"Fret" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sufficiently in line with him. I missed seeing him last night—he was out at some school festivity, and this morning he has gone without a word or a sign. I have made friends a hundred times with a tenth of the trouble, and I suppose it is just because I find this child so difficult to approach that I fret myself over the failure; and all the more because I know in my heart that he is a really congenial nature, and that we do think the same about many things. Of course, most sensible people would not care a brass farthing about such ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... on to the nearest chair, "and are you putting yourself out about that, my pretty? Why, tisn't likely that you three young ladies could support yourselves. Don't you fret about that, Miss Primrose; why, you'll get quite old with fretting, and lose all your nice looks. You go to bed, my darling—there's a Providence over us, and he'll find ways ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... nothing else but prove, Whether a little[131] thing would you move To be angry and fret; What, and if one had said so? Let such trifling matters go, And be good to men's flesh for ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... rode on without speaking. St. Maline soon discovered, to his chagrin, that his horse was not as good as Ernanton's, and could hardly keep pace with him. This annoyed him so much that he began to quarrel with his horse, and to fret him so perpetually with the spur, that at last the animal started off and made for the river Bievre, where he got rid of his rider by throwing him in. One might have heard half a mile off the imprecations of St. Maline, although he was half stifled by the water. By the time ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... back, and be tactful. Be persuasive; don't fret her; tell her it's all right, the matter is in my hands, but it isn't good form to hurry so grave a matter as this. Explain to her that we have to go by precedents, and that I believe this one to be new. In fact, ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... said, "she will be all right! My cold was just as bad while it lasted. You shouldn't fret about nothing." I had got into the way of giving her a good deal ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... some person laying a claim to it, and threatening to prosecute his claim at law. It was a thousand pities that her brother should allow such a trifle as this,—for after all it was but a trifle, to fret his spirits and worry him in this way. But it was the wretched state of his health: were he once himself again, all such annoyances as that would pass him by like ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... bowed head and frowning brow. Suddenly he looked up and cast his eyes about upon the company. "Before I goes, I wants to say a word to Madge," said he, and turned to her with an impressive earnestness. "Little one, don't you never fret about me, no more." He took her hand and she gave it to him gladly. "I see, now, as you was never made for me." He took a step toward Frank and led her to him. "I see whar your heart is, an' I puts your hand in his." With ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... you fret," said Jack, dolefully. "No fear about her. She's all right, so far.—But, see ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... coolest days, the barbarous muzzle will fret a thoroughbred almost to insanity, unless, indeed, he has brains to free himself, as did a brilliant Irish setter which we once knew. This wise dog would run far ahead of his human guardian, and with the help of his forepaws ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... sure that He will bless the exercise of the prerogative by which He exalts us above inferior creatures, and makes us capable of toil. You can influence to-morrow. What you can influence by work, fret not about, for you can work. What you cannot influence by work, fret not about, for it is vain. 'They toil not, neither do they spin.' You are lifted above them because God has given you hands that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... they were n't worth half-a-crown. It was like the retreat from Moscow. Finally, I lost fourteen on the trip—exactly the number I had got dishonestly. As for the second wagon, I gave it to Baxter for fetching the load the last fifty mile. I thought this might clear away the curse, so I didn't fret over it. I felt as if Charley had got satisfaction. But I wasn't going to get off so cheap. Two years afterward—you remember, Dixon?—I bought that thin team and the Melbourne wagon from Pribble, the contractor. Dixon, here, ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... shall try our hands upon a piece of hardwood for a change—meantime do one or two of these fret patterns by way of disciplinary exercise ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... it is particularly good—and grief never seems to affect it; little worries and annoyances fret and irritate me, but not great or sad events. And I derive benefit and relief both in my body and soul in dwelling on the sad object which is the one which fills my heart! The having to think and talk of other and indifferent things (I mean not business so much) is very trying ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... forward between the rows of little beds each with its child occupant, her finger on her lips. "He is so much weaker to-day," she explained, "I would say he had better not see any one, except that he will fret, so please stay only a few moments," and she led them to where Joey lay, his white bed shut off from his little neighbors by a screen. His eyes were closed and a young resident physician was standing ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... knowing this, I wonder less That she's so scorn'd, when falsely dight In misery and ugliness. What's that which Heaven to man endears, And that which eyes no sooner see Than the heart says, with floods of tears, 'Ah, that's the thing which I would be!' Not childhood, full of frown and fret; Not youth, impatient to disown Those visions high, which to forget Were worse than never to have known; Not worldlings, in whose fair outside Nor courtesy nor justice fails, Thanks to cross-pulling vices tied, Like Samson's foxes, by the tails; Not poets; ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... the real business of my life. I was no longer doomed to fret at being of no use, for the object of my existence was plain enough, namely, to give innocent recreation to my young mistress when at leisure from her more serious employments. Every day she spent some hours in study with ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... credit—no, it ain't no good; You 'ave to 'ave the 'abit or you'd die, Unless you lived your life but one day long, Nor didn't prophesy nor fret at all, But drew your tucker some'ow from the world, An' never bothered what you might ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... to leave them seemed their only chance of life, for it grew colder every moment. He must find help soon, or they would not survive the night. Bending over Elsie, he kissed her tenderly, saying, "Don't be afraid, Elsie. I will find someone to send to you before I give up; so don't fret. We'll see mother again, never fear." And bending over to see that she was well covered with the robes, he whispered, "Good-bye, Elsie; pray for help," and he kissed ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... cannot tell you, my dear Joyce, what a haven of peace this place is to me after the racket and fret of town. I am almost quite recovered already, and am growing stronger every day; and, joy of joys, my brain has come back to me, fresher and more vigorous, I think, for its holiday. In this silence and solitude my thoughts flow freely, and the difficulties of my task are disappearing as ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... the grandees, the patricians, the sachems, the nabobs, call them by what name you please, sigh, and groan, and fret, and sometimes stamp, and foam, and curse, but all in vain. The decree is gone forth, and it cannot be recalled, that a more equal liberty than has prevailed in other parts of the earth, must be established in America. That exuberance of pride ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... to see the real explanation of such cases as those mentioned near the beginning of this discussion. The mothers who fret and rebel over their maternity, she found, are likely to bear neurotic children. It is obvious (1) that mothers who fret and rebel are quite likely themselves to be neurotic in constitution, and the child naturally gets its heredity from them: (2) ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... way to brooding when the child was near. Aunt Amy helped—perhaps most of all. She was a constant wonder to the girl, so cheerful was she, so thoughtful of others, so forgetful of herself. Her little fancies seemed to have ceased to fret her, there was a new peace in her faded eyes. Sometimes as she went about the house she would sing a little, in a high thready voice, bits from songs that were popular in her youth. "The Blue Alsatian Mountains" or "When You and I Were Young, Maggie" ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... length of days, His firm-based brain, to self so little kind That no tumultuary blood could blind, Formed to control men, not amaze, Looms not like those that borrow height of haze: 280 It was a world of statelier movement then Than this we fret in, he a denizen Of that ideal Rome that made ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... had formulated an intention to build a great house, to add another to the palaces of the country-bred millionaires who have come to adorn the great city. In the mean time he made little account of the things that occupied his children, except to fret at the ungrateful indifference of his son to the interests that could alone make a man of him. He did not know whether his daughters were in society or not; with people coming and going in the house he would have supposed they must be so, no matter who the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... to give us a good push on our way here," he told Jack, when the latter continued to fret and hint about "cutting off corners" in order to hasten their getting away. "We're bound to do our part of the job right up to the handle. Besides, what do ten ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... sinks into an object of sordid economy, or of merciless caprice. His personal feelings are recklessly neglected. He sleeps where there is neither light nor air; he is driven when he is already exhausted; he begins the work of midnight, and is confined for hours with men like himself, who fret, repine, and curse. They have their tales to compare together; their unhallowed secrets to disclose. The masters and the mistresses pass by them in review, and little deem they how oft the malignant glance or the malicious whisper follow their airy steps. To shorten such tedious hours, the ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... self-conceit with which his whole moral being is indurated—to that loathsome vulgarity which constantly clings round him like a vermined garment from St. Giles'—to that irritable temper which keeps the unhappy man, in spite even of his vanity, in a perpetual fret with himself and all the world beside, and that shews itself equally in his deadly enmities and capricious friendships,—our hatred and contempt of Leigh Hunt, we say, is not so much owing to these and ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... "Don't fret, Kay, dear," she said soothingly. "We'll find it. We'll find out what the Hun is doing. We'll discover what this Great Secret really is. And our pigeons shall ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... presumption To contemn what we do not comprehend To die of old age is a death rare, extraordinary, and singular To do well where there was danger was the proper office To forbear doing is often as generous as to do To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind to't To fret and vex at folly, as I do, is folly itself To give a currency to his little pittance of learning To go a mile out of their way to hook in a fine word To keep me from dying is not in your power To kill men, a clear and strong ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne
... drumsticks, and one perfectly clean breast bone! And, of course, I had to make haste, for it was nine o'clock and after, And the master had offered a prize to the earliest boy—and here was I beaten by even lazy Tommy Shafter! But it was no use to fret, so I snatched up my satchel, and would have been off in a minute, When lo and behold! my geography was gone; and though we hunted the house, it was plain it wasn't in it, Till at last I remembered that yesterday ...
— Neighbor Nelly Socks - Being the Sixth and Last Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... the sky was pouring rain, The Magpie chanced to come by again— And there stood the post in the wet. "Helloa." said the Magpie. "What you here Pray tell me I beg is there sheltering near— A terrible day for this time of the year. T'would make a Saint Anthony fret." ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... it filled with the eruptive vision of Mountain Lad, majestic and mighty, the gnat-creature of a man upon his back absurdly small; his eyes wild and desirous, with the blue sheen that surfaces the eyes of stallions; his mouth, flecked with the froth and fret of high spirit, now brushed to burnished knees of impatience, now tossed skyward to utterance of that vast, compelling call that shook ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... "He'll fret his gizzard green if he don't soon hear from that maid of his. Well, learning is better than houses and lands. But to keep a maid at school till she is taller out of pattens than her mother was ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... just such 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 myself with a full one. I therefore ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... threw myself on the couch. She saw that my colour was changed and said to me, 'What ails thee and why do I see thee thus changed?' 'My head irks me,' answered I; 'I am not well.' When she heard this, she was vexed and concerned for me and said to me, 'Fret not my heart, O my lord! Sit up and raise thy head and let me know what has happened to thee to-day, for thy face tells me a tale.' 'Spare me this talk,' replied I. But she wept and said, 'Meseems ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... been all in a fret, saying you've run away, and that you'd be dismissed the service, and it was what he quite expected; and then, so as not to put him out, when you agreed with him, he flew out at you, and called you a fool, and said ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... how sobby the twigs, no matter if there was no fire in a mile of the camp, that fellow could start one. Some men might get down on hands and knees, and blow it and fan it, rear and charge, and fume and fret, and yet "she wouldn't burn." But this fellow would come, kick it all around, scatter it, rake it together again, shake it up a little, and oh, how it burned! The little flames would bite the twigs and snap at the branches, embrace the logs, and leap and dance and ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... she only considered that she was the wife of a white man,— a thing to be desired, and that the man she loved was hers for ever— a matter of indefinable joy to her. That he was sending her to England did not fret her, because it was his will, and he knew what was best. Busy with her contented and yet somewhat dazed thoughts of him,—she was too happy to be very active mentally, even if it had been the characteristic ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... ward gravely, "is only your property at stake? I can manage Chunk, and through him perhaps get others. I am not responsible for changes which I can't help; I am to blame if I sit down idly and helplessly and do nothing better than fret or sulk. Your bitter words of protest are not bread and bring no money. For your sakes as well as my own you must either act or let ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... morning he was left in his prison to fret in idleness, but towards the afternoon he was called by his friend the ex-runner to go out ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... "White-Caps" would bother Carlow no longer; and he thought that Kedge Halloway, an honest man, if a dull one, was sure to be renominated for Congress at the district convention which was to meet at Plattville in September—these were his responsibilities, and they did not fret him. Everything was all right. There was only one thought which thrilled him: his impression that she had come to the hospital to see him was not a delusion; she had really been there—as a humane, Christian ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... fused in a fine oval; and the modelling of the features was intensely and passionately expressive. That indeed was at once the distinction and, so to speak, the terror of the face,—its excessive, abnormal individualism, its surplus of expression. A woman to fret herself and others to decay—a woman, to burn up her own life, and that of her lover, her husband, her child. Only physical weakness had at last set bounds to what had ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... mother" opened her eyes wide in wonder. "Why, of course. What else should we be? Mother always told us it was wicked to be cross, and that we must not fret much, even over ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... right; but was it right that these occupations should have so crowded out the very principle that would have given a holy harmony to her life, and been a fountain of strength to meet the cares and worries that will fret the stream of the most prosperous course? Sacred words, learned in her childhood, recurred to her mind: "And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things, entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful." Had not that been ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... will, truly, get up, and not fret a bit, if you'll only help me look. Please come now to dress me, and see if you can find what makes ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... not only our seventy elders, but all the Lord's people, are become prophets. No marvel then tho some men, and some good men too perhaps, but young in goodness, as Joshua then was, envy them. They fret, and out of their own weakness are in agony, lest these divisions and subdivisions will undo us. The adversary again applauds, and waits the hour: When they have branched themselves out, saith he, small enough into parties and partitions, then will be ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... 