"Cringe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the East. "No longer my masters" a voice seemed to cry from the very heart of that multitude. "No longer will we halt at your command, no longer will your words be wisdom to us, no longer shall we smile with pleasure at your stories, and cringe with fear at your displeasure; you may hate our defection, you may lament our disloyalty, you may bribe us and smile upon us, you may preach to us and bewail our sins. We are no longer yours—WE ARE OUR OWN—Salute ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... and MYalu stiffened as they observed the cringe of the shoulders as he fumbled hastily within his loin-cloth and presented a piece of hard substance, the colour of blue clay with magic marks upon it. The demon grunted at them to proceed as if talking to a slave. Followed ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... complete shadow, Perris felt her eyes burning out at him. His dismissal was at hand, he knew, and then the carelessly defiant speech which was forming in his throat died away. Sick at heart, he realized that he must cringe under the hand which was about to strike and be humble under the very eye of Hervey. He was no longer free and the chain which held him was the conviction that he could never be happy until he had met and conquered wild Alcatraz, that he was as incomplete as a holster ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... that, but for their adulation and their doctrine of passive obedience, he would never have ventured to be guilty of such tyranny. Their chief business, during a quarter of a century, had been to teach the people to cringe and the prince to domineer. They were guilty of the blood of Russell, of Sidney, of every brave and honest Englishman who had been put to death for attempting to save the realm from Popery and despotism. Never had they breathed a whisper ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... awful aspect, for he is under no delusion that "his pupils love him." "He sits aloft," we are told, "like a juryman, with an expression of implacable wrath, before which the pupil must tremble and cringe."[] ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... finance when the market is strong and steady. When it becomes panicky and fluctuates and resolves itself into small unheroic deals, woman gets the job. For the world is principally a place where men work for the pleasures and woman has to cringe for the scraps. It may seem unchivalrous, but ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... should be ashamed? Let it be told. Let it all be known. Have you not been good and pure? Have not I been true to you? Bear up your courage, and let the man do his worst. Not to save even you would I cringe before such a man as that. And were I to do so, I should save you ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... sees himself surrounded by admirers, and whose vanity is hourly feasted with all the luxuries of studied praise, is easily persuaded that his influence will be extended beyond his life; that they who cringe in his presence will reverence his memory, and that those who are proud to be numbered among his friends, will endeavour to vindicate his choice by ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... daughter!—mere echoes of their lord and master. She had behaved badly, of course; in a few days she supposed the report of her outburst would be all over the place. She did not care. Even for Roger's sake she was not going to cringe to ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... zealous about their genealogies; extremely sober, ready to promise everything and do nothing, vindictive and highly suspicious of a stranger's intentions. Their bearing towards the Christian, whom they call the infidel, is full of contempt. They know no gratitude, and they would not cringe to the greatest Christian potentate. They are very long-suffering in adversity, hesitating in attack, and the bravest of the brave in defence. They disdain work as degrading and only a fit occupation ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... all these empty years? A wickedly ludicrous memory forbade the solemnity of a reconciliation: below any attempt the father might make, there would be a grin, somewhere; below any attempt the son might make, there would be a cringe, somewhere. The only possible hope was in absolute, flat commonplace. Play-writing, as a subject of conversation, ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... "who would ordinarily cringe at the sight of a wounded beetle sit through bloody murders and go home ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Esmond, and condescended to be very civil to him; and some days after his arrival, Harry, laughing, told this story to Lady Esmond, remarking how strange it was that men famous for learning and renowned over Europe, should, nevertheless, so bow down to a title, and cringe to a nobleman ever so poor. At this, Mistress Beatrix flung up her head, and said, it became those of low origin to respect their betters; that the parsons made themselves a great deal too proud, she ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Carthage, nor even Rachel weeping for her Hebrew children. But there were on every hand manifestations of adherence to the Southern cause, except among a few males who feared unutterable things, and were disposed to cringe and prevaricate. The women were not generally handsome; their face was indolent, their dress slovenly, and their manner embarrassed. They lopped off the beginnings and the ends of their sentences, generally commencing with a verb, as thus: "Told soldiers not to ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... despair to which he would give rein by night, it was always with dauntless ferocity that the tortured Wolfhound faced his enemy, the Professor. Short of starving him to death, or killing him outright with the iron bar, the Professor could see no way of making the Giant Wolf cringe to him; he could devise no method of breaking that fierce spirit, though he exhausted every kind of severity and every sort of cruelty that his wide experience in the handling of fierce animals could ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... not clever; she was simple and childish, with no complexity of passions or devious ways of intellect. It was her elemental jealousy which suggested the cunning plan for the unmasking of Juliette. She would make the girl cringe and fear, threaten her with discovery, and through her very terror shame her ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... madam, what is and what is not disreputable in this conventional world. It is not considered disreputable to cringe to the vices of a court, or to accept a pension wrung from the industry of the nation, in return for base servility. It is not considered disreputable to take tithes, intended for the service of God, and lavish them away at watering-places or elsewhere, seeking pleasure instead of doing God service. ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... to the rum power in America. That is the god I mean. The most heartless, depraved monopoly on earth, yet men and governments grovel in the dust at its feet and cringe like ...
— The Daughter of a Republican • Bernie Babcock
... was won. Cleopatra and the Imperator met, and the two strong personalities recognized each other's affinity instantly. Her coming was as a thunder-clap to Pothinus and his puppet Ptolemaeus. They could only cringe and acquiesce when Caesar ordered them to be reconciled with the queen, and seal her restoration by a ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... Ephraim, contemptuously. "I know them, and you met them at Succoth. The poor are miserable wretches who cringe under the lash; the rich value their cattle above all else and, if they are the heads of the tribes, quarrel with one another. No one knows aught of what pleases the eye and the heart. They call me one of the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... in Paris evidently disapproved of the proceeding, for the governor of the colony and the commander of the military forces were promptly recalled in disgrace. The terrible object-lesson doubtless had the desired effect, for the natives cringe like whipped dogs when a Frenchman speaks to them. But there is that in their manner which bodes ill for their masters if a crisis ever arises in Indo-China. I should not like to see our own brown wards, the Filipinos, look at Americans with ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... I; "things are better as they are. Those mountains of bread and beef, and those rivers of ale merely encouraged vassalage, fawning and idleness; better to pay for one's dinner proudly and independently at one's inn, than to go and cringe for it at a ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... different nature. But he was not born under a lucky star. He had written much in his time, and yet he had never been fortunate enough to see any of his compositions published. He did not know how to set to work, how to cringe at the right moment, how to proffer a request at the fitting time. Once, it is true, a very long time ago, one of his friends and admirers, also a German, and also poor, published at his own expense two of Lemm's sonatas. But they remained untouched on the ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... the superior advantages of the young women round about her, gave Rebecca inexpressible pangs of envy. "What airs that girl gives herself, because she is an Earl's grand-daughter," she said of one. "How they cringe and bow to that Creole, because of her hundred thousand pounds! I am a thousand times cleverer and more charming than that creature, for all her wealth. I am as well bred as the Earl's grand-daughter, for all her ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... me like vultures if I were weak fool enough to let them," she said to Anne. "They cringe and grovel like spaniels, and flatter till 'tis like to make one sick. 'Tis always so with toadies; they have not the wit to see that their flattery is an insolence, since it supposes adulation so rare that one may be moved by it. The men with empty pockets would marry ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of mark. He has his friends and his foes. To those whom he deems worthy of conciliating, will he fawn and cringe. Those whom he despairs of making his friends, or those whose friendship may do him no good, he alienates determinedly, and ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... these utterances, their blasphemy made him cringe. He wrapped the little broken body tighter in his arms. Was she, then, what she was by a loving God's decree? He kissed her hair and groaned in righteous anger. Did that Outcast Emperor dare call himself the representative of God on earth, and thereupon urge his menials to ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... law, Arrian tells us, protects the people and "ordains that no one among them shall, under any circumstances, be a slave but that, enjoying freedom themselves, they shall respect the equal right to it which all possess. For those, they thought, who have learned neither to domineer over nor cringe to others will attain the life best adapted for all vicissitudes ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... for the district, was isolated and fed with hay; with dry hay of the finest quality. The doctor analysed the milk, everything was all right. How simple the system was! How strange that they had not thought of it before! After all, one need not engage a foster mother a tyrant before whom one had to cringe, a loafer one had to fatten; not to mention the fact that she might have ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... the far side of the rope-ladder doorway. Carmena had bent her head to pass under the massive lintel. Lennon followed Elsie to the side of the doorway opposite Farley. The lawyer-ranchman appeared to cringe, yet he held to his position and even attempted an ingratiating smile as he rasped ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... told her you were drunk." Kent nodded gravely, and his lips curled as he watched the other cringe. "She called me a liar," he added, with ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... times! Ways? Customs? They exist to be changed! The tempora and the mores should be plastic to our touch. The times are never level with our best. Our souls are higher than the Zeitgeist. Why should we cringe before an inferior essence or command? But society seals our lips: we walk about with ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... came back. As any screaming creature of the jungle, he hysterically squalled his indignation. But he made no whimper. Nor did he wince or cringe to the blows. He bored straight in, striving, without avoiding a blow, to beat and meet the blow with his teeth. So hard was he flung down the last time that his side smashed painfully against the rail, and Van Horn ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... up jumped, with his beautiful variegated back all reddened by the sunbeams, a fine and full-fed woodcock, with the peculiar twitter which he utters when surprised. He had not gone ten yards, however, before my gun was at my shoulder and the trigger drawn; before I heard the crack I saw him cringe; and, as the white smoke drifted off to leeward, he fell heavily, completely riddled by the shot, into the brake before me; while at the same moment, whir-r-r! up sprung a bevy of twenty quail, at least, startling me for the moment by the thick whirring ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... anybody in any degree of deference was, one judged, somehow deplorable, even shameful, in the code of Sturm; but in Victor's presence the fellow's bravado would quickly wilt into hopeless servility, he would cringe and crawl like a dog currying the ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... shouted, "one rascal leading another! Trust a man to find his mate! A plague on you, swineherd, where are you taking that pitiful wretch? Another beggar, I suppose, to hang about the doors and cringe for the scraps and spoil our feasts? Now if you would only let me have him to watch my farm and sweep out my stalls and fetch fodder for my kids, he could drink as much whey as he liked and get ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... "Cringe—why, he doesn't know the meaning of the word. Hatchments! To commemorate that sniveling tramp and his, fraternal duplicate. And he is going to send me the remains. The late Claimant was a fool, but plainly this new one's a maniac. What a name! ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... combination—imprisonment, though your sunlight has only been dimmed. If so, your will, patient labor and strong desire can yet win for you. The flag of victory is now so limp. This fear of kindly death or hell is the enemy of mankind. Do not again thus cringe to this fair angel of life to all men eventually. You can live to old age and follow streams, fishing as pastime. This old man symbolizes your dear self now calmed in mind—not so dead as in youth. So, hold your true texts for ready ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara
... mankind is this: Calm and serene and unconcerned to court Fate's heaviest blows, and then, when these have fallen, To whine and cringe, bewailing one's sad lot.— Such folly we will none of, thou and I. For now I seek King Creon, to proclaim My right as guest-friend, and to clear away These clouds of dark distrust that threaten storm.— Meanwhile, take thou the babes and get thee hence Without the city walls. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... others around you grow rich by fraud and disloyalty; be without place or power while others beg their way upwards; bear the pain of disappointed hopes, while others gain the accomplishment of theirs by flattery; forego the gracious pressure of the hand, for which others cringe and crawl. Wrap yourself in your own virtue, and seek a friend and your daily bread. If you have in your own cause grown gray with unbleached honour, ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... they came within sight of the lions. Now Mr. Great-heart was a strong man, So he was not afraid of a lion; but yet when they were come up to the place where the lions were, the boys that went before were glad when to cringe behind, for they were afraid of the lions; so they stepped back, and went behind. At this their guide smiled, and said, How now, my boys, do you love to go before, when no danger doth approach, and love to come behind so soon as the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Cringe, scrape no more, ye city-fops, Leave off your feasting and fine speeches; Beat up your drums, shut up your shops, The courtiers then will kiss your breeches. Arm'd, tell the Popish Duke that rules, You're free-born ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... smile and chatter... they bow and cringe to me... and I have not preached any of ...
— Prince Hagen • Upton Sinclair
... seek renown to arms, Pant after fame and rush to war's alarms; To shining palaces let fools resort, And dunces cringe to be esteemed at court. Mine be the pleasure of a rural life, From noise remote and ignorant of strife, Far from the painted belle and white-gloved beau, The lawless masquerade and midnight show; From ladies, ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... surging through my mind came one after another the explanations of the hitherto inexplicable. Denison seemed almost to cringe in the chair, ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... mob cringe before Coriolanus. When he appears, the stage directions show that the "citizens steal away." (Act ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... structure a push that brought it tumbling to the ground, he sprung back and held his rifle prepared for any foe, were he a four-footed or a two-footed one. Instead of either, what was his amazement to see a negro, as black as midnight, emerge from the ruins, and cringe at his feet. ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... the Princes of Moscow who proved themselves masters in these Oriental arts. Their cunning was not of the vulgar sort which works for ends that are near; it was the cunning which could wait, could patiently cringe and feign loyalty and devotion, with the steady purpose of tearing in pieces. Added to this, they had the intelligence to divine the secret of power. Certain ends they kept steadily in view. The old law of succession to eldest collateral heir they set aside from the outset; ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... the gloom of the canyon's womb; in the valley's lap we lie; From the white foam-fringe, where the breakers cringe to the peaks that tusk the sky, We climb, and we peer in the crag-locked mere that gleams like ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... want with pride amid the studied humiliations of fifty million fellows? Well sped, my boy, before the world had dubbed your ambition insolence, had held your ideals unattainable, and taught you to cringe and bow. Better far this nameless void that stops my life than a sea of sorrow ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... stooping and insignificant, cowered below him—oh, so far below him in his easychair—I felt it in every nerve of my heart, in every fiber of my brain, that he and he alone is ruling lord here, the commander and Sovereign; and that he who will not bow and cringe before him, will by him be hurled into the dust and trodden upon! They all bow before him—all! He is like a magician, who by the magnetic glances of his eyes subjects to his will all who approach him, and makes the stoutest ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... monstrous bulk? His bones like brazen bars, His iron sinews cased in fearful strength Resist attack! Lo! when he slakes his thirst The rivers dwindle, and he thinks to draw The depths of Jordan dry. Wilt cast thy hook And take Leviathan? Wilt bind thy yoke Upon him, as a vassal? Will he cringe Unto thy maidens? See the barbed spear The dart and the habergeon, are his scorn. Sling-stones are stubble, keenest arrows foil'd, And from the plaited armor of his scales The glittering sword recoils. Where he reclines, Who is so daring as to rouse him up, With his cold, stony heart, and ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... not stir: Do you mark, I will not. Let me see the wretch That dares attempt to force me. Why, you slaves Created only to make legs, and cringe; To carry in a dish, and shift a trencher; That have not souls to hope a blessing Beyond your master's leavings; you that were born Only to consume meat and drink; Who advances? ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... him from the train, the dog was led through crowds of people and bustling, noisy streets that made Jan cringe and cower. At last they reached a place where water stretched so far that it touched the sky, and the water kept moving all the time. This frightened him, for he had never seen any water excepting in the little lake at the Hospice, and that ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker
... night comes round me, And the soft chain of thought has bound me, I whisper, "Sir, your eyes are killing— You owe no mortal man a shilling— You never cringe for star or garter, You're much too wise to be a martyr— And since you must, be food for vermin, You don't feel much desire for ermine!" Wisdom is a mine, no doubt, If one can but find it out— But whate'er I think or say, I'm an April fool to-day, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various
... you can cringe, and fawn, eh? back with you!—the girl, I say." For poor Emily, wild with fear, was clinging ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... dignity, and takes rank as war. But a great Prince and Light of the Universe, who procures abortions and throttles little babies, dwindles away into such a frightful insignificance of crime, that those may respect him who will. I pity their Excellencies the Ambassadors, who are obliged to smirk and cringe to such a rascal. To do the Turks justice—and two days' walk in Constantinople will settle this fact as well as a year's residence in the city—the people do not seem in the least animated by this Herodian spirit. I never saw more kindness to children than among all ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... whom he had been so afraid of, he took pleasure in letting them feel the weight of his authority, and sometimes of his fist. It was amusing to see the various ways in which they behaved toward him. Some would try to plead with him, for the sake of old times; some would cringe and whine to him; some would try to reason with him, to touch his conscience. But mostly they would be haughty, they would glare at him with hate, or put a sneer of contempt on their faces. So Peter would set his "bulls" to work to improve their manners, and a little thumb-bending ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... again? No, she owed him a letter, and if she loved him, would doubtless answer it as soon as circumstances would permit; and he 'would let that haughty old aristocrat, her father, see that Philip Hayforth, the merchant, had more of the spirit of a man in him than to cringe to the proudest blood in England. And as for Emily, she was his betrothed bride—the same as his wife; and if he was not more to her than any father on earth, she was unworthy of the love he had given her. Let her only be true to him, and he was ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... government in itself. But when I look on the world at large, when I see of what poor stuff those men are made who contrive to uphold their rule and what sort of antagonists we are likely to find in them, then I can only feel how disgraceful it would be to cringe before them and not to face them myself and try conclusions with them on the field. All of them, I perceive," he added, "beginning with our own friends here, hold to it that the ruler should only differ from his subjects by the splendour of his banquets, the wealth of gold in his coffers, the length ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... wolf saw too. He seemed to cringe for a moment, and then, like some old leader of a pack who knows he is about to die and defies his death, he darted for the river and flung himself through ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... jacket, gave him a hearty shake; "rare fun would it be,—and what do you call this? You dare twit your sister with cowardice!—you who sneaked off yesterday like a fox because you had not the spirit to look an old man in the face!—you who bully the weak and cringe to the strong!—you who have the manners of a bear with the heart of a pigeon!" Every sentence was accompanied by a violent shake, which almost took the breath from the boy; and Jonas, red with passion, concluded ...
— False Friends, and The Sailor's Resolve • Unknown
... neither want to cringe to the mob, nor be its master; I prefer to go my own way alone . . ." answered ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... chair!" said Holmes sternly. "It is very well to cringe and crawl now, but you thought little enough of this poor Horner in the dock for a crime ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... All lesser fry Must cringe, and crawl, and cry to me, And none have any rights but I,— Except the right to lie ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... glad I struck him," the Reverend Cecil told himself again and again; "that brought it home to him. He was quite cowed. He could do nothing but bow and cringe ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... prisoner. She was wonderful. She was panting in her excitement. From the floor Blake had noticed that her little white finger was pressing gently against the trigger of the rifle. It had made him shudder. It made the Eskimo cringe a bit now as Philip tied his hands behind him. And Philip saw it, and his heart thumped. Celie was ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... effects of the British bayonet charges and the way the Germans—Uhlans, Guards, and artillerymen—recoil from them. "If you go near them with the bayonet they squeal like pigs," "they beg for mercy on their knees," "the way they cringe before the bayonet is pitiful"—such are examples of the hundreds of references to this method ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick
... shot at Donna Ana a terrible glance, which caused the latter to cringe. Evidently, the duenna stood in considerable awe of her temperamental ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... Pitiful beyond most piteous things is the grovelling tendency of that section of human nature which has not yet been educated sufficiently to lift itself up above temporary trappings and ornaments; pitiful it is to see men, gifted in intellect, or distinguished for bravery, flinch and cringe before one of their own flesh and blood, who, having neither cleverness nor courage, but only a Title, presumes upon that foolish appendage so far as to consider himself superior to both valour and ability. As well might a stuffed boar's head assume a superiority to other ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... in me so utterly vile," said the boy, "and I cringe to none. But I would as lief adore your image, as that in my heart, for both mean the same; but more, how can I? I love great Oro, though I comprehend him not. I marvel at his works, and feel as nothing in his sight; but because he is thus omnipotent, and I a mortal, ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... two chicks that are left to me close under my wing. And never once, since Pee-Wee went, have I actually punished either of my children. It may be wrong, but I can't help it. I don't want memories of violence to be left corroding and rankling in my mind. And I'd hate to see any child of mine cringe, like an ill-treated dog, at every lift of the hand. There are better ways of controlling them, I begin to feel, than through fear. Their father, I know, will never agree with me on this matter. He will ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... then rim'd he the word, making ready for war, 630 And Beowulf spake forth, the Ecgtheow's bairn: E'en that in mind had I when up on holm strode I, And in sea-boat sat down with a band of my men, That for once and for all the will of your people Would I set me to work, or on slaughter-field cringe Fast in grip of the fiend; yea and now shall I frame The valour of earl-folk, or else be abiding The day of mine end, here down in the mead-hall. To the wife those his words well liking they were, The big word of the Geat; ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous
... cried Miranda, to whom opposition served as a tonic, "and move that flat-iron on to the front o' the stove. Rebecca, set down in that low chair beside the board, and Jane, you spread out her hair on it and cover it up with brown paper. Don't cringe, Rebecca; the worst's over, and you've borne up real good! I'll be careful not to pull your hair nor scorch you, and oh, HOW I'd like to have Alice Robinson acrost my knee and a good strip o' shingle in my right hand! There, you're all ironed out ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... its wealth sometimes? Very well then, she can serve God without it, in spite of her rights. If men whine and cringe, or bully and shout, for the jewels with which their forefathers honoured God, she will fling them back again down her altar stairs and worship God in a barn or a catacomb without them. For, though she does not serve God and Mammon, she yet makes to herself friends of the Mammon of iniquity. ...
— Paradoxes of Catholicism • Robert Hugh Benson
... too, I will give him shelter, a kindness never to be despised. A moment ago, before I whistled, this dog was tranquil and happy in the rain. Now he has changed. He turns fully around and approaches me, a slight cringe in his walk. The tranquillity has left him. At the sound of my whistle he has grown suddenly tired and lonely and the night and rain no longer lure him. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... forth, the ball of pink worsted dragging behind her in a grimy tangle, thought these things with a sledge-hammer directness that spared herself nothing. She wanted the truth, no matter how it made her cringe to find it! She would hammer out her very heart to find the truth. And the truth she found was that she had never allowed Blair to meet the negations of life—to meet those No's, which teach the eternal affirmations of character. He had had everything; ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... and every sentence stung like the lash of a whip, "those are cowardly words, unworthy a French gentleman and soldier. Did you leave all your courtesy behind in Montreal, or dream that in this wilderness I should cringe to any words you might speak? You wish the truth; you shall have it. Three days ago, through an accident, I drifted, in an oarless boat, out from the river-mouth at Fort Dearborn to the open lake. None knew of my predicament. A storm blew me helpless to the southward, and after hours ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... ardent heroes seek renown in arms, Pant after fame, and rush to war's alarms; To shining palaces let fools resort, And dunces cringe to be esteem'd at court: Mine be the pleasure of a rural life, From noise remote, and ignorant of strife; Far from the painted belle, and white-glov'd beau, The lawless masquerade and midnight show; From ladies, lap-dogs, courtiers, ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... seeking position, which was scarcely taken before there was a puff of smoke and their iron message. Heavens! what a vicious sound those shells had! something between a whiz and a shriek. Even the horses would cringe and shudder when one passed over them, and the men would duck their heads, though the missile was thirty feet in the air. I suppose there was some awfully wild firing on both sides; but I saw several of our men carried to the rear. But all this ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... flaming torch, and he waved it before him and laughed to see the warriors cringe. A cloud of smoke was billowing about him—he leaped to safety through a ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... tone shocked her. She was not without an unphrased feeling that death was so sacred or at least so solemn a subject that it should be treated with reverence. Any jesting upon it made her cringe, and the light mention of it seemed to her ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... is no joke at all," Lind said, gloomily. "Those Swiss people are craven. What can you expect from a nation of hotel-waiters? They cringe before every bully in Europe; you will find that, if Bismarck insists, the Federal Council will expel Armfeldt from Switzerland directly. No; the only safe refuge nowadays for the reformers, the Protestants ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... a hard cruel lash the long lean winds are laid on the back of the land, Curling over the breast of the hills and cutting the feet of the plain, Till the naked limbs of the forest host cringe at the lift of the hand, And the white-ribbed waves on the granite shore moan ...
— England over Seas • Lloyd Roberts
... advantages of the young women round about her, gave Rebecca inexpressible pangs of envy. "What airs that girl gives herself, because she is an Earl's granddaughter," she said of one. "How they cringe and bow to the Creole, because of her hundred thousand pounds. I am a thousand times cleverer and more charming than that creature, for all her wealth. I am as well bred as the Earl's granddaughter, for all her fine pedigree; and yet everyone passes ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... The woman's cheeks flamed red. "Some men shut their eyes and cringe when there comes a flash of lightning. But that don't make them cowards. He might have been frightened at the time, and not known what he was doing, but he is not a coward. I guess I know that as well ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... a quiver in the black forest of Boone's beard, and if Pierre was cold before, he was sick at heart to see the big man cringe before McGurk. ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... gill gem gibe germ tinge edge urge huge serge judge singe ledge large barge fudge lodge dodge ridge cringe lunge budge hedge badge sledge nudge wedge fringe range bridge merge grudge trudge mange ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... simply embodied impertinence, and the floor manager who allows it an offender against every law of propriety; and thus it happens that seats are slipped out of sight, and exhausted women smile and ask, as the purchase is made, "And what is the next pleasure?" in a tone that makes the American hearer cringe for the abject humility that is the first condition of ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... opportunity favored me. I expected the fox to cross the road a few yards below me, but just then I heard him whisk through the grass, and he bounded upon the fence a few yards above. He seemed to cringe as he saw his old enemy, and to depress his fur to half his former dimensions. Three bounds and he had cleared the road, when my bullet tore up the sod beside him, but to this hour I do not know whether I looked at the fox without seeing my gun, or whether I did sight him across its barrel. I only ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... You cringe at the power of Amochol. But the red altar is not for you. Listen, dogs! Had I not found it necessary to slay your stripling, Loskiel, he had been burned and strangled an that altar!... And there is another at Otsego who shall die ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... Horrors! Why, I shall be a freshman! If they touch me I'll scream! ah—ha, I'll scream! Scream, and betray my sex? No, that won't do; At Rome I'll have to be a Roman; And, to escape that dread ordeal, I Shall cringe and crawl, and in the presence of A fourth year man step soft and bow, And smile if he but condescend to nod. Oh, yes, I'll do't. In tableaux once I played Uriah Heep, and made the character So "'umble" and so ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... usually known as Love. As Avarice makes but a sorry theme for the romantic writer, Love is the subject that must principally claim your attention. All the world loves a lover, while the miser is despised even by those who cringe beneath the power of his gold. Study the women, my lad, and when you know them thoroughly begin your great ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... sort of a man father is," replied Rufe. "Peakslow would have found out, if he had drawn a bead on you. How quick he stopped, and changed countenance! He can govern his temper when he finds he must; and he can cringe and crawl when he sees it's for his interest. Think of his asking you at last,—after you had got your horse in spite of him, and at the risk of your life,—think of his begging you ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... And the wail of the South wings forth; Will ye cringe to the hot tornado's rack, And the vampires of the North? Strike! ye can win a martyr's goal, Strike! with a ruthless hand— Strike! with the vengeance of the soul, For your bright, beleaguered land! To arms! to arms! ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... around our infancy Doth heaven with all its splendors lie; Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, We Sinais ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... are ever ready in recognition of each other, and their suspicion of all above them, whether by rank or by nature, is a sense of the utmost keenness. Mrs. Butterfield varied somewhat from the type, inasmuch as she did not care to cringe before her superiors; but that was an accident; in essentials of feeling she and Bower were ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... might have had mercy on her, but they were both cowed by the pitiless brute of a step-son, whose only view was to goad her into driving their profitable traffic to her last gasp. But there was no outbreak between them and Harold. The father's nature was to cringe and fawn, and the son estimated those thews and muscles too well to gratify his hatred by open provocation, and was only surly and dogged, keeping himself almost entirely out of the way. Alice wanted nothing but ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I'd hit you down for that," he said, clenching his fists. "What do you know about things to talk to me like that? Who are you to take his side and cringe to him? If you can't judge him, there's plenty that can, and it's you who are pig-headed, not me, because you don't see I'm fighting your battle for you. It may seem too late to fight for you; but it's never too late to hate a wicked ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... I had imagined," said the Professor, bitterly. "I can only tell you that it was not so, that I was met at every turn by incredulity, born partly of stupidity and partly of jealousy. It is not my nature, sir, to cringe to any man, or to seek to prove a fact if my word has been doubted. After the first I have not condescended to show such corroborative proofs as I possess. The subject became hateful to me—I would not speak of it. When ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... I mingle in Fashion's full herd? Why crouch to her leaders, or cringe to her rules? Why bend to the proud, or applaud the absurd, Why search for delight in ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... fall at one's feet; craven; crouch before, throw oneself at the feet of; swallow the leek, swallow the pill; kiss the rod; turn the other cheek; avaler les couleuvres [Fr.], gulp down. obey &c 743; kneel to, bow to, pay homage to, cringe to, truckle to; bend the neck, bend the knee; kneel, fall on one's knees, bow submission, courtesy, curtsy, kowtow. pocket the affront; make the best of, make a virtue of necessity; grin and abide, grin and bear it, shrug ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Gospel clutched in both my hands, I swore a solemn oath that I would rise, If God would spare me;—she should see me rise, And learn what she had lost.—Yes, I would mount Merely to be revenged. I would not cringe Down like a spaniel underneath the lash, But like a man would teach my proud Pauline And her hard father to repent the day They called me 'beggar.' Thus I raved and stormed That mad night out;—forgot at ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... house Amos smiled and stroked his beard. "Truly," he thought, "these Christians hate us, but we have them in our power. It is pleasant to be hated and yet to know that it is to us they must cringe when they are in need; and it is very pleasant to refuse. My friend Gregorio is not happy now that he ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... ass-like multitudes Cringe down at his command. With wagging ears and blinded eyes They do not understand. With pride they show each shackled wrist And on ...
— Bars and Shadows • Ralph Chaplin
... or a Vanderbilt, a Ledyard, a Huntington, a son of somebody at the financial head of things. While sacrificing none of his steady self-reliance or self-respect, Ben Tillson decided to treat his new fireman, assistant to the old, with all due civility. He would cringe or kowtow to no one, but, like the sturdy citizen he was, Ben deemed it wise to keep on the good side of the powers. It was necessary, however, that the new-comer should understand who was boss on that ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... I thought he must have been killed, but the rapidity of his action saved him, for the spear passed his shoulder so close that it tore away a shred of his coat, and stuck in the wall behind him. In another instant Doltaire had his sword-point at Voban's throat. The man did not cringe, did not speak a word, but his hands clinched, and the muscles of his face worked painfully. There was at first a fury in Doltaire's face and a metallic hardness in his eyes, and I was sure he meant to pass his sword through the other's body; but ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of banana-leaves. He was a scraggy man—very lightly clad—and a violent squint handicapped him seriously in the matter of first impressions. When he saw Jocelyn he dropped his burden of wood and ran towards her. The African negro does not cringe. He is a proud man in his way. If he is properly handled, he is not only trustworthy—he is something stronger. Nala grinned ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... to struggle, an' never to cringe or fall— Still I worked for Charley, for Charley was now my all; And Charley was pretty good to me, with scarce a word or frown, Till at last he went a-courtin', and brought a wife ...
— Farm Ballads • Will Carleton
... her. He demanded implicit obedience to his lightest whim with the unconscious tyranny of one who had always been accustomed to command. He ruled his unruly followers despotically, and it was obvious that while they loved him they feared him equally. She had even seen Yusef, his lieutenant, cringe from the heavy scowl that she had, herself, ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... gazed at her with mingled anger and fascination. Here was certainly a new species of woman! Never before had any teacher at William Penn failed to cringe to his ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... scowling after him. Brice stepped out onto the sand to meet the newcomer. The roustabout apparently belonged to the conch tribe of which Milo had spoken. Thin. undersized. swarthy. with features that showed a trace of negro and perhaps of Indian blood as well, he had a furtive manner and seemed to cringe away from the Northerner as they set off across the clearing. toward the distant huts ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... back upon that action, sorrowfully considering it. "I thought it very affable of him to shake hands," he said, "but he had a very final way of doing it. And, besides, I didn't care to make a tale of my private affairs, and seem to cringe. I didn't want him ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... being an itinerant tinker was also an itinerant political preacher, and seeing that he could prevail nothing by secular pleas, he betook himself to his spiritual armory, and in a voice of sour derision that made Bessie Fairfax cringe asked the doctor if he had yet received the Devil's Decalogue according to h'act of Parliament and justices' notices that might be read on every wall?—and he proceeded to recite it: "Thou shalt remove the old landmarks, and enter into the fields of the poor. Thou shalt wholly reap ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... each rascal that prowls under heaven Stab one for getting it? Had he wished power, The thing was in the market-place for sale At stated rates—so much for a man's soul! His was a haughty spirit that bent not, And one to rise had need to cringe and creep. So had his brother into favor crawled, Like slug into the bosom of a rose, And battened in the sun. At thought of him, Forgotten for a moment, Wyndham winced, And felt his wound. "Why bides he not in Town With his blond lovelock and wench-luring ways— There ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Tush, Tush! these be but dreams of poets, or imaginings of children!—the commons be but slaves to the nobles; the nobles to the senate; the senate to their creditors, their purchasers, their consuls; the last at once their tools, and their tyrants! Go, young man, go. Salute, cringe, fawn upon your consul! Nathless, for thou hast mind enough to mark and note the truth of what I tell thee; thou wilt think upon this, and perchance one day, when the time shall have come, wilt speak, act, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... 'what time so fit to do this in as now, when he has the bridle of Mansoul in his hand?' And this I took special notice of, that the inhabitants, notwithstanding all this, could not—no, they could not, when they see him march through the town, but cringe, bow, bend, and were ready to lick the dust of his feet. They also wished a thousand times over that he would become their Prince and Captain, and would become their protection. They would also one to another talk of the comeliness of his person, and how much for glory and valour ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... a surprise to us, her husband was a still greater one; and I had difficulty in recognizing the Adolf Scherer who came to our dinner party as the personage of the business world before whom lesser men were wont to cringe. He seemed rather mysteriously to have shed that personality; become an awkward, ingratiating, rather too exuberant, ordinary man with a marked German accent. From time to time I found myself speculating uneasily on this phenomenon as I glanced down the table at his great torso, white ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... each side stretched burnt and bare. And then came the climax: something passed us,—high above our heads, I fancy, though its frightful winds seemed brushing us,—a ghost of the night, an aerial demon, a shrieking thing that made the man beside me cringe and shudder. It was new to me, but I could not mistake it. It was what the French call an obus, a word that in some subtle manner seems more menacing and dreadful than our own term ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... grasp their cudgels more firmly to give him a good drubbing. What fun it will be to bring them down upon his broad shoulders, and see him cringe! ...
— Harper's Young People, October 5, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various |
