"Fret" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... me that might make a stir in the world—I might rise. Professions are open; the Diplomacy, the House of Commons. What! Percy Godolphin be ass enough to grow ambitious! to toil, to fret, to slave, to answer fools on a first principle, and die at length of a broken heart for a lost place! Pooh, pooh! I, who despise your prime ministers, can scarcely stoop to their apprenticeship. Life is too short for toil. And what do men strive ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... help a lot. If you're patient and quiet and cheerful you will get well sooner than if you fuss and fret and cry. That might cause fever and inflammation ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... des Espagnols, where Frobisher, sent by Queen Elizabeth to the assistance of Henry IV., received his death wound. Leaving on our left Plougastel, where we were unable to visit the celebrated calvary, we passed near the "Anse du Fret," whence Joan of Navarre, then widow of Duke John IV., sailed to England to marry Henry of Lancaster, 1403. Henry, when Earl of Derby, had visited Nantes to ask the assistance of his uncle in returning to England, and Joan had favoured his expedition, ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... May have been hiding anywhere. But, never fret, we'll round up your friend, my boy. Men of his make and shape are as easy to ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... of the fact as something known by others, and requiring only to be studied and learned by the child, rules out such conditions of fulfilment. It condemns the fact to be a hieroglyph: it would mean something if one only had the key. The clue being lacking, it remains an idle curiosity, to fret and obstruct the mind, a dead weight to ...
— The Child and the Curriculum • John Dewey
... you were to get that good serge. It's everlasting. At any rate it'll last you as long as you want it. Ah-h! My poor child"—she laid her hand on Mrs. Nevill Tyson's averted shoulder—"you'll not fret, will you, now? No—you're too brave, I know. The more I think of it the more I feel that it's all for the best. Think—if he'd lived to be older you'd have cared more, and it would have been harder ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... must leave one for the mother, and sell the rest," said the captain. "She will not fret long if you leave her one child. And we cannot take them all five back on the ship. There would be ...
— Dick and His Cat and Other Tales • Various
... here, youngster," said his big brother, then paused. The distress in the lad's face checked his words. "Now, Rob," he said kindly, "you needn't fret about this. Cameron is ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... the periscope until the racing German cruiser drew up to the desired fret on the measured glass McClure clutched the lower port toggle and released a torpedo. Again the jarring motion that indicated the discharge of the missile and the swirl of the compressed air forward. Through the ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... and then the worm; A little longer, O Death, a little yet, Before the grave gape and the grave-worm fret; Before the sanguine-spotted hand infirm Be rottenness, and that foul brain, the germ Of all ill things and thoughts, be stopped and set; A little while, O Death, ere he forget, A small space more of life, a little term; ...
— Two Nations • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... I do. I make such a racket wherever I go that when I leave, the stillness seems like a hole. But don't you fret! I'm coming up here real often—just as often as grandma will let me. 'Cause I've got not only you to visit now, but the Lilac Lady and Juiceharpie and the Home children—Oh, that's what I started to tell you about when ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... direction of a native doctor, to fight for my husband's life, without ice or 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 had ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... One was lonely for the next few days, but she was kept so busy hunting breakfasts, and lunches, and dinners, and suppers that she hadn't time to fret much. She was something like a three-quarters-grown kitten now, except for her having no tail to speak of, and curious, fierce-looking tufts to her ears, and pale eyes so savage and bright that they seemed as if they could look through a log even ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... sublunary things. The draw being lifted to permit the passage of a schooner, laden with wood from the Eastern forests, she sticks immovably, right athwart the bridge! Meanwhile, on both sides of the chasm, a throng of impatient travellers fret and fume. Here are two sailors in a gig, with the top thrown back, both puffing cigars, and swearing all sorts of forecastle oaths; there, in a smart chaise, a dashingly dressed gentleman and lady, he from a tailor's shop-board; and she from a milliner's hack room,—the aristocrats of a summer ...
— The Toll Gatherer's Day (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... spared thee all the spring, Thy sole delight is, sitting still, With that gold dagger of thy bill To fret ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... these sketches to say something about the society of Constantinople. As one cannot always be out shooting, it is very important to our happiness to have something to fall back upon in the social way. I was told once by a very great friend of mine, who saw that I was inclined to fret, 'to take everything as a joke.' If one's liver is in good order it is very easy to do so, but sometimes the contrary is the case, and it makes one at times quite savage to see the airs that are temporarily put on by those that form ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... felt included in the circle of an acquaintance where a good deal of domesticity seemed to prevail. The policeman would not join in the conjecture that it was some distinguished person; he did not give his reasons; and the pair began to fret at their delay, and mentally to hurry that poor unknown underground—so short is our patience with the dead! When at last their driver went up round the endless queue of hacks, it suddenly came to an end, and they were again in the park and among the cages and pens and ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... delicate; "Love is hurt with jar and fret," and you might as well expect a violin to remain in tune if roughly used, as Love to survive if chilled or driven into itself. But what a pleasure to keep ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... hastily caught up and drew a shawl about her head and shoulders. "Grandpap," she called softly through the door to the old man's bedroom, "I'm ergoin' out fer er leetle time. One of ther neighbors air sick. Don't fret, fer I'll be back right ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... reconciliation is proposed, he cheerfully goes back to the palace. If his life is threatened he goes home. He will not stir to escape but for the urgency of his wife. So well had he already begun to learn the worthlessness of life's trifles. So thoroughly does he practice his own precept, "Fret not thyself because of evil-doers;" "rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... O my lady of leisure, You begged to be "finished in haste." It gives you an exquisite pleasure, Your lovers remark on its taste. Yet . . . oh, the poor little white faces, The tense midnight toil and the fret . . . I fear that the foam of its laces Is salt with the tears ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... The fret, the fever, the unrest endures, But the time flies.... Oh, try, my little lad, Coming so hot and play-worn, to be glad And patient of the long hours that ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... unappreciative husbands. On the other hand, let the woman remember that the good general does not waste words on hindrances, or leave his weak spots open to observation, but, learning from every failure or defeat, goes on steadily to victory. To fret will never mend a matter; and "Study to be quiet" in thought, word, and action, is the first law of successful housekeeping. Never under-estimate the difficulties to be met, for this is as much an evil as ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... to and fro, and it sighs and groans like a living thing; it will be pleasant to look at that tree, and see the birds come home to it,—yet that tree is wintry and blasted too! It will be pleasant to hear it fret and chafe in the stormy nights; it will be a friend to me, that old tree! let me have that room. Nay, look not at each other,—it is not so high as this; but the window is barred,—I cannot ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... us better, Mr. Lang, you will find that, though some of us complain and fret, all ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... can fix it to meet those notes, they can't do it. I have ample margin to cover any more declines they may be able to bring about. Don't fret about that. Just as sure as you can pay that sixty thousand, just so sure we'll be ahead of the game at this time next year. For God's sake get a move on you, old man. If you don't—good Lord! The firm'll bust because ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... quietly, and began to recover strength. Besides the work of preparing their meals, Whispering Winds had nothing to do save sit near the invalid and amuse or interest him so that he would not fret or grow impatient, while ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... beyond the power of control, and the tears were very bitter which we all shed together, but the stage was fast approaching, and we must control our grief, 'Good bye, mother,' said the boys at last as they left me to take their places in the stage coach, 'Don't fret about us; we will try to do right and remember all you have said to us, and let us hope there are happier days to come, ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... noise of the alley, or the gamesters beadsmen that pray for them. They are somewhat like those that are cheated by great men, for they lose their money and must say nothing. It is the best discovery of humours, especially in the losers, where you have fine variety of impatience, whilst some fret, some rail, some swear, and others more ridiculously comfort themselves with philosophy. To give you the moral of it; it is the emblem of the world, or the world's ambition: where most are short, or over, ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... Boots knocked at the door to take my orders about various things, and I gave them to him with the same grave air that I have in my portrait. Mamma is just going to bed. We both beg that papa will be careful of his health, not go out too early, nor fret, [Footnote: The Father was strongly disposed to hypochondria.] but laugh and be merry and in good spirits. We think the Mufti H. C. [the Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo] a MUFF, but we know God to be compassionate, merciful, and loving. I kiss papa's hands a thousand ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... Peter?" cried the young Somerset mariner. "Lord, man, what is there here to fret you? Surely 't isn't the thought ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... girl, and don't fret;" and he ran downstairs to the door, where his uncle and the ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... in patience," he thought, looking out one morning at sunrise, and watching Dilama playing with the white doves on the basin edge of the fountain. "I will wait till Buldoula is well and strong again. She would fret now, and think I was forgetting her in a new love if I call Dilama to me yet. I will wait till her second son is born, and then in her joy and pride she will not be ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... what their main excellence consists, are not to be blamed (are they) for cultivating and improving what they think most valuable?—Is true happiness any part of your family view?—So far from it, that none of your family but yourself could be happy were they not rich. So let them fret on, grumble and grudge, and accumulate; and wondering what ails them that they have not happiness when they have riches, think the cause is want of more; and so go on heaping up, till Death, as greedy an accumulator as themselves, gathers them into ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... I wonder at nothing more than our gentlemen ushers, that will suffer a piece of serge or perpetuana to come into the presence: methinks they should, out of their experience, better distinguish the silken disposition of courtiers, than to let such terrible coarse rags mix with us, able to fret any smooth or gentle society to the threads with their ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... the Bull, 'I know all about it quite well, though you won't tell me; you weep because the Queen is bad to you, and because she is ready to starve you to death. But food you've no need to fret about, for in my left ear lies a cloth, and when you take and spread it out, you may have as ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... down in the big rocker and drew Mary Rose close to her heart. "Don't you fret yourself, Mary Rose," she said with her lips against Mary Rose's tear-stained face. "We'll find Jenny Lind. Sure, we'll find her. Just you pretend she's gone for a visit. You've loaned her to 'most everyone in the buildin', just you pretend ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... noise, in parched plains, Of bubbling wells that fret the stones, (If any sense in me remains) Thy words will be—thy cheerful tones As welcome to—my crumbling ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... Nelly fret and moan over the invalid condition for which there was neither palliation nor remedy? Nay, a blessing upon her at last; she began to witness a good testimony to the original mettle and bravery of her nature. She accepted the tangible ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... 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 and ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... he asked himself. Here was a calamity that could not be dodged. He shrugged, finally. "No use to fret. No use to crouch beneath a load. I'd give my right arm to be back in Dallas, but—this is our chance to cultivate the Christian virtue of submission. So be it! One must have a heart for every fate, but," he smiled ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... combinations. In those romances of Goethe and Victor Hugo, in some excellent work done after them, this entanglement, this network of law, becomes the tragic situation, in which certain groups of noble men and women work out for themselves a supreme Denouement. Who, if he saw through all, would fret against the chain of circumstance which endows one at the end with ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... 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 ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... 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 ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon
... They behold the errors which encumber old systems—they are, indeed, too apt to conceive them as wholly composed of errors. To them, the common and current beliefs appear to be simply superstitious. It irks them that humanity should wallow in its ignorance and blindness. They chafe and fret against the organizations which embody and foster what they are firmly convinced is all false. The Church is, in their eyes, only a vast agglomeration of priests, some of them self-deceived through ignorance; most of them not so, but deliberately ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... But fret as she might, and burn as she might, with impatience, love-created anger and resentment of some infamy, doubtless practiced on them both, there was nothing in the ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... fret ye mair the noo, Wull ye, sea? Like ye've dune the winter through, Roarin' at the ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth; With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks; Turn all her mother's pains and ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... little person," he returned. "Scold not, nor fret. William will be himself again ere yet the morrow's sun shall clear the horizon. Let us avoid recrimination. The tongue is, or would seem to be, the most vital weapon of modern society. Therefore let us leave the ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... saying with tears: "My son, if you had died sooner, instead of Chu Erh, and left Chu Erh behind you, you would have saved your father these fits of anger, and even I would not have had to fruitlessly worry and fret for half of my existence! Were anything to happen now to make you forsake me, upon whom will you have me depend?" And then after heaping reproaches upon herself for a time, break out afresh in lamentations for her, unavailing offspring, Chia Cheng was much cut up and felt conscious that ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... by-and-by when it is all settled, and let you know what I think of her. I dare say a good, honest country lass will suit John far better than a beautiful woman of the world, who would be sure to be miserable with him. Don't fret, little mother; make the best of her ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... themselves to it. As for me I cannot stop there, or rest in the company of these persons, wholly like myself, miserable like me, impotent like me. I see that they would not help me to die, I shall die alone, I must then act as though alone, but if I were alone I should not build houses, I should not fret myself with bustling occupations, I should seek the esteem of no one, but I should try only to ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... go out and gather some more of the bright pebbles to let fall as he walked, that they might point out the way home; but his stepmother had locked the door, and he could not open it. When he went back to his bed he told his little sister not to fret, but to go to sleep in peace, for he was sure they would be taken ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... now." Mrs. Allen stood in the doorway, quite erect and cold in her bearing, and there was no one but the deluded man who failed to detect her frigid tone of offended ownership. "This is his sleepin'-time; if he wakes now he'll fret all night, an' Mr. Allen has to git his rest or he can't git up ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... saw anything I was afraid of yet, ma. 'Specially people. And men in particular. Don't you fret. I'll trot along back as soon as ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... still awake, Pleasing most when most I speak; The delight of old and young, Though I speak without a tongue. Nought but one thing can confound me, Many voices joining round me; Then I fret, and rave, and gabble, Like the labourers of Babel. Now I am a dog, or cow, I can bark, or I can low; I can bleat, or I can sing, Like the warblers of the spring. Let the lovesick bard complain, And I mourn the cruel pain; Let the happy swain rejoice, And I join my helping voice: Both ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... man with his judgment wouldn't suspect for one living second that he could play it low-down on you with me roosting close at hand. Putting two plain facts together it works out right natural and simple that he's on the square. As easy as that," he finished triumphantly. "So don't you fret. And in case he acts up I'll clamp down on him real sudden," he added by ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... say to high officers of State and members of Government is this, as far as you can trust the man on the spot. Do not weary or fret or nag him with your superior wisdom. They claim no immunity from errors of opinion or judgment, but their errors are nothing compared ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... themselves! Art had been there, to be sure! He had been the delight of the first of their Christmases, and the same always, till he went off. But was it Michael's fault that the son wasn't there yet? Sure poor Michael had done nothing to fret her! It wasn't he had neglected to write! And wasn't it full as bad for him, Michael, that had always been the fond father to Art! and had never rightly overed the boy's quitting off the way he did! Oh, if only ...
— Candle and Crib • K. F. Purdon
... all changed without, Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt. Yet why at others' wanings should'st thou fret? Then only might'st thou feel a just regret, Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light 5 In selfish forethought of neglect and slight. O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed, While, and on whom, thou ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... "Don't fret. What do we care?" was Van's easy answer. "We're not really after the view. I don't give a hurrah for what we see when we get to the top; what I want is the ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... then; come out of the fret and the fever of life; away from the scorching heat of self, and enter the inward resting-place where the cooling airs of peace will calm, renew, ...
— The Way of Peace • James Allen
... man who has no opinion of himself at all can never be hurt if others do not acknowledge him. Hence, be meek. He who is without expectation cannot fret if nothing comes to him. It is self-evident that these things are so. The lowly man and the meek man are really above all other men, above all other things. ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond
... difference. So, in my crafty way, I hedged, and told mother that, for my part, I felt sartain there were some secrets that wouldn't even be allowed to come out at Judgment Day, for fear of turning heaven into t'other place; and that this was one of 'em. She always used to fret at that, however. ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... 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 ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... fret yourself about that, Jem Backstay. The skipper knows what he's a-doing, and has got a heap o' 'sponsibility on them shoulders o' his'n—a fine ship and a valuable cargo to get home safe to old h'England with a short crew, and a lot o' ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... "Don't fret yourself, my son. We've bought the gun all right; an' the next time we meet, you can hand it over. I wish our pile had been bigger so's we could have given twenty, 'cause a kid ...
— Dick in the Desert • James Otis
... the cargo and his Jewish fellow-passengers were to be landed, Aaron was tantalized for days by the quarantine, so that he must needs fret amid the musty odors long after he had thought to tread the sacred streets of Jerusalem. But at last he found himself making straight for the Holy Land; and one magic day, the pilgrim, pallid and emaciated, gazed in pious joy upon the gray line of rocks that changed gradually into terraces ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... taking THE CALIFORNIAN'S measure with his eye, as he stands six fret in his stockings). If I did, I'd get the biggest brakeman I could find to do it for me. I'VE got nothing to say except that I think you'd better all ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... go; my horse is all in a fret," said D'Artagnan, with whom the most manifest sign of a lively emotion was the change of ideas in conversation. "Come, comte, how many days longer has ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... I must go," said John. "Don't fret, dear, I shall be back in five days. Those four horses can go sixty miles a day for that time, and more. They are fat as butter, and there is lots of grass along the road if I can't get forage for them. Besides, the cart will be nearly empty, so I can carry a muid of mealies and fifty bundles of ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... any in town," said Dixon, with sudden thoughtfulness. "It isn't the season for tramps. Oh!" he added, carelessly, as the child continued to look in his face, "some worthless old vagabond, I suppose, dearie. Don't fret your little heart about him. He'll find a warm nest in somebody's hay-mow, no doubt." But ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... I did it—because I could. Whatever is impossible, is not my duty; and that's the reason I don't take those blacksmiths between my thumb and forefinger and transport them to some other clime. For the same reason I don't fret over doings in Africa. Impossible duty is no duty; and running after the impossible interferes with the performance of real duties. At school did you ever ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... After the fret and failure of this day, And weariness of thought, O Mother Night, Come with soft kiss to soothe our care away And all our little tumults set to right; Most pitiful of all death's kindred fair, Riding above us through the curtained ...
— Spirits in Bondage • (AKA Clive Hamilton) C. S. Lewis
... trouble stirs thy breast? Why all this fret and flurry? Dost thou not know that what is best In this too restless world is ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... I pledge me you need have no further fret From her entreating tears. She bids me say That now, as always, she submits herself With chastened dignity to circumstance, And will descend, at notice, from your throne— As in days earlier she ascended it— In questionless obedience to your will. It was your ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... 4. Never fret, repine, or envy. Do not make yourself unhappy by comparing your circumstances with those of more fortunate people; but make the most of the opportunities you have. Employ ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... filled it with never-ceasing active occupations, as was natural and 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 ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... sure that they acknowledged even to themselves that they had always been lovers; they could not consent to anything so definite or pronounced; but they were happy in being together in the world. Esther was untouched by the fret and fury of life; she had lived in sunshine and rain among her silly sheep, and been refined instead of coarsened, while her touching patience with a ramping old mother, stung by the sense of defeat and mourning ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... ever since his trouble with Freet on the Makon there had been growing in Jim a vague distrust of his own powers. He could build the dams, yes, if "they" would leave him free to do so. If "they" would not fret and hound him until his efficiency was gone. It was the very subtlety and intangibility of "they" that made him uneasy, made him less sure of ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... "You needn't fret," said the old gray buccaneer; "he's got us as fast as two and two make four. For us to be wondering why he doesn't come around is as though a coop full of turkeys went wondering why the poulterer didn't come around. No; I can't tell ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... you do not fret or murmur, grumble or repine at your condition; for this will not only make your life uneasy, but will greatly offend Almighty God. Consider that it is not yourselves, it is not the people that you belong ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... 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. ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... such blindness to what is so patent! such a deaf ear to the roaring of that thunderous harmony which you call the eternal silence!—you of the earth, earthy, who can hear the little trumpet of the mosquito so well that it makes you fidget and fret and fume all night, and robs you of your rest. Then the sun rises and frightens the mosquitoes away, and you think that's what the sun is for and are thankful; but why the deuce a mosquito should sting you, you can't make ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... window to grow musk in. You know when I got all that old oak carvin' out of Bideford Church, when they were restoring it (Ruskin says that any man who'll restore a church is an unmitigated sweep), and stuck it up here with glue? Well, King came in and wanted to know whether we'd done it with a fret-saw! Yah! He is the King ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... 'Don't fret, old dear; Emil is one of the happy-go-lucky sort who always fall on their legs. I'll see to Nat, and Dan is in a good way now. Let him take a look at Kansas, and if the farm plan loses its charm, he can fall back on poor Lo, and really do good out there. ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... rights of property have been extended to us, in this land of freedom; our industry has been, and still is, liberally rewarded; and so long as we live under a free and happy government which denies us not the protection of its laws, why should we fret and vex ourselves because we have had no part in framing them, nor anything to do with their administration. When the fruits of the earth are fully afforded us, we do not wantonly refuse them, nor ungratefully repine because we have done nothing towards ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... sailed, now I have got as much as I want. I would give a thousand guineas out of my own pocket to see Godolphin's face when he reads my dispatch, and finds that he's got to honor bills for a hundred thousand pounds; it will be better than any comedy that ever was acted. How the pompous old owl will fret and fume! But he will have to find the money for all that. He can't begin the campaign by dishonoring bills of her majesty's general, or no one would trust us hereafter. You haven't seen ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... If it pains you to have Sidney here, I will put him to some school in 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! Poor ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... dear old granny, don't you fret and worry any, For I'll soon come back and tell you whether this is work or play; There can't be mischief in it, so I won't be gone a minute"— For a minute then I started. I ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... I was in when I found the cars going, and you gone. We had just passed Aix-la-Chapelle when I made the dreadful discovery, or I might have driven back here from there with a carriage, for it is only twenty miles off; but as it was, I could do nothing but fret till we arrived at Cologne, from which city I at once telegraphed to the station-master here, and ascertained that you were safe and sound, and fast asleep ...
— Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... sun was hid from sight In the darkness of the night, When the wind with sudden fret Pulled at my green coronet, Staunch I stood, and hid my fears, Weeping silent fragrant tears, Praying still that I might be Fitted for ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... once more) to a mother's ear; 15 Children's voices, wild with pain— Surely she will come again! Call her once and come away; This way, this way! "Mother dear, we cannot stay! 20 The wild white horses foam and fret." Margaret! Margaret! ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... architrave casings and beautifully molded sills, the lower windows having shutters and the upper ones blinds. A notable feature is the heavy cornice with large modillions, and beneath a relatively fine-scale, double denticulated molding or Grecian fret. ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins
... bearers represent Aragon and Navarre, the former being indicated by four red staffs on a gold field, and the fourth has gold-linked chains on a red field. The group is supported on a pedestal ornamented about its edge with a Greek fret. ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... this often occurred, I supported him; but when I knew him to be wrong, or when I caught him neglecting his duties, conniving at injustice, shirking inquiry, or evading the truth, I in no way spared him. The incident just related is an illustration of the treatment he often received at my hands. Fret, fume, stamp, storm, as he might, I cared nothing for him. His anger to me was as indifferent as his friendship. I despised both equally. Occasionally he would imagine, after there had been no storm between us for some time, that I had become reconciled to him, and would ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... and being denied a new sash, subsided into gloom for the space of ten minutes, when with a sudden turn of the wheel a mental picture was presented of a ship ploughing across the seas, bearing a lonely emigrant to his difficult task, when it became, all of a sudden, contemptible beyond words to fret oneself about—a ribbon! As she herself had said, having once come face to face with tragedy, her eyes were opened to the petty nature of her own trials. She ironed and pressed, and viewing the shabby bows and insufficient ends, said ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... to his breakfast, and then away with his play. He would rather have stayed and begun turning it into a story at once. But she would not let him; she said it would be a loss of time, and she should fret a good deal more to have him there with her, than to have him away, for she should know he was just staying to cheer ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... the first time I had a chance to use it." The lyrical artist drummed with his fingers on the mahogany arm of the sofa. "My goodness, child—what a long column there was of words rhyming with 'ette.'" He laughed to himself as he mused: "You know, my dear, I had to let 'brevet' and 'fret' and 'roulette' go, because I couldn't think of anything to say about them. You don't know how that worries a poet." He looked at the verses in the book before him and then shook his head sadly: "I was ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... she said. "I'd pay that fine lady governess of yours out. It would be tit for tat with me. Couldn't you do something as would put her in a fret, Miss Ermie?" ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... me today. I must hide it from Jonathan, for if he knew that I had been crying twice in one morning . . . I, who never cried on my own account, and whom he has never caused to shed a tear, the dear fellow would fret his heart out. I shall put a bold face on, and if I do feel weepy, he shall never see it. I suppose it is just one of the lessons that we poor women have to learn ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... use which is not uninstructive of the old tongue, Emerson is for faith before works. Nature, he says, will not have us fret and fume. She does not like our benevolences, our churches, our pauper-societies, much better than she likes our frauds and wars. They are but so many yokes to the neck. Our painful labours are unnecessary and fruitless. ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... father, of course,—il est si bon, ce pauvre Dalibard; and all men like cheerful faces. But then, poor lady,—an Englishwoman, so strange here; very natural she should fret, and ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in the right path. When she opened her eyes the tall form of Marshall Haney towered over her, so handsome, so full of quiet power that he seemed capable of anything. His face was strangely sweet as he said: "You must not fret about anything another minute. You've but to lie quiet and get strong." He put his broad, soft, warm, and muscular hand down upon her two folded ones, and added: "Let me do fer ye as I would fer me own mother. 'Twill not commit ye to a thing." He seemed to understand her mood—perhaps ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... for a month, and all that time he never saw his friend. At last he began to fret for him, and was very unhappy. "What makes you so sad?" said Panwpatti Rani. "I am sad because I have not seen my friend for a whole month," answered her husband. "I must go and see him." "Yes, go and see him," said his wife. The ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... woman, keeping watch by the lifeless clay, which she had laid in decent order upon its humble pallet, in the Gull's Nest, floated over the cliffs, and died away on the bosom of the waters. At times, Roupall would growl and fret as a chained mastiff; but the anxiety of the Skipper had so increased, that he ceased moving, and stood on the bold brow of the crag, like a black monument ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... "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 off each other's gowns ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... "Fret not for thy sword, Sir Scout." she replied, "neither flatter thyself that Circe wastes her spells on all who come her way. Those only will she ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... don't want my job to turn me into an ogre. There are people who don't feel that way about me." He laughed slyly. "Don't you fret about being haled into court. Several persons besides ourselves wish to meet those two distinguished gentlemen we are after. When we get them they will have to be shipped to Chicago and various other cities. You stand a slim chance of having any very ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... will keep; let it cool, let it cool. And Madam may worry and fret, And children half-starved go to school, go to school;— He can't think of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... Newark, New Jersey, Jackson Wylie, Sr., was growing impatient. In spite of his son's weekly reports he had begun to fret at the indefinite nature of results up to date. This dissatisfaction it was that had induced him to cable his invitation to the Royal Commission to visit the Atlantic plant. Mr. Jackson Wylie, Sr., had a mysterious way ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... Just as I was setting all Hands to work, and had given Orders to my Men to begin some Paces back, to make the Descent more gradual, and thereby render the Task a little more feasible, Major Collier, who commanded the Train, came to me; and perceiving the Difficulties of the Undertaking, in a Fret told me, I was impos'd upon; and vow'd he would go and find out Brigadier Petit, and let him know the Impossibility, as well as the Unreasonableness of the Task I was put upon. He had scarce utter'd those Words, and turn'd himself round to perform his Promise, when an unlucky Shot with a Musket-Ball ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... him. Dressed in clean clothes, brought by the lady of the morning, and shaved by the skilful hand of Big Abel, he buried himself in the fresh straw and dreamed of Chericoke and Betty. The coil of battle swept far from him; he heard none of the fret and rumour that filled the little street; even the moans of the men beneath the surgeons' knives did not penetrate to where he lay sunk in the stupor of perfect contentment. It was not until the morning of the third ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... and others of that class.[3388]—Towards the end, "butchers of both classes, high and low, are aristocratized."—In the same way, "the women in the markets, except a few who are paid and whose husbands are Jacobins, curse and swear, fume, fret and storm." "This morning," says a merchant, "four or five of them were here; they no longer insist on being called citoyennes; they declare that they "spit on the republic."[3389]—The only remaining patriot females are from ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... mischiefs to the quick; we lacerate, tear, and mangle our bosoms with misfortune's finest, brittlest point, and wreak our vengeance on ourselves and it for good and all. Small pains are more manageable, ore within our reach; we can fret and worry ourselves about them, can turn them into any shape, can twist and torture them how we please:—a grain of sand in the eye, a thorn in the flesh, only irritates the part, and leaves us strength enough ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... Lily Bud," he told her as he led his resaddled and refreshed horse from the stable. "But don't you fret. I'll come roamin' back hereaways some o' these days when you've ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... a white nigger; the supposed illegitimate daughter of Adelbert Beaucaire, and a slave woman. There is no reason why I should fret about her, is there? She is my property already by law." He laughed again, the same ugly sneering laugh of triumph, "That was why I was so particular about the wording of that bill of sale—I would rather have her than the whole bunch ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... by some fiend at hap-hazard, and in all directions maladministration! The God who keeps seven worlds in right circuit for six thousand years can certainly keep all the affairs of individuals and nations and continents in adjustment. We had not better fret much, for the peasant's argument of the text was right. If God can take care of the seven worlds of the Pleiades and the four chief worlds of Orion, He can probably take care of the one world ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... important business then is that which is carried on unconsciously. So again the action of the brain, which goes on prior to our realising the idea in which it results, is not perceived by the individual. So also all the deeper springs of action and conviction. The residuum with which we fret and worry ourselves is a mere matter of detail, as the higgling and haggling of the market, which is not over the bulk of the price, but over the ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... Swede's a regular croaker," replied the eldest brother. "'Fraid as death of his own shadow. I can take care of you and myself and the money to boot. Needn't to fret while I've got ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... It is then that the familiar prattle of the seance-room offends us. We sought freedom, light, absolution from the trammels of personality, and we are told that the dead appear in bodies and clothes, that they toil and fret, that they inhabit houses and cities. Our plains Elysian suffer an invasion of lawyers and physicians, of merchants and moneylenders. The weariness ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby |
