact: he finds it detestable, and generally denounced and disowned by the more respectable of the Covenanters; but he also manages to find as many excuses for it as he conveniently can in the provocation given by the victim. Peirson, he says, was "a surly, ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... day would he stay away from his beloved Cuba, if it were not that that seal had to be broken in the presence of the proper authorities. So, however reluctant he might be to stay, it was not for him to shirk his task: he must wait for the ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... been given us, and much will rightfully be expected from us. We have duties to others and duties to ourselves; and we can shirk neither. We have become a great nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relations with the other nations of the earth, and we must behave as beseems a people with such responsibilities. Toward all other nations, large and small, our attitude must be one of cordial and ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... in accents of unmistakable sincerity, that there are many business men—not merely those in high positions or with fine prospects, but modest subordinates with no hope of ever being much better off—who do enjoy their business functions, who do not shirk them, who do not arrive at the office as late as possible and depart as early as possible, who, in a word, put the whole of their force into their day's work and are genuinely ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... to this. I am not one of those who shirk a duty, whatever the peril be in accomplishing it. You know what price I put on Micheline's happiness; you are responsible for it, and I shall ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... have to be our brothers' keepers," the old Squire continued. "We are all to a degree responsible for the good behavior and safety of our fellow beings. If we shirk that duty, troubles come and crimes are committed that might have been prevented. Especially in a family like ours, each ought to have the good of all at heart and do his best ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... wounded name behind him. 272. This is the shaping of his ends—so exactly to his needs, so different from his rough-hewn plans—which is the work of the Divinity. The man who desires to know his duty that he may do it, who will not shirk it when he does know it, will have time allowed him and the thing made plain to him; his perplexity will even strengthen and purify his will. The weak man is he who, certain of what is required of him, fails to meet it: so never once fails Hamlet. Note, ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... place, that the Government of the United States does not shirk responsibility. It puts the code into the hands of its officers "for the government of all persons attached to the naval service," and is doubtless prepared to stand by the rules contained in it, as being in accordance with ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... dear, don't cry; your father won't like to see you with red eyes. It was very wrong of him not to tell you about the sale of Arden—excessively wrong. But that's just like Marmaduke Lovel; always ready to shirk anything unpleasant, even to the writing ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... I knew he was right. If he should shoot Gooja Singh the troopers would ascribe it to nothing else than fear. A British officer might do it and they would say, "Behold how he scorns to shirk responsibility!" Yet of Ranjoor Singh they would have said, "He fears us, and behold the butchery begins! Who shall be next?" Nevertheless, had I stood in his shoes, I would have shot and buried Gooja Singh ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... alive, mark! Oh, worthy, your soul, Of strange ends, great results, novel labours! Take note, I reject this for one! (ay, now, straight to the hole! Safe in sand there—your skirts smooth out all as they float!) I, shirk drinking through flaws ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... with us all the elements of society, as has the Anglo-Saxon ever. Did any man offend against the unwritten creed of fair play, did he shirk duty when that meant danger to the common good, then he was brought before a council of our leaders, men of wisdom and fairness, chosen by the vote of all; and so he was judged and he was punished. At that time there was not west of the ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... the Doctor (Tom, by the way, even in the bosom of his family, always thought and talked of his father as the "Doctor")—as for the Doctor, well, Tom was inclined to shirk the risk of more tete-a-tetes than he could possibly help with so formidable a personage, even though ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... the Arabic. The effect in English remains to be seen, but of the value of Captain Burton's method as an experiment in literature there can be no doubt, or of its great interest to everybody who cares for Oriental habits of thought and language. He will not shirk any of the passages which do not suit the taste of the day, but these, Captain Burton thinks, will not commonly be found more objectionable than some which are in Shakespeare and in Shakespeare's contemporaries. At the same time it will be understood that the book is intended ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... possess property. Moreover, this is necessary to human life for three reasons. First, because every man is more careful to procure what is for himself alone than that which is common to many or to all: since each one would shirk the labour, and would leave to another that which concerns the community, as happens when there is a great number of servants. Secondly, because human affairs are conducted in more orderly fashion if each man is charged with taking care of some particular ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien
... atrocious, the law which refuses the testimony of a black against a white is not only the law of the land, but of every man's private dealings; and lying being one of the natural results of slavery, and a tendency to shirk compelled and unrequited labour another, the overseer stands on excellent vantage-ground, when he refers to these undoubted characteristics of the system, if called upon to rebut any charge of cruelty or ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... his faults like us all, but they don't run in that line. No, no, Lewie will be modest enough. He may have the pride of Lucifer at heart, but he would never show it. His fault is just this infernal modesty, which makes him shirk fighting some blatant ass or publishing ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... average soldier is a sneak, a shirk, a failure, a coward. He is only valuable as he is licked into shape. It is pretty much the same in business. It seems hard to say it, but the average employe in factory, shop or store, puts the face of the clock to shame looking at it; he is thinking of his pay envelope and his intent is to keep ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... Mrs. Jerry had a headache, that day, and a fit of the blues; and from the first moment when Teresita had entered the cabin she had felt a lack of warmth in the pretty senora's manner that had piqued her, who had lived upon adoration all her life. Mrs. Jerry had even shown a disposition to shirk keeping her promise anent the new way of ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... protocols irk, Russian Bear; And therefore are matters to shirk. Berlin and Paris, No longer must harass This true friend of France—and the Turk. Hrumph! hrumph! Well, well, we shall see how ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... divert her thoughts from this constantly recurring topic. Twice within the hour had it been broached and dismissed, but Iris would not permit him to shirk it again. She made no reply, simply regarding him with ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... land, For we rest not, but stand, Off shaken our sloth. When the boils of war rattle To shirk not the battle, We make thee our oath. As we hope for a Heaven, Thy chains shall be riven, Thine ensign unfurled. And in pride of our race We will fearlessly face The might of the world. When our trumpet is blown, And our standard is flown, Then set we our watch. Our watchword, 'The ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... duty, than it does now—though, even now, I must confess things have occasionally to be done by the clergyman because there is no one else to do them, and hardly from other motive than a sense of duty,—a man not being able to shirk work because it may happen to be dirty)—I say, as I wanted to do my work well, or rather, perhaps, because I dreaded drudgery as much as any poor fellow who comes to the treadmill in consequence—I wanted to interest myself in it; and therefore I would ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... Life is the Soul's Nursery. I am a Man, and pine for the Illimitable! Mark you me! Has the Morrow any terrors for me, think ye? Did Socrates falter at his poison? Did Seneca blench in his bath? Did Brutus shirk the sword when his great stake was lost? Did even weak Cleopatra shrink from the Serpent's fatal nip? And why should I? My great Hazard hath been played, and I pay my forfeit. Lie sheathed in my heart, thou ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Miss Pat," said Elinor, the day before the party, "is that you know when to stop. I simply haven't accomplished a thing the last two days, and yet I couldn't have the courage to shirk the Academy. You stay away joyously, ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... into his habits as a husband and father, it is by no means clear to me that we must call him hard names. Before doing that, we ought to know not only that he stays away from his wife and children, but why he stays away; whether he is really a shirk, or absents himself unselfishly and for their better protection, at the risk of being misunderstood and traduced. My object in this paper is to raise that question about him, rather than to blacken his character; in a word, to call attention ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... who are to be the leaders, spend their hours in riotous living? No, never! Will they be false to duty? No, never! Will they shirk? No, never! Will they be disloyal to self, to home, to country, and to God? ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... or wooden paddle, first the baking powder with the flour and then the salt. Rub into this the cold grease (which may be lard, cold pork fat, drippings) until there are no lumps left and no grease adhering to bottom of pan. This is a little tedious, but don't shirk it. Then stir in the water and work it with spoon until you have a rather stiff dough. Have the pan greased. Turn the loaf into it and bake. Test center of loaf with a sliver when you think it properly done. When no dough adheres remove ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... labours made a deep impression upon him. No attempts were ever made to encroach upon his generosity and kindness, and if any man had dared to deceive him he would have been drastically punished by his colleagues. No man ever essayed to malinger or to shirk a duty to which he had been allotted by the doctor. If the doctor desired a task to be done, no matter how repugnant, it was shouldered lightly and cheerfully. Indeed, there was always a manifestation of keen eagerness among us to perform some duty as an expression of our heartfelt thanks for what ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... whispering to many like herself, 'Come to me, come to me! When the cruel shame and terror you have so long fled from, most beset you, come to me! I am the Relieving Officer appointed by eternal ordinance to do my work; I am not held in estimation according as I shirk it. My breast is softer than the pauper-nurse's; death in my arms is peacefuller than among ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... was not as I said, especially as he knew my brother well, and was thoroughly acquainted with the exactness with which he always executed an errand. But he did not want to go; that I saw clearly, and laid it all to the little book; for he was the kindest man who ever lived, and never was known to shirk a duty because it was ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... sun much work is done By clown and kaiser, by serf and sage; All sow and some reap, and few gather the heap Of the garner'd grain of a by-gone age. By sea or by soil man is bound to toil, And the dreamer, waiting for time and tide, For awhile may shirk his share of the work, But he grows with his dream dissatisfied; He may climb to the edge of the beetling ledge, Where the loose crag topples and well-nigh reels 'Neath the lashing gale, but the tonic will fail— What does it ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... mantel-block, There ticks a busy little clock— The measurer of time. It never stops or tries to shirk; Unceasingly it plies its work With ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... with a grin, and the certainty that he had got the better of Amos for the moment cheered his spirits. Then, too, after to-day there would be plenty to eat, for his wife could manage to earn money; nor was the man so mean in his villainy as to shirk any effort to earn money himself. After first looking at his wife critically and with a satisfied smile, he touched her on the shoulder to ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... being offered a commission, he laughingly said, "Oh, I must accept it. It isn't fair to shirk it, though I'd ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... enthusiasm, or an affection, generally seemed to him an indelicacy; only two or three people in the world knew what was the real quality of his heart. Yet no man feigns shirking without in some measure learning to shirk; and there were certain true indolences and sybaritisms in Ashe of which he was fully and contemptuously aware, without either wishing or feeling himself able to break the ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... measure, depended. Without pushing himself, or being the least bit officious, he had been equally helpful behind the scenes. He had held in check all those who, taking advantage of her father's absence, were disposed to dispute her authority and shirk their work—and he had also, on her behalf, successfully resisted their demand for higher wages. And, over and above all this, he had always considered her personal comfort. Her meals—which she could never bother about ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... hanging to each of his fetlocks. The gallant combatant came well primed by his master the duke as to how he was to bear himself against the valiant Don Quixote of La Mancha; being warned that he must on no account slay him, but strive to shirk the first encounter so as to avoid the risk of killing him, as he was sure to do if he met him full tilt. He crossed the courtyard at a walk, and coming to where the duennas were placed stopped to look at her who demanded him for a husband; the marshal ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... German emperor you scorn, Seems to my mind a monarch born, Worthy to lead a column; I'll warrant he could talk and work, And, neither being used to shirk, Was rarely ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... He wants to shirk his act, that's all. Just wait till I get hold of him—-I'll teach him to get me into hot water with the audience!" ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... but we cannot evade it. Each day it calls loudly to every parent and every teacher for a solution. The health and happiness of the coming generations depend upon the right education of the present one, and this responsibility the home and the school can neither shirk nor shift. We take great unction to ourselves for the excellence of the horses, pigs, and cattle that we have on exhibition at the fairs, but are silent as to our failures in the form of children, that drag out a half-life in our hospitals. In one ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... itself; a clear, serene composure of truth, mingling so freely and smoothly with the issues of life, that while, and perhaps even because she is herself unconscious of it, she is never once tempted to abuse or to shirk her trust, though it be to play the attorney in a cause that makes so much against herself. In this respect she presents an instructive contrast to Malvolio, who has much virtue indeed, yet not so much but that the counter-pullings have rendered him intensely conscious of it, and so drawn ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... Raynor Royk, with doffed bonnet and in a voice so changed from its usual gruffness that De Lacy and De Wilton both marked it with surprise, "it grieves me ill that I, who have followed the Sable Maunch so oft in battle, should lead you to your death. Yet I may not shirk my duty, as you, great warrior as you are, well know. But if there be aught I can do to aid you, that touches not mine honor (for, my lord, we have what we call honor as well as those who wear the yellow spurs), speak ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... responsible for the well-being of the ship, her crew, and her passengers. I could never forgive myself if I left those men to the mercy of the Indians. I cannot permit either you or Tollemache to take a risk which I shirk. Boyle and Walker must remain on board—lest I fail. Now, Christobal, don't make my duty harder. Shake hands! I am proud to ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... of thought and action; the second, by placing labor and laziness, skill and stupidity, and even vice and virtue on an equality in point of comfort. For the rest, if property is impossible on account of the desire to accumulate, communism would soon become so through the desire to shirk. ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... make an excellent subject for the artist. He delights to paint us a row of Venetian bead stringers or a band of Sevilhan cigarette makers, but why does he shirk a bevy of industrious girls working a telephone exchange? Let us peep into one of these retired haunts, where the modern Fates are cutting and joining the lines of electric speech between man and man ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... You are a very odd mixture. You will go to the ends of the earth on the scent of big game; but you shirk all social exertion with a cynical laziness. You will come from Damascus at a stretch without sleeping, and think nothing of it; but you find it a wretched thing to have to exert yourself to be ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... careless man. This method offers peculiar advantages for interpolation, as there is always a blank page opposite the one on which I am writing. After correcting the manuscript, it is put in typewriting and again revised. There are also two revisions of the proof. While I do not shirk the tasks which approach closely to drudgery, especially since my eyesight is not so good as it was, I also obtain expert assistance. I find that when a page has become very familiar and I am rather tired of it, my mind wanders from the close, fixed attention essential ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... Should I tell him; would he believe; was it best to unveil the working of my own heart to that degree? And how could I evade or shirk ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... should have that in the ordinary course of business. The legal formalities would take them some little time. But I must go, Clara, I must not seem to shirk. My place now must be ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... parks near Lunnun, where they make mountains just to look at; that must be much of a muchness with these here chaps. I never drift far from Wappin', when I'm at home, and so I can't say I've seen these artifice hills, as they calls them, myself; but there's one Joseph Shirk, that lives near St. Katharine's Lane, that makes trips regularly into the neighborhood, who gives quite a ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... money), and forbidding their wives and daughters to wear sashes, or girdles, trimmed with gold or silver. No man shall make me believe that this was a rude and beggarly race, compared with those who now shirk and shiver about in canvass frocks and rotten cottons. Nor shall any man persuade me that that was a rude and beggarly state of things, in which (reign of Edward the Third) an act was passed regulating the wages of labour, ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... loved to have his shaggy curly head brushed, and scratched with the fine comb, and it was Jane's office to be comber-in-chief—a duty she was prone to shirk if she could. ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... your kind words about the Presidency. If I could only get rid of my eternal hypochondria the work of the Royal Society would seem little enough. At present, I am afraid of everything that involves responsibility to a degree that is simply ridiculous. I only wish I could shirk the inquiries I am going off to ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... she said this, and the little smile she gave were to give me to understand that this weakness had descended in the family. I felt my heart contract; my self-imposed task was a harder one than I had anticipated, but I could not shirk it now. "Did this wine-cellar you mention run all the way to this house?" I lightly inquired. "I stumbled on a passage leading here, which I thought you ought to know is now open to any one in Mayor ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... protest the polliwogs, 'We're anxious to be grown-up frogs; But don't push in to do the work Of Nature till she prove a shirk; 'Tis not by jumps that she advances, But wins her way by circumstances; Pray, wait awhile, until you know We're so contrived as not to grow; Let Nature take her own direction, And she'll absorb our imperfection; You ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... scene of trouble. There, after some ill-natured talk, Deshler ordered his men to lay down their arms. I rode into the fort, and found the parapet badly torn up by the fire from the fleet. On going to the embrasure where I had seen the gun while on the river-bank talking to Captain Shirk, the piece was found split back about eighteen inches, and the lower half of the muzzle dropped out. A battered but unexploded shell lying with the piece explained that it must have struck the gun in the muzzle, almost squarely. On passing ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... back to the shop about seven o'clock. He was, indeed, back in London at that hour, but his state of mind tempted him to shirk squalid duty; instead of turning toward Fulham Road, he took his way into the Strand, and there loitered in the evening sunshine, self-reproachful, yet enjoying the unwonted liberty. It was dinner-time; restaurants exhaled their pungent ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... on the prisoner's behalf in the days that followed, nor did he set up any plea for his life on the ground of knowing of plots against the King's Majesty. This would be to shirk the day of reckoning, and he had boasted to his companions at the "Punch-Bowl" that they should see him play the game to the end. He would fulfil this promise to the letter. He had ridden up Holborn Hill scores of times, seeking spoil and adventure on Hounslow Heath or elsewhere; ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... muscular work A larger allowance of grub We need than is due if we shirk Exertion, and lounge in a pub; For the loafer who rests in a chair Everlastingly puffing at "cigs" Can live pretty nearly on air, So I gather ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 14, 1917 • Various
... truism, but it is worth attention. Unlike the rest of us, labouring people are unable to shirk any of life's discomforts by "getting a man" or "a woman," as we say, to do the disagreeable or risky jobs which continually need to be done. If a cottager in this village wants his chimney swept, or his pigstye cleaned out, ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... entirely disappeared in my own person. With wealth and position it will be to me at home as though it were not; and when my dear mother passes away it will disappear entirely and be speedily lost to memory. I do not mean by this to shirk the position of the colored man, of which I have had a bitter taste. I only mean to show you the brightness and hope of my situation. I trust that you will approve of the course which I have marked out, and give me some credit for courage in meeting and conquering the grisly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... Thy bidding, wrought in Thy many lands— Wrought for the little masters, big-bellied they be, and rich; I've done their desire for a daily hire, and I die like a dog in a ditch. I have used the strength Thou hast given, Thou knowest I did not shirk; Threescore years of labour—Thine be the long day's work. And now, Big Master, I'm broken and bent and twisted and scarred, But I've held my job, and Thou knowest, and Thou wilt not judge me hard. Thou knowest my sins are many, and often I've played the fool— Whiskey and cards and women, they ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... bit of a temper, Joyce." Jared's eye gleamed. "I hope you ain't going to take the first chance you get to shirk your duty ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... was preparing dinner, aided by one of the Germans. To show that they did not wish to shirk any camp duties, Sam and Dick did what they could to assist. The dogs and the sleds were off to one side. Tom sat on one sled, wrapped in heavy blankets, for ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield
... guilty in the first instance, for she sent slaves from a land of ignorance, cruelty, and idolatry, to an enlightened and Christian colony. It is in vain for either England or the United States to shirk the guilty responsibility of introducing slaves on free soil. England has the additional guilt of having acted against the wishes of the colonists; the United States has the additional guilt of increasing slave territory a century ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... the Social Democratic Congress in Erfurt, 1891, deserves mention. It is a passage from a speech delivered by the elder Liebknecht in the Reichstag: "As regards the defence of the Fatherland all parties will be united when it is necessary to meet an outside enemy. In that moment no party will shirk its duty." ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... and by loss of character parry the evil for a short space; but not long, depend upon it. You and I may not see it, but our children will, and be obliged to meet the struggle man to man, which we may now shirk. By God alone can we be saved from such consequences; may He shed his power and grace upon ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... my life, and I want to hear someone appreciate the other side for a change. I'm young; I've got all my life to live. If I were a boy I should be allowed to choose. Surely! surely, I ought to have some say in my own affairs! Don't shirk now, Tom, but speak out and say what you think. If you are going to be a Principal you ought to be able to give advice, and I ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... storm which was to overwhelm Ministers. When the moment came, however, at which it should have burst—Pitt's motion for the Address—Fox was absent. "Fox is gone to Bath," says Mr. Grenville. "Whether he is very ill, as some say, or wants to shirk the discussion about Mrs. Fitzherbert, as others assert, ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... politician and the shirk of Podunk are the creatures who are doing their noble best to blot out the words of Lincoln and make it possible for the government he died to save to perish from the earth. And between these two evils the least apparent is the most real. The man who votes more than once ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... sweeping the store, etc., quite new duties to us, who were fresh from Academic shades, and from communion with Homer, Virgil, and Horace. I can't say we enjoyed it much. Neither did we like the lifting of heavy packages and being ordered about as if we were inferiors. But we did not shirk our duty, and kept our tempers. John, good fellow, came out of the ordeal sweet-tempered, kind, and obliging; and I don't doubt that we both feel the benefit of this practical training to this day. Certain it is, that we mastered all the details of the business, and knew ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... imprisoned for refusing to do so; further, that the free men of England should no longer be seized by the King's special mandate or warrant, it being contrary to their rights and liberties and the laws of their country. At first the King returned an answer to this petition, in which he tried to shirk it altogether; but, the House of Commons then showing their determination to go on with the impeachment of Buckingham, the King in alarm returned an answer, giving his consent to all that was required of him. He not only afterwards departed from his word and honour on these points, over ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
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