"Fret" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tell yew. When they want to make a skipper wild who's precious proud of his craft, they hystes up a bit more sail, runs by him, and then goes aft and holds out a rope's end, and asks him if they shall give him a tow. That's what I'm going to do to the schooner's skipper, so don't you fret no more. You hold tight, and you shall ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... chop-house situated at the end of a blind alley which lay concealed somewhere in the neighborhood of Walnut and Third Streets, and where we ate a most wonderful luncheon of English chops and apple pie. As the luncheon drew to its close I remember how Richard and I used to fret and fume while my father in a most leisurely manner used to finish off his mug of musty ale. But at last the three of us, hand in hand, my father between us, were walking briskly toward our happy destination. At that time there were only a few first-class theatres in Philadelphia—the ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... know why I'm slandered so, If I go high,—if I go low,— There's always some one who will say, "Just see that mercury to-day!" And whether toward the top I crawl Or down toward zero I may fall, They always fret, and say that I Am far too low or far too high. Although I try with all my might, I never seem to strike it right. Now I admit it seems to me They show great inconsistency. But they imply I am to blame; Of course that makes my anger flame, And in a ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... so curious, Miss, and then you wouldn't have needed to fret before your time. It would have come soon enough. And now, I suppose, you'll tell master, and a pretty household I shall have ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... "Don't fret over that," advised his companion, with a calm smile. "You probably aren't the only one. A coroner's inquest is, as some one has said, a sort of fishing excursion. They start out not expecting much, not knowing what they are going to get, and sometimes they ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... the message of a stern judge, saying: "Pay me that thou owest, to the uttermost farthing; and if you cannot do that, fret and torment yourselves in shame and terror here on earth, for all your sins, if, possibly, you may chance to change my mind, and find forgiveness at ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... scientists of every city in Europe were in a fret over the mythical Straits of Anian, supposed to be between Asia and America, and over the yet more mythical Gamaland, supposed to be visible on the way to New Spain. To all this jangling of words without knowledge Peter paid no heed. "You will go and obtain some reliable information," ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... whistling prevailed. This ridiculous buoyancy of youth! What luckless pigs are we who moon and fret and grow besodden with the waters of our misfortunes! This cheeky corkiness of youth! Shove it under the fretted sea of trouble, and free it will twist, up it will bob. Weight it and drop it into the deepest pool; just when it should be drowned, pop! and it is again ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... "Do not fret your pretty eyes over that pair of hypocrites in black, yonder," one of them exclaimed loudly and speaking directly at the Benedictines; "they are holy only in a crowd. If they met you when none else were near, they would tear ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... de bes' dey is. Don' you worry ner fret. Dem niggers won't have no other teacher after dey've once laid eyes on you: I'll guarantee dat. Dere won't be no trouble, ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... said John, with equanimity. "Let Lionel Verner produce it, and I'll vacate the next hour. That will never turn up: don't you fret yourself, Uncle West." ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... and kiss His 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 ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... unrest are the rush and recklessness, the fever and the fret of our modern life with its ever renewed and ever disappointed quest after good! You go about our streets and look men in the face, and you see how all manner of hungry desires and eager wishes have imprinted ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... A sea-fret, cool and wetting, fell. A few big rain-drops splashed heavily down. The wind rose with a leap and roared past them up the rocky track. And the water-gates of heaven ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... presented to them. I had provided myself with a book, and I had hoped to fall asleep over it, yet here I was with my eyes riveted to a pane of glass, afraid to wink lest I should miss something. Grace's warning, "You will fret yourself to death, you will be back before a month," grew faint in my ears. When night shut out my new world and I fell asleep, I dreamed of extraordinary phenomena—trees stalking about the plains, fairies leaping out of the ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... who could take offence, 145 While pure Description held the place of Sense? Like gentle Fanny's was my flow'ry theme, A painted mistress, or a purling stream. Yet then did Gildon draw his venal quill;— I wish'd the man a dinner, and sat still. 150 Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret; I never answer'd,—I was not in debt. If want provok'd, or madness made them print, I wag'd no war ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... the corridors and balcony is made of annular fragments, facets upward, of black, red, white and slate-colored marbles, feldspar and other stones. It is as hard as natural rock and as smooth as half-polished marble. A tessellated fret pattern is made along the borders of the corridor floor, consisting of triple rows of smooth cubes of marble inserted in the cement. The square balusters are of red-mottled marble, with base and entablature of dull rose. The square corner pillars support figures ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... their understandings were better cultivated[7]. It was an undoubted proof of his good sense and good disposition, that he was never querulous, never prone to inveigh against the present times, as is so common when superficial minds are on the fret. On the contrary, he was willing to speak favourably of his own age; and, indeed, maintained its superiority[8] in every respect, except in its reverence for government; the relaxation of which he imputed, as its grand cause, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... 