"Fret" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... them as my guest, of course.—Still I'll sound my brother at luncheon, and just see how the land lies. But don't build too much on any change of front. I don't expect it—not yet. Later, who knows Meanwhile courage—do try not to fret." ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... of human life. But here I am drifting into an error against which I warned the reader,—of making an entity of a conception. People are patient or impatient, but not necessarily throughout. There are men and women who fuss and fume over trifles who never falter or fret when their larger purposes are blocked or deferred. Some cannot stand detail who plan wisely and with patience. Vice versa, there are meticulous folk, little people, whose petty obstacles are met with patience and cheerfulness, who revel in minute ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... demanded the Colonel. "I guess you've got clothes enough. Any rate, you needn't fret about it. You just go round to White's or Jordan & Marsh's, and ask for a dinner dress. I guess that'll settle it; they'll know. Get some of them imported dresses. I see 'em in the window every time I pass; ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... we'll soon manage that. In the meantime, don't you fret yourself, my dearie, and don't get your eyes swelled up, else he'll be walking into me when he sees you. There's nothing to be afeared about, and there's ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... privileges and duties, or else ye shall be as far from the kingdom of heaven as Sodom and Gomorrah. We speak of rulers' sins, that ye may mourn for them, lest ye be judged with them. If ye do not mourn for them in secret, know that they are your sins, ye are companions with them. Many fret, grudge, and cry out against oppression, but who weeps in secret? Who prays and deprecates God's wrath, lest it come upon them? And while it is so, the oppression of rulers becomes the ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... five years I have thought till my heart is sore with thinking! No, Jack, don't fret. I don't. Thank God there are other things. There is work, a people to help, ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... wholly exempt from the annoyances and trials of life! He has learned how to make the best of every thing, and that is more than half toward averting a trouble. Put a cheerful face upon the matter, it will but make it worse to fret and frown and keep your neighbors uncomfortable about it, besides working yourself into a teapot! Mr. Bond crowded all the evils down into the deepest corner of his heart and turned the key upon them, and that was the end of them. Nobody ever got hold of and magnified them, until he felt ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... said Mrs Brammel, rising from her chair. "You are a nasty ill-bred fellow, I'm sure. Talk of high people! I never see sich airs in all my life. If your wife ain't no better behaved, there's a nice pair of you, I don't think. Never mind him, ducky dear—don't you fret. We are as good as them any day. Let's go up stairs, there's a bless-ed. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... not be able to get this in the mail before we have to leave here.... Kiss my dear little ones for me, tell all the Negroes howdy for me.... Write as soon as you get this. Direct it to me at Dalton, as I expect this will be our post office for the present. Do my dear wife don't fret about ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... (silently taking THE CALIFORNIAN'S measure with his eye, as he stands six fret in his stockings). If I did, I'd get the biggest brakeman I could find to do it for me. I'VE got nothing to say except that I think you'd better all ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Best, to forget! Living, we fret; Dying, we live. Fretless and free, 5 Soul, clap thy pinion! Earth have ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... order and beauty of it, the signs of loving care. It gave him a key, he fancied, to the lives of the cultured English people, for there was no sign of strain and fret and stress and hurry here. Everything, it seemed, went smoothly with rhythmic regularity, and though it is possible that many Englishmen would have regarded Garside Scar as a very second-rate country house, and would have seen in Major Radcliffe and his wife nothing more than ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... easily disheartened; and if your patience does but hold out, I am hopeful I shall compass my end. To shorten my story, said the young man, this good procuress made several attempts on my behalf with the proud enemy of my rest. The fret I thereby underwent inflamed my distemper to that degree that my physicians gave me quite over; so that I was looked on as a dead man, when the old woman came ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... have been more useful in some kind of a cabinet in the old settler's cabin, but we needn't to fret ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... half of prosperous life, With little grief, or fear, or fret: She, loved and loving long ago, Is loved and ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... said, "that I have rank and honour in reality, if I am to live an obscure prisoner, without either society or observance, and suffering in my character, as one of dubious or disgraced reputation? I care not for all those strings of pearl, which you fret me by warping into my tresses, Janet. I tell you that at Lidcote Hall, if I put but a fresh rosebud among my hair, my good father would call me to him, that he might see it more closely; and the kind old curate would smile, and Master Mumblazen would say something ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... come out to-morrow and talk it over with you. Good-bye, and above all do not fret until you know that you really ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... to lighten the ship, but not by throwing overboard the ordnance; for you can but drop them close to the ship's side, and where the water is shallow they will lie up against the side of the ship and fret it, and with the working of the sea make her to spring ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... Why fret? the hawks I trained are flown: 'Twas nature bade them range; I could not keep their wings half-grown, I ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... all changed without, Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt. Yet why at others' wanings should'st thou fret? Then only might'st thou feel a just regret, Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light 5 In selfish forethought of neglect and slight. O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed, While, and on whom, thou may'st—shine on! nor heed Whether ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... my boy; don't fret about that. Take all the time you need to make it a good one. Gad, if this doesn't strain ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... under the spanning arches of many a bridge, seemed to grow weary of its staid behaviour and suddenly to return to the playful manners of its youth. In its wild exuberance it was scarcely recognisable as the placid river which, further in its course, flowed through Llaniago and Castell On. With fret and fume and babbling murmurs it made its way through its rocky channel, filling the air with the sound of its turmoil. Both sides of its precipitous banks down to the water's edge were hidden in woods of stunted oak, through whose branches the sound of its flow made continual music, ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... ye fret. It's shlape ye need yerself. Sheila, whativer do ye think o' this! Here's a colleen shlipped through the fingers of those bow-legged signboards and fair done wid heroism an' strategy, an' Lord knows what all, an' off her feet wid tire! Do ye take her an' feed her. ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... psychologist and reader of the human mind at his desk, and as unsophisticated as any student in practical life. As Hamlet of yore, I might have handed him a pipe and said, "Do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... will atone for the feebleness of its power of portraiture. On the porch of a Northern cathedral we may seek for the images of the flowers that grow in the neighboring fields, and as we watch with wonder the gray stones that fret themselves into thorns, and soften into blossoms, we may care little that these knots of ornament, as we retire from them to contemplate the whole building, appear unconsidered or confused. On the incrusted building we must expect no such deception of the eye or thoughts. It may sometimes ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... One was lonely for the next few days, but she was kept so busy hunting breakfasts, and lunches, and dinners, and suppers that she hadn't time to fret much. She was something like a three-quarters-grown kitten now, except for her having no tail to speak of, and curious, fierce-looking tufts to her ears, and pale eyes so savage and bright that they seemed as if they could look through a log even ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... but imprisonment, with a disgraceful execution as the only end of it, that he was not at first prepared to endure. He had tasted captivity in the Tower once before; he knew the intolerable tedium and fret of it; and the very prospect maddened him. Nor would his thoughts be only or mainly of himself. He would reflect that if he were once condemned, nothing but financial ruin and social obloquy would attend his wife and children; and this it was which inspired the passionate and ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... madam," she replied, with an ingenuous smile, "when you first came here I was a little like my brother, for I was sadly ashamed to let you see how ill we lived! but now you know the worst, so I shall fret about it ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... 4. Never fret, repine, or envy. Do not make yourself unhappy by comparing your circumstances with those of more fortunate people; but make the most of the opportunities you have. Employ profitably ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... the fish out of the water, Camelion out of the Aire, nor Salamander out of the fire. Therefore they must needs spread farre vnder the earth. And I dare well say, if nature would giue leaue to man by Art, to dresse the roots of trees, to take away the tawes and tangles, that lap and fret and grow superfluously and disorderly, (for euery thing sublunary is cursed for mans sake) the tops aboue being answerably dressed, we should haue trees of wonderfull greatnes, and infinite durance. And I perswade myselfe that this might be done sometimes in ...
— A New Orchard And Garden • William Lawson
... I guess. Rubbed his fur the wrong way this morning pretty hard. But don't you fret, girlie. It'll be all right. Only we mustn't blame him. Think of what it means to him. You're all he has, and if he thinks you're—if he thinks ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... talk as I wanted to hear, for a man's wife can hold him devilish uneasy if she begins to scold and fret, and perplex him, at a time when he has a full load for a railroad car on his mind already. And so, you see, I determined not to break full-handed, but thought it better to keep a good conscience with an empty purse, than to get a bad opinion of ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... makes with the stream! He addresses himself to it as a lover to his mistress; he wooes it and stays with it till he knows its most hidden secrets. It runs through his thoughts not less than through its banks there; he feels the fret and thrust of every bar and boulder. Where it deepens, his purpose deepens; where it is shallow, he is indifferent. He knows how to interpret its every glance and dimple; its beauty haunts ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... into the hands of my lawful protector. I thanked him with true English reserve, and a coldness that seemed rather to grate on his warm feelings; and having owned that his seeing my Newfoundland dog well fed and lodged would be a great obligation, I withdrew to fret alone over my exile to this foreign land. You may call this an exaggeration, but it is no such thing. I delight in dwelling upon my reluctant approach to the land that I was ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... ceas'd the chiming Of their angelic bells; methought I heard The murmuring of a river, that doth fall From rock to rock transpicuous, making known The richness of his spring-head: and as sound Of cistern, at the fret-board, or of pipe, Is, at the wind-hole, modulate and tun'd; Thus up the neck, as it were hollow, rose That murmuring of the eagle, and forthwith Voice there assum'd, and thence along the beak Issued in form of words, such ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... scratch and scold, And boys will fight and wrangle, And big, grown men, just now and then, Fret o'er some fingle-fangle, Vexing the earth with grief or mirth, Longing, rejoicing, rueing— But by the ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... boy," she said, "thou wilt make it long, howsoever short it be. And now I will give thee a rede, lest thou vex thyself sick and fret thy very heart. To-morrow go see if thou canst meet thy fate instead of abiding it. Do on thy war-gear and take thy sword and try the adventure of the wildwood; but go not over deep into it." Said he: "But how if the Lady come while I am away from ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... the great Tree will forget, And let us stay until the spring, If we all beg, and coax, and fret." But the great Tree did no such thing; He smiled to hear ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... be but one black horse in Lincoln," replied Elfric, "thou doest well to fret. But if there be Black Dick that is broken-winded and hath the spring-halt so that he be not worth more than one day's reckoning at the Swan at the most; and if he looketh tolerably fair; and if thou mayst buy him for a small sum; and if this drunken fool knoweth not ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... the MSS. or new work of the correspondent. Some letters of that kind he probably never did answer. Few had any idea of the fagging task they imposed on the distinguished victim. He would worry and fret over it trebly in anticipation, and the actual task itself was to him probably ten times as irksome as it would be to most others. Yet it would be curious to know how many letters of suggestion and encouragement he actually did write in reply to solicitations from young authors for his criticism ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... wish to prosper on the earth, let God be in all your thoughts. Remember that the Lord is on your right hand; and then, and then alone, will you not be moved, either to terror or to sin, by any of the chances and changes of this mortal life. "Fret not thyself," says the Psalmist, "else shalt thou be moved to do evil." And the only way not to fret yourselves is to remember that God is your refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. "He that believeth," saith the Prophet, "shall not make haste"—not hurry ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... office, trying to face the position more clearly than he had been able to do in the night. Why fret and worry? Barbara's "solemn promise" had already been broken in spirit; if she kept it in form, she would be haunted by a new memory, the intrusive shadow would take on a more terrific outline. There was no proof that Jack was alive . . . but Eric believed without proof; ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... you fret yourself, Olive. I trow there's no witch-mark on you. It's Goody Bishop in her fine silk hood that's at the bottom on't. I know, I know. Perchance Paul could loose the stopple in the cider-barrel. I am needful of somewhat to warm my old bones. ...
— Giles Corey, Yeoman - A Play • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... fret any about that. I've brought Smith along. Smith is the only living Englishman who speaks the Megalian language. He's been explaining the situation to the high priest of the island for the last half-hour while we ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... order the things myself; I used even to go to the big markets, and half kill myself trying to get things a little cheaper at one place and another, and waste more car-fare and lay up more doctor's bills than it would all come to, ten times over. I used to fret my life out, remembering the prices; but now, thank goodness, that's all over. I don't know any more what beef is a pound than my husband does; if a thing isn't good, I send it straight back, and that puts them on their honor, you know, and they have to give ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... about your door, What means this bustle, Betty Foy? Why are you in this mighty fret? And why on horseback have you set Him whom you ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge
... fret, v. chafe, abrade, fray, rub; gnaw, corrode; roughen, ruffle, agitate; worry, harass, tease, irritate, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... afraid Desire had rather liked him for his carping, which was what he least of all deserved to be liked for. It showed how high and pure his demands were; but his praise and admissions were better; it is always better to discern good than to fret at the evil. ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... the paper from her hand. He smiled inwardly to himself, subduing his fret of impatience. "You will not object to let me talk it over," he ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... No, no; it is enough if he reforms, Endeavouring to deserve the favour shown him. And since I've promised, do not you belie me. 'Tis not my way to make a public scandal; An honest wife will scorn to heed such follies, And never fret ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... says to him, 'and 'ow are you, sir?' 'Be careful,' says the missus. ''E's that timid,' she says, 'you wouldn't believe,' she says. ''E's only just settled down, as you may say,' she says. 'Ho, don't you fret,' I says to her, ''im and me we understands each other. 'Im and me,' I says, 'is old friends. 'E's me dear old pal, Corporal Banks, of the Skrimshankers.' She grinned at that, ma'am, Corporal Banks being a man we'd 'ad many a 'earty laugh at in the old ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... the leaf and rose Are long, long gone; So chill, so chill the grey wind blows Through heart and bone; No grasses warm the winter ways That wound my feet; But with unwearied fingers yet, Bold, undelayed on stop and fret, ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... retorted Shad. "Probably it's the only chance he's ever had to meditate on his misdoings. Don't you fret about him. He's just as husky as I be, and twice as hefty. It was all I could do to ketch a good holt ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... his means, his vote, his creed, his life, From the dread sovereignty of Ears and Eyes And the small member that beneath them lies. They told strange things of that mysterious man; Believe who will, deny them such as can; Why should we fret if every passing sail Had its old seaman talking on the rail? The deep-sunk schooner stuffed with Eastern lime, Slow wedging on, as if the waves were slime; The knife-edged clipper with her ruffled spars, The pawing steamer with ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... part of it?" To dilute it in words and translate bits of it for school-girls, or to patronize it by defense or praise, was somewhat as though Esther herself should paint a row of her saints on the cliff under Table Rock. Even to fret about her own love affairs in such company was an impertinence. When eternity, infinity and omnipotence seem to be laughing and dancing in one's face, it is well to treat such visitors civilly, for they come rarely ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... addressed the policeman by name, and the companions felt included in the circle of an acquaintance where a good deal of domesticity seemed to prevail. The policeman would not join in the conjecture that it was some distinguished person; he did not give his reasons; and the pair began to fret at their delay, and mentally to hurry that poor unknown underground—so short is our patience with the dead! When at last their driver went up round the endless queue of hacks, it suddenly came to an end, and they were ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... "Never fret," said the godmother when she had heard the trouble. "In your own garden grows a magic flower that can set things right; and if you will only tend it and watch it and wait long enough you shall see what ...
— The Story-teller • Maud Lindsay
... he said. "If it weren't me it would be someone else—or possibly a closer vision of Himself. There is always something—something to which later you will look back and say, 'That was His lamp in the desert, showing the way.' Don't fret if you can't pray! I can pray for you. You just keep on being brave ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... old tree, thy lofty stem Outlin'd against the distant sky, But 'tis no gain to fret for them— For men, or trees, ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... "Do not fret, my dear. It will take several days before the city is invested, and your father's return will not be interfered with. Besides, he is not a militant, ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... SEA-FRET. A word used on our northern coasts for the thick heavy mist generated on the ocean, and rolled by ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... they can make sail in their canoes, and come here easily, instead of pulling between thirty and forty miles, which is hard work against wind and current. Still, we must not be careless and we must keep a good look-out even now. I don't want to fret your father and Mrs Seagrave with my fears on the subject, but I tell you what I really think, and ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat
... grooms are the very devil for superstition. And once a horse gets a bad name with them, good-by to him. Miller knew how to ride, of course, but like many another of them, was too damned over-confident. I warned him more than once for getting young horses into a fret, and I'm willing to lay a ten-pound note that he angered Pollux. 'Od's life! He is a vicious beast. So was his father, Culloden, before him. But here's luck to you, sir!" says Mr. Astley, tipping his glass; "having seen you ride, egad! I have put all the money ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... us miserable with feckless scruples that ruined the happy ending we had fairly earned? Either he was right to let CHARLES STUART escape that day in the mist, in return for former generosity, or he was wrong; and one would have expected him to make up his mind and there an end, and not fret himself into a pother and Mr. JOHN FOSTER'S story into a most inartistic anti-climax over such a subtlety. All the same a rattling good tale, full of hard knocks as well as bright eyes, and with more ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152. January 17, 1917 • Various
... (by which I mean faults of omission, in contradiction to such as are positive), from the composition of his audience. His audience, comprehending so much ignorance, and, above all, so much high-spirited impatience, being, in fact, always on the fret, kept the orator always on the fret. Hence arose short sentences; hence, the impossibility of the long, voluminous sweeps of beautiful rhythmus which we find in Cicero; hence, the animated form of apostrophe and crowded interrogations addressed to the audience. This ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... once more The glass of Time, for all we fret! The present enters at my door, And vainly ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... furniture and a vast number of worthless knick-knacks in poker-work, fret-work, leathern applique-work, gummed shell-work, wool-work, tambour-work, with crystoleum paintings and drawings in chalk and water-colour. On a table in front of the window stood a cage with five canaries singing in it. Corona herself ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... on making us fret For lack of food to eat, When up there ran a City man In gaiters trim and neat— Oh, just tell me if a farm there be Where I can get employ, To plough and sow for PROTH-ER-O, And he a farmer's boy, And be a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 7, 1917. • Various
... upon the horse's mane, And one foot in the stirrup set, And, stooping back to kiss again, With 'Good-bye, Mary! don't you fret! When I come back' — he laughed for her — 'We do not know how soon 'twill be; I'll whistle as I round the spur — You let the ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... his cradle in the glamourie They have stolen my wee brother, Housed a changeling in his swaddlings For to fret my own poor mother. Pules it in the candle light Wi' a cheek so lean and white, Chinkling up its eyne so wee Wailing shrill at her an' me. It we'll neither rock nor tend Till the Silent Silent send, Lapping ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... youngest boy's tears affected me beyond the power of control, and the tears were very bitter which we all shed together, but the stage was fast approaching, and we must control our grief, 'Good bye, mother,' said the boys at last as they left me to take their places in the stage coach, 'Don't fret about us; we will try to do right and remember all you have said to us, and let us hope there are happier days ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... peculiar or surprising that her new acquaintance should at once begin to talk to her in this strain. She had lived exclusively with people older than herself, and all whom she knew intimately were Christian people. Aunt Tabitha sometimes puzzled her; but Christie's nature was not one to fret and strain over a point which she could not comprehend. It seemed to her, therefore, not only right, but quite a matter of course, that Pandora Roberts should be of the same type as her father and her ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... an answer came back faintly through the fret of the river: "Plenty saw logs coming down. All of them handy sizes and sliding ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... a rambling conversation which had been interrupted by the noisy passage of a bee, "That particular bee reminds me of some people who fret over their work, and who make others who are ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... cannot share the prize. Great GLADSTONIDES—place allow to age!— A chief of seasoned strength and generous rage, Fell, at their last encounter, to the skill Of him the swart of look, the stern of will, Broad-shouldered SALISBURION. Such defeat Valiant and vigorous veteran well might fret. He erst invincible, the Full of Days, The Grand Old One, full-fed with power and praise. ACHILLES-NESTOR, to no younger foe, Because of one chance slip and casual throw, The Champion's Belt is ready to resign; Nor may his foe the final fall decline. So "Greek meets Greek" in wrestling rig once ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 25, 1892 • Various
... come out of the fret and the fever of life; away from the scorching heat of self, and enter the inward resting-place where the cooling airs of peace will calm, renew, ...
— The Way of Peace • James Allen
... spared thee all the spring, Thy sole delight is, sitting still, With that gold dagger of thy bill To fret ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... how a bird lies tangled in a net, So fasten'd in her arms Adonis lies; 68 Pure shame and aw'd resistance made him fret, Which bred more beauty in his angry eyes: Rain added to a river that is rank Perforce will force it ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... Mahomet, Mahomet must come to the mountain. Now I must be off. I will write and make an appointment. We shall begin stimulating the phagocytes on—on—probably on Tuesday next; but I will let you know. Depend on me; dont fret; eat regularly; sleep well; keep your spirits up; keep the patient cheerful; hope for the best; no tonic like a charming woman; no medicine like cheerfulness; no resource like science; goodbye, good-bye, good-bye. [Having shaken hands—she being too overwhelmed to speak—he goes ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw
... every time they git a chance. Old Man Denman's boy gits kilt and two my sisters he property and they don't know what to do, 'cause they has to be somebody's property and they ain't no one to 'heritance 'em. They has to go to the auction but Old Man Denman say not to fret. At the auction the man say, 'Goin' high, goin' low, goin' mighty slow, a little while to go. Bid 'em in, bid 'em in. The sun am high, the sun am hot, us got to git home tonight.' An old friend of Old Man Denman's hollers out he buys for William Blackstone. Us all come home and my sisters ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... Himself will free you, by the sword of His servant Death. This lord of yours, if indeed he be your lord, is a foul traitor. The King of England seeks his life, and there is another who will seek it also ere very long," and he glanced at the senseless form of Hugh. "Fret not yourself overmuch, daughter. Be grateful rather that matters are no worse, and that you remain as you always were. Another hour and you might have been snatched away beyond our finding. What is not ended can still be mended. Now go, seek the rest ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... occurred, I supported him; but when I knew him to be wrong, or when I caught him neglecting his duties, conniving at injustice, shirking inquiry, or evading the truth, I in no way spared him. The incident just related is an illustration of the treatment he often received at my hands. Fret, fume, stamp, storm, as he might, I cared nothing for him. His anger to me was as indifferent as his friendship. I despised both equally. Occasionally he would imagine, after there had been no storm between us for some time, that I had become reconciled to him, and would make advances to me. But ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... lurking beneath the leaves or flowers of summer to wound the approaching hand, tearing the clothes or the flesh of the traveller who tries to make his way through the thicket, burning in the flesh where it has sunk, fitly stand for that side of life which we associate with sin—the side of care, fret, pain, disappointment, disease and death? In a word, it symbolises the curse. But it was the mission of Christ to bear the curse; and, as He lifted it on His own head, He took it off the world. He bore our sins ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... hand, since Lanyard had quite decided what he meant to do about Liane in any event, her decision really didn't matter much; and he refused to fret himself trying to forecast it. Whatever it might turn out to be, it would find him prepared, he couldn't be surprised. There Lanyard was wrong. Liane was amply able to surprise him, and did. Ultimately he felt constrained to concede a touch to genius in the woman; her ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... can you do? The autumn sun and the damp are both very bad for the little fellow—for the scriptures have it: /* "In wheezing, swoon or in nervous fret, In jaundice ...
— The Post Office • Rabindranath Tagore
... journal you may stupefy the mind With the influence narcotic which it draws From the Latest Information about Scholarships Combined Or the contemplated changes in a clause: Place me somewhere that is far from the Standard and the Star, From the fever and the literary fret,— And the harassed spirit's balm be the academic calm ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... fever, nor fret about him; but instead, cheerfulness, patience and unfailing perseverance. His mind, amidst all his sufferings, remained perfectly calm and serene. He went about his daily work with an apparently charmed life, as if he had the strength of many men in him. Yet all the while he knew ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... "Don't you fret about that. You'll have the whole neighbourhood here looking on, and I don't suppose they'll stand still and do it. I'll risk the making of the ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... of men! Lawd, Corporal!" Then, after a pause, and very softly, he said, "Say, Corporal Jack, if—if my Colonel don't send orders back fur me to come ter him, an' if youse all get orders ter go on, will yer jes' fur my sake try ter find de Colonel an' tell him a message? Jes' tell him not ter fret 'bout me, cos I'se goin' ter remember de hill!" G. W. had never humiliated himself by allowing any one to suppose he cared to go beyond the hill-top. "An' jes' tell him I'll ...
— A Little Dusky Hero • Harriet T. Comstock
... room, and began a fevered toilet. It was true that she possessed nothing suitable for ballroom wear; but then the dance was to be quite informal, and she was too happy to fret herself over that fact. She put on the white muslin frock which she had worn for dinner ever since she had been with the de Vignes. It gave her a fairylike daintiness that had a charm of its own of which she was utterly unconscious. Perhaps ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... so bright a sun! such blindness to what is so patent! such a deaf ear to the roaring of that thunderous harmony which you call the eternal silence!—you of the earth, earthy, who can hear the little trumpet of the mosquito so well that it makes you fidget and fret and fume all night, and robs you of your rest. Then the sun rises and frightens the mosquitoes away, and you think that's what the sun is for and are thankful; but why the deuce a mosquito should sting you, you can't ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... he was left in his prison to fret in idleness, but towards the afternoon he was called by his friend the ex-runner to ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... bad to look at, I am well dressed, and never untidy. I am disgustingly well, which is fortunate, for most men hate a sick woman. If I have a headache I don't speak of it. I neither nag nor fret nor scold, and I even have a few parlour tricks which other people consider attractive. For six years, I have given generously and from a full heart everything he has seemed to require ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... in a hour or two—the baby began to fret 'nd worrit. Seemed to me like the little critter wuz hungry. Knowin' that there wuz no eatin'-house this side of Bowieville, I jest called the train-boy, 'nd says I to him: "Hev you got any victuals that will do ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... honor's darling; And when his body fell, scaling Quebec, Down the sheer rock it left a track of light Which sped in opposition towards the stars Bearing his fame. He was an officer In the King's army ere he found our own. Did conscience fret the gallant Irishman To think what uniform was on his back When he so died? What if in that assault I had died too, my name had ranked with his In song and monument; unfading laurels Had shed their brazen lustre o'er our brows, And we, like ...
— The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold - A Play for a Greek Theatre • John Jay Chapman
... that The ungodly fret. Go, place him in the stocks. I charge ye harm him not— But give him ale, Wine, and a scurvy song-book—Such as he Do make us triumph. Fie, fie, Cornet Dean! Well, stop his mouth, an't please ye; come, away! [Trumpets sound.] This is a gift of God, see burial Unto ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... our Creator never meant us to be contented, and that we should always have something to look forward to and fret about—"It is thy vocation, Hal,"—or we sink into apathy, and become averse to the prospect of the last great change. "Well, Mr. Graham," said a once contented, but now expiring Nimrod to me, "after all you have said, give me a thousand a-year, and the old ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... one of the questions in regard to which long-drawn friction had vexed the soul of Clarendon, and as it proceeded it was to reveal more clearly the designs of those who had striven so persistently to fret irritations and sow new seeds of dissension between him and the King. Their success, ignoble as it was, and little profitable either to the Crown, the kingdom, or themselves, was ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... went forward: standing on the pyramid of the Dagda, he began measuring and reconnoitering the army. His spirit, or his mind, or his thoughts did not fret over them at all. He brought their description with him to the ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... 'Pshaw, man! Never fret about that! I will off to Bristol at daybreak, and give my council enough to think of without their having time to devote to your fate. The soldiers will but have another instance of the working of the Father of Evil, who hath long been thought to ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... first, and said, 'Will you take my message to her?' 'I will,' I said, 'if I go five hundred miles to do it,' 'Take her picture from under my pillow, and my children's also. Let me see it once more.' As I held them for him, he looked earnestly, and then said, 'Tell her not to fret about me, for we shall meet in heaven. Tell her 'twas all right that I came. I don't regret it, and she must not. Tell her to train these two little boys, that we loved so well, to go to heaven to us, and tell her to bear my loss like ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... blood, the staring, his grey old fingers! There was a something, if you like, to talk about at the house door; and a something to dream of, per Bacco! I believe the Jew engulfed all her annoyances of the past and all her fret over the ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... was a married man, he said, and his travelling days were over. It is probable, however, that never was a suggestion more welcome. The past years, in spite of his deep love for his wife, had been full of fret and shadowed by disappointment, and he longed, with a traveller's intensity of longing, for the wild untroubled places of the world, the primitive life, and if possible some dangers on the road. An exploring party sent out by the British Government to discover ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... there must come another, then she will so alter, vex, and fret her self at it, that all the provocations of pains in labour, turns against her stomack, and there is no hopes ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... there, I shall not be required to have a pass; I will travel without being disturbed. Let but the first opportunity offer, and come what will, I am off. Meanwhile, I will try to bear up under the yoke. I am not the only slave in the world. Why should I fret? I can bear as much as any of them. Besides, I am but a boy, and all boys are bound to some one. It may be that my misery in slavery will only increase my happiness when I get free. There is ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... boy stamped up and down the cave in such a fret that Tom Bodine and Roy Stone made repeated efforts to calm him, but without success. They began seriously to fear the effect of this anxiety upon his system, already fevered by the several hard fights through which he had gone in the ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... in Amelius, filled her with a childish interest and surprise. She dimly understood that it was sorrow and sympathy for her. The bare idea of distressing this new friend, so unimaginably kind and considerate, seemed to frighten her. "Don't fret about me, sir," she said timidly; "I don't mind having no father nor mother; I don't mind being beaten." She appealed to the nearest of her two women-friends. "We get used to everything, ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... to set The might that man has matched not yet Against it: he whose hand shall get Grace to release the bonds that fret My bosom and my girdlestead With little strain of strength or strife Shall bring me as from death to life And win to sister or to wife Fame that outlives ...
— The Tale of Balen • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... with her face buried in the pillow. Had these sobs been born of weakness, all might have been well; but rage had mothered them, and thus her voice was in a very bad way. This morning she was noticeably hoarse, and there was a break in the arietta. No, she did not fret over this side of the calamity. The sting of it all lay in the fact that she had been outraged in the matter of personal liberty, with no act of reprisal to ease her immediate longing to ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... pride would cause him some pain in either of the two courses which were open to him,—but, I thought, more in one than the other. If he remained in his lodgings, he would break his heart about being a burden (as he would say) to his friends; and he would fret after work so as to give himself no chance of such recovery as might be hoped for: whereas, if he could once cheerfully agree to enter a hospital, he would have every chance of rallying, and all the sooner for being free from any painful sense of obligation. If the treatment ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... magnanimous nature;—one that takes slights and neglects in a large-minded way, and does not believe people meant them and, if they did, does not fret: one who is serene when little things go wrong, and does not fuss or worry: one who accepts generously as well as gives generously, and who is keenly alive to people's good points and good intentions. Little ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... Evils) Poverty, and insure to them Riches, with every Evil besides. These good People live in a constant Constraint before Company, and too great Familiarity alone; when they are within Observation they fret at each other's Carriage and Behaviour; when alone they revile each other's Person and Conduct: In Company they are in a Purgatory, when only together in ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... odor of the growing wheat, The flare of sumach on the hills, The touch of grasses to my feet Would cure my brain of all its ills,— Would fill my heart so full of joy That no stern lines could fret my face. There would I be forever boy, Lit by the sky's ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... these caves. The walls and ceilings were carved with the most delicate fret-work of pink and cream and white, and a faint green light shone into them from ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton |
