"Shrink" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who can manage, like the man who can fight, must never shrink from an encounter. The knight must not ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the youth a look from under his bent brows, that made the young man shrink back in his chair, but in a moment the unpleasant expression went off, and a quiet smile stole over ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... should not agree," said the son, gently. "It is a pity that as a family our interests are so divided; but others have placed their interests against kith and kin, and, if duty called, I should have to do the same. I own that at present I shrink from the call, as the forces seem concentrated near my sister Annie's home. I wish she would come north, but that cannot be expected while her husband is in danger. He has command of an important position, but Sherman ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... looked around with staring eyes. It was a young man who thus addressed her: he was grasping her arm and looking savagely at her. Evidently he was some relative, of whom she stood in awe, for with something like a gasp she seemed to shrink into herself, and then, gathering her clothes about her, slunk away ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... station. What a stroke of genius! a perambulating public assembling. This idea came to him from seeing a harpist make the trip from Havre to Honfleur, playing 'Il Bacio' all the time. Ah, one must look alive! The prefect does not shrink from any way of fighting us. Did he not spread through one of our most Catholic cantons the report that we were Voltairians, enemies to religion and devourers of priests? Fortunately, we have yet four Sundays before us, from now until the voting-day, and ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... claw and one side of the lad's clothes was literally stripped from him, though he had managed to shrink back just far enough to save himself from the needle like claws of ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... of late To shrink from happy boyhood—boys Have grown so noisy, and I hate A noise. They fright me when the beech is green, By swarming up its stem for eggs; They drive their horrid hoops between My legs. It's idle to repine, I know; I'll tell you ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... indeed, always, but with extreme respect for their endurance and orderliness. Among flowers that pass away, and leaves that shake as with ague, or shrink like bad cloth,—these, in their sturdy growth and enduring life, we are bound to honour; and, under the green holly, remember how much softer friendship was failing, and how much of other loving, folly. And yet—you are ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... accession will allow Vietnam to take advantage of the phase out of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing, which eliminated quotas on textiles and clothing for WTO partners on 1 January 2005. Agriculture's share of economic output has continued to shrink, from about 25% in 2000 to 20% in 2006. Deep poverty, defined as a percent of the population living under $1 per day, has declined significantly and is now smaller than that of China, India, and the Philippines. Vietnam is working to promote ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... present counsellors, as wise, energetic, and effective war ministers? In conclusion, he said, that if ministers really deserved confidence, they would not resist inquiry, as no man, conscious of an able and upright discharge of his duty, would shrink from an investigation into his actions. Pitt allowed that some of the subjects proposed by Fox were of the highest importance; but he objected to inquiry as being incompatible with other parliamentary business. Part of the proposer's objects, also, he said, were inexpedient and unreasonable; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... what the gallant Greek men kept their wives under, hence this custom too is here slyly justified out of a woman's mouth. And thus it goes on throughout the pages of Euripides. Iphigenia, in one of the two plays devoted to her, declares: "Not that I shrink from death, if die I must,—when I have saved thee; no, indeed! for a man's loss from his family is felt, while a woman's is of little moment." In the other she declares that one man is worth a myriad of Women—[Greek: ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... to the names which the respectable part of mankind agrees to hold in honour: foul imputations against the honesty of the Clergy:—this is all their method! The favourite cant of these writers is, that no one should shrink from free discussion, or fear the results of Criticism. Why then do not they themselves criticize? Why do not they reason? Charity herself after weighing these Essays carefully has no alternative but to assume that the Authors either have not the courage, or that they lack the ability, to ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... After returning from seeing his cousin off at the station, he had been with my lady, holding a long conversation with her. She had told him of Miss Rachel's unaccountable refusal to let her wardrobe be examined; and had put him in such low spirits about my young lady that he seemed to shrink from speaking on the subject. The family temper appeared in his face that evening, for the first time in my ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... shrink in fear of his life; and despite her fury she was filled with disgust that he could imagine she would have his blood on her hands. Then she divined that Bruce saw more in the gathering storm in her father's eyes than he had to ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... fine lady, as she pauses in her toilette to admire the effect of the beautiful locks, for which she is indebted to her wealth rather than to nature, would shrink in horror from the glittering coils, could she know their whole story. ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... with a dejected countenance, said, "I had rather you had been in your beds." But they still pressing upon him to know something, he said, "I will tell you; I am assured that my warfare is near at an end, and therefore pray to God with me, that I shrink not when the battle waxeth ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... strolling up and down it when Mr. Flexen, pondering the information which he had obtained from William Roper, saw her and came out to her. He thought that she shrank a little at the sight of him, but assured himself that it must be fancy; surely there could be no reason why she should shrink from him. ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... and it's astonishing how they sometimes deceive the sharpest calculation! I—listen to an old man—am speaking seriously, Rodion Romanovitch" (as he said this Porfiry Petrovitch, who was scarcely five-and-thirty, actually seemed to have grown old; even his voice changed and he seemed to shrink together) "Moreover, I'm a candid man... am I a candid man or not? What do you say? I fancy I really am: I tell you these things for nothing and don't even expect a reward for it, he-he! Well, to proceed, wit in my opinion is a splendid thing, it is, so to say, an adornment of nature ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... their night-gowns. Such a deliciously creepy song it was, in which they pretended to be frightened at their own shadows; little witting that so soon shadows would close in upon them, from whom they would shrink in real fear. So uproariously gay was the dance, and how they buffeted each other on the bed and out of it! It was a pillow fight rather than a dance, and when it was finished, the pillows insisted on one bout more, like partners who know that ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... face, he became aware of what might be a little tinge of colour—the faintest possible—upon the lips. He knew it must be a fancy, or at best an accident without significance—for he had heard of such a thing! Still, even if his eyes were deceiving him, he must shrink from hiding away such death out of sight! The merest counterfeit of life was too sacred for burial! Just such might the little daughter of Jairus have looked when the Lord took her by the ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... Herbert, "—there's a bandage off most charmingly, and now comes the cool one,—makes you shrink at first, my poor dear fellow, don't it? but it will be comfortable presently,—it seems that the woman was a young woman, and a jealous woman, and a revengeful woman; revengeful, Handel, to the ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... principles. I will not steal into your sympathy by evasion. Yes, gentlemen, I confess, should Russia not respect such a declaration of your country, then you are forced to go to war, or else be degraded before mankind. But, gentlemen, you must not shrink back from the mere word war; you must consider what is the probability of its occurrence. I have already stated publicly my certain knowledge how vulnerable Russia is; how weak she is internally. ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... India; it is far more fertile, and it possesses none of those disagreeable elements of discontent which have been such a sharp thorn in our sides in India—I mean a history and a religion far anterior to our own, which makes those we govern there shrink from us, caused by a natural antipathy of being ruled by an inferior race, as we are by them considered to be. These countries, on the contrary, have no literature, and therefore have neither history nor religion to excite discontent should any foreigners intrench on their lands. By this ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... that the idea of a Cartesian vortex in connexion with the solar system applies, if at all, rather to an earlier—its nebulous—stage, when the whole thing was one great whirl, ready to split or shrink off planetary ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... grasp the situation although the evidence was so overwhelming. He took the letter from the desk and read it for the fourth time since receiving it, riveting his eyes long and intently upon the signature affixed. Of all the years he had known the Governor he had never known him to shrink or show cowardice in any form whatever, although he'd passed through such crises as would tend to test the mettle of any man, it matters not how brave. "Surely the situation must be terrible!" finally observed Mr. Wingate, throwing the letter upon the ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... also would be contracting. But it was much the shorter, and therefore would shrink less. The uncertainty of how fast and how much the different fastenings would contract doubled the torturing knowledge that the shrinking must inevitably pull him ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... is an event of which the memory will live in Scotland as long as it is a nation, and which ranks in moral dignity and dramatic interest with the greatest scenes in history. When did a subject ever use a manlier freedom with his Sovereign? When did mere titular kingship more plainly shrink into insignificance in presence of the moral majesty vested in the spirit of a true man? No writer can afford to describe the scene in other words than those of ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison
... floor, resting his head on a bunk and praying as he never had prayed before for deliverance. His voice was gone, but his lips worked convulsively while his face took on a drawn and haggard expression seeming to visibly shrink together, leaving great pouches beneath his eyes and lines through his cheeks. He gasped ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... was somewhat dismayed at my landlady's expressions, which seemed to be ominous of some approaching danger. I did not, however, choose to shrink back after having declared my resolution, and accordingly I boldly entered the house; and after narrowly escaping breaking my shins over a turf back and a salting tub, which stood on either side of the narrow exterior passage, I opened a crazy half-decayed door, constructed not of plank, ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the scientists who scoff. We can't help believing it. It is that which makes good men and women of us, which keeps us as children to the end. It isn't honour or nobility of character that makes us righteous, but the fear of God. It isn't death that we dread. We shrink from the answer to the question we've asked all through life. Can you ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... her face brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going through the little door into that lovely garden. First, however, she waited for a few minutes to see if she was going to shrink any further: she felt a little nervous about this; 'for it might end, you know,' said Alice to herself, 'in my going out altogether, like a candle. I wonder what I should be like then?' And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out, ...
— Alice's Adventures in Wonderland • Lewis Carroll
... You would hold up your heads like the flowers, and drink the dewy doctrine in. But stay! "As the showers upon the grass" as well, says Moses. It will not do for the preacher to speak only gently; his words must come pattering about your heads like a driving April shower, when you will shrink from the rain and hide to get out of the way. The preacher must pour out on you a good ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... Leucha was not quite unhappy while at this noble mansion, but neither was she quite happy. The Duke had a piercing eye, and when it flashed on her she seemed to shrink into herself. ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... not eat greys or greens greens. With unswerving decision, greys swallowed greens and greens greys, and extreme corpulency was the inevitable result. Does this not smack of the snake story? It certainly does, but it has the virtue of being unexaggerated, and why shrink from the telling of ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... harassed by ill-health and the turbulence of his grandson Archagathus, at whose instigation he is said to have been poisoned; according to others, he died a natural death. He was a born leader of mercenaries, and, although he did not shrink from cruelty to gain his ends, he afterwards showed himself a mild ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... lb., was beaten by Jehoshaphat over seven furlongs, we have to calculate what chance Tom Thumb has of beating Jezebel in a race of a mile and a half on a wet day. There are men to whom such calculations may come easy. To Mr Asquith they are probably child's play. For myself, I shrink from them and, if I were a betting man, would no doubt in sheer desperation be driven back on the method of pin and pencil. But it is obvious that the sincere betting man has to make such calculations daily. Every morning the student ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... this that weighed down the heart of the new empress, and made her shrink in alarm from her new grandeur. It was, therefore, with a feeling of deep anxiety that she took possession of the new titles and honors that Fate had showered upon her, as from an inexhaustible horn of plenty. With a degree of alarm, and almost with shame, she heard ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... cause of his Master. And when dark clouds came over him, and he sought in vain for a sufficient evidence that in the event of his death it would be well with him, he girded up his soul with the reflection that, as he suffered for the word and way of God, he was engaged not to shrink one hair's breadth from it. "I will leap," he says, "off the ladder blindfold into eternity, sink or swim, come heaven, come hell. Lord Jesus, if thou wilt catch me, do; if not, I ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... myself have spoken as likely to arise—not, as Laveaux says, after Raynal, to avenge, but to repair the wrongs of my colour. Low, indeed, are we sunk, deep is our ignorance, abject are our wills, if such a one as I am to be the leader of thousands—I, whose will is yet unexercised—I, who shrink ashamed before the knowledge of the meanest white—I, so lately a slave—so long dependent that I am an oppression to myself—am at this hour the ruler over ten thousand wills! The ways of God are dark, or it might seem that He despised His negro children in committing ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... the Declaration of Independence.... I rise simply to ask gentlemen to think well before, upon the free prairies of the West, in the summer of 1860, they dare to wince and quail before the assertion of the men of Philadelphia in 1776—before they dare to shrink from repeating the words that ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... communion of man with God. That joy and that strength, in the measure in which we can attain to their realisation, are to be the goal of all our striving. Thus this Word has for us more than a merely negative teaching. Not only are we to shrink from that which destroys union with God. We must seek far more earnestly to make that union a greater and a deeper reality. This end we can achieve by making our prayers more deliberate acts of conscious communion with that Person Who is not merely above us, but in us, and in ...
— Gloria Crucis - addresses delivered in Lichfield Cathedral Holy Week and Good Friday, 1907 • J. H. Beibitz
... impersonal circumstances, Helen's habitual strangeness of manner was more pronounced than she had ever before known it to be. This girl of impenetrable secrecy read the letters, seemingly with an abstraction amounting almost to inattention, while physically she appeared to shrink from something that to her alone was ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... should shrink; but to a sympathizing public I would appeal, trusting the holy mantle of charity will be flung over my errors, and my ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... hand cut off; the third day, his breasts cut out, and salt thrown in, and then his left hand cut off. The last day of his torment, which was the 10th of July, he was bound to two stakes, standing upright, in such order that he could not shrink down nor stir any way. Thus standing, naked, there was a great fire placed some small distance from him wherein heated pincers of iron, with which pincers two men did pinch and pull his flesh in small pieces from his bones throughout most parts of his body. Then was he unbound ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... good taste is. This last office it shares with the sense of humor. The sports of that age were cruel. People found fun in the sufferings of the weak under derision and abuse. "The Middle Ages did not shrink from presenting as funny situations which were painful or atrocious, the horror of which we to-day could not endure." Although the age was full of religiosity, the extravagances of which ought to have been ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... flocks and herds roam, has kept the Boer fast bound in the ideas and habits of a past age, and he shrinks from the contact of the keen restless modern man, with new arts of gain and new forms of pleasure, just as a Puritan farmer of Cromwell's day might shrink were he brought to life and forced to plunge into the current of modern London. Had the Boers been of English stock, but subjected to the same conditions as those which kept the seventeenth century alive in the ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... challenge her as to leave her deluded?—and this quite apart from the exposure, so to speak, of Kate, as to whom it would constitute a kind of betrayal. Kate's design was something so extraordinarily special to Kate that he felt himself shrink from the complications involved in judging it. Not to give away the woman one loved, but to back her up in her mistakes—once they had gone a certain length—that was perhaps chief among the inevitabilities of the abjection of love. Loyalty was of course supremely prescribed in presence of any ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... a plan full of fearful risk. He took his life in his hands. Death by the cruelest of tortures awaited him if captured, and it was a prospect before which any boy and many a man might shrink in dismay. ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... cried Ruby, drawing himself up with a look of defiance and a laugh of contempt, that caused the two men to shrink back in spite ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... oceans' ring, Condemned, forsaken for his sin. On earth they plunder'd, robbed and stole From month to month and year to year; There Franchise-stealers cracked with leers As Plebeians stung, groaned with might. Now one and all damn'd on this shoal Yuck addling brains and shriek with fear, Now all shrink at Hell's laughing seers As Remorse storms the ughly night. Here Pat McCarrens filch no vote, A Grady eats no mellow pea, A Murphy owns no City Hall, No Jeromes skew at dices' song. On Vellum gray their sins are ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... disregardful of these orders, began firing as soon as the trumpets sounded, though with small injury to the islanders, who mostly lay under the cover of trenches or other means of defence. Captain Lister then urged on the rowers, who began to shrink at the shot from the enemy which flew thick about their ears, and was himself the first to board one of the ships which lay farther from shore than the other, while we speedily followed, still plying ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... should embrace; Behold it, love, and thy keen eyes may trace Faint figures wrought upon the ruddy gold; My father dying gave it me, nor told The manner of its making, but I know That it can make thee e'en as thou art now Despite the laws of God—shrink not from me Because I give an impious gift to thee— Has not God made me also, who do this? But I, who longed to share with thee my bliss, Am of the fays, and live their changeless life, And, like the gods of old, I see the strife That moves ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... would all shrink from me when you knew," went on Sydney. He spoke in a voice that was almost hard now. It was as if it had become so from the spurring that was necessary to enable him to make his confession. "I shrank from myself as soon as the last piece of tinder had vanished ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... I felt her shrink from me, I saw the blood recede from her face, and in another second she lay motionless in ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... straight in the face. He was not the kind of a man to shrink from telling a friend ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... affectionate action which I ask of you, the action of a brother kissing his sister. That's what you shrink from, Philippe." ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... gait and expanding presence of a distinguished amateur anarchist amongst poor, struggling professionals, but with slightly raised shoulders, and her elbows pressed close to her body, as if trying to shrink within herself. Her eyes were fixed immovably upon Sevrin. Sevrin the man, I fancy; not Sevrin the anarchist. But she advanced. And that was natural. For all their assumption of independence, girls of that class are used to the feeling of being specially protected, as, ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... He was a thoroughly Egyptianized king. He had a council of learned scribes, a magnificent court, and a peaceful reign until towards its close. His residence was in the Delta, either at Tanis or Auaris. He was a prince of a strong will, firm and determined; one who did not shrink from initiating great changes, and who carried out his resolves in a somewhat arbitrary way. The arguments in favour of his identity with Joseph's master are, perhaps, not wholly conclusive; but they raise a presumption, which may well incline us, with ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... sides, cut off the head close to the ears, and cut five collars of a side, bone the hinder leg, or else five collars will not be deep enough, cut the collars an inch deeper in the belly, then on the back; for when the collars come to boiling, they will shrink more in the belly than in the back, make the collars very even when you bind them up, not big at one end, & little at the other, but fill them equally, and lay them again in a soaking in fair water; ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May
... thing weighed heavily upon the brave heart of this loving friend and mother. Never had she known her child to be so silent, so strange, as now. Ever since Friday night she seemed to avoid all mention of the affair, to shrink from the subject—she who had ever been frankness itself—she who had never had a thought the mother did not share. She had become fitful and nervous. She seemed oppressed with some secret. In the long hours of their enforced confinement, with the lamps burning on the ground-floor ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... wall at the left, which separates it from the little grassy orchard of the Manse, is a small mound of turf and a broken stone. Grave and headstone shrink from sight amid the grass and under the wall, but they mark the earthly bed of the first victims of that first fight. A few large trees overhang the ground, which Hawthorne thinks have been planted since that day, and he says that in the river he has seen mossy timbers of the old bridge, and on ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... variety without sacrificing the fair fame of individuals, or attempting to make vice respectable. Pleasure is our pursuit, but we are accompanied up the flowery ascent by Contemplation and Reflection, two monitors that shrink back, like sensitive plants, as the thorns press upon them through the ambrosial beds of new-blown roses. In our record of the daughters of Pleasure, we shall only notice those who are distinguished as belles of ton—stars of the first magnitude in the hemisphere of Fashion; and of these ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... unfortunate for poor Fan. After dismissing her old lover with scant courtesy, Miss Starbrow caught up with the girl, and they walked on in silence, looking at no shop-windows now. One glance at the dark angry face was enough to spoil Fan's pleasure for the day and to make her shrink within herself, wondering much as to what had caused so great and sudden ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... expected home late, Fenwick and Mrs. Nightingale had gone out in the back-garden to enjoy the sweet air of that rare phenomenon—a really fine spring night in England—leaving the Major indoors because of his bronchial tubes. The late seventies shrink from night air, even when one means to be a healthy octogenarian. Also, they go away to bed, secretively, when no one is looking—at least, the Major did in this case. Of course, he was staying the ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... our own weakness, and our own self-upbraiding, arises a disposition to be indulgent—to forbear—and to forgive—so at least it ought to be. When once we have shed those inexpressibly bitter tears, which fall unregarded, and which we forget to wipe away, O how we shrink from inflicting pain! how we shudder at unkindness!—and think all harshness even in thought, only another name for cruelty! These are but common-place truths, I know, which have often been a thousand times better expressed. Formerly ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... or on the left."—Ezekiel, xxi, 16. "He lies him down by the rivers side."—Walker's Particles, p. 99. "My desire has been for some years past, to retire myself to some of our American plantations."—Cowley's Pref. to his Poems, p. vii. "I fear me thou wilt shrink from the payment of it."—Zenobia, i, 76. "We never recur an idea, without acquiring some combination."—Rippingham's Art ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... along the River Brink, With old Khayyam the Ruby Vintage drink: And when the Angel with his darker Draught Draws up to thee—take that, and do not shrink. ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam • Omar Khayyam
... the matter until the idea of fighting Conway became a part of me. I fought him in imagination during school-hours; I dreamed of fighting with him at night, when he would suddenly expand into a giant twelve feet high, and then as suddenly shrink into a pygmy so small that I couldn't hit him. In this latter shape he would get into my hair, or pop into my waistcoat-pocket, treating me with as little ceremony as the Liliputians showed Captain Lemuel Gulliver—all ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Once ere night I will embrace him with a soldier's arm, That he shall shrink under ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... and long drinking are no more, And pure religion reading 'Household Words', And sturdy manhood sitting still all day Shrink, like this cheese that crumbles to its core; While my digestion, like the House of Lords, The heaviest burdens on herself ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... American citizens to crowd to the retribution, and look on as at a holiday show, reveals the Inquisition, the Pagans, the Stone Age, unreclaimed in our republic. On the other hand, the young men and women who will watch side by side the burning of a negro shrink from using such words as bull or stallion in polite society; many in Texas will say, instead, male cow and caviard horse (a term spelled as they pronounce it), and consider that delicacy is thus achieved. Yet in this ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... order to hide his loot in Dick's trunk. By way of leniency toward a first offender the court let Tip off with a sentence of fourteen months in the penitentiary. This sentence, by good behavior on the part of Tip, would shrink to ten ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... me close. The words, as he spoke them, seemed to call up dimly some faint memory of my pre-natal days—of my First State, as I had learned from the doctors to call it. But his scrutiny made me shrink. I shut ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... oddity on the staff, and puzzled the reporters not a little. Most of his predecessors had differed much from each other, but they were all alike in one thing, and that was profanity. They expressed disapproval in language that made the hardened printers' towel in the composing room shrink. ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... in order to provide for himself a subterranean retreat. The cunning fox digs a kennel with two holes to go out and come in at, that he may not be either surprised or trapped by the huntsmen. The reptiles are of another make. They curl, wind, shrink, and stretch by the springs of their muscles; they creep, twist about, squeeze, and hold fast the bodies they meet in their way; and easily slide everywhere. Their organs are almost independent one on the other; so that they still live when they are cut into two. The long-legged ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... divulged, that the King found no words to utter. He looked helplessly at the Queen like a man who has received a blow which has dazed him for the time being. The Ambassador's knowledge startled the Queen, too, but she did not shrink before his steady scrutiny. She was the first ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... wretchedly low-spirited and nervous, that I could scarcely be said to live, and during this time, habits of indecision, arising out of a listless acquiescence in the will of others, a fear of encountering even the slightest opposition, and a disposition to shrink from what are commonly called amusements, grew upon me so strongly, that I have scarcely even yet, altogether overcome them. We saw nothing more of Mr. Carew. He returned to England as soon as the melancholy rites attendant upon the event which I have just mentioned were performed; and not ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... what most persons would have considered a hearty meal at Harry Harson's, Mr. Kornicker had nevertheless such perfect reliance on his own peculiar gastronomic abilities, that he did not in the least shrink from again testing them. Leaving Michael Rust's presence with an alacrity which bordered upon haste, he descended into the refectory with somewhat of a jaunty air, humming a tune, and keeping time to it by an occasional ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... animal for meat on the increase of the moon, and it will increase in the pot. Kill it on the wane of the moon, and it will shrink in the pot. ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... into the same boat, and since bongre malgre we must voyage for a time together, in the interest of this unfortunate child, candour becomes us both. Men of my profession sometimes resort to agencies that the members of yours usually shrink from. I too was once very sceptical concerning the truth of Mrs. Orme's fragmentary story, for it was the merest disjecta membra which she entrusted to me, and my credulity declined to honour her heavy drafts. To satisfy myself, I employed a shrewd female detective to 'shadow' the ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... politics, but they cannot assemble to eat a meal together without talking of wine, and they cannot talk of wine without assuming to each one of themselves an absolute infallibility in connection with that single subject which they would shrink from asserting in relation to any other topic ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... Cardinal, personal virtues shrink and wither, or are blasted and die, in the company of idleness; and, without firmness of will, the noblest principles and purest sentiments sometimes wear the livery of vice, and often they give encouragement to it. Good principles, good purposes, ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... Danton ultra-fanatical and member of a committee in which the question came up whether the members of the "Right" should likewise be put out of the way. "Danton had energetically repelled this sanguinary proposal. 'Everybody knows,' he said, 'that I do not shrink from a criminal act when necessary; but I disdain to commit ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... men are the English Carlyle and the American Emerson. I must ever remember with gratitude that through three long, cold German winters, Carlyle placed me in my tub, even when ice was on its surface, at five o'clock every morning ... determined, whether victor or vanquished, not to shrink from difficulty... They told me what I ought to do in a way that caused me to do it, and all my consequent intellectual action is to be traced to this purely moral force... They called out. 'Act!' I hearkened to ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... or three of these young matrons now on board the packet excited my more than commiseration; attenuated in form, sallow-visaged, and fragile as the aspen, they appeared to shrink from the very breeze, to seek whose freshness they had journeyed so far. Two of them possessed the remains of positive beauty; their dark hair was of gossamer fineness, and their handsome eyes sparkled with that unnatural light which shines as ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... yourself a thing apart from the mass." And again, the same writer says: "Before you can attain knowledge you must have passed through all places, foul and clean alike. Therefore, remember that the soiled garment you shrink from touching may have been yours yesterday, may be yours tomorrow. And if you turn with horror from it when it is flung upon your shoulders, it will cling the more closely to you. The self-righteous man makes for himself a bed of mire. Abstain because it is right ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... Angel of the Darker Drink At last shall find you by the River-brink, And, offering his Cup, invite your Soul Forth to your Lips to quaff—you shall not shrink." ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... much longer to remain together there. It is the repeated boast of Aurelius that he had learned from old Antoninus Pius to maintain authority without the constant use of guards, in a robe woven by the handmaids of his own consort, with no processional lights or images, and "that a prince may shrink himself almost into the figure of a private gentleman." And yet, again as at his first sight of him, Marius was struck by the profound religiousness of the surroundings of the imperial presence. The effect might have been due in part ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... myself, he represents the sedentary and respectable world in its most hostile form. There is something of the clergyman or the lawyer about this engaging animal; and it he were not amenable to stones, the boldest man would shrink from travelling afoot. I respect dogs much in the domestic circle; but on the highway, or sleeping afield, I both detest and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sandals and her skirt was slit to the knees, so that when she walked one caught a glimpse of other slim serpents painted just above her bare ankles. Wound about her neck was a glittering cobra. Altogether a charming costume—one that caused the more nervous among the older women to shrink away from her when she passed, and the more troublesome ones to make great talk about "shouldn't be allowed" and ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... sort of poetry about this—a new sort of poetry about a new sort of war. And it might possibly be proved that such poetry could only come from a people so bred to arms that they do not shrink, even in imagination, from the uses to which arms must be put—a people in love with war, having a mystical feeling for its instruments, such as their remote ancestors had for their ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... highest interests of a great and free people are intimately connected. Conscious of my own deficiency, I can not enter on these duties without great anxiety for the result. From a just responsibility I will never shrink, calculating with confidence that in my best efforts to promote the public welfare my motives will always be duly appreciated and my conduct be viewed with that candor and indulgence which I have experienced in ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson
... new acolyte to hymn her sanctities. Where Raleigh, Pepys, Tennyson, Kingsley, Calverley, Barrie, and the whimful Elia best of all—where these have spoken so greatly, the feeble voice may well shrink. But that is the joy of true worship: ranks and hierarchies are lost, all are brothers in the mystery, and amid approving puffs of rich Virginia the older saints of the mellow leaf genially greet the new freshman, ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... to take more interest in the proceedings, and she was full of eagerness to be set free. She did not shrink from the unpleasant ordeal of a trial. She could talk of Haddo with composure. Her friends were able to persuade themselves that in a little while she would be her old self again, for she was growing stronger and more cheerful; her charming laughter rang through ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... when a short removal would be manifestly to their advantage. I fear there is a more ignoble reason that has as much to do with this as their love of home, their confirmed and innate laziness. They shrink from any labour that they are not forced to undertake. As an instance, no one during at least two generations that the house had been occupied had brought in even a log of wood for a seat, and a table would, I fancy, be beyond their wildest dreams ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... moving shadow, and ascending a steep natural stairway of columnar rocks piled one on top of the other. Affrighted as she was by the tomb-like aspect of the deep vault, she had not ventured so far that she should now shrink from further dangers or fail in her quest;—the cherished object of her constant watchful care was within that subterranean blackness,—for what purpose?—she did not dare to think! But there was an instinctive sense of dread ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... upon the enemy's right flank. They received the charge with firmness; but their young adversary, perceiving that extraordinary means were necessary to make the desired effect, calling on his men to follow him, put spurs to his horse and rushed into the thickest of the battle. His soldiers did not shrink; they pressed on, mowing down the foremost ranks, whilst he, by a lucky stroke of his sabre, disabled the sword-arm of the Russian standard-bearer and seized the colors. His own troops seeing the standard in his hand, ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... is prostrated by her sorrows and anxieties," it began, "and I must be her amanuensis—I who would die for her, yet who shrink from this task, well knowing, though she does not, how hard it is to write to one to whom I have given perhaps such infinite pain. Indeed, I should not have had courage to write had she not required it of me, had not your most generous offer and action demanded response. But for your ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... in the counsels of that faithful minister and loyal man, who has left some slight record of her words. "She said she never shut her eyes to trials, but liked to look them in the face; she would never shrink from duty, but all was at present done mechanically; her highest ideas of purity and love were obtained from the Prince, and God could not be displeased with her love.... There was nothing morbid ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... her mournful sacrifice, the poor woman did not shrink from covering herself, even in the presence of the man she loved, with the ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... think of actually dying, they feel as if to go into the next world was to be turned out into the dark night, into an unknown land, away from house and home, and all they have known and loved; and so they shrink from death. ...
— Out of the Deep - Words for the Sorrowful • Charles Kingsley
... images of sorrow and desolation. He caused her to be filled with fears of the place and of the stories that were told of it, and then on pretext of correcting them, to be left in it in solitude, or made to shrink about it in the dark. When her mind was most depressed and fullest of terrors, then, he would come out of one of the hiding-places from which he overlooked her, and present himself as her ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... coat of red and yellow! "Beside," quoth the Mayor, with a knowing wink, "Our business was done at the river's brink; We saw with our eyes the vermin sink, And what's dead can't come to life, I think. So, friend, we're not the folks to shrink From the duty of giving you something for drink, And a matter of money to put in your poke; But as for the guilders, what we spoke Of them, as you very well know, was in joke. Besides, our losses have made us thrifty; A thousand guilders! Come, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... delay ascending by a natural climax to that final consummation and perfect crown of my felicity—that almighty blessing which ratified their value to all the rest? Wherefore, oh! wherefore do I shrink in miserable weakness from——what? Is it from reviving, from calling up again into fierce and insufferable light the images and features of a long-buried happiness? That would be a natural shrinking and a reasonable weakness. But how escape ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... Carlo to Buenos Ayres; at another sign from there to Tokio! Chunda Lal has guarded me as only the women of the East are guarded. Yet, in his fierce way, he has always tried to befriend me, he has always been faithful. But ah! I shrink from him many times, in horror, because I know what he is! But I may not tell you. Look! Chunda Lal has never been out of sound of this whistle"—she drew a little silver whistle from her dress—"for a moment since that day when he came into ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... For the same reason he defended the institution of miracles. Gersonides went further in his rationalistic attitude, carried the Aristotelian principles to their inevitable conclusions, and did not shrink from adopting to all intents and purposes the eternity of the world (strictly speaking the eternity of matter), and the limitation of God's knowledge to universals. Aristotle's authority was now supreme, and the Bible had to yield to Aristotelian interpretations, as we have seen abundantly. ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... as if I were Crow-trodden, Fye, how my hams shrink under me! O me, I am broken-winded too; is this a life? Is this the recreation I have aim'd at? I had a body once, a handsome body, And wholesome too. Now I appear like a rascal, That had been hung a year or two in Gibbets. Fye how I faint! ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (1 of 10) - The Custom of the Country • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... is too much indifference in the matter," I replied. "I suppose most men do not think their relations to their Maker important enough to give them any concern. And even the best among us shrink from urging their opinions on others, partly because they know they are not perfect examples themselves, and also from the feeling that their friends are intelligent beings and ought to know, as well as they do, ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... the change of life, may be sudden or gradual. The organs shrink and waste. The womb shrinks and part of its muscular tissue disappears and its walls become thin, soft and relaxed. The ovaries become small and harder. The vagina shortens and also becomes narrower. ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... want to be hung for the fellow. Indeed, to tell the truth, I shouldn't like it at all; I know I shouldn't beforehand; but at the same time I mustn't shrink from doing of my duty first, and suffering for it afterwards, if necessary! So now for the ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... the darkness, but there was no answering clasp. The woman seemed to shrink away. ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... honour and the stainless purity of his name, must succumb to his most eminent foe, the Prince of Orange, with his tireless, inventive, thoroughly statesmanlike intellect, which preserved the power of seeing in the darkness, and did not shrink from deceit where it would promote the great cause which she did not understand, but to which he consecrated every drop of his heart's blood, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... before me, who now sleep with their fathers, distinguished in the Revolution, distinguished in the formation of the Constitution and in the early administration of the government, always and everywhere distinguished; and I shrink in just and conscious humiliation before their established character and established renown; and all that I venture to say, and all that I venture to hope may be thought true, in the sentiment proposed, is, that, so far as mind and purpose, so far as intention and will, are concerned, I may ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... soon; Failure brings no kind of stigma - Dance we to another tune! String the lyre and fill the cup, Lest on sorrow we should sup; Hop and skip to Fancy's fiddle, Hands across and down the middle - Life's perhaps the only riddle That we shrink from giving up! ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... hardly comprehend how it is I almost turn my Eyes from it in this Answer, and dally with other matter. You make me sad with old Memories; yet, I don't mean quite disagreeably sad, but enough to make me shrink recurring to them. I don't know whether to be comforted or not when you talk of India as a Land ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... within my present limits to discuss the question fully. And what man of letters would not shrink from seeming to dispose dictatorially of the claims of two men who are, at any rate, such masters in letters as Dryden and Pope; two men of such admirable talent, both of them, and one of them, Dryden, a man, on all sides, of ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... gossips had not the smallest opportunity for establishing a romance, with a compulsory bride for the heroine. Yet to me it seemed as if there was something strange about her. A vague terror appeared to beset her. Even in her most loving moments, when resting in my arms, she would shrink away from me, and shudder as if some cold wind had suddenly struck upon her. That it was caused by no aversion to me was evident, for she would the moment after, as if to make amends, give me one of those voluntary kisses that are ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... uproar was deafening. The college players looked stunned, while their howlers, over on the visitors' seats, seemed to shrink within ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... water on the table. Again and again some unknown power drove him to look through the keyhole. He would stand there a long time, covering his left eye with his hand as children do and peering with his right at the white wall of the corridor. But whenever a passer-by darkened his outlook, he would shrink back startled. If he had to go out to attend to his flowers, he opened the door slowly and silently and walked backward, fixing his eyes on Engelhardt's door, until he reached the steps. There he would turn quickly and hurry away, possessed by the fear ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... back, her head resting on Sophie's knee, in a state of complete exhaustion. There she lay, panting heavily; and a clammy pallor gradually took the place of the deeply-stained flush. But the fit was over: by-and-by she sat up, sullenly shunning Sophie's touch, and appearing to shrink even at the sound of her voice. Finally, she rose inertly to her feet, attempting to moisten her dry lips, walked once or twice aimlessly to and fro across the room, and ended by sitting down again upon her stool, ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... reason is to be found in the power of that loving sympathy which the Army extends even to the vilest, to those from whom the least puritanical of us would shrink. It shows such men that they are not utterly lost, as these believe; that it, at any rate, does not mark them with a figurative broad arrow and consign them to a separate division of society; that it is able to give them back the self-respect without which mankind is lower ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... that last book of yours WE think You've double damned yourself to scorn; We warned you whilst yet on the brink 485 You stood. From your black name will shrink The ...
— Peter Bell the Third • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... and what remains is so loaded with carbon, which the lungs ought but cannot discharge, that her skin has a leaden hue; her teeth chatter; her very heart is chilled in her panting, frozen bosom; she cannot run, and if she could, she must not, for it would be vulgar! Every mother should shrink from the sight of such ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... prepared by the hate of war, brought forth its deadly fruit. The Americans believed that there was no brutality from which British officers would shrink. Burgoyne had told his Indian allies that they must not kill except in actual fighting and that there must be no slaughter of non-combatants and no scalping of any but the dead. The warning delivered him into the hands of his enemies for it showed that he half expected ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... him there kissing a collection of half-breed children, and giving Thomaso instructions to look after them and their mothers. Returning at length, he called to Inez, who remained upon the veranda, for she always seemed to shrink from her father after his visits to the village, to "keep a stiff upper lip" and not feel lonely, and commanded the cavalcade ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... had been produced in his mind; but it was not a healthy movement of the moral nature. It was not so much the awful crime he had impulsively committed, as the terrible consequences which would have followed, that caused him to shrink from it. It was an awful crime, and his nature revolted at it. He could not have done it without the impulse of an insane passion; but it was dreadful because it would have shut him out from society; because it would have placed the mark of Cain upon him; because the dungeon ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... He likes to "spot" some young fellow who he thinks has it in him to get on, then he backs him. He believes that nothing succeeds like success, having tested the truth of the saying himself. When something disagreeable has to be done, he does it and damns the consequences but he does not shrink from them. ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... my mind which I must make confession of, or I shall not die easy—something that will make you shrink from me, as from a guilty wretch, who deserves no mercy. ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... please the idle fancy of a man who would not hesitate to stoop to perform any act however dastardly, so that he could effectually escape the penalty of a crime he was ready to profit by, but cowardly enough to shrink from the consequences it entailed? You say that our interest in this affair is mutual,—it is not so, and you know it. You gain nineteen thousand a year, I only one. Again, should the will by any mischance be found in my possession, who would believe my statement ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... will not shrink from the danger and toil of penetrating the polar basin, will shrink from the trouble of doing their own thinking, and put themselves, like Captain Poke, under the ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... be friends, but I know it cannot be. My blessing men would shrink from, if they knew what you do; but may God bless you for your kindness to me." And standing motionless in the dusky passage, they heard the footsteps die away in the empty corridors, and the rattle of the wheels of the vehicle which ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... and alone before the assembled powers of the earth, with only the grace of God and his cause on which to lean, had demand made of him whether or not he would retract his books or any part of them, Yes or No. But he did not shrink, neither did he falter. "Since Your Imperial Majesty and Your Excellencies require of me a direct and simple answer, I will give it. To the pope or councils I cannot submit my faith, for it is clear that they ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... should get no luncheon. I don't shrink from sacrifice in a good cause, Major, whenever sacrifice is necessary; but I see no point in starving myself merely to satisfy ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... is thus you deceive me! Very well, since things are come to such a pass, I openly declare to you that I shall not give up my love for Marianne. No! understand that henceforth there is nothing from which I shall shrink in order to dispute her with you; and if you have on your side the consent of the mother, perhaps I shall have some other resources left ...
— The Miser (L'Avare) • Moliere
... put to them ten or twelve spoonfuls of water, and two or three of Salt. Boil them with pretty quick-fire, and scum them well all the while, taking away a great deal of foulness, that will rise. They will shrink into a very little room. When they are sufficiently parboiled to be tender, and well cleansed of their scum, (which will be in about a quarter of an hour,) take them out, and put them into a Colander, that all ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... indeed, desire our faith to be strengthened, we should not shrink from opportunities where our faith may be tried, and, therefore, through the trial, be strengthened. In our natural state we dislike dealing with God alone. Through our natural alienation from God we shrink from him, and from eternal realities. This cleaves to us more or less, even ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... the interruption on the Messrs. Cassidy and Donahue was pleasingly instantaneous. They seemed to shrink to almost normal proportions, and their manner took on ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... extremity. Orion must believe that she had done him a wrong; still, could that make him so far forget himself as to carry out his threats, and sacrifice an innocent man—to divert suspicion from himself, while he branded her as a false witness? Aye, even from that he would not shrink! His flaming glance, his abrupt demeanor, his laboring breath, proclaimed it plainly enough.—Then let the struggle begin! At this moment she would have died rather than have tried to mollify him by a word of excuse. The turmoil in his whole being vibrated through ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... himself to rise. He would meet it standing. For the honor of the Foote family he would meet it on his feet, looking into its eyes. He would not shrink and cringe from it, but would face it with dignity as a Foote should face it, uttering no cry of pain or fear. It was a dignified moment, the most dignified and awful of his life. ... Five generations were looking on to see ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... time. It has boundaries, to be sure, for we are finite, but we cannot measure them. Let it alone, now; leave it to itself. What follows? It is dowered simply with attraction. The vast mass begins to shrink, the outer portions are drawn inward. They rush and swirl in vast cyclones, thousands of miles in extent. The centre grows compact, heat is evolved by impact, as will be explained in Chapter II. ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... back the sympathies of half the nation, and the king's threats would have exploded as an empty sound. But Henry knew the persons with whom he had to deal—forlorn shadows, decked in the trappings of dignity—who only by some such rough method could be brought to a knowledge of themselves. "Shrink to the clergy"—I find in a state paper of the time—"Shrink to the clergy, and they be lions; lay their faults roundly and charitably to them, and they be as sheep, and will lightly be reformed, for their consciences will not ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... he found sixty scribblers in separate cells,[52] And marvelled what they were doing, For they looked like little fiends in their own little hells, Damnation for others brewing— 240 Though their paper seemed to shrink, from the heat of their ink, They were only coolly reviewing! And as one of them wrote down the pronoun "We," "That Plural"—says Satan—"means him and me, With the Editor added to make up the three Of an Athanasian Trinity, And ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... novelty did not affect me. I still kept a fixed gaze on Melons's eye, and he began to tremble and visibly shrink in his capacious garment. Some other desperate means—conversation with Melons was always a desperate means—must be resorted ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... Christ in the child which makes it speak the truth; Christ in the child which makes it shrink from whatever it has been told is wrong. It is Christ in the young man, which fills him with lofty aspirations, hopes of bettering the world around him, hopes of training his soul to be all that it can be, and of putting forth ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... discovers that he is impure, selfish, and evil. It matters not how high his rank, how brilliant his intellect, how attractive his exterior person, how perfect his accomplishments. In her inmost spirit she will shrink from him, and feel his presence as a sphere of suffocation. Oh! can the thought imagine a sadder lot for a true-hearted woman! And there is no way of escape. Her own hands have wrought the chains that bind her in ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... stroke of all. I could see the hunter shrink in his saddle, a death-like pallor over-spreading his cheeks, while his eyes presented the ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... other for some silent moments. Then Madame von Marwitz rose. "You are weary, my Karen; you must rest; is it not so? I will send Tallie to you. You will see Tallie—she is a perfection of discretion; you do not shrink from Tallie. And you need tell her nothing; she will not question you. Between ourselves; is it not so? Yes; that is best. For the present. I will come again, later—I have guests, a guest, you see. Rest here, my Karen." She moved ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick |