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 ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... I must lie, who love the truth, (And honour bids me lie), I'll tell a lordly lie forsooth To be remembered by. If I must cheat, whose fame is fair, And fret my fame away, I'll do worse than the devil dare That men ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... went into the house in a great fret, and, setting herself in a corner, cried there all night. Her husband lay alone, and finding next morning that she continued in the same humour, told her she was a very foolish woman to afflict herself in that manner, the thing was not worth so much; and that it concerned her as little to know the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... Trot with a basket of eggs, He used his pipes and she used her legs; She danced about till the eggs were all broke, She began for to fret, but he laughed at ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... overpowering lethargy which lately had fallen upon her at odd moments of the day, she lifted herself on to her elbow, only to sink listlessly back on the very hard bed. After all, why worry over problems to which there seemed no answer? Why fret over the silence of the man she loved when she had curtly refused his offer of companionship; for there always comes a time when mere man, subjected to the unsatisfactory daily menu of snubs and refusals, tense moods, and moody silences, will refuse it, and clear ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... live, Sir, in these dales, a quiet life: Your years make up one peaceful family; And who would grieve and fret, if, welcome come 125 And welcome gone, they are so like each other, They cannot be remembered? Scarce a funeral Comes to this church-yard once in eighteen months; And yet, some changes must take place among you: And you, who dwell here, even among these ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... he, "don't think I envy you; on the contrary, I am as grateful, even more grateful than if such good fortune had fallen to my own lot; but I cannot help fretting at the thought of being left here without you: and I shall fret until I ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... landward hurricane; and the captain tells you, when the wind sheers nor'-east, he always beats for open sea. It isn't the sea he fears. It is these rock ramparts and saw-tooth reefs sticking up through the lace fret. Suddenly you twist round a sharp angle of rock like the half closed leaf of a book. You slip in behind the leaf of rock, and wriggle behind another angle—"follow the tickles o' water" is, I believe, the term—and there opens before you a harbor cove, land-locked, rock-walled from sea to sky, ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... some error, he does not fret over it, but rising up with a humble spirit, he goes on his way anew rejoicing. Were he to fall a hundred times in the day, he would not despair,—he would rather cry out lovingly to God, appealing to His tender pity. The really devout man has a horror ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... 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 said, ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... worry, nor 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 he ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... by, when the harvest in England was over, the parliament was dissolved, but no candidate started on my lord's interest, as was expected by Mr M'Lucre, and he began to fret and be dissatisfied that he had ever consented to allow himself to be hoodwinked out of the guildry. However, just three days before the election, and at the dead hour of the night, the sound of chariot wheels ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... a fool to be ambitious," so his father broke in upon this tumult. "Why do we fret and trick after a place, or a purse, or a trifle ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... moreover! Twice over win the world in one girl's eyes, Twice over lift her name up to the skies; Twice to hope all things, so to be twice born— For he lives not who cannot front the morn Saying, "This day I live as never yet Lived striving man on earth!" What if the fret Of loss and ten years' agonizing snow Thy hairs or leave their tracery on thy brow, Each line beslotted by the demon hounds Hunting thee down o' nights? Laugh at thy wounds, Laugh at thy eld, strong lover, whose blood flows Clear from the fountain, ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... Ruskin and Wordsworth, and even Horace Walpole and his "Gothic" ruin on Strawberry Hill; and we are of the twentieth century, and have discovered the beauty of docks and harbours and tall factory chimneys and railway stations, under the guidance of Whistler and Brangwyn and such folk, and we do not fret at laying a railway through Perthshire or the Lake District, because railways are fast becoming almost as romantic and old-fashioned to us as stage-coaches (in these days of aeroplanes and automobiles); but at least let us remember that it is to the ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... the town, where they'll be kind to him. Only, if you would, Margaret, for my sake—old girl! come, now! there's a darling!— just be more tender with him. You see he frets so after his mother. Think how little Tom would fret if he was away from you! ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... to fret about me," she said reassuringly. "But what's taken you? There's no catchin' up with the water, however fast ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... novena, Marie went into the garden, leaving me with Leonie, who was reading by the window. After a short time I began to call: "Marie! Marie!" very softly. Leonie, accustomed to hear me fret like this, took no notice, so I called louder, until Marie came back to me. I saw her come into the room quite well, but, for the first time, I failed to recognise her. I looked all round and glanced anxiously into the garden, still calling: "Marie! Marie!" Her anguish was perhaps ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... fret, men toil, men pinch and pare, Make life itself a scramble, While I, without a grief or care, Where'er it lists me ramble. 'Neath cloudless sun or clouded moon, By market-cross or ferry, I chant my lay, I play my tune. And all ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... when on life's stage they fret. May mock his fellow-men! In sooth, their soberest freaks afford Rare food for mockery then. But ah! when passed their brief sojourn— When Heaven's dread doom is said— Beats there the human heart could pour Like ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... caught up by SOMEBODY, the board was upset, the operator and his friends vanished 'like a flash of lightning,' and M. Panchaud was left full of amazement, but with empty pockets, with the defendant standing by his side. 'They are a set of rascals!' said the defendant; 'but don't fret, my fine fellow! I'll take you to somebody that shall soon get your money again; and so saying he led him off in a direction thus described in court by the fleeced Frenchman.—'You tooke me the WRONG way! The thieves ran one way, and you ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... south aisles, some of them being plain, others profusely embellished, and in different styles, even within the same arch. Here we view almost every kind of Saxon and Norman ornaments, the chevron, the billet, the hatched, the pillet, the fret, the indented, the nebule, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... daddy was— was together when he died; and you used to sit on Wash's knee when you was a little tad. Not that he's so mighty much older than you, but he was a man's size at fifteen. You don't understand, girl, but I've got to go with him sometimes. But don't you fret; Wash Gibbs ain't goin' to hurt me, and he won't come here more'n I can help, either." Then he changed the subject abruptly. "Tell me what you've been ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... Hartley's cheery voice, "your papa's gone, and you must not stand here and fret after him. Here is old Nancy shaking her head, and wondering why she does not get home to her dinner. Do you get into the cart, and I will get the station-master to put your trunk ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... 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 go ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... lord. Y. Mor. And this above the rest: because we hear That Edmund casts to work his liberty, Remove him still from place to place by night, Till at the last he come to Killingworth, And then from thence to Berkeley back again; And by the way, to make him fret the more, Speak curstly to him; and in any case Let no man comfort him, if he chance to weep, But amplify his grief with bitter words. Mat. Fear not, my lord; we'll do as you command. Y. Mor. So, now away! post thitherwards amain. Q. Isab. Whither ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... "Don't fret your cattle so early in the morning, son," admonished the wary matchmaker. "I've handled worse cases than this before. You Mexicans are sticklers on customs, and we must deal with our neighbors carefully. Before ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... of his joining Her Majesty's army with gladness in his heart. After he had found the column and had got into the Lilliputian forest with its stunted, bushy trees and its sandy soil, he was brought face to face with the greatest enemy that can harass, fret, and wear down nerves of steel—absence of water. A commander whose mind is racked by the difficulty, perhaps the impossibility, of finding water for his troops is like the man haunted day and night, waking and sleeping, by debt. "This was our menu," says Baden-Powell: "weak tea ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... 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 ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... I said blankly. That he was beginning to chafe, to fret, and shuffle his feet only added to my dismay. He might begin at any moment to swear in Spanish, and that was sure to bring a shower of lead, blind, fired blindly. "We have nothing to expect from the people of that ship. We ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... priests, and lawyers, do not want government by a satrap. They want an Imperial City and a Caesar of their own. Throughout the length and breadth of this vast territory there is deep dissatisfaction—within and without, for Spain is yet arrogant upon its borders. The Floridas—Mexico—fret and fever everywhere! It is so before all changes, Jacqueline. The very wind sighs uneasily. Then one comes, bolder than the rest, sees and takes his advantage. So empires and great names ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... might the ministry confound, And yet the State stand safe and sound. Next, let it well be understood I only mean my country's good— I wish all courtiers did the same. I wish to bar no honest claim; I wish the nation out of debt; No private man had cause to fret; Yet law and public good to be The pole-stars of the Ministry; I wish corruption, bribery, pension, Were things there were no need to mention; I wish to strike a blow at vice,— Fall where it may, I am not nice; Although the Law—the devil take it!— Can scandalum magnatum make ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... of fellowship and party affiliation which came to me in Berlin may be called an intimate relationship compared with intercourse here, which is, in fact, nothing more than mutual mistrust and espionage, if there only were anything to spy out or to conceal! The people toil and fret over nothing but mere trifles, and these diplomats, with their consequential hair-splitting, already seem to me more ridiculous than the Member of the Second Chamber in the consciousness of his dignity. If foreign events do not take ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... shall fret so, if I see you fretting. And to fret will kill me, mother. They have always ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... mind as to this conclusion, it was utterly dissipated when, peering cautiously round the corner of his hiding-place, he saw Addie disappear within the old sail-loft into which Andrius had betaken himself. Of course, she had gone to join her fellow-conspirators. He began to fume and fret, cursing himself for allowing Spurge to bring him down there alone—if only they had had Gilling and Vickers with them, armed as ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... which is not according to my views. That puts me in a rage, and I fret my heart out, because you see, Monsieur Rodolphe, newspapers are all lies. Yes, lies," he screeched in his shrillest falsetto, ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... Emlyn, we who have got on a long while apart, had best stay so," answered Thomas calmly. "Yet, why you should fret because you must keep your tongue in its case for an hour, or because I asked leave to marry you in all honour, I do not know. I have worked my best for you and your mistress at some hazard, and things have not gone so ill, seeing that ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... "Don't you fret, my dear fellar. I'm delighted. I've been spending that five thousand in imagination ever since I heard of it. Think I'll emigrate in ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... Haddock, "prevents respectable young ladies from making love, a thing they would enjoy doing, whilst mercenary girls do it too much and without getting any enjoyment out of it. It is indeed deplorable. But M. Leon Blum need not fret too much. If the evil exists, as he says it does, in our middle-class society, I can assure him that everywhere else he would see a consoling spectacle. Among the people, the mass of the people through town and country, girls do not deny themselves ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... 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 say She's coming ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... plaints. With God's grace in the heart, and with the gleaming gates of his heaven brightening the horizon beyond the grave, we may be reformers; but it cannot be in the destructive spirit displayed by some who, in the prophet's language, amid darkness on the earth, "fret themselves, and curse their King and their God, and look upward." Poverty cannot degrade, nor ignorance bedwarf, nor persecution crush, nor dungeon enthral the free, glad spirit of a child of God, erect in its regenerate strength, and rich in its eternal hopes and heritage. And this hopeful ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... Children's Ward, a white-capped nurse came 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 ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... we must recognize all the time that there are occasions when a person must do what he is told to just because he is told; and it were well for one who has to take orders to be able to do so without fret and bitterness. The child should, however, come sooner or later to distinguish between those commands that arise out of real necessities and those that arise from the passion or caprice of other persons. To the former he must learn to submit with ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... each other on Sunday noons: the Connection on Sunday nights. You remember me hoping and proposing to make dear Salusbury a gentleman, a Christian, and a scholar; and when one has succeeded in the first two wishes, there is no need to fret if the third does fail a little. Such is my situation concerning my adopted, as you are accustomed ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... in jest only and was nothing more than lip music. Come back—" the speech ended there as a door at a distance banged. "Now she'll have a cry all by herself," groaned the squire. "'T is a strange thing she took it so bravely when the road was rough, yet now, when 't is easy pulling, she lets it fret ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... services in marshalling the clans when George IV. came to Scotland. There were a thousand other things, which I knew must be most curious, yet did not ask nor care about them, because so many curiosities drive one crazy, and fret one's heart to death. On the whole, there is no simple and great impression left by Abbotsford; and I felt angry and dissatisfied with myself for not feeling something which I did not and could not feel. But it is just like going to a museum, if you look into particulars; and one learns ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... something new and serious to concentrate himself on, he'll fret his heart out over ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Fume and fret as I might, it was not possible to mend matters, and I stretched myself out at full length under the bushes, with the idea in mind that it would be better if we were captured at once, for then we would be spared ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... friends, in order to come back according to his promise. His return had been delayed from week to week, from month to month, in spite of all he could do, and meanwhile his thoughts had not been in America at all, but in Sicily, causing him to fret and chafe at the necessities which bound him to his post. Now, however, the day upon which he had counted had arrived; he had taken his liberty regardless of consequences, and no dusty pilgrim ever longed more fiercely for a journey's end. He was glad of the impression ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... soldier's eyes That makes 'er own eyes wet. An' we must give 'im wholesome food An' lead 'is thoughts to somethin' good An' never let 'im fret. But 'e ain't frettin', seems to me; More—puzzled, ...
— Digger Smith • C. J. Dennis
... coat. I've had a drop, and it runs through all my veins. I need no sheep-skins. I go along and don't worry about anything. That's the sort of man I am! What do I care? I can live without sheep-skins. I don't need them. My wife will fret, to be sure. And, true enough, it is a shame; one works all day long, and then does not get paid. Stop a bit! If you don't bring that money along, sure enough I'll skin you, blessed if I don't. How's that? He pays twenty kopeks at a time! What can I do with twenty kopeks? Drink it-that's ...
— What Men Live By and Other Tales • Leo Tolstoy
... they and wealth untold; Nor need to labor, and no cause for fret, But deeds of noble sires they ne'er forget; Deem honor ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... and therefore preternaturally calm. "What d'ye mean by she? Don't fret, that's a good girl, and don't excite yourself. Tell your story your own way, you know, but keep as quiet as you ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... His Grace was an enduring, married man, And was not likely all at once to burst Into a scene, and swell the clients' clan Of Doctors' Commons; but she dreaded first The magic of her Grace's talisman, And next a quarrel (as he seemed to fret) With ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... replied Mrs. Cow, and she whisked a big horse fly off her side with her long tail. "Don't you worry and don't you fret, there'll be some ...
— Billy Bunny and Uncle Bull Frog • David Magie Cory
... it all made her feel in those tense moments, gazing at the serenely flowing river, that had she a child she would be borne away on the smooth silver water with her little one, out of the fret and turmoil, to some quiet nest in the cliffs at its mouth ; and there for the years that were left her she would fill her days with the peaceful, homely joys that had never ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... to be compared to the happiness of healthful occupation. Busy people have no time to fret and no time to grumble. According to our old friend, Dr. Watts, people who are healthily busy have also no time to be naughty, for the old doctor says that it is for idle hands ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... it, my dear, my honey! Ah, don't go breakin' your angel's 'eart along of Arthur, my precious—and drat him too! That b'y'll come back all right, he will—he will, I know he will. Oh, if I was only behind 'im with a toasting fork! There, there, Hermy dear, don't fret, Arthur'll come home all right. My honey, you're all tuckered out, an' here it's gettin' on to midnight, an' you to go to Englewood by the early car! Go to bed, dear, an' I'll sit up for Arthur. ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... never you fret!" Bert answered vaguely. But long after he was asleep his wife lay awake in the hot hotel bedroom, and thought darkly of fate. She came of gentle stock, and she would meet her lot bravely, but oh, how she longed for ease, for a little ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris
... ill-starred man had led a weary and worried life, throughout the stormy reign of the chivalric Peter, being one of those unlucky wights with whom the world is ever at variance, and who are kept in a continual fume and fret, by the wickedness of mankind. At the time of the subjugation of the province by the English, he retired hither in high dudgeon; with the bitter determination to bury himself from the world, and live here in peace and quietness for the remainder ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... myself then, believing he was only trying to fret me. "You needn't talk nonsense," I said. "If you mean to say that my father made way with himself, why you're simply silly! Everybody knows that he was drowned while fishing, ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... in silent wonder, seen such things As pride in slaves, and avarice in kings; And at a peer, or peeress, shall I fret, Who starves a ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... across the way, With the shrapnel wound on his head, Has a sister: she came to-day To sit awhile by his bed. All morning I heard him fret: "Oh, when will she ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... my purpose to serve, and we sat down to our game. The stakes were five guineas a side. According to custom, I won the three or four first games; and he pretended to curse, and fret, and again ran over his bead-roll of being pigeoned, plucked bare, bubbled, done up, and the whole ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... crammed. The quiet, elderly folks, who had continued to fret at its noisy occupants, fled in despair to another house, and thereby left room for the newcomers—or greenhorns, as they were elegantly styled by their more knowing fellow-clerks. Now, indeed, the corner of the fort in which we lived was avoided by all quiet people as ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... this one rule: Don't fret. Don't wear a look of trouble and worry. Above everything else, remember those delicious ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... and the shoes which Katy told Esther she used to bind when a girl. Will need not be disturbed, for Sybil Grandon was never half as pretty as Katy, or half as much admired. Neither need Mrs. General Reynolds fret about Bob, as if he would care ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... never wants comfort. And there is no such thing as sorrow while we have health and money, and don't care a straw for anybody in the world. If you choose to love people, their health and circumstances, if either go wrong, can fret you: that opens many avenues to pain. Never live alone, but always feel alone. You think this unamiable: possibly. I am no hypocrite, and, for my part, I never affect to be anything ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in this old Bible, one in the Old Testament and one in the New. In the Old Testament is the Thirty-seventh Psalm with its oft-repeated "fret not." The word under that English phrase "fret not" is significant. It is so blunt as to sound almost like a bit of American slang. Literally it means "don't get hot." The New Testament has the sixth chapter of Matthew with Jesus' own words. ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon
... "Don't fret about it, Steve. Toby has common horse-sense, and could hardly get lost if he tried his hardest. You see, the formation of the valley is calculated to always set a fellow straight, even if he gets a little mixed in his bearings. It runs directly southeast ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... 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 ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... As rudeness is to repartee. If what you said I wish unspoke, 'Twill not suffice it was a joke: Reproach not, though in jest, a friend For those defects he cannot mend; His lineage, calling, shape, or sense, If named with scorn, gives just offence. What use in life to make men fret, Part in worse humour than they met? Thus all society is lost, Men laugh at one another's cost: And half the company is teazed That came together to be pleased: For all buffoons have most in view To please themselves by vexing you. When jests are carried ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... traces To a silent, smoky Indian that we know, To a couch of new-pulled hemlock with the starlight on our faces, For the Red Gods call us out and we must go! He must go—go—go away from here! On the other side the world he's overdue. 'Send your road is clear before you when the old spring-fret comes o'er you And the Red Gods ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... fret yourself so, Monsieur le Baron," said Madame Olivier. "Madame cares for you, and for no one but you; her maid knows that for true, and we say, between her and me, that you are the luckiest man in this world—for you ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... and strengthened, to the detriment of the other Art still so dear to me. With the patience of a cat before a mouse-hole, I watched and listened, picking one characteristic phrase out of hours of vain chatter, interested and amused by an angry or loving glance. Like the midges that fret the surface of a shadowy stream, these men and women seemed to me; and though I laughed, danced, and made merry with them, I was not of them. But with Marshall it was different: they were my amusement, they were his necessary pleasure. And I knew of this distinction ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... sacred flame—the man whose heart distends with benevolence to all the human race—he "who can soar above this little scene of things"—can he descend to mind the paltry concerns about which the terraefilial race fret, and fume, and vex themselves! O how the glorious triumph swells my heart! I forget that I am a poor, insignificant devil, unnoticed and unknown, stalking up and down fairs and markets, when I happen to be in them, reading a page or two of mankind, and ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... with all young men, marm. I always sez to ma she needn't fret her gizzard. Young men will sow their wild oats. Oh, 'tain't nothin'. Mr. Newt knows that werry well. Every ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... that they are married, do they always bill and coo? Do they never fret and quarrel as other couples do? Does he cherish her and love her? Does she honor and obey? Well—they do—in the ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... by, and day by day They watched the Potomac Army at bay. Defeat and defeat! It was here, just here, In the very height of the fret ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... was "round the course for all horses." Shackles' owner said:—"You can arrange the race with regard to Shackles only. So long as you don't bury him under weight-cloths, I don't mind. Regula Baddun's owner said:—"I throw in my mare to fret Ousel. Six furlongs is Regula's distance, and she will then lie down and die. So also will Ousel, for his jockey doesn't understand a waiting race." Now, this was a lie, for Regula had been in work for two months at Dehra, and her chances were good, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... eagerly and cries when it is taken away. He often forms the habit of sucking his fingers immediately after. He begins to fret half an hour or an hour before ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt
... as we had taken off our coats and hats, Tom called us into the sitting-room. "Look here," he said: "we're going to have no glum faces in this house. We must be bright and cheerful, or mother will fret. You know ...
— Highroads of Geography • Anonymous |
