"Shirk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... farmer boy, a tiller of the soil, I liked the work—I never was a chap to shirk from toil. But I thought I'd choose a broader life (I must have been an ass). I took on in the Army—and now I'm ...
— Rhymes of the Rookies • W. E. Christian
... with the flour and then the salt. Rub into this the cold grease (which may be lard, cold pork fat, drippings) until there are no lumps left and no grease adhering to bottom of pan. This is a little tedious, but don't shirk it. Then stir in the water and work it with spoon until you have a rather stiff dough. Have the pan greased. Turn the loaf into it and bake. Test center of loaf with a sliver when you think it properly done. When no ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... think it a great pity that he had not settled himself ashore in a good city practice," continued Dr. Ferris. "He had a great knack at pleasing people and making friends, and he was always spoiling for want of work. I was ready enough to shirk my part of that, you may be sure, but if you start with a reasonably healthy set of men, crew and officers, and keep good discipline, and have no accidents on the voyage, an old-fashioned ship-master's kit of numbered doses is as good as anything on board ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... When Margaret heard the news, she turned white as a sheet; and at this triumph of British arms my joy was far outweighed, Mr. Faringfield's grief multiplied, by fears lest Philip, who we knew would shirk no danger, had met a fate similar to his commander's. But subsequent news told us that he was a prisoner, though severely wounded. We comforted ourselves with considering that he was like to receive good nursing from the French nuns of Quebec. And ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... soon, but make up your mind that you will do as much as possible, and make yourself so necessary to your employer that he will never let you go. You have been a good son to me, and I can truly say that I have never known you to shirk. Be as good in business, and I am sure ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... judgment to come by telling us that we are our own judgment here. The latter part of the statement is not the whole truth, but there is truth in it. The strain brings out the strength there is, but shirk it and we have weakness. Do as we like rather than do as we ought, and the price must be paid in loss of manhood. Everything we gain for selfishness we must ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... himself to be an honest man and will not shirk his part in the common cause"—the lame man tried to ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... did not shirk any of the other expeditions nor the garrison duty, but always marched with the foremost and retreated among the last. You ought to estimate from such considerations, those who live well and in order, and not hate a man for wearing his hair long. For habits of ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias
... is apt to be perplexing to the reader who looks for system or a definite and reasoned statement of doctrine; but his aphorisms are all the more fitted to impress readers who are not inclined to criticism, and might shirk an elaborate argument. It is difficult, accordingly, to select from him a series of propositions that would give a general idea of the complete transmutation of morality which he demands. So far as I can make out, there ...
— Recent Tendencies in Ethics • William Ritchie Sorley
... home, Patrasche; it is time thou didst rest, and I can quite well push in the cart by myself," urged Nello many a morning; but Patrasche, who understood him aright, would no more have consented to stay at home than a veteran soldier to shirk when the charge was sounding; and every day he would rise and place himself in his shafts, and plod along over the snow through the fields that his four round feet had left their print upon so ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... in the first place, that the Government of the United States does not shirk responsibility. It puts the code into the hands of its officers "for the government of all persons attached to the naval service," and is doubtless prepared to stand by the rules contained in it, as being in accordance with international ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... Planters or sons of planters, many of them men of fortune, soldiering was a hard task to which they only became reconciled by reflecting that it was "niddering" in gentlemen to assume voluntarily the discharge of duties and then shirk. The 8th, Colonel Kelly, was from the Attakapas—"Acadians," the race of which Longfellow sings in "Evangeline." A home-loving, simple people, few spoke English, fewer still had ever before moved ten miles from their natal cabanas; and the war to them was "a liberal ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... and had been so placed that poverty, even, such poverty as mine, was a curse to me. You know what I gave up because I feared that curse. Was I to be foiled at last, because such a creature as that wanted to shirk out of his bargain? I knew there would be some who would say I had been false. Hugh Clavering says so now, I suppose. But they never should say I had left him to die alone ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... bloated with clothes, but that northerly air, it seemed to be fingering our very skins. Yet there was hardly wind enough to fill the sail. Ricketty-rock, ricketty-rock, went the sweeps between the thole-pins, as we rowed to the fishing ground six miles or so away. Not one of us wished to shirk the heavy work. 'Twas indeed our only source of warmth. The sun was setting. The moon began to rise. The sea was all of a ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... sit like a giant above all human affairs for the next two decades, and the speech of Mars is blunt and plain. He will say to us all: "Get your houses in order. If you squabble among yourselves, waste time, litigate, muddle, snatch profits and shirk obligations, I will certainly come down upon you again. I have taken all your men between eighteen and fifty, and killed and maimed such as I pleased; millions of them. I have wasted your substance—contemptuously. Now, mark you, you ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... to be held the 12th of June. If it should shirk its responsibility, and not put a strong suffrage plank in its platform, pledging itself to use all its educational powers and all its party machinery to carry the amendment, then I shall have no respect for any woman who will speak or ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... I've helped to put away every man, woman and child that has died in this settlement since I was grown, and I ain't goin' to shirk my duty to Brother Thompson—not that I ever expected to do it for him." She babbled on, gently urging me from the room, where her presence was the last blinding ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... to her forthwith—by post; the usual expedient of those who shirk "scenes." He furthermore took the precaution to add that ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... Maker out. Work, the Titan; Work, the friend, Shaping the earth to a glorious end, Draining the swamps and blasting the hills, Doing whatever the Spirit wills— Rending a continent apart, To answer the dream of the Master heart. Thank God for a world where none may shirk— Thank God for the ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... workwoman will not encumber herself with too many tools; but she will not shirk the expense of necessary implements, the simplest by preference, and the ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... horror at some of the names chosen to serve on committees. "If a secretary proves inefficient, the others will very soon call her a 'slacker,' and she will have to reform or resign. It will be a question of public opinion. A girl may shirk her lessons in school and her classmates don't much care, but if she shirks the work she has undertaken to do for a society they will be very indignant. These clubs are an elementary object-lesson in community life, ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... here to face calmly the necessity of doing away with a human life. I didn't shirk it for a moment. That's what a short twelvemonth has brought me to. Don't think I am reproaching you, O blind force! You are justified because you are. Whatever had to happen you would not even have ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... had succeeded in putting an end to neighborly interference, the nest began to show a deplorable disinclination to "stay put." Whether the material could not be properly fastened, or whether the bird was so demoralized as to shirk ordinary precautions, the fact is, that every breeze shook the little structure, and four completed nests of this unnatural sort fell, one after another, in ruins to the ground. Then motherly instinct came to the ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... was my duty. Not many people do their duty in this world, but though I'm a very poor man, I won't shirk it—no, I won't shirk it.' He rubbed his hands together slowly, and nodded across the hearth to his niece. Instead of being pleased, as she ought to have been, with this announcement, she gave a quick little shiver. 'My brother John—your father, ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... possessed. It must be owned, and no one was more ready to confess it than himself, that his literary attainments were by no means of a high order. "We don't spin tops" is a favorite saying amongst artillery officers, indicating that they do not shirk their duty by frivolous pursuits; but it must be confessed that Servadac, being naturally idle, was very much given to "spinning tops." His good abilities, however, and his ready intelligence had carried him successfully through the curriculum ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... with all other forms of work [Roosevelt wrote years after], so on the round-up, a man of ordinary power, who nevertheless does not shirk things merely because they are disagreeable or irksome, soon earns his place. There were crack riders and ropers, who, just because they felt such overweening pride in their own prowess, were not really very valuable men. Continually on the circles a cow or a calf would ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... slipshod, evasive, hypocritical work? Can you afford to shirk, or make-believe or practise pretense in any act of life? No, no; for all the time you are molding yourself into a deformity, and drifting away from the Divine. What the world does and says about you is really no matter, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... been more rapid than in Kansas, yet I do not lose sight of the fact that thousands of foreigners are each year added to the voting population, whose ballots in the aggregate defeat the will of our enlightened, American-born citizens. Besides, it is a too convenient way for a legislature to shirk its own responsibility. If the demand is made, I hope it may be done in connection with that for ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... WEMYS, VAUGHANS,—half-fledged sinners, Who shame us by their imitations; Who turn, 'tis true—but what of that? Give me the useful peaching Rat; Not things as mute as Punch, when bought, Whose wooden heads are all they've brought; Who, false enough to shirk their friends, But too faint-hearted to betray, Are, after all their twists and bends, But souls in Limbo, damned half way. No, no, we nobler vermin are A genus useful as we're rare; Midst all the things miraculous Of which your natural histories brag, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... they're not in your line, and I know you hate them. But you're dead right. I dare say I'll tell you something that will astonish you before long. But I'm not doing anything to be ashamed of. I haven't made any mistake; and if I had, I shouldn't shirk the payment." ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... the worst term of reproach that can be applied to a sailor. It signifies a skulk, a shirk,— one who is always trying to get clear of work, and is out of the way, or hanging back, when duty is to be done. "Marine'' is the term applied more particularly to a man who is ignorant and clumsy about seaman's work,— a greenhorn, a land-lubber. ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... and make them more devoted to their rulers. It is, therefore, not surprising that the Jews, trained in the spirit of a century-long repressive legislation, have remained in the category of those subjects, who are less accurate in the discharge of their civic duty, who shirk their obligations towards the State, and do not fully join Russian life. No less than six hundred and fifty restrictive laws directed against the Jews may be enumerated in the Russian Code, and the discriminations and disabilities ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... abstain; be temperate, and pray; Fast if thou wilt; and yet, throughout the day, Neglect no labour and no duty shirk: Not many hours are left thee for thy work - And it were meet That all should ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... slave is seen in the light of history to be the dearest kind of labor. It was frequently said after the war that the emancipated Negro would be worthless as a laborer; that he was naturally lazy, shiftless, and a shirk, and that he would relapse into a vagabond. But, as a matter of fact, far more good work has been done in the South since the war than before, and for the most part the Negro has done it. Great crops of cotton, sugar, rice, tobacco, corn, and other staples have been raised and marketed; ...
— The American Missionary - Vol. 44, No. 3, March, 1890 • Various
... of the kind that'll shirk on me when my back's turned, or steal from me if he gets a chance, or betray any trust I put in him. He's as poor as blue-John and as proud as Lucifer, but he's as straight as the barrel of that old gun. He's got Kentucky blood in him, ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... annoyance. May I not rely wholly upon you, Stewart? Just trust you to manage these obstreperous cowboys and protect my property and Alfred's, and take care of us—of me, until this revolution is ended? I have never had a day's worry since I bought the ranch. It is not that I want to shirk my responsibilities; it is that I like being happy. May I put so much faith ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... beings are so ill-treated is due absolutely to the cupidity of one man, and to the apathy of the rest of the world. And it is due as much to the apathy and indifference of whoever may read this as to the silence of Elihu Root or Sir Edward Grey. No one can shirk his responsibility by sneering, "Am I my brother's keeper?" The Government of the United States and the thirteen other countries have promised to protect these people, to care for their "material and moral ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... in the world of man, no one can live without occupation. Lack of sufficiently worthy work is one of the crying evils of our day, among both boys and girls. Every thing is done to make labor less, or to turn it completely into pleasure,—to shirk it, or to scorn it. The sewing-machine has made the good sewer a phenomenon. Our grandmothers used to rip their dresses and linings with sharp scissors: a good jump from a carriage will send us right out of a modern costume. Teachers learn the lessons now, and the pupils take notes ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... the free men of England should no longer be seized by the King's special mandate or warrant, it being contrary to their rights and liberties and the laws of their country. At first the King returned an answer to this petition, in which he tried to shirk it altogether; but, the House of Commons then showing their determination to go on with the impeachment of Buckingham, the King in alarm returned an answer, giving his consent to all that was required of him. He not only afterwards departed from his word ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... pay the rent. I should have liked to tell her this, but the mystery of the affair gave a piquancy to their deed of kindness which the ladies were unwilling to give up; and at first Martha had to shirk many a perplexed question as to her ways and means of living in such a house, but by-and-by Miss Matty's prudent uneasiness sank down into acquiescence with the ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... become entirely dependent on her. But though she loved and admired him, she no longer relied on him, as she had once done; he had a queer way of failing her at the big moments of life, and now, to-day, she felt it too bad of him to shirk the moment of Godfrey Radmore's return. His presence would have made everything easier, for he had never admitted either to himself or her, that Godfrey had behaved in ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... have much to do," he said to himself, as he noted the big face look up and meet his eye through the glass. "There is something I cannot shirk—a vital relation out of the past of both ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... traditions, are able to respect those of other nations. Internationalism is an understanding between the decadent elements in each country—the conscientious objectors, the drawing-room Socialists, the visionaries—who shirk the realities of life and, as the Socialist Karl Kautsky in a description of Idealists has admirably expressed it, "see only differences of opinion and misapprehension where there are actually irreconcilable antagonisms." This is why at times of crisis ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... if they are working well and their crop promises to be large, he will permit and even encourage them to draw upon him liberally; it is only a partial failure of the crop, or some intimation of the negro's intention to shirk his obligations, that induces his country factor to preach the virtue of self-restraint, or moralize upon the advantages ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... the young nobleman continued, "the Miss Rackstraws came out quite strong; really they did now, upon my honour. It was quite a quiet thing. Lady Merriborough hadn't even got a new gown on. Lady Anne, you shirk London society this year, and we miss you: we expected you to give us two or three things this season; we did now, really. I said to Tufthunt, only yesterday, Why has not Lady Anne Newcome given anything? You know Tufthunt? ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... want to shirk; you want to leave me to get out of the mess for myself. Oh, of course, you're not legally involved; I am aware of that; you can leave the sinking ship if you ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... notice that he was posted a member of the Council General of the Commune. After standing as candidate for four months, he had been elected unopposed, after several ballots, by some thirty suffrages. No one voted nowadays; the Sections were deserted; rich and poor alike only sought to shirk the performance of public duties. The most momentous events had ceased to rouse either enthusiasm or curiosity; the newspapers were left unread. Out of the seven hundred thousand inhabitants of the capital Evariste doubted if as many as three or four thousand still ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... into these people's minds that they could shirk this care that had fallen on them. To keep Morely's fall a secret would save his wife from terrible grief and pain, and would give the poor broken man a better chance to retrieve the past; and kept from her it must be, at whatever cost ...
— Stephen Grattan's Faith - A Canadian Story • Margaret M. Robertson
... time, but neither his intelligence nor disposition corresponded to his outward appearance; he was at once violent and feeble, indolent, narrow-minded, and sensual, and was easily swayed by his courtiers and mistresses. The idea of a war had no attractions for him, and he was inclined to shirk it. His uncle Artabanus exhorted him to follow his inclination for peace, and he lent a favourable ear to his advice until his cousin Mardonius remonstrated with him, and begged him not to leave the disgrace of Marathon ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... fitted?' 'Well, it would have been cowardly to back out. We borrow the ideas of these Frenchmen, of association as opposed to competition, as the true law of industry and of organizing labor—of securing the laborer's position by organizing production and consumption—and it would be cowardly to shirk the name. It is only fools who know nothing about the matter, or people interested in the competitive system of trade, who believe or say that a desire to divide other people's property is of the essence of Socialism.' 'That may be very true, but nine-tenths of mankind, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... you going to do about this? It is largely your business. You cannot shirk it and say that you send the boy to school, and it is the teacher's business to ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... Who has not at some time or other lain sleepily in bed of a morning and gone through in thought the processes of getting up, until a louder call or an alarum bell has awakened the realisation that the task is not yet begun? Who has not been tempted to shirk practice of some sort in thinking of a prize? Who has not sometimes built expectation higher and higher until his demands of fate have become so great that, in despair of making good, he has let the whole plan slip away into the valley ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... many I have been obliged to shirk this year, for the sake of living almost solely with "Cecilia," none have had less patience with my retirement than Miss Palmer, who, bitterly believing I intended never to visit her again, has forborne sending ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... of his brethren at every street-corner!" continued she. "Well; I didn't mean to dabble in witchcraft to-day, further than the lighting of my pipe; but a witch I am, and a witch I'm likely to be, and there's no use trying to shirk it. I'll make a man of my scarecrow, were it only for the ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... Curlew' in ten days," Raed remarked. "And I don't think we had better leave here, to go off any great distance, till we feel sure she's not coming back for us. If she's not back in two weeks, I shall think we have got to shirk for ourselves." ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... me on the mantel-block, There ticks a busy little clock— The measurer of time. It never stops or tries to shirk; Unceasingly it plies its work With ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... them, and in this regard it is lawful for man to possess property. Moreover this is necessary to human life for three reasons. First because every man is more careful to procure what is for himself alone than that which is common to many or to all: since each one would shirk the labor and leave to another that which concerns the community, as happens where there is a great number of servants. Secondly, because human affairs are conducted in more orderly fashion if each man is charged with taking care of some particular thing himself, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... against our sacred front They muster, miles on miles, I am resolved to stick the brunt," Said bold HORATIUS BYLES; "For Liberty I'll take my stand, Just like a stout Berserk, And still defend with bloody brand Our glorious Right to Shirk. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 12, 1916 • Various
... weather for travelling," said Bob Birnie tentatively. "I have not said it before, lad, but when ye own yourself a fool to take this way of making your fortune, ten thousand dollars will still be ready to start ye right. I've no wish to shirk ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... Drummond. Wing's carbine can be utilized. He can post Moreno down the gorge at the second bend to command that approach and put little McGuffey, the recruit, at the next bend to command Moreno and send a bullet through him if he shirk or swerve. ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... all relish the mission before him; he was, however, too manly to shirk it. Hence that evening, directly after dinner, he made his way to the mansion of Mr. Arthur Presby Carter, the wealthy owner of the Echo, Burmingham's most ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... is a duty I cannot shirk. I will consult the doctor about it. I will make him see that I both understand and shall insist upon my rights in this matter. But you may tell Miss Doris that I will sit out of sight, and that I shall not obtrude myself unless my name is brought up ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... the New York Academy. This disposition of my future suited me. A removal from my relatives would enable me to dispose of my time as I pleased, without fear of detection. As long as I paid my Academy fees, I might shirk attending the lectures, if I chose; and as I never had the remotest intention of standing an examination, there was no danger of my being "plucked." Besides, a metropolis was the place for me. There I could ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... loneliness. Even in the desert there was a world to consider. Vanity that had bled to death, pride that had been crushed, availed her not here. But something else came to her support. The lesson of the West had been to endure, not to shirk—to face an issue, not to hide. Carley got up, bathed, dressed, brushed and arranged her dishevelled hair. The face she saw in the mirror excited her amaze and pity. Then she went out in answer to the call for dinner. But she could ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... grant you," replied Dr. Cairn, "but a duty—a duty, boy, and one that we must not shirk. I, alone among living men, know whom, and what, lies there, and my conscience directs me in what I do. His end shall be that which he had planned for you. Give me ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... individual the average soldier is a sneak, a shirk, a failure, a coward. He is only valuable as he is licked into shape. It is pretty much the same in business. It seems hard to say it, but the average employe in factory, shop or store, puts the face of the clock to shame looking at it; ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... no intention of immediately using it. For the time being, the general rejoicing among the ladies made it possible for even a shirk like Gleason to be among them a good deal. They could talk of nothing but how splendid it was to be with the regiment, and how admirably this or that officer had behaved, and one would suppose that such conversation would have been galling to an able-bodied listener; ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... this appeal—or shall I say command- -was directed, flushed a fine colour under so many eyes, but immediately began her ingenuous tale. She had already related it a half dozen times into as many sympathising ears, but she was not one to shirk publicity, for all her retiring manners and ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... cowardly to shirk a duty. Perform your part in the struggle as becomes true Scouts—as becomes men who have been born and reared in ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston
... scorned the business, and Robt. M., would cut off his right hand, rather than engage in it. He only meant that other people should do what would degrade him. He was not a good citizen, and did not intend to be. As for his Reverence, he would shirk his Christian duties; would not pray by that lamppost, or any other lamp-post, for the success of slave-catchers. He had turned his back upon Paul, and had fallen from grace since preaching his famous sermon. The gentlemen ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... fell full upon her—upon a white, strained face with passionate, unkissed lips, and eyes that looked bravely into his, refusing to shirk the ultimate significance which ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... much for all of us I can't be mean enough to shirk any longer. I'll see Lizette to-morrow," she vowed, as the car stopped at her door. She stood for a moment on the steps looking after it before she went in. It had been only "common humanity" to send the girl ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston
... few deserters from the army—whom I might encounter at any turn in the road. The prospect was not alluring, yet a glance aside at the profile of Washington, now bending low over a mass of papers, instantly stiffened my resolve. It was work I had no excuse to shirk—indeed no inclination—so I returned Hamilton's ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... Charley with a smile. "I fear he will have to have his little lesson before he gets in that frame of mind. Walt," he continued earnestly, "I do not want the responsibility but I am not going to shirk it now that it is thrust upon me. Frankly, though, I can't help wishing that this trip was over and we were safe ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... fits the other one pat." Rap! Rap! Bang! "What a hideous clatter! Blaise seems determined to batter That poor old turkey into bits, And pound to jelly my excellent wits. Come, come, Martin, you mustn't shirk. 'The night cometh soon'—etc. Don't jerk Me up like that. 'Essence de la Valliere'— That has a charmingly Bourbon air. And, oh! Magnificent! Listen to this!— 'Vinaigre des Quatre Voleurs'. Nothing ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... be a secret unto itself; a clear, serene composure of truth, mingling so freely and smoothly with the issues of life, that while, and perhaps even because she is herself unconscious of it, she is never once tempted to abuse or to shirk her trust, though it be to play the attorney in a cause that makes so much against herself. In this respect she presents an instructive contrast to Malvolio, who has much virtue indeed, yet not so much but that ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... an unrestricted day Impediments admit. Work is not work To our employes, but a merry play; They do not ask the law's excuse to shirk. Ah, no, the canning season is at hand, When summer scents are on the air distilled, When golden fruits are ripening in the land, And silvery tins are gaping to be filled. Now to the cannery with jocund mien Before the dawn come ...
— Are Women People? • Alice Duer Miller
... every day This lazy boy would shirk, And never lift his hand to do A bit of useful work. His clothes were always on awry, His shoe-strings left untied, His hair uncombed, his teeth uncleaned, Alas, he had ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... of that, comrade," he faltered. "I was thinking I was going like some of our poor chaps; but I don't want to shirk. There, I'll ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... shiny in that pool— Throw in a stone, and you will hit the moon. Listen, the church-bell ringing! Do not say We must go back to-morrow to our work. We'll tell them we are dead: we died to-day. We're lazy. We're too happy. We will shirk. We're cows. We're kettles. We'll be anything Except the manikins of time and fear. We'll start away to-morrow wandering, And nobody will notice in a year.... Now the great sun is slipping under ground. Grip firmly!—How the ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... life thrown open to new, however vague, possibilities. At present he was convinced that Andrew Peak had done him a service. In this there was an indication of moral cowardice, such as commonly connects itself with intense pride of individuality. He desired to shirk the combat with Chilvers, and welcomed as an excuse for doing so the shame which another ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... my experiences has affected my judgment on the general morale of the educated young men of our country. In not a single case did I ever have an assistant who tried to shirk his duty to the government, nor do I think there was more than a single case in which one tried to contest my judgment of his own merits, or those of his work. I adopted the principle that promotion ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... with the old man; awkward! In short, my dear friend, my dear Bella," (Losely could be very coaxing when it was worth his while) "you just manage this for me. I have a fellow in the next room waiting to breakfast: as soon as breakfast is over I shall be off to the race-ground, and so shirk that ranting old bore; you'll call on him instead, and settle it somehow." He was out of the room before she ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... as to have even a taste for some sort of creative work, and to develop it; to express your own personality in something tangible, and to be encouraged to do so. Do understand me, Auntie and the rest; it isn't that I want to shirk, but I do want to specialize on what I do best! I'll wash dishes if it's ever necessary, but why must I wish a whole pantry on myself when either Burt or I could pay our proportionate share of a hotel dish-washer, or butler, or whatever ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various
... not think so, for he motioned away a bowl of the delightful mixture, though it was proffered him by the fair hands of Mrs. Mudge. The lady was somewhat surprised, and said, roughly, "I shouldn't wonder if he was only trying to shirk." ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... notice if there was aught in her manner to denote verification of the miserable gipsy's story. He would put an end to such feeling, if 'twere there. He sent word if he might see her for himself, and be assured her illness was not feigned, in order she might shirk the duty—like a wicked sister—of presenting her fair face for the enlightenment of the gloom that seemed about to penetrate, from ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... and much will rightfully be expected from us. We have duties to others and duties to ourselves; and we can shirk neither. We have become a great nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relations with the other nations of the earth, and we must behave as beseems a people with such responsibilities. Toward all other nations, large and small, our attitude must be one of ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... your advice, Simon," said this strong-minded old lady, in a hard, clear voice. "I dare say I sha'n't act upon it, but I want it all the same. I've no secrets from either of you; but as the head of the family I don't mean to shirk responsibility, and my opinion is, she must go. Susannah, no weakness. My dear, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Nina, run up-stairs again, we ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... painters, but we believe that poetry should render particulars exactly and not deal in vague generalities, however magnificent and sonorous. It is for this reason that we oppose the cosmic poet, who seems to us to shirk the real difficulties ...
— Some Imagist Poets - An Anthology • Richard Aldington
... "Shirk it? Why should I?" He stood aside to let her pass in. "I've nothing to be ashamed of. I don't wear the garment of respectability, but then I'm not stark naked. Every man clothes himself in some article of faith, virtue ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... you prefer to shirk it," he said. She flushed a little. "But I don't shirk. I'm not ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... content to trudge the road And willingly to draw my load— Sometimes to know the spur and goad When I begin to lag; I'd rather feel the collar jerk And tug at me, the while I work, Than all the tasks of life to shirk As ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest
... here, who cried if they were hit, were always eating cakes and sweet things, and sung out when they went to bed for the maid-servant to put on their night-caps; these sort of fellows are seldom worth much, either in school or out of it. They fudge their lessons and shirk their work at play; regular do-nothing Molly Milksops, ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... that class, in this country, who devote themselves to the high duties of their station, regardless of its pleasures, than in any other: men who recognize practically the responsibility of their rank, and do not shirk from them; men who think they have something to do, and something to repay, for the accidents of birth and fortune—who, in the senate, in the field, or in the less prominent, but not less noble, career of private life, act, as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... no wonder, then, that, with laborers, many of whom are disposed to shirk their duty, the last working is too often poorly and inefficiently done. With more reliable labor, such as is to be had in the Northern and border States, better ...
— The Peanut Plant - Its Cultivation And Uses • B. W. Jones
... I shirk the psychology of such a moment, for my belief is that the striking clocks struck out all power of thought and feeling, and that I played my poor part the better for that blessed surcease of intellectual sensation. On the other hand, I was never more alive to the purely ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... that the more eminent Shakespearian scholars in London had even an opportunity to look at it closely.[G] The attacks upon the genuineness of the writing on its margins Mr. Collier was at once too ready to regard as impeachments of his personal integrity, and to shirk by making counter-insinuations against the integrity of his opponents and the correctness of their motives. He attributes to the pettiest personal spite or jealousy the steps which they have taken in discharge ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... House was not to any of them the pleasantest of affairs, on those occasions when it was Mrs Grove's intention to distinguish herself, and astonish other people, by what she called a state dinner. Graeme, who was not apt to shirk unpleasant duties, made no secret of her dislike to them, and caught at any excuse to absent herself with an eagerness which Fanny declared to be anything but polite. But, sitting at table in full dress, among dull ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... no one at all who was used to speaking that knew the subject. The few who knew were either out of town or at a great distance. He did not know how to reach them in time. Besides, there was something about Michael that just would not let him shirk a situation no matter how trying it was to him. It was one of the first principles he had been taught with football, and before he reached his boarding place, his chin was up, and his lips firmly set. Anyone who knew him well would have felt ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... is unbefitting and a little cowardly for Duke Alessandro to shirk the duties of his station for verse-making and eternal pleasure-seeking. Now if I ...
— The Jewel Merchants - A Comedy In One Act • James Branch Cabell
... a week as mine have been 'arrowed, one can't feel thankful. I will send these 'ere things back by Jarvey. Well, ladies and gentlemen, let me bid you good evening. The performance 'as already begun and we professionals cannot shirk business." ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... embodied in the poetry of every language. Take the oak, for instance, and we find it always standing as a type of strength and endurance. I wonder if you ever thought of the single mark of supremacy which distinguishes this tree from all our other forest-trees? All the rest of them shirk the work of resisting gravity; the oak alone defies it. It chooses the horizontal direction for its limbs, so that their whole weight may tell,—and then stretches them out fifty or sixty feet, so that the strain may be mighty enough to be worth ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... said Dunn. "Look here, Teresa! Without knowing it, you lifted me out of hell just now; and because of the wrong I might have done her—for her sake, I spare you and shirk my duty." ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... play," he said, with a mixture of mischief and vexation in his tone. "Foster, don't shirk; you have taught Abbie, now go and help her fight it out like a man. Come, take yourself over there and get her out of this scrape. I'll take care of Ester; she looks as though she had ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... for the toast Of confidence before our guest, The loyal song, the manly boast Your splendid faith to manifest. In works of art and livelihood Shirk not the creed, "What's ours is good," Dread not to have ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... house. What a situation for a man!—for a philanthropist—for a lover of right and truth—for a magnificent designer and schemer! Not to dare to look in the face the Religion which he adored and which he had offended; to have to shirk down back lanes and alleys, so as to avoid the friend whom he loved and who had trusted him—to have the house which he had intended for his wife, whom he loved passionately, and for her ladyship's company which he wished to entertain ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... an erring sinner's state, Which is useful in removing All the ills of human fate; If there's any glorious custom Which our faults can dissipate, And can casually thrust 'em Out of sight and make us great; It's the plan by which we shirk Half our matu-ti-nal work, The glorious institution of always ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... blunted her sensibilities. As usual with the strongest natures in their hours of depression—and none so strong as to escape these—she could then look for no help except from herself. Those accustomed, like her, to shirk no responsibility, no burden, to invite others to lean on them, and to ask no support, if their fortitude gives way find the allowance, help and sympathy so easily accorded to their weaker fellow-creatures nowhere ready for them. The exclamation wrung from one of the characters ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... man to shirk responsibilities. It is true, dark days had come to him, when a crushing burden had well-nigh smothered him, and a bullet to still his fevered brain had seemed far sweeter to Paul than all else life might hold for him. But Paul was strong and young. He learned his lesson well—that Time cures all ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... oak, throw their limbs out from the trunk horizontally. As Dr. Holmes says: "The others shirk the work of resisting gravity, the oak defies it. It chooses the horizontal direction for its limbs so that their whole weight may tell, and then stretches them out fifty or sixty feet so that the strain may be mighty enough to be worth resisting." Some trees have limbs which ...
— Arbor Day Leaves • N.H. Egleston
... Law I must request Less noise while we're having a well-earned rest. For the Judge and the Usher never must shirk A well-earned rest in the middle of work. It's the duty of both they are well aware To preserve their precious lives with care; It's their duty, when feeling overwrought, To preserve their lives ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... with her in the night. She had given me her confidence about her family affairs because she counted me as a new ally, however ineffective, coming in unexpectedly to fight against the Jervaises. She had acknowledged my worship of her because she was too clear-sighted and too honest to shirk my inevitable declaration. But I could not doubt that she rated me as unworthy of her serious attention. Her whole attitude proclaimed that her one instant of reaching out towards me had been a mistake; one of the many impulses ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... this; for, though well aware he could take no advantage of his resolution, and that if nothing was done to correct the effect of it, a great deal of excitement would be produced in the colony, he nevertheless tried to shirk the question when asked by John Russell to say distinctly what he meant to do, and showed that his only object was to create a difficulty, whatever might be the consequences, and to exhibit himself to the country as the successful asserter of ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... keenly awake. A tapping, metallic sound at once arose either upon his chair or Viola's, and the horn, or whatever it was, floated dimly into view, then vanished, and a moment later the voice of the chief "control" entered his right ear: "Man of science, do not shirk your duty. Here now we offer you a chance to solve the great ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... fashionable summer attire, and accompanied by a young lady of some charms. Reardon had formerly feared encounters of this kind, too conscious of the defects of his attire; but at present there was no reason why he should shirk social intercourse. He was passably dressed, and the half-year of travel had benefited his appearance in no slight degree. Carter presented him to the young lady, of whom the novelist had already heard as affianced ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... world the morning-dew Moved like a hymn and sang to us: "Go now, fulfill Your destiny and joy; Each in the other, both in that Italian boy, And he in you, like flowers in a hill!" ... She was the nearness of imperfect God On whom in her perfection was at work. Lest I should shirk My share, I asked her for His blessing and His nod— And His breath was in her shining hair like the wind ...
— The New World • Witter Bynner
... he had to accede to Mr. McKinley's request that he should go back and become Secretary of State. He knew the work would be too much for him, and told me so quite simply and unaffectedly, but he was never a man to shirk a duty. During his term of office, he and I were constantly in touch with each other by letter. Though Hay did not write long letters, he contrived in his short notes to say many poignant things,—often in the form ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... stupidity, and even vice and virtue on an equality in point of comfort. For the rest, if property is impossible on account of the desire to accumulate, communism would soon become so through the desire to shirk. ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... Doctor Hugh had discovered, was morally not very brave. She was afraid of people and though the Willis will was as strong in her as in any of the others, she would not come out openly and demand her way. Rather Sarah would do as she pleased and shirk the consequences wherever possible. The doctor had had several little talks with her on this subject of fear and he was gradually teaching her to acknowledge her mistakes and wrong doings and patiently explaining at every opportunity the rules ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... social, less interested in my neighbors and in the body politic, more inclined to shirk civic and social responsibilities and to stop my ears against the brawling of the reformers, is ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... of all, good comrade," I observed pleasantly to the tripping presence at my elbow, "is that these countrymen of yours who shirk to climb a flight of steps, and have palms as soft as rose petals, these wide ways paved with stones as ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... west of the mountain range and every spur its gun. And many a rickety son of a gun, on the tides of the future tossed, Will tell how battles were really won that History says were lost, Will trace the field with his pipe, and shirk the facts that are hard to explain, As grey old mates of the diggings work the old ground over again — How 'this was our centre, and this a redoubt, and that was a scrub in the rear, And this was the point where the guards held out, and ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... consideration. She should be known to be honest, honorable, competent, healthy, and personally clean in habits and dress, and she should be tactful, obliging, and she should attend to her own affairs strictly. She should not be a gossip; she should not shirk her work or pry into family affairs that do not concern her; and she should not drag into the conversation her own personal or ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... a right to expect of the American boy is that he shall turn out to be a good American man. Now the chances are strong that he won't be much of a man unless he is a good deal of a boy. He must not be a coward or a weakling, a bully, a shirk, or a prig. He must work hard and play hard. He must be clean-minded and clean lived, and able to hold his own against all comers. It is only on these conditions that he will grow into the kind of American man of whom America ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... which the fit have to bear has often been referred to by Dr. MacGregor, who states in one of his reports, "Wives and husbands, parents of bastards, all alike are encouraged by lavish charity (falsely so called) to entirely shirk their responsibilities in the well grounded assurance that public money will be forth-coming to keep them and their families in quite as comfortable position as ...
— The Fertility of the Unfit • William Allan Chapple
... worse position, and compelled to meet it as I best might; for this was one of the necessities of an office which I had voluntarily taken on my shoulders, and beneath which I might be crushed by no moral delinquency on my own part, but could not shirk without cowardice and shame. My subsequent fortune was various. Once, though I felt it to be a kind of imposture, I got a speech by heart, and doubtless it might have been a very pretty one, only I forgot every syllable at the moment of need, and had to improvise another as well as I could. I ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Billy, when he'd done, "and now you'll please to work, I read the Bible often—but I don't my duty shirk, The pumps they are not choked yet, nor do we yet despair, When all is up or we are saved, we'll join with you ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... public charity or dependent on her widowed sister, who is too proud to see her go to the poor house; and this is just the trouble with a lot of people; they not only have their own burdens to bear but somebody else's. You may call me an old fogy, but I would rather live cheap and dress plain than shirk my burdens because I had wasted when they had saved. You and John Hanson are both young and have got your health and strength, and instead of buying sealskins, and velvets and furbelows, you had better be laying up for a rainy day. You have no more need for a sealskin cloak ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... want of me," answered Oswyn shrewdly. "You said in your note that it was on a matter of vital importance to a friend of mine. I haven't so many friends that I can afford to shirk a little trouble in a matter which vitally concerns one of them. May I ask, in the first place, who is ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... mean a fight," agreed the French captain, "but an officer of the French army will not shirk an ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... because you want to shirk the truth. You're almost glad—presently you will be very glad. You never did want to care—not from the first. Caring got in your way. You will be free now." She waited, and then added very quietly, without anger: "I love you. I ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... lick o' work I strike, 'Long about this time of year! I'm a sort-uh slowly like, Right when Ingin summer's here. Wife and boys kin do the work; But a man with natchel wit, Like I got, kin 'ford to shirk, Ef he has a ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... leisure, loneliness and love. Wish I could take you; but fame travels fast,— A man of much newspaper-paragraph, You scare domestic circles; and beside Would not you like your lot, that second taste Of nature and approval of the grounds! You might walk early or lie late, so shirk Week-day devotions: but stay Sunday o'er, And morning church is obligatory: No mundane garb permissible, or dread The butler's privileged monition! No! Pack off to Paris, nor wipe tear away!' Whereon how artlessly ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... out a large frying-pan, the one utensil which shared with his "billy" the privilege of supplying him with a means of cooking his food. The work he was engaged upon was something of a strain. It seemed so unnecessary. Still, the process was his habit of years, so he did not attempt to shirk it. But he looked up with relief when he heard voices, and a glad smile of welcome greeted Jim and ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... accepted, even though they entail national sacrifice, because laid at the nation's door, like Cuba, or forced upon its decision, like the Philippines. I see too clearly in myself the miserable disposition to shirk work and care, and responsibility, to condone the same in nations. I once heard a preacher thus parody effectively the words of the prophet—"Here am I, send him!" And I have heard attributed to the late Mr. John Hay an equally telling allusion to certain of our ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... it calls loudly to every parent and every teacher for a solution. The health and happiness of the coming generations depend upon the right education of the present one, and this responsibility the home and the school can neither shirk nor shift. We take great unction to ourselves for the excellence of the horses, pigs, and cattle that we have on exhibition at the fairs, but are silent as to our failures in the form of children, that drag out a half-life in our hospitals. In one state it costs ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... had retired to the Isle of Skye; and on being applied to, knew no more of the West Diddlesex Association than Queen Anne did. General Sir Dionysius O'Halloran had abruptly quitted Dublin, and returned to the republic of Guatemala. Mr. Shirk went into the Gazette. Mr. Macraw, M.P. and King's Counsel, had not a single guinea in the world but what he received for attending our board; and the only man seizable was Mr. Manstraw, a wealthy navy contractor, ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... gentlemen's parks near Lunnun, where they make mountains just to look at; that must be much of a muchness with these here chaps. I never drift far from Wappin', when I'm at home, and so I can't say I've seen these artifice hills, as they calls them, myself; but there's one Joseph Shirk, that lives near St. Katharine's Lane, that makes trips regularly into the neighborhood, who gives quite a ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of thing is not at all to be wondered at. It has gone on since the dawn of time with college theses, clergymen's sermons, the orations and official papers of statesmen. Whenever a man is confronted with an intellectual task that he dare not shirk, and yet has not the intellect or the interest to perform, the first thing he thinks of is to hire some one to do it for him, and this demand has always been great enough and widespread enough to make it profitable for some one to organise the supply on a commercial basis. What interests ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... a number of short treatises, indicating certain laws and principles which Mary thought needed to be more generally understood and more firmly established. That a woman should not shirk the functions, either physical or moral, of maternity; that artificial manners and exterior accomplishments should not be cultivated in lieu of practical knowledge and simplicity of conduct; that matrimony is to ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... But such expressions often spring from pure selfishness, and sometimes exhibit a sinful disregard for the happiness of other people. Nothing makes it right to ease yourself at the expense of others, or to shirk burdens by shifting them to other shoulders. Some are clever at that, but such action may be positively sinful. On the other hand, God can deliver us from that anxious care and foreboding and unrest with which so many good ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... forget that when I ask you to do all this, I, who am not given to practising deception, am asking you to go on practising yours. I am urging you to shirk the consequences of your wrong-doing—to enjoy in the world an untarnished name after you have tarnished your life. Do not think I forget that! Still I beg you to do as I say. This is another of the humiliations you have led me to: that although I am ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... a good or bad educational center. It does its work in spite of every effort to shirk or supplement it. No teacher can entirely undo what it does, be that good or bad. The natural joyous opening of a child's mind depends on its first intimate relations. These are, as a rule, with the mother. It is the mother who "takes an interest," who ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... contributed something toward it. Those who had wherewithal to give in money or kind, had given. Those who had nothing else to give gave their labor. She guessed the present onlookers had already done their share of giving, and were now there to see that their less fortunate brethren did not attempt to shirk their responsibilities. ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... thoroughly, and by an honest pride in their community as a whole. The members of a decaying community are, for the most part, languid and indolent; their very gestures are dawdling and slouching, the opposite of smart. They shirk work when they can do so, and scamp what they undertake. A prosperous community is remarkable for the variety of the solid interests in which some or other of its members are eagerly engaged, but the questions that agitate a decadent community are for ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... her how little she had got from him, she heard the roll of his coach wheels whirling him back again to Dublin. I believe few doctors grow so accustomed to the ghastly eclaircissement as not very willingly to shirk ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... he said; "your friend looks as if he needed it badly. We want every man we can get," he added; "there's terrible work before us, and nobody should shirk. If you can do no more, you can carry ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a short, thin cry and moved as if to go to the fallen girl, but just then he saw Hamilton's sword pass over again into his right hand, and knew that there was no time for anything but death or fight. The good priest did not shirk what might have made the readiest of soldiers nervous. Hamilton was known to be a great swordsman and proud of the distinction. Father Beret had seen him fence with Farnsworth in remarkable form, touching him at will, and in ministering to the men in the fort he had heard them talk of the Governor's ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... you, Miss Pat," said Elinor, the day before the party, "is that you know when to stop. I simply haven't accomplished a thing the last two days, and yet I couldn't have the courage to shirk the Academy. You stay away joyously, and ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... of bacteriology a micro-organism is to blame for appendicitis. If this were true it would relieve humanity of all responsibility. There is a disposition on the part of man to shirk responsibility and the germ theory is not the first theory of vicarious atonement that he has spun. Those who wish to shirk all kinds of responsibility by adopting the germ theory and by making micro-organisms the scape-goat may do so, but I would advise all sensible people to keep in ...
— Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment • John H. Tilden, M.D.
... said, "and I can't help thinking that it is just as well. One cannot shirk his responsibilities, Harry, and you are an Alton—of Carnaby. You see, nobody could take your inheritance from you, nor, though you did your best, could you give it away, and there is, I fancy, only one meaning to that. Fate ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... moved his hand convulsively. "Don't you worry, padre," he said faintly; "I've been—confirmed." The lips tightened a second with pain, and then: "Reckon I won't—shirk. Have ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... courage in holding on," one of them said. "The march was nothing to us seasoned men, but it must have been trying to you, especially as your feet cannot have recovered from yesterday. I see that you will make a good soldier, and one who will not shirk his work. Another week, and you will march as well as the ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... young sir!" said the Iron King, speaking hoarsely, faintly, yet with strong determination. "Do you call yourself a soldier or a shirk? Let me tell you that it is the first duty of a soldier to obey orders, at all times, under all circumstances, and at all costs! If you had been a married man, and your wife had been dying—if you had been a father, ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... do a thing Is do it when you can, And do it cheerfully, and sing And work and think and plan. The only real unhappy one Is he who dares to shirk; The only really happy one Is he ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum
... said Mrs Jefferson, rallying her energies, "but we should not shirk its consideration for that reason. I quite agree with Madame Zairoff that people don't think half seriously enough of their real natures, the mysterious inner something which we all feel we possess, ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... exchange would make an excellent subject for the artist. He delights to paint us a row of Venetian bead stringers or a band of Sevilhan cigarette makers, but why does he shirk a bevy of industrious girls working a telephone exchange? Let us peep into one of these retired haunts, where the modern Fates are cutting and joining the lines of electric speech between man and man in a ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... the result would be a bath, which they bore with fortitude, for fear of getting Anne into further trouble. They even made good resolutions about washing themselves, which they kept for a few days; then, however, they began to shirk again, and had again to be scrubbed. The resolutions of a child must be shored up by kindly supervision, otherwise it is hardly likely that they will cement ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... said Chaffery. "There's truths you have to grow into. But about this matter of Lies—let us look at the fabric of society, let us compare the savage. You will discover the only essential difference between savage and civilised is this: The former hasn't learnt to shirk the truth of things, and the latter has. Take the most obvious difference—the clothing of the civilised man, his invention of decency. What is clothing? The concealment of essential facts. What is decorum? Suppression! I don't argue against decency and decorum, ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... to find in her a powerful ally. It was only natural for him to think this. Ever since the beginning, men have assigned to women the role of the dissuader, the drag, the hinderer. It is always the woman, tradition tells us, who persuades the man to be a coward, to stay at home, to shirk a difficult ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... very hopeful of success. In this state business men are generally satisfied, and your support is so strong that, even if inclined, the Conkling Republicans will not dare oppose or shirk the contest. I hear different stories about Conkling, but believe that in due time he will do what he can, though his influence is greatly overrated. A too active support by him would excite the prejudices of hosts of people here who are ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... our work be heavy, we shirk From nothing beneath the sun; And toil is sweet to those who can eat And rest when the day is done. In the Sabbath-time we hear no chime, No sound of the Sunday bells; But yet Heaven smiles on the forest aisles, And God in the woodland dwells. We listen to notes ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... dear, if any ill consequences arise from this piece of folly of yours, remember, I shirk ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... cried a good deal, and begged me to be prudent and not overtax my strength; and then she talked about you, and hoped I should help you as much as possible, as though I meant to shirk any part of my duty. I do not think she really disapproved, only she seemed nervous and timid about it; but I ask you, Esther, how I could help offering my services, when Mrs. Smedley told me about the neglected state of the parish, and how few ladies ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... emperor you scorn, Seems to my mind a monarch born, Worthy to lead a column; I'll warrant he could talk and work, And, neither being used to shirk, Was rarely ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... "I sometimes 'lows thet what ye read me outen ther old book kinderly kindled some fret inside me.... Hit's es ef ther blood of ther old-timers was callin' out an' warnin' me thet I kain't suffer myself ter shirk ... or mebby hit's ther way old Hump and ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... candidate for Parliament, and the Government was warned that it was alienating its best friends. The Pall Mall Gazette voiced the general feeling. "What is the evidence that an Oaths Bill would injure the Government in the country? Of one thing we may be sure, that if they shirk the Bill they will do no good to themselves at the elections. Nobody doubts that it will be made a test question, and any Liberal who declines to vote for such a Bill will certainly lose the support of ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant |