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 a lost missionary ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... the sufferer by being talked to. "I thought this idle capacity was distinctive of little children and old maids. But it's just circumstances. I simply can't work, and things have to drift; it's no good to fret and struggle. And so I lie here and am as amused as a baby with a rattle, at this ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... illness lasted for two months, she bore her sufferings with truly Christian fortitude. Never did she fret or complain, but, as usual, appealed continually to God. An hour before the end came she made her final confession, received the Sacrament with quiet joy, and was accorded extreme unction. Then she begged forgiveness of every ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... what prodigious scarcity of wit Did the new authors starve the hungry pit! Infected by the French, you must have rhyme, Which long to please the ladies' ears did chime. Soon after this came ranting fustian in, And none but plays upon the fret were seen, Such daring bombast stuff which fops would praise, Tore our best actors' lungs, cut short their days. Some in small time did this distemper kill; And had the savage authors gone on still, Fustian had been a new disease ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... anyhow for the present not to remove Major Sweet from here, as he has been very good to us, and he is very well known to everybody. He is like a parent to us Moro people. It will be just like a child who is left by his parents; he will fret and be longing for the one he loves; the Moro people are the same way. Even if somebody else would come, it would not be the same, as he would be unknown; he will be another man for that reason. To tell the truth, our father, Major Sweet, ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... mania for great people wishing to strut and fret their four hours and a quarter upon the stage is on the increase—at least according to our friends the constituent members of the daily press. Despite the newspaper-death of the manager of the Surrey, by which his enemies wished to "spargere ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... the Admiral was beginning to feel hurt by my systematic coldness. 'We had always been such hearty friends until now. It was too bad of me to fret that tender, honest old heart even for an hour. I really did love the ancient boy, and when, in a disconsolate way, he ordered up a pitcher of beer, I unbent so far as to partake of some in a teacup. He recovered his spirits instantly, and took out ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... when he went along to the Universities that evening, he found he had missed his man—by only a minute or two. He was surprised and troubled; he knew how Lionel would fret. The hall-porter did not know whither Lord Rockminster had gone; that is to say, he almost certainly did know, but it was not his business to tell. Luckily, at this same moment, there was a young fellow leaving the club, and, as he was lighting his cigar, he heard Maurice's inquiries—and ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... Gartley. The mother was troubled: it is the girl that suffers evil judgment in such a case, and she knew how the tongue of the world would wag. But those who despise the ways of the world need not fret that low minds attribute to them the things of which low minds are capable. The world and its judgments will pass: the poisonous tongue will one day become pure, and make ample apology for its evil speaking. The tongue is a fire, but there is a stronger fire than the tongue. Her father and the major ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... Maw hain't b'en real good to you an' Tommy lately. You're gittin' all white an' peaked. Too much frettin' 'bout Nat. You an' me's got to stop it, I tell you. Folks round here ain't goin' to let us fret—" ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... "Thou didst never fret, or plunge and kick, but thou wouldest have whisked thy old tail, and spread abroad thy large chest, with pith and power, till hillocks, where the earth was filled with tough-rooted plants, would have given forth ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... "Fret not thyself, noble knight," answered Rebecca, "the sounds have ceased of a sudden. It may be they join ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... Nuns fret not at their Convent's narrow room; And Hermits are contented with their Cells; And Students with their pensive Citadels: Maids at the Wheel, the Weaver at his Loom, Sit blithe and happy; Bees that soar for bloom, High as the highest Peak of Furness Fells, Will ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... said to me in every line, "I talk about God's goodness and loving-kindness, but I worry over the dust in the spare room, I fret about our expenses, I am troubled about my lungs, and I fear my husband has an unregenerate heart. I never know an hour's peace, for even in my sleep, I worry, worry, worry, but of course I know I will be saved by the blood ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... to the grace of form, color and decoration possible with burned clay. As a marble statue is to a wooden image, so, for the outer walls of a building, is clay that has been moulded and baked, to the products of the saw-mill, the planing-mill, lathe and fret-saw." ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... laughing lips. I may not even clasp His cold dead form in one long, last embrace! And here I sit alone.— I drove them all away, their words but maddened me. Alone I sit, And rock, and think,—I cannot weep— And conjure up the depths, those cruel depths That chafe and fret, and roll him to and fro Like a stray log:—he, whose dear limbs should lie Peaceful and soft, in rev'rent care bestowed.— Or in the sunken boat, gulfed at his work, I see his blackened corse, even in death Faithful to duty. O that those ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... fret a man's heart out,' replied the hostler. 'He is the most wicious rascal—Woa ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... Jonathan forget, The scar of anger's wound to fret, And smile to think of an ancient feud, Which the God of nations turned to good; Then John and Jonathan will be, Abiding friends, o'er land and sea; In their one great purpose, the world will ken, Peace on earth, goodwill ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... became too intolerable, he could endure it no longer. Let it make or break, certainty, at all risks, was at least preferable to this sickening suspense. That he loved her, he could no longer doubt; let his parents foam and fret as much as they pleased; for once he was going to stand on his own legs. And in the end, he thought, they would have to yield, for they had no son ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... cherub, on pinions of silver descending, Had brought me a gem from the fret-work of heaven; And smiles, with his star-cheering voice sweetly blending, The blessings of Tighe ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... and so lovely her face, That never a hall such a galliard did grace; While her mother did fret and her father did fume, And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume, And the bride-maidens whispered, "'Twere better by far To have matched our fair cousin ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... a house as anybody in THIS town!—and if we want to travel and see your Tormina or whatever it is, why we can do it, with enough money in our jeans so we won't have to take anything off anybody, or fret about our old age. You never worry about what might happen if we got sick and didn't have a good fat wad ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... a disappointment that Edward found himself too busy to make the hoped-for trip to Viamede at Christmas-time; yet Zoe did not fret over it, and really enjoyed the holidays extremely, giving and receiving numerous handsome presents, and, with Edward's assistance, making it a merry and happy time for the servants and other dependants, ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... There's the mark of the bullet — he's got it inside of him yet Mixed up somehow with his victuals, but bless you he don't seem to fret! Gluttonous, ugly, and lazy — eats any thing he can bite; Now, let us shut up the stable, and bid the old fellow good-night: Ah! We can't breed 'em, the sort that were bred when we old 'uns were young. Yes, I was saying, these bushrangers, ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... to be! And was he flying from the island like this? The island that had honoured him, that had rewarded him beyond his deserts, and earlier than his dreams, that had suffered no jealousy to impede him, no rivalry to fret him, no disparity of age and service to hold him back—the little island that had seemed to open its arms to him, and to cry, "Philip Christian, son of your father, grandson of your grandfather, first of Manxmen, ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... a whistle, and 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
... as the Buddhist thinker relies on obtaining salvation by knowledge. Life in a continual succession of different bodies is his perdition. His salvation is to be freed from the vortex of births and deaths, the fret and storm of finite existence. Neither goodness nor piety can ever release him. Knowledge alone can do it: an unsullied intellectual vision and a free intellectual grasp of truth and love alone can rescue him from the turbid sea of forms and struggles. "As a lump of salt is of ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... in her brow of youth; With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks; Turn all her mother's pains and benefits ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... Renowned Soveraigne, doe not fret your self. Fortune in turninge will exalt your state And change the Countenaunce of her cloudy browe, Now you must hope for better still and better And Edmond must expect still worse and worse, A lowringe morning proves ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... Aline, dropping into the vacant place beside Patsy. "'Tis the only chance I shall ever have to see London before I die, and I have given Tibbie, the cook, all instructions about the plums and the heather honey. The jam has been a great fret to me this year, and I deserve a bit jaunt. So I will e'en ride in this braw carriage all the road to London, and Eelen Young, the lass that does for me, will bring on my kists by the coach. She is a clever wench, and very likely will be at Ibbetson's before ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... use to fret and trouble now? She had gone out of his life for ever, and with her his last chance of glad renewing. Henceforth he must go back to his quiet life of service which asked and gave nothing else, and to the companionship of those old memories which sometimes awakened ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... proper food, or sickroom comforts of any sort. Ah! Fort Samila, with the sun glaring up from the sand!—however, it is a long time ago now. I trusted the baby willingly to Mrs. Berry and to Providence, and did not fret; my capacity for worry, I suppose, was completely absorbed. Mrs. Berry's letter, describing the child's improvement on the voyage and safe arrival came, I remember, the day on which John was allowed his first solid mouthful; it ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... stream, every now and then an owl hoots somewhere in the distance, and the air comes up to my face off the long grass cool and damp. I can't tell you the effect the blessed silence, the blessed peace has on me after the fret of Berlin. It feels like getting back to God. It feels like being home again in heaven after having been obliged to spend six weeks in hell. And yet here, even here in the very lap of peace, as we sat in the porch after supper the Oberforster ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... not fret any more for me, for you, less than any man I know, will ever claim my obedience or command my love. Not that I will not yield my heart to you, but that I cannot; and, knowing that I cannot, feel it honest to say ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... suffered for a holiday to ramble brainless in the paradise of fools. Memory, imagination, zeal, perceptions of men and things, equally with rank and riches, have often cost their full price, as many mad have known; they take too much out of a man, fret, wear, worry him,—to be irritable is the conditional tax laid of old upon an author's intellect; the crowd of internal imagery makes him hasty, quick, nervous, as a haunted, hunted man—minds of coarser web ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... angry, O mighty snake,—nor do I blame myself. Since in regard to happiness and misery, men sometimes possess the power of bringing and dismissing them, and sometimes do not. Therefore one should not fret one's mind. Who can baffle destiny by self-exertion? I deem destiny to be supreme, and self-exertion to be of no avail. Smitten with the stroke of destiny, the prowess of my arms lost, behold me to-day fallen unto this condition ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... energy enough, I hear, to play ball with the men every noon time. He is the star pitcher of Factory 1." A chuckle came from the older man. "It is something of a joke, too," he continued, "for I thought I had put him beyond all possible range of a bat and ball. Don't fret any more about him. Let him alone. He is showing more pluck ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... does tire. No matter how much he may love a woman, too much lovemaking becomes cloying to him, and he wants to get away. Even mere proximity, if too prolonged, becomes irksome to him, and he begins to fret and fidget, and pull at his chains, even if the chains are but of gossamer. Woman should know these facts and ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... your bolts to the remotest verges of the sea. But there a power stops, that limits the arrogance of raging passions, and says, 'Hitherto shalt thou go, and no further.' Who are you, that should fret, and rage, and bite the chains of nature? Nothing worse happens to you than to all nations possessing extensive empire; and it happens in all the forms into which empire can be thrown. In large bodies the circulation of power must be less vigorous at the extremities. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... fret not, most excellent Pythagoras! one moment more, and I am not the boy to baulk you. And here comes Harry on the gray; by George! he makes the brushwood crackle! Now for a nasty leap out of the tangled swamp! a high six-barred ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... yourself fret," said a voice that sounded far away. "He is hurt, but badly not at all. We him have carried away. I am a doctor. You quiet must be, and zen recovery rapide ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... miles to the westward, ten days before. "If this account is true," he wrote to Elliot, "much mischief may be apprehended. It kills me, the very thought." Yet, now that the call for decision sounds, he knows no faltering, nor does he, as in hours of reaction, fret himself about the opinions of others. "I am going out of the Mediterranean," he says in farewell. "It may be thought that I have protected too well Sardinia, Naples, Sicily, the Morea, and Egypt; but I feel I have done right, and am, therefore, easy about any fate which may ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... the affairs and changes of material things. The Science of the age has its hands upon the pillars of the Temple, and rocks it to its foundation. As yet its destructive efforts have but torn from the ancient structure the worm-eaten fret-work of superstition, and shaken down some incoherent additions—owl-inhabited turrets of ignorance, and massive props that supported nothing. The structure itself will be overthrown, when, in the vivid language of a living writer, "Human reason leaps into the throne of God and waves her torch ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... as wit; and words fall in silvery tones from a beautifully-formed mouth, like the renewal of life upon the soul of man! I think where one could enjoy all this, it was a monstrous act of folly on the part of Macbeth to fret about the principality of Cumberland, or covet even the whole kingdom of Scotland. For my own part I must say, give me the warm drink and the sweet companionship of that night, and let old Duncan with a hearty welcome ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... little Scriptur' would fetch him, and keep the price down,—'the Scriptur' says, Whatever a man can get, therewith let him be content; an' I take it the moral of that is, make the best of a bad bargain. An' there's another teks that says, Don't ye fret over spilt milk; an', bein' a pillar of the church, I reckon you'd like to practise 'em, an' let your light shine afore men.' Now if there's one thing more'n another that Sam prides himself on, its bein' a deacon, an' livin' up to it; an' ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... see. But I do hate freckles and big red hands, and round shoulders. She can't help it, I suppose, but ugly things fret me." ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... clumb so high, but they said you could see way off the Appenines, the Alps, Mont Blanc, the Matterhorn, a wonderful view. The cathedral is full of monuments to kings and queens and saints and high church dignitaries. Its carving, statuary, fret work is beyend description. It is said to be the most beautiful in the world and I shouldn't wonder, 'tennyrate it goes fur, fur beyend the M. E. meetin'-house in Jonesville or ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... has a very modern appearance, some of it having the characteristic surface finish and color of the Rio Grande ware. A small amount of ancient pottery also occurs here, some of the fragments of black and white ware displaying intricate fret patterns. The quantity of these potsherds is quite small, and they occur mainly in the refuse ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... "Don't fret, lad, we're workin' the best we know how, an' have been these four days, though not allers on ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... these, the youngest began to fret and cry. Mrs. Braddock could delay no longer, and so she set them up to the table and gave them as much as they could eat. Then she undressed each in turn, and in a little while, ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... law. But that exceptional intelligence could not grasp many things which are understood even by some stupid people. For instance, he was absolutely unable to understand why people are depressed, why they weep, shoot themselves, and even kill others; why they fret about things that do not affect them personally, and why they laugh when they read Gogol or Shtchedrin . . . . Everything abstract, everything belonging to the domain of thought and feeling, was to him boring and incomprehensible, like music to one ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... said the foolish clown, "kill me the red humblebee on the top of that thistle yonder; and, good Mr. Cobweb, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret yourself too much in the action, Mr. Cobweb, and take care the honey-bag break not; I should be sorry to have you overflown with a ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... dissonant and sad—into the turbid flow of that stream of Craving which sweeps men onward through the meaningless cycles of Existence, blind and enslaved forever. But I had reached the farther shore, the Harbour of Deliverance, the Holy City; the Great Peace beyond all this turmoil and fret compassed me around. Om Mani padme hum—I murmured the sacred syllables, smiling with the pitying smile of the Enlightened One on ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... get to know us better, Mr. Lang, you will find that, though some of us complain and fret, all are ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... premised that we are never to fret, never to grumble, never to scold, and yet it being our duty in some way to make known and get rectified the faults of others, it remains to ask how; and on this head we will improvise a parable of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... your mother, if you will. I know what I am. Were my husband not still living it would be the same. I should never under any circumstances marry again. I have passed the period of a woman's life when as a woman she is loved; but I have not outlived the power of loving. I shall fret about you, Phineas, like an old hen after her one chick; and though you turn out to be a duck, and get away into waters where I cannot follow you, I shall go cackling round the pond, and always have my eye upon you." He ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... "Don't fret about the law," advised Tom; "I've heard tell the law can be turned any way a clever chap has a mind. I'll see what I can do with it when I'm to Mr. Tonkin, and then perhaps we'll all snap our ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... seems my fate to fret away my years in this country. Not for a second do I regret being American—indeed, I think that a regret typical of very vulgar people, and I feel sure we are the great coming nation—yet"—and she sighed—"I feel my life should have drowsed away close to ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... certain man, Who from being poor great riches wan Past telling, whose grandsons now are Great lords thereby in peace and war. And in their coat-of-arms they bear, Upon a field of azure fair, A castle and a falcon, set Below a chief of golden fret. And in our day a certain knight Prayed to be worsted in no fight, And so it happed to him: yet he Died none the less most wretchedly. And all his prowess was in vain, For by a losel was he slain, As on the highway side he slept One summer night, ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... impotent cravings: I used, I remember, to mark off the days as they passed, in the little almanack of my pocket- book—scoring them out, just as Robinson Crusoe was in the habit of notching his post for the same purpose:—I used to fret and fret, in fact, eating my soul away in vain ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... they were: how the little eyes danced and sparkled, and how eagerly they engaged to fulfill the conditions, and not to fret or look cross when summoned at nine, to leave the drawing-room and be ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... 'I quite fret and worry myself about her,' said Mrs Chick, with a sigh of modest merit. 'I really don't see what is to become of her when she grows older, or what position she is to take. She don't gain on her Papa ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... shouting rivers and plunged into tiny twisted tubes of darkness, emerging again into the light and once more hearing the timeless giants, with their snow-white heads against the sunset, repeat their whisper: "We live and are eternal. Ye, who fret about our feet, dream for ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... while, not daring to disturb the mystery enacting. Chevenix whispered, "He's giving 'em church, to-day being Sunday," while Sanchia, breathless, said, "Hush! hush!" and felt the tears fret a way down her cheeks. Presently she put both hands to her breast and fell upon her knees. Chevenix, not insensible to her emotion, lit a pipe. Thus ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... not fortunate or calamitous so much in themselves, as they are in their effect on our feelings. An event which is met by one with equanimity or indifference, will fret another with vexation, or overwhelm him with sorrow. Misfortunes encountered with a composed and firm resolution, almost cease to be evils; it is, therefore, less our wisdom to endeavor to control external ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... is true for all things, little and great. There is a time and a way in which they can be done: none shorter—none smoother. For all noble things, the time is long and the way rude. You may fret and fume as you will; for every start and struggle of impatience there shall be so much attendant failure; if impatience become a habit, nothing but failure: until on the path you have chosen for your better swiftness, rather ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... the solid earth below, and she found the clamor of falling water that came faintly up to her vaguely reassuring. There had been an almost appalling silence where she had left her companions beneath the frozen peaks, but now one could hear the hoarse fret of a rapid on the river, and this was a familiar sound that ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... from his look, London was the last place in the world that one would have imagined to be the scene of his activities: such a face surely could not be nourished amid smoke and mud and fog and dust; such an open countenance could never even have seen anything of 'the weariness, the fever, and the fret' of Babylon the Second. ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... great religious leader. But always, with a shock, I was brought back to earth, where there were no heroic deeds to do, no lions to face, no judges to defy, but only some dull duty to be performed. And I used to fret that I was born so late, when all the grand things had been done, and when there was no chance of preaching and suffering for ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... briefly, "don't let that fret ye, my precious lamb, that foot of yours will be good as new in the matter of a ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... deep! The little things that chafe and fret, O waste not golden hours to give them heed! The slight, the thoughtless wrong, do thou forget, Be self-forgot in serving others' need. Thou faith in God through love for man shalt keep. Dwell deep, my soul, ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... they fit 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 too ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... fret, v. chafe, abrade, fray, rub; gnaw, corrode; roughen, ruffle, agitate; worry, harass, tease, irritate, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... tube holes in the bottom, and then the flue hole, for which a series of small holes must be made close together inside the circumference and united with a fret saw. Work the hole out carefully till the flue, which should be slightly tapered at the end, can be driven through an eighth of an inch or so. The flue hole in the top should be made a ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... to bear it, Rhoda. It is a fact, and nothing that you can do will alter it now. You will have to bear it; but you can bear it in two ways, as you make up your mind to-day. You can cry and fret, and make yourself ill, and everyone else miserable, or you can brace yourself up to bear it bravely, and make everyone love and admire you more than they have ever done before. Which are ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... day, hour by hour,—take note of my words,—I will predict what he will do. The cardinal being dead, he will fret; very well, that is the least silly thing he will do, particularly if he does ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... too, he became desperately anxious to write to his mother, not by dictation, but with his own hand. This being impossible in the circumstances, he began to fret, and his power to sleep at length failed him. Then a strange desire to possess a rose seized him—perhaps because he knew it to be his mother's favourite flower. Whatever the cause, the longing increased his insomnia, and as ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... carefully, the words seemed cold and lifeless and intended for another and a lesser grief than mine. Remove the book," he added, in a tone of sullen bitterness; "I have no part in its consolations, and they do but fret my sorrow the more." ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Then it would fret between its banks until the spangled frills of the mimulus were all tattered with its spray. Often at the end of the summer it was worn quite thin and small with running, and not able to do more than ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... tried as best he might to comfort her, telling her there was no danger that she or he would be dissipated speedily, and that she must not fret her dear head with things that set the sagest greybeards a-wrangling. Then he told her about the political world, and how in a month at most either every cloud would have cleared away, and Lentulus be in no position to resist the legal claims which ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... used to say that I had a good heart, but, by the Almighty, I declare that I seem to have lost my head lately. That's what I say, Elsa. It's all very well, but what about me? What had I done?—and now, look at my life! But don't you fret about him or any other man. Take my word for it, men are ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... decide upon doing. His 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... felt all man can feel, Till he shall pay his nature's debt; Ills that no hope has strength to heal, No mind the comfort to forget: Whatever cares the heart can fret, The spirits wear, the temper gall, Woe, want, dread, anguish, all beset My sinful ...
— Miscellaneous Poems • George Crabbe
... St. Amphibalus (in N. aisle of presbytery). This was discovered in fragments and pieced together in the same manner as that of St. Alban. The whole, however, is of clunch, and, unfortunately, incomplete. Note the fret-like sculpture round the basement, and the name of the saint (imperfect) ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins
... 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 ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... 'my uncontrolled tide Turns not, but swells the higher by this let. Small lights are soon blown out, huge fires abide, And with the wind in greater fury fret: The petty streams that pay a daily debt To their salt sovereign, with their fresh falls' haste Add to his flow, but alter ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... said the boy, hotly. "It makes me think of what I read with him one day about that Roman emperor—what was his name?—playing while Rome was burning. But don't you fret, mother; London won't ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... Murray cheerfully, "we winna fret about it; it will soon grow again, and these little, soft rings of hair are ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... 'Be brave,' for you 're the bravest girl in the world; but please, please don't fret and worry. ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... these articles you find that the pieces do not exactly fit to form a square, you may be certain that the fault is entirely your own. Either your cross was not exactly drawn, or your cuts were not made quite in the right directions, or (if you used wood and a fret-saw) your saw was not sufficiently fine. If you cut out the puzzles in paper with scissors, or in cardboard with a penknife, no material is lost; but with a saw, however fine, there is a certain loss. In the case of most ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... said the nurse. "You are now in good hands, my dear young lady, so do not fret; Providence, I have often told you, would never desert so dutiful a daughter; and you find an old woman's words may be true. We shall be happy yet, never fear. People cannot forget their own. Never mind if they do: there is an eye over you in all your ways. And there ...
— The Boarding School • Unknown
... "Don't you fret, Alice," said Mr. Holiday. "When I get people in trouble I get 'em out. Your Uncle Silas is a friend of mine—he has to be. I'm going to send him a telegram." He smiled, and chucked her under the chin. "I'm not much on Christmas ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... 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
... liege! Why fret your soul? Because of such Upstirring of your grace, this fatherland Will not this moment crash to rack and ruin! The camp has been your school. And, look, what there You term unlawfulness, this act, this free Suppression of the verdict of the court, Appears ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... glad you are to see me. Only one? And that one from a lady? I'm undone! That, lightly skimmed, you'll think me such a bore, And wonder why I did not bring you four. It's ever thus: a woman cannot get So many letters that she will not fret O'er one that did not come." "I'll prove you wrong," I answered gayly, "here upon the spot! This little letter, precious if not long, Is just the one, of all you might have brought, To please me. You have heard me speak, I'm sure, Of Helen Trevor: she writes here to ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... serene and cheerful attitude of mind and soul, taking whatever comes as part of the day's work, doing your best under the circumstances, but absolutely refusing to worry and fret about anything. Do not cross a bridge before you get to it, and do not waste time regretting ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr |
