"Shrug" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... looked desperately at the door; but the captain's broad shoulders blocked the way towards it. He hesitated, scowled, and then, with a shrug of ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... much from him," remarked Carl, with a contemptuous shrug of his shoulders; "he's a ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... comical shrug, "the idea is that we all spend one or two mornings every week studying stiff old Madonnas and Magdalenes and saints! I love noble and beautiful paintings as well as any one, but I wonder if I can ever ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... little shrug of the shoulders, "I can hardly tell you. The phrase seemed to come out of its own accord. I have felt from the beginning that it was in pain and—starved, though why I felt this never occurred to me ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... A slight shrug of the shoulders and a slight low laugh; after which, he said, "No, I think not. I have not the courage ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... shrug of her shoulders.] Perhaps I don't, in the way you mean; [wistfully] perhaps it's not in me really to love anybody in a marrying way. [Meeting his eyes.] Still, as ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... warming his hands over the stove, made no reply, except to shrug his shoulders—he was looking intently at the little girl's face. Then he shook hands with Dr. Clay gravely and asked about the case. After hearing all that Dr. Clay had to tell him, with an imperative gesture he signified that Mrs. Cavers and Martha were to leave the tent. But something ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... line chat takes in a studio," Fenton returned, with a slight shrug. "It isn't business that men talk in a studio. ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... as usual to Cabinska's home to give Yadzia her piano lesson, but she could not forget that scornful shrug of Sowinska's shoulders and ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... and a shrug of her shoulders she proceeded to open the envelope. It contained nothing but the sketch made upon the fly-leaf of a novel. Christian was watching her face. She continued to smile as she unfolded the paper. Then ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... a shrug of his powerful shoulders. "It's just like you, Brick, to spoil a festibul-day with your low idees! Why don't you keep them idees for a rainy day? Just lay up them regrets and hankerings for the first rainy day, and then be of a piece with the heavens and earth. 'If you can't stay cheerful while ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... Reformation, what that vain science has produced. It was by means of his critical researches that, from the time of Luther, Karlstadt found such a meaning of 'Semen immolare Moloch,' as made his disciples shrug their shoulders; that Muenzer preached community of goods and wives; that Melanchthon taught that the dogma of the Trinity deprives our mind of all liberty; that at a later period Ammon asserted that the resurrection of the dead could not be deduced from the New ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... might have been a warning, if I could have read it; but it was gone with a shrug as though he would say, "Well, it's ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... the theatre, ride on the street car, make transfer to Hochelaga Park, get out, have nice glass beer—just one, m'sieu—go on the boutiques, buy nice bonnett, eh? I have monee to do like that, but [with the national shrug] I have no wife. I am tole there is everything very fonny there all year round, but me—I have only been there two, three tam; no good go alone, meet bad company, get on the dhrunk then, sure. Bigosh—excusez, Mr. Ringfield, there's nothing like young, handsome wife and plenty ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... weary in a week of such a dull, sentimentalizing mode of existence,' said Aunt Sarah, with a significant shrug of ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... exclaimed the Mexican with a shrug of his shoulders. He stroked his shiny black moustache. "You are ever so on the alert! Always moving. Well, be it so, we will travel on—to the ruined city—if we can find one," and he gave Tom a look that the latter ...
— Tom Swift in the City of Gold, or, Marvelous Adventures Underground • Victor Appleton
... of a shrug. Had George been less absorbed in his own mental discomforts, he would have discovered there and then that the matter of his speech, not the manner of his delivery, was what held his wife's attention. No longer could rounded periods and ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... coruscations of the poet’s wit made the sparks from the burning paper seem pale and dull. He died away from home, or not a scrap of correspondence would have been left for the publishers. Although the “public” acknowledges no duties towards the man of literary or artistic genius, but would shrug up its shoulders or look with dismay at being asked to give five pounds in order to keep a poet from the workhouse, the moment a man of genius becomes famous the public becomes aware of certain rights in relation to him. Strangely enough, these rights are recognized more fully in the literary ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... voluble tirade of reproaches and revilings, and looking so enormous in her excitement that Katy wondered that the old man dared to answer her at all. Finally, there would be a sudden lull. The old man would shrug his shoulders, and remarking that he and his wife and his aged grandmother must go without bread that day since it was the Signora's will, take the money offered and depart, leaving such a mass of flowers behind him that Katy would begin to think that ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... You Like It, on the other. Need it be said how heavy an aggravation, in such a case, the stain of bastardy must have been, were it only that the younger brother was liable to hear his own dishonour and his mother's infamy related by his father with an excusing shrug of the shoulders, and in a tone betwixt waggery ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... Laughter and a shrug are the end of it. With the Carolines it was not music that was the food of love, but love that was a staple food of music. A man who lets his hair down over his shoulders may be as sentimental as you please, or as impudent. He cannot nourish both a passion ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... experiences have taught us to recognize resemblances between sequences or combinations of tones and things or ideas, and on these analogies, even though they be purely conventional (that is agreed upon, as we have agreed that a nod of the head shall convey assent, a shake of the head dissent, and a shrug of the shoulders doubt or indifference), the composers have built up a voluminous vocabulary of idioms which need only to be helped out by a suggestion to the mind to be eloquently illustrative. "Sometimes hearing a melody or harmony arouses an emotion like that aroused by the contemplation of ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... me," said Hal with a shrug of his shoulders, "which may not be very good English, but expresses my sentiments just ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes
... in the whole realm of pathology than those which we calmly dub "the diseases of childhood," and thereby dismiss to the limbo of unavoidable accidents and discomforts, like flies, mosquitoes, and stubbed toes, which are best treated with a shrug of the shoulders and such stoic philosophy as we can muster. They are interesting, because the moment we begin to study them intelligently we stumble upon some of the profoundest and most far-reaching problems of resistance to disease; important, because, trifling ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... With a shrug of his thick shoulders, the stranger uninvited came forward and helped himself to a chair, and, with the air of one introducing a person of some importance, said, "I am Vodell—Jake Vodell. You have heard of me, I ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... good paintings at the Luxembourg, and one or two good modern paintings at the Louvre—the Meduse, by Gericault, for example: (How I rejoiced that I had admired it!) But all the rest of the modern paintings M. Belloc declared, with an inimitable shrug, are poor paintings. There is nothing safely admirable, I find, but the old masters. All those battles of all famous French generals, from Charles Hartel to Napoleon, and the battles in Algiers, by Horace Yernet, are wholly to be snuffed at. In painting, as in theology, age is the criterion ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Edward could only shrug his shoulders and shake his head, in answer to my indignant remonstrances. At last he made room for me in a corner of the crowded bar, set before me some food, and left me to watch the strange life I ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... dine together frequently. I like these gay little affairs," went on the Colonel, not even attempting to conceal his shrug of disgust for Braddock. "I am leaving for home to-night, but I expect to return in two or three days. You must all join hands in breaking me into the circus business. Don't let me be a—what is it you call it? A rube, that's ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... at least to Stentor. Who would venture to place Louis the Eleventh on the boards? He probably never spoke louder than a physician at a consultation—no, not when he confronted the Duke of Burgundy. He would have to glide noiselessly from scene to scene, a whisper here, a look there, and perhaps a shrug of the shoulder or scarcely perceptible motion of the hand; yet, all through, it would be evident that he was the snake on two legs, the anointed Mephistopheles, the intellect without the feeling—and, with all that, he could not be the hero of a play. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... "A dream, nothing more. A fantasy. It took me fifteen years to learn what a dream it was. Not even a suspicion at first—only a vague puzzlement, things happening that I couldn't quite grasp. Easy to shrug off, until it got too obvious. Not a matter of wrong decisions, really. The decisions were right, but they were in the wrong places. Something about Starship Project shifting, changing somehow. Something being lost. Slowly. Nothing you could nail down, at ...
— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse
... allow of my going into that, except in private. But (shrugging his shoulders) of course, Mr. Anderson, if you are determined to be hanged (Judith flinches), there's nothing more to be said. An unusual taste! however (with a final shrug)—! ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... misery is endured by those who have never got the victory over their own ill-temper! To feel wretched and exasperated by little annoyances which good-humoured people get over with a shrug or a smile; to have things rankle in my mind like a splinter in the flesh, which glide lightly off yours, and leave no mark; to be unable to bear a joke, knowing that one is doubly laughed at because one can't; to have this deadly ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... little man eagerly. "Oscilloscopes. Portable force-field generators. A neural distorter." Melinda's face was blank. The little man frowned. "You use them, of course? This is a Class IV culture?" Melinda essayed a weak shrug and the little man sighed with relief. His eyes fled past her to the blank screen of the TV set. "Ah, a monitor." He smiled. "For a moment I was afraid—May ...
— Teething Ring • James Causey
... you to decide, Mr. Glanedale," said Malcolm Sage, with an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders, "whether it is better to tell your story now, or under cross-examination in the witness-box. There you will be under oath, and the proceedings ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... not wonder if it became so, really,' answered the prefect, with a shrug of his shoulders. 'I expect every time I ride, to have my brains knocked out ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... vaults into the street. The mass upon the floor fetches a last agonizing shrug, and a low moan, and is dead. The murderer stands over him, exultant, as the blood streams from the deep fracture. In fine, the blood of his victim would seem rather to increase his satisfaction at the deed, than ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... not before seen tickled and hadn't imagined ever could be; but this idea of a junges Madchen—("Sie soll ganz niedlich sein," threw in one of the gobbling men. "Ja ganz appetitlich," threw in the other; "Na, es geht," said the Colonel with a shrug—)—motoring out to bar the passage of a mighty army, trying to stop thousands of bayonets by lifting up one little admonitory kitten's paw, shook him out of his gravity into ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... with a slight shrug, "then we must let her get what good she can out of it as an exercise of ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... thinks nobody else has; and what is more, my dear, nobody ever could persuade him that anybody else has. He has no idea of our situation; he never could form an idea of it. If I chose to attempt to make him understand it he would listen with the greatest politeness, shrug his shoulders at the end of the story, tell me to keep up my spirits, and order another bottle of Madeira in order that he might illustrate his precept by practice. He is a good-natured selfish man. He likes us to visit him because you are gay and agreeable, and because I never asked a favour ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... found. On the next day, as he entered the palace, he was informed by the Lord Chamberlain that he was deprived of his office of Gentleman of the Bed-Chamber; and when he demanded the reason of his sudden dismissal, the Duke of Lennox, with a shrug of the shoulders, declared he was unable to afford him any information. But what the Duke refused was afforded by De Gondomar, who at that moment entered the corridor, in company with Buckingham and some other nobles, on his way to the presence-chamber. On seeing his ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... was Morelos. He had remained, seated at a table, biting a pen, fingering some papers, gazing abstractedly at the vacant bench. The whoop of a barefooted, black-faced urchin in the corridor roused him. With a scowl and a shrug he slowly resumed his hat and went to his ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... campaign, yet the burgher endeavoured to show a cheerful countenance. In this he succeeded to a surprising degree. It is a characteristic of the Boer that he can meet frowning fortune with a smile or at least a shrug of the shoulders. He found that his best policy was to forget the reverse of yesterday. Flying to-day before the enemy, to-morrow he will rally, and charge that same foe with almost ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... by attempting to kiss Gertie; she drew back, and Bulpert said manfully that if she could do without it he could also afford to dispense with the ceremony. He introduced his companions as two of the very best and brightest, and they intimated, by a modest shrug of the shoulders, that this might be taken as a correct description. The sisters of Westbourne Grove came bearing a highly-ornamental cardboard case with a decoration of angels, and containing a pair of gloves. ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... or look upon it as a privation and endure it as martyrs. In this mood they wouldn't last a week. I know that people who read this without at least a germ of the pioneer in them will either smile or shrug their shoulders. I've met plenty of this sort. I met them by the dozen down here. As I said, you can find them in every bread line, in every Salvation Army barracks or the Associated Charities will furnish you a list of as many as you ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... gits inside and inter what he called his parlor, he looks around like he was proud of it (By jo! I'd be afraid ter shrug my shoulders in it, 'twas so small) an' says he: 'What d'ye ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... most people are engaged in that crushing industry," said Algitha with a shrug. "Don't I know their bonnets, and their frock-coats ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... fishermen first preached Christ about the highways, depend upon it, that was not taken very seriously, either. Credat Judaeus; but all sensible folk—such as you and I, my dear madam—passed on with a tolerant shrug, knowing "their doctrine could be held of ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... intimated that he would like to have the letter at once, and that he would consider the invitation afterward. Roscorla, with a good-humored shrug, sat down and wrote it, and then handed it to Trelyon, open. As he did so he noticed that the young man was coolly abstracting the cartridge from a small breech-loading pistol he held in his hand. He ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... With a shrug she turned away and shut the door. She sat down on the edge of her bed, very still. In that little passage of wits she had won, she could win in many such; but the full hideousness of things had come to her. Lies! lies! That was to be her life! That; or to say farewell ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... as to that," replied Adelaide. "There was a girl that came to stay with Nancy King last year; her name was Freda Noell. She believed in ghosts. She said she had once been in a haunted house. What is it, Briar? Why do you shrug your shoulders?" ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... Mrs Pansey!' echoed the bishop's wife, smiling still more; and with a slight shrug cast an amused look at Lucy, who in her turn caught Sir Harry's merry eyes and ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... peel the fruit, dropped it upon his plate with a shrug of the shoulders. What an angry glance Ida threw upon her child! She had never looked at him in that way before. Jack did not venture to speak again, and the evening to him was but a dreary continuation of ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... probably shrug his shoulders at any idea of comparing his city with Prague; but as he is above all a logically minded, reasoning sort of person and, moreover, courteous, he will listen to my argument, and even should he not agree, is generous enough to join me in the happy ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... home than with the silent, reserved men of Spain, with whom a foreigner might mingle for half a century without having half a dozen words addressed to him, unless he himself made the first advances to intimacy, which, after all, might be rejected with a shrug and a no intendo; for, among the many deeply rooted prejudices of these people, is the strange idea that no foreigner can speak their language; an idea to which they will still cling though they hear him conversing with perfect ease; for in that case the utmost that ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... asking?' said the girl, with a little shrug of impatience. 'As if creatures like me ever got what they want! London has been good fun certainly—if one could get enough of it. Catherine, how long is that marvellous person going to stay?' and she pointed in the direction ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... both sides?" asked the Duchess. Lopez shrugged his shoulders. A shrug at such a time may mean anything, but the Duchess took this shrug as signifying that the question was so surely settled as to admit of no difficulty. "Then," said the Duchess, "the old gentleman may as well give way at once. Of course his daughter will be too many for him." In this way the Duchess ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... if you think to escape them by neglecting them, you are going the devil's way to work. If you wish them to let you alone, speak them fair, drop easily to your knee, be a hand-kisser, a cushion-disposer, a goer on your toes. They will think you a lover and shrug you away. Never do a woman a service as if to oblige her; do it as if to oblige yourself. Then she will believe you her slave. Then you are safe. ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... misapprehensions. Where he errs by simply repeating the accepted rules of the Pope school, he for once talks mere second-hand nonsense. But his independent judgments are interesting even when erroneous. His unlucky assault upon 'Lycidas,' already noticed, is generally dismissed with a pitying shrug of the shoulders. 'Among the flocks and copses and flowers appear the heathen deities; Jove and Phoebus, Neptune and AEolus, with a long train of mythological imagery, such as a college easily supplies. Nothing ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... means," said he, "though Sir Jasper would hardly seem in a drinking humor," and, with the very slightest shrug of the shoulders, he turned back to the ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... custom," he answered, with a shrug. "Myself I think it an evil one; but then," he added by an afterthought, "I do not like the taste of strangers, especially after they have wandered through the swamps and lived on wild-fowl. When She-who-must-be-obeyed sent orders that ye were to be saved alive she ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... each man to the moral and religious question put nowadays to everyone, the question, that is, whether it is lawful or unlawful for him to take his share of military service, and these learned gentlemen will shrug their shoulders and not condescend to listen or to answer you. The solution of the question in their idea is to be found in reading addresses, writing books, electing presidents, vice-presidents, and secretaries, and meeting and speaking first in one town and then in another. ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... the only adequate retort to this would be a shrug of his shoulders; doubted his ability to carry one off; and again took ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... absurd to Chupin that he was not in the least offended by it; his only answer was a disdainful shrug ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... a shrug that seemed meant to say, 'we can't expect everybody to be like us,' John put his pipe into his mouth again, and smoked like one who felt his superiority over the general run ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... a little shrug] Oh well, I suppose there's no use our playing at cross purposes, Mr Malone. ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... prisoner as a dangerous man, all of a sudden, without rhyme or reason they write—'Set him at liberty,' and actually add to their missive—'urgent.' You will own, my lord, 'tis enough to make a man at dinner shrug his shoulders!" ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... what?" exclaimed Lieutenant Khorvat with an angry shrug of his shoulders. "Suppose, in his day, a man has been the best cucumber-salter or mushroom-pickler in a given town. Or suppose he has been the best cobbler there, or that once he said something which the street wherein he dwelt can still remember. ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... lifted. Then, with a shrug and a wry smile, "Okay, you're paying for it." She took a cigarette from the flat case at her sash, lit it and relaxed. Dalgetty leaned against the wall ...
— The Sensitive Man • Poul William Anderson
... hole in the corral, and Don Mariano eyed the old sow with suspicion. Still he was inclined, like all good Mexican people, to explain inexplicable things by the simple formula: "It is the will of God," and with a shrug he dismissed the mystery from ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... him if he had any better plan to propose he was forced to shrug his shoulders and set his lips in a straight line of resignation. When she told him what her original plan had been he was so appalled, so humiliated at the bare thought of his wife in a servant's apron (to say ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... is nice to get home occasionally," cried Kate with a shrug of pleasure as she looked around the beautiful room and then at the ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... not speaking, and Lord Selkirk the same.(27) I dined with Lord Treasurer and his Saturday Club, and sat with him two hours after the rest were gone, and spoke freer to him of affairs than I am afraid others do, who might do more good. All his friends repine, and shrug their shoulders; but will not deal with him so freely as they ought. It is an odd business; the Parliament just going to sit, and no employments given. They say they will give them in a few days. There is a new bishop made of Hereford;(28) so Ossory(29) is disappointed. ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... consented,' said Mrs Wilfer, with a grand shrug of her shoulders, and another wave of her gloves, 'to my child's acceptance of the proffered attentions of Mrs Boffin, I interpose ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... lie!" cried Ambrose scornfully. An expectant look in Watusk's eye arrested him from saying more. "He's trying to find out how much Nesis told me," he thought. Aloud he said, with a shrug like Watusk himself: "Well, I'll be glad ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... very wettest days, because he would send me up to my room with a book instead of letting me stay out of doors. "That is not the way to make him strong and active," she would say sadly, "especially this little man, who needs all the strength and character that he can get." My father would shrug his shoulders and study the barometer, for he took an interest in meteorology, while my mother, keeping very quiet so as not to disturb him, looked at him with tender respect, but not too hard, not wishing to penetrate the mysteries of his superior mind. But my grandmother, in all weathers, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... am accustomed to such things," said Meyer, with a shrug of his shoulders. "Who would not run a little danger for the sake of such a glorious chance? Wealth, wealth, more wealth than we can dream of, and with it, power—power to avenge, to reward, to buy position, and pleasure, and all beautiful ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... a hysterical woman," he muttered, turning, with a contemptuous shrug of his shoulders, to tramp impatiently up and down the room. "Really, Arthur, you're worse than Julia; there, stop laughing! I can't wait ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... mischievously, but the only effect was a grunt, and a stolid shrug of his shoulders, nor did he vouchsafe another word for the rest of the way before they came through the valley, and through the low brushwood on the bank, and were in sight of the search party, who set up a joyful halloo of welcome on ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... message is sent," said Marie Antoinette, confidently. "The king will not refuse me, I know. You shrug your shoulders, count. ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... a shrug of impatience. It was three weeks since they had met,—three weeks crammed with excitement, energy, achievement, and fortune to Key; and yet this place and this man were as stupidly unchanged as when he had left them. A momentary fancy that this was the reality, that he himself was only ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... long-drawn whistles, or a grunting "Whau!" bespoke a gratifying degree of admiration and wonder. The longer the cartridges and the larger the bullets, the more they impressed them, and our revolvers were glanced at with contempt and a shrug of the shoulders, expressing infinite disdain, until each of us shot a few rounds. Then they winced, started to run away, came back and laughed boisterously over their own fright; but after that they had more respect ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... Marshalsea said, with a shrug of modest self-depreciation, 'Oh! You might be like me, my dear Frederick; you might be, if you chose!' and forbore, in the magnanimity of his strength, to press his fallen ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... road by a recruiting party of lanceros—a method of voluntary enlistment looked upon as almost legal in the Republic. Whole villages were known to have volunteered for the army in that way; but, as Don Pepe would say with a hopeless shrug to Mrs. Gould, "What would you! Poor people! Pobrecitos! Pobrecitos! But the State must have ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... shrug of the shoulders, but with the warmest admiration and pride at heart for this woman, I equipped her with the broken oar and took another for myself. It was with nervous trepidation that we made the first few rods of the journey. ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... three mouths, as that obdurate guardian of the infernal regions had? Do not shrug your shoulders, my dear comte: I put the question to you with an excellent reason, since poets pretend that, in order to soften Monsieur Cerberus, the visitor must take something enticing with him—a cake, ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a shrug indicating resignation. "In that case I suppose I must be content, but he might have made an exception of—me. Anyway, I think I see how we can put what appears to be a little necessary pressure upon Gregory." She turned again to her husband rather abruptly. ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... occasion to disappear," rejoined Jeanne, with a resigned shrug. "I do not always find myself able to follow the lofty thought of madame. But, at least, for these people of St. Genevieve there is no doubt. They have argue' among theirself. The vote here is against Monsieur Dunwodee. He is what one ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... object. When a disputant was desirous of throwing a doubt upon the veracity of his opponent, and getting summarily rid of an argument which he could not overturn, he uttered the word Quoz, with a contemptuous curl of his lip, and an impatient shrug of his shoulders. The universal monosyllable conveyed all his meaning, and not only told his opponent that he lied, but that he erred egregiously if he thought that any one was such a nincompoop as to believe him. Every alehouse resounded with Quoz; every street-corner was ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... looks so pretty. Jacky, that's exactly the material I wanted for our curtains. You have beautiful china. I'm collecting, too; but"—she gave an expressive shrug. "Of course, this room lends itself; it is so big, and get's all the sun. You remember, Jacky"—she looked at her husband with widened eyes—"Mr Maplestone called ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... impatient shrug. "Some people wouldn't believe they were alive unless they saw their breath on a looking-glass. Goodness! How I hate a sneering ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... an attendant entirely devoted to her service." said Monsieur Val. "Madam will have all her wishes obeyed; her reasonable wishes, but that goes without saying," monsieur adds, with a quaint shrug. "Every effort will be made to render madam's sojourn at Villebrumeuse agreeable. The inmates dine together when it is wished. I dine with the inmates sometimes; my subordinate, a clever and a worthy man always. I reside with my wife and children in a ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... grimly determined to give her no peace until he knew the truth. But Dan, even in that mood, was infinitely better than no Dan at all. When he sent her word that he was going with some of the men from the factory up the river for a swim, she gave her shoulders a defiant shrug, and set to work to launder her one white dress and stove-polish her hat, with the pleasing results we have already witnessed through the eyes of Mrs. ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... A shrug of Mercedes' pretty shoulders implied that this might be the last passport to her acquaintance as a woman. "Mr. McMurtagh is not my father. My ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... certain: she can not put on her veil without help. She will have to call some one in for that.' At which the other volunteered that the Moores were all queer, and that she didn't envy Francis Jeffrey. 'What! not with fifty thousand a year to lighten her oddities?' returned her companion with a shrug which communicated itself to me, so closely were we packed together. 'I have a son who could bear with them under such circumstances.' Indeed she has, and all Washington knows it, but the remark passed ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... and made play with his clawlike hands, as if he understood me not. It was a lie, for I knew that he and the English tongue were sufficiently acquainted. I told him as much, and he shot at me a most venomous glance, but continued to shrug, gesticulate, and jabber in Italian. At last I saw nothing better to do than to take him, still by the collar, to the edge of the garden next the churchyard, and with the toe of my boot to send him tumbling among the graves. I watched him pick himself up, set his attire to rights, ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... ran and pulled aside the curtain in the corner, and took down the dolman from among other clothes that hung there, and threw it on Statira's shoulders, who looked as pretty as a pink in it. But she pretended to be too hot, and wanted to shrug it off, and 'Manda Grier called out, "Mr. Barker! will you make her keep it on?" and Lemuel sat dumb and motionless, but filled ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... it is difficult to persuade serious scientific enquirers to occupy themselves, in any way, with the Noachian Deluge. They look at you with a smile and a shrug, and say they have more important matters to attend to than mere antiquarianism. But it was not so in my youth. At that time geologists and biologists could hardly follow to the end any path of enquiry without ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... height of the prow is to insure protection for the passengers when going under bridges, but its peculiar halberd shape is a thing not one of the five thousand gondoliers in Venice can explain. If you ask your gondolier he will swear a pious oath, shrug his fine shoulders, and say, "Mon Dieu, Signore! how should I know?—it has always been so." The ignorance and superstition of the picturesque gondolier, with his fluttering blue hatband and gorgeous sash, are most enchanting. His lack of knowledge is like the ignorance ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... instruction and who dismissed his questions with the invariable exhortation not to pry into matters that were beyond his years. Odo had loved the pictures in the chapel all the better since the abate, with a shrug, had told him they were nothing but old rubbish, ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... reduced that I cannot purchase it for you. I have a trifling annuity—" "And you would be a much richer man," screamed Therese, "if you would insist upon those people at the opera paying you what they owe you." These words were accompanied with a shrug of the shoulders, intended to convey a vast idea of her own opinion. Rousseau made no reply; indeed he appeared to me like a frightened child in the presence of its nurse; and I could quickly see, that from the moment of her entering the room he had ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... Fortune favored my family with a thin little smile, and my father, in reply to a friendly inquiry, would say, "One makes a living," with a shrug of the shoulders that added "but nothing to boast of." It was characteristic of my attitude toward bread-and-butter matters that this contented me, and I felt free to devote myself to the conquest of my new world. Looking back to those critical first years, I see myself always behaving like a ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... knight, musing; "but thou mistakest my intentions. I let him not go; howbeit, at worst I would only mark him in the ear, and turn him up again after this warning, peradventure with a few stripes to boot athwart the shoulders, in order to make them shrug a little, and shake off the burden ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... is," he decided with a shrug, implying that all the four quarters were equally to his mind. He was pocketing the coin, when footsteps approached, and he lifted his head. It was the woman returning. She halted close to him with an undecided manner, and the pair ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... is jealous——" Pesquiera gave a little shrug of his shoulders. He understood pretty well the temperament of the ignorant Mexican. The young lover was likely to shoot first ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... too bad!" exclaimed his new acquaintance with a despairing shrug of his shoulders. "I brought down a German Aviatik this afternoon, and by the greatest good luck in the world it is absolutely unhurt. To-night I had planned a little expedition across into the enemy's country, a friendly visit to a Zeppelin shed, ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... the subject of the murder had been mentioned, and Sommers would quietly hint at his complicity, the other, with a shrug of his shoulders and a peculiar smile, would abruptly change the conversation. His strong will and the constant admonitions of his counsel had prevented him from revealing in any manner the secret of his crime, and except for certain actions, ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... is. But he isn't mine. The two baskets were exactly alike and must have come from the same person; and certainly Mr. Coulter wouldn't send us a basket. Oh, you'll have to guess again, Sherlock Holmes," concluded Carl with a shrug. ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... at once with the faintest possible shrug. "As you wish, dear child, of course; but I do beg of you to be prudent. He speaks of coming this afternoon. But would you not like him to postpone his visit till I ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... obscurity about their fate and that of their children and their nation, which was being sorted behind the closed doors of the Consulta. Every one seemed to go about his personal business with an apparent calm, a shrug of expressive shoulders at the most, signifying belief in the sureness of war—soon. There was little animation in the cafes, practically none on the streets. Arragno's, usually buzzing with political prophecy, had a depressing, provincial calm. Unoccupied deputies sat in gloomy ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... (go) from the taiyon we were off; the little cluster of tents looking like a group of conical islands behind us as we swept out upon the limitless ocean of the snowy steppe. Noticing that I shivered a little in the keen air, my driver pointed away to the northward, and exclaimed with a pantomimic shrug, "Tam shipka kholodno"—"There it's awful cold." We needed not to be informed of the fact; the rapidly sinking thermometer indicated our approach to the regions of perpetual frost, and I looked forward with no little apprehension to the prospect of sleeping outdoors in the arctic temperatures ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... positive instruction;—which was this, that his friend could not abandon his right of addressing the young lady, should he hereafter ever think fit to do so. Let that be granted, and Laurence would do anything. But then that could not be granted, and Laurence could only shrug his shoulders. Nor would Laurence admit that his friend had been false. "The question lies in a nutshell," said Laurence, with that sweet Connaught brogue which always came to him when he desired to be effective;—"here it is. One gentleman ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... there could see how artistic a home could be put up for a moderate sum of money. But he didn't quite finish even that—left half the gabled top story unfinished, and Nita has been teasing Hugo to finish it up for her. It looks," she added with a shrug, "as if Nita will ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... ejaculation was interrogative, Hunterleys hesitated for a moment. Then he continued with a little shrug of the shoulders. ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... he said, with a shrug of his shoulders. "No one else has such hair; but it's no great loss anyway; there are many more of such ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... a shrug, as he took a seat beside her, under the roses, "Congratulate? In their hearts they all despise me." ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... of matter In chaos made not such a clatter; Far less the rabble roar and rail, When drunk with sour election ale. Nor do they trust their tongues alone, But speak a language of their own; Can read a nod, a shrug, a look, Far better than a printed book; Convey a libel in a frown, And wink a reputation down; Or by the tossing of the fan, Describe the lady and the man. But see, the female club disbands, Each twenty visits on her hands. Now all alone poor madam sits In vapours ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... St. Michael's, said, With many a shrug and shaking of the head, Surely some demon must possess the lad, Who showed more wit than ever schoolboy had, And learned his Trivium thus without the rod; But Alcuin said it was the grace ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the prisoner stuck by his guns. Why had he tried to shoot the Earthmen? He didn't know. What were his orders from Sator? Silence. What were Sator's plans? Silence. Did he know anything of the new weapon? A shrug of the shoulders. ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... most polite, Who squander time and treasure with a smile, Though at their own destruction. She that asks Her dear five hundred friends, contemns them all, And hates their coming. They (what can they less?) Make just reprisals, and, with cringe and shrug And bow obsequious, hide their hate of her. All catch the frenzy, downward from her Grace, Whose flambeaux flash against the morning skies, And gild our chamber ceilings as they pass, To her who, frugal ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... The Major's shrug expressed an utter exhaustion of patience, a scornful irritation, almost a contempt for her. She could not endure it; she must justify herself, revenge herself at a blow on Harry for his rudeness and on her uncle for his scepticism. The triumph would be sweet; she could not for the ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... an irritable little shrug under the silken folds of her dressing-gown, and her finely cut features screwed for an instant into an expression of impatient dislike. It was only for an instant—then the mask of her conventional courtesy dropped ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... and thin-lipped; and those eyes! sunken and rimmed with purple; eyes that told tales of sorrow and, yes! of degradation. The crowd stood round her, sullen and apathetic; poor, miserable wretches like herself, staring at her antics with lack-lustre eyes and an ever-recurrent contemptuous shrug of the shoulders. ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... quite mad!" muttered Richard, turning away with a shrug of the shoulders. "I should have known better than to run the risk of having such a lunatic here. We must have him moved out of the ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... from his shelter, he followed the course taken by his companion as exactly as he could, trying to track him by the dislodged stones and marks made on the few patches of grass where he had passed through. But, with a shrug of the shoulders, Bart was obliged to own that his powers of following a trail were very small. Not that they were wanted here, for at the end of five minutes he could make out the long bony body of Joses lying ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... person," the artful, designing girl from whom by an appeal to the strong arm of the law she had saved her son. She paused in wonder to think to herself what would have happened if the marriage had not been declared null and void. In that case, she said to herself, with a shrug of the shoulders, in all probability the girl would not have taken to the stage at all. She wondered that she had not sooner recognized her. She remembered the strong, dramatic passion with which Leone ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... clerk he would be back to breakfast," said the landlord; adding, with a shrug of the shoulders: "That was two hours and a half ago. ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... you please," he returned, with a shrug of the shoulders. "I will not ask you to keep a look-out for me, because I can do that quite well from the windows of the captain's cabin; and," looking round, "I do not think you can do any mischief up here. You are sure you will not come ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... he was going on, and I fancied that he tried to shrug his shoulders, but found the rock in the way. His practical reply, however, was to slowly back out. When he was able to stand up again, he said he believed he had seen the end of the cavern, and would like me to take another look. I now realized that if ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... his shoulders in a kind of half-shrug. It was at once a gesture of relief and of dismissal, so without more ado I said, "If there's nothing further you want, I'll make off now. If you want me any time I'll be pottering around ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... about him, thank you. And it was that beautiful boy, Olaf, that young-eyed cherub, who developed into a musty old man who wrote musty old books, and lived a musty, dusty life all by himself, and never married or had any fun at all! How horrid, Olaf!" she cried, with a queer shrug of distaste. ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... ladder running up beside the iron pillar through an opening in the roof, and Dick, with a shrug of the shoulders, complied. He emerged upon a small platform, apparently protruding into vacancy. Far underneath he saw the clearing, and two airplanes on the tarmac, the aviators looking like beetles from that height. He looked out to sea and saw no signs ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... dropping the glass; still, she did not start with unbecoming shrug as most people do, the instinctive movement of guarding against a stroke; the falling of her arms was the only abrupt motion, her head turning in the direction of the speaker with a grace as spontaneous as that we see in a fawn that glances back ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... my treasure, gentlemen," he told them, with a deprecating shrug. "I hadn't quite finished storing away the last shipment, when ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... "You shrug your shoulders, but tell me, how much has naturalism done to clear up life's really troublesome mysteries? When an ulcer of the soul—or indeed the most benign little pimple—is to be probed, naturalism can do nothing. 'Appetite and instinct' seem to be its sole motivation and rut ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... my dear creature," says the bishop, with a shrug, taking snuff; "but consider what a sinner King Solomon was, and in spite of a thousand ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Garnesk, with a hopeless little shrug. "I can't imagine anything, and I'm not above admitting that I know nothing. There is no use my pretending I can do anything for poor Miss McLeod when I ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... of cold water is what you want." Sophia Antonovna glanced up the grounds at the house and shook her head, then out of the gate at the brimful placidity of the lake. With a half-comical shrug of the shoulders, she gave the remedy up in the ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... In the eyes of the world, he had no power. Miners themselves did not realize that it was he alone who instigated the strike, and that their leaders had been his choice. Outwardly, Dennis O'Day had washed his hands of the whole affair. So long as he escaped legal responsibility, he would shrug his shoulders, and stand by to watch the fight. He could be eliminated without effecting the result. But Nora O'Day, who understood her father as no one else had ever understood him, saw his work here. She knew that for years he had been the ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... the sarcasm, and noticed it by one of those smiles so peculiar to him—a shake of the head and shrug of the shoulders, while he uttered "Que voulez-vous, Sire, chacun a son vingt Mars?" referring to the unexpected arrival of ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... with a slight shrug of the shoulders, "but I fear she will excite too much remark by her wild antics. I do not like to be ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... documents. The age was pedantic and half-educated, and had lost both its poetic inspiration and its faculty of humour; and I fear that these marvellous letters were read by the officials to whom they were addressed with a kind of stolid admiration, provoking neither the smile of amusement nor the shrug of impatience which are their ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... With a shrug of his shoulders Beaufoy turned on his heel. "Coward as well as bully," he began, but at a sign from their leader the troop gathered round, hemming him ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... Physiology proper, whose practical influence, though less obvious, is not, as I believe, less certain. I have heard educated men speak with an ill-disguised contempt of the studies of the naturalist, and ask, not without a shrug, "What is the use of knowing all about these miserable animals—what bearing has it on ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... me, and I was going to seize him anti throw him out of the window, when Don Antonio Grimaldi came in. When he heard what was the matter, he laughed and said, with a shrug of his shoulders, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... collars of gold, brush past him, and he knows them not. Gold collars ought to be saluted, but he does not do it; he does not say to them: "God loke yow Lordes!" But then his air is so absent, so strange, that instead of quarrelling with him people shrug their shoulders, and say: He is "a fole"; he is mad.[638] Mad! the word recurs again and again under his pen, the idea presents itself incessantly to his mind, under every shape, as though he were possessed by it: "fole," "frantyk," "ydiote!" ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... little shrug of her shoulders; then went and sat on the highest step of the familiar dais where she had posed for her picture, and waited a moment. He did not at once come to sit beside her as he had so often done—he stood opposite his easel, looking at ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... out after her,—"The top of the morning to you, Moggie. Have a care o' Gunderby Hill, young one. Robin Hood's dead and gwone, but there be takers yet in the vale of Bever. Jeanie looked at him as if to request a farther explanation, but, with a leer, a shuffle, and a shrug, inimitable (unless by Emery*), Dick turned again to the raw-boned steed which he was currying, and sung as he ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott |
