"Shrink" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tear of life, and the vicissitudes of seasons. It has been shewn, that these qualities often fail us when most we want their aid; that their possessors can solace themselves with their imaginary exertions in behalf of ideal misery, and yet shrink from the labours of active benevolence, or retire with disgust from the homely forms of real poverty and wretchedness. In fine, the superiority of true Christian charity and of plain practical beneficence has been ably vindicated; and the school ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... war, but familiarity with danger, experience in war and its common attendants, and personal habit, are equally valuable traits, and these are the qualities with which we usually have to deal in war. All men naturally shrink from pain and danger, and only incur their risk from some higher motive, or from habit; so that I would define true courage to be a perfect sensibility of the measure of danger, and a mental willingness to incur it, rather than that insensibility ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... behind the ears. The whiskers are prematurely tipt with white, as if the heated skin refused to nourish them any longer. The lips are slightly swelled, and the inflamed skin indicates inward fever, while the eyes are bloodshot, the under lids distended, and incline to shrink from contact with the heated orbs they were destined to protect. He is a dram-drinker; and the poison that he imbibes with New England rum is as fatal, and nearly as rapid in ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... more of its outward consequences, as detection and loss of character, than men,—their natures being almost wholly extroitive. Still, however just in itself, the representation of this is not poetical; we shrink from it, and cannot harmonise ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... scarlet pelisses; for the streets then enjoyed a gay liberty which has vanished from London with the lanterns of the watchmen. Noisiest and most conspicuous of these descendants of the Mohawks, the sleek and orderly scholar beheld the childish figure of his son. Nor did Gabriel shrink from his father's eye, stern and scornful as it was, but rather braved the glance ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... while the other is being worn. The one which is being aired should be turned inside out, so that the part which has been in contact with the skin becomes thoroughly purified. It must be remembered, however, that flannel is very liable to shrink from repeated washings. This may be provided for by taking care that the under-garment, when first obtained, is several sizes too large. In fact, it can hardly be too large at first, especially in the case of the thicker one for the cooler months, which shrinks ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... in his further flight he does not shrink from colloquy with the Eternal Son—in his theology not the equal of His Father—or that he does not fear to describe the fearful battle between Christ with his angelic hosts against the ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... beast and throwing off the paralysis of fear, she pushed one of the men away and grasped the arm of the injured man. He winced perceptibly and she felt something warm and sticky on her hands. She knew it was blood, but it was not in her to shrink at ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... But she was very quick. She seized the pistol, and, transferring it to her right hand, she rushed after him, and when the door was already half open she pulled the trigger. In the agony of that moment she heard no sound, though she saw the flash. She saw him shrink and pass the door, which he left unclosed, and then she heard a scuffle in the passage, as though he had fallen against the wall. She had provided herself especially with a second barrel,—but that was now absolutely useless to her. There was no power left to her wherewith to follow him and ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... his alarm would have vied with a delicious sense of his own power to comfort, but even the thought of comforting any one but Kate was now a bitter thing. Was it always going to be so? Would he always have to start and shrink with sudden remembrance of his pain at every turn of his way? He drew a deep sigh and looked helplessly at his companion. Then he did a hard thing. He tried to justify Kate, just as he had been trying all the morning to justify her to himself. The odd ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... danced in 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 they may never meet again. The stories they told, ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... I shrink and shudder at her name! For why, I find her breath a bitter blighter! And suffer from her BLOWS as if they came From ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... the people were forced off the causeway, one of these six-feet gentlemen, on a black horse, rode straight at the place, making his horse rear very high, and fall on the thickest spot. You would suppose men were made of sponge to see them shrink away. ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... tremulous and a trifle sick, And, face to face with chance, I shrink a little: My hopes are strong, my will is something weak. Here comes the basket? Thank you. I am ready But, gentlemen my porters, life is brittle: You carry ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... lust of battle, a love of staking their own lives against the heaviest odds; men who, lacking a Crusader's cult or a country's need to cut and thrust for, go out among the savage denizens of the desert seeking opportunity to fight for their faith in their own strong arms and steady nerves; men who shrink from a laurel but treasure a trophy. William Northrup McMillan, a native of St. Louis, who has spent the last eight years in exploration of the Blue Nile and in travel through Abyssinia and British East Africa, ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... what marriage was to be, although she had never listened to the allusions whispered among married women and more experienced girls. Something in the sex side of the relations between men and women had always made her shrink. She was not so much pure in body and soul, as without sex, unborn. She knew the fact of nature, the eternal law of life repeating itself through desire and passion; but she realized it remotely, only in her mind, ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... of Elliot. But when it came to facing the physical hardships of the North he was a malingerer. The Kamatlah trip had to be taken because his chief had ordered it, but the little man shirked the journey in his heart just as he knew his soft muscles would shrink from the aches of ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... worst man to shrink from employing—against however vile an enemy—such an instrument as the Zayat Kiss. So thinking, my eye was caught by ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... in the house of business where he resides, he becomes the companion of lewd women. The immediate result is a bad conscience, a sense of shame, and a breach in the affections of home. Letters are less frequent, careless, and brief. He cannot manifest true love now. He begins to shrink from his sister and mother, and ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... found it hard in those days to meet the eyes of the neighbours, gentle and simple, who could not know why I had consented to marry Richard Dawson. I felt that the county buzzed with it, castle and cabin alike, and it made me shrink away from those who had always been kind to me. I was ashamed to go down the village street, for I knew the people would come to their doors and look after me, and say, "Isn't it a wonder for Miss Bawn that she'd marry a Dawson? and the family ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... guise of a countryman of her own; and that not only Cauchon but Warwick also was present on this occasion, listening, while their plot was carried out by the vile traitor inside. The clerks, we are glad to say, are credited with a refusal to act: but Warwick did not shrink from the ignominy. The Englishmen indeed shrank from no ignominy; nor did the great French savants assembled under the presidency of the Bishop. It is necessary to grant to begin with that they were ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... on their right, were awful precipice and roaring torrent; tremendous mountains arose in every vista. The gigantic landscape, uncheered by a touch of changing light or a solitary ray of sun, was yet terribly distinct in its ferocity. The hearts of two lonely men might shrink a little, if they had to win their way for miles and hours among a legion of silent and motionless men—mere men like themselves—all looking at them with fixed and frowning front. But how much more, when the legion is ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... Christians and not Pagans, who believe that death is not an eternal sleep, who wrest from life its uses and gather from life its beauty,—why they should dally along the road, and cling frantically to the old landmarks, and shrink fearfully from the approaching future, I cannot tell. You are getting into years. True. But you are getting out again. The bowed frame, the tottering step, the unsteady hand, the failing eye, the heavy ear, the tremulous voice, they will all be yours. The grasshopper will become a burden, and desire ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... reference to a petty and puny race must cripple the boldness of the poet. Fortunately for his art, Shakspeare lived in an age extremely susceptible of noble and tender impressions, but which had yet inherited enough of the firmness of a vigorous olden time, not to shrink with dismay from every strong and forcible painting. We have lived to see tragedies of which the catastrophe consists in the swoon of an enamoured princess: if Shakspeare falls occasionally into the opposite ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... may shrink, the spirit fail, But Spaniards must be free; And pride and duty shall prevail O'er all my ...
— Vignettes in Verse • Matilda Betham
... inform me, I must affirm that that, too, is a matter for grave deliberation. This League is but a name as yet. To accept control of an organisation whose principles are not yet fixed is a heavy responsibility. I shrink from it—" ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... Seated as on the top of Virtue's hill, Discountenance her despised, and put to rout All her array, her female pride deject, Or turn to reverent awe! For Beauty stands 220 In the admiration only of weak minds Led captive; cease to admire, and all her plumes Fall flat, and shrink into a trivial toy, At every sudden slighting quite abashed. Therefore with manlier objects we must try His constancy—with such as have more shew Of worth, of honour, glory, and popular praise (Rocks whereon greatest men have oftest wrecked); Or that which only seems to satisfy Lawful desires ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
... Every inch of her seemed to shrink and cower away from the thought. "I can't!" Her eyes darted to and fro like a hunted thing seeking to escape. She ran to the hall. "Al! Al, go ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... public land, for which, moreover, a tenth of the arable and a fifth of the grazing produce was to be paid to the State. The framers of the law are said to have hoped that possessors of more than this amount would shrink from making on oath a false return of the land which they occupied, and that, as they would be liable to penalties for exceeding the prescribed maximum, all land beyond the maximum would be sold at a nominal price (if this interpretation of the [Greek: kat' oligon] of Appian may be hazarded) ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... peau de chagrin—the shagreen skin. (The hero of this story, by Balzac, is given a piece of shagreen, on the condition that all his wishes will be gratified, but that every wish will cause the leather to shrink, and that when it disappears his life will come to an end. Chagrin also means sorrow, so that Barty's retina was indeed "a skin of ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... my God and your God." But after a few days He showed Himself to Thomas, and bade him boldly touch Him, put his hand in the Master's side, and his fingers into the marks left by the nails of the cross, so that He did not shrink from being touched even on the most sensitive spots. And also even in the earliest days, and as if the new life were to be fully strengthened by doing so, we find Him walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus, and from Emmaus back to Jerusalem, as well as going ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... both of us. We'll wear our last breath i' your service. Neither Ben nor I are made o' stuff that'll shrink in t' wetting. You can ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... a friend, is yet terrified by it. Altogether, he says, he would fain pass his life at his ease; and if he could escape from blows, even by taking refuge under a calf's skin, [30] he would not be the man who would shrink from it. ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... but I am assured that Christ's blood cleanseth from all sin, and that in him I have a powerful and all-prevailing Advocate with the Father. I know in whom I have believed, and that he will never cast off nor forsake me. I am sinking into the grave, but I do not shrink from that prospect, because the bitterness of death is taken away by my Saviour, who died for my sins, and rose again for my justification; and though this body returns to dust, I shall live again, and enter into the presence of my ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... Wouldn't it be virtually as indelicate to 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
... flushed, there was light upon the sea, but the room was dim and quiet. Her room! she had lived in many years, had seen it under all aspects; then why did she look with strained eyes? Why did she shrink? Nothing has ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... one little 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
... identified with the figure of a people's hero: with some personality which may be said in a certain manner to epitomize and symbolize the character of a race. "I and my nation are one": thus Poland's greatest poet, Adam Mickiewicz, sums up the devotion that will not shrink before the highest tests of sacrifice for a native country. "My name is Million, because I love millions and for millions suffer torment." If to this patriotism oblivious of self may be added an unstained moral integrity, the magnetism of an extraordinary personal charm, ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... to answer that question. It was as if he even disdained to lie. He faced us, drawing back his lips and gnashing his teeth, and did not shrink an inch before the sweep of Dominic's arm. He went down as if shot, of course. But this time I noticed that, when picking himself up, he remained longer than usual on all fours, baring his big teeth over his shoulder ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... nightmare. It is mankind's lack of pity, mankind's fatal propensity for torture, that is the nightmare. When a man or woman, confronted by helpless terror, is without the impulse to save, the world becomes hell. It was this, dimly but passionately felt, that made Hazel shrink from Reddin. For unless Reddin was without this impulse to save, and had the mind of a fiend without pity, how could he in the mere pursuit of pleasure inflict wholly unnecessary torture, as ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... looking straight into the secretary's blue eyes, he added with increased gravity: "And therefore it would not be immoral of me to expose you to an experiment in which the penalty of a slip would be—death? Or you would not shrink from it yourself, provided the knowledge to be ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... not delay a day. My army is strong and valiant, and eager to finish its work—march with me to Rheims and receive your crown." You could see the indolent King shrink, in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... late, Before this ring thy finger 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
... to shrink or shiver, for Mrs. Grant was leading the way to those unknown tea-drinkers of whom she was to form one; the fire-light from the kitchen showing them the way along a passage. Then a door was opened, and the small shiverer thrust in, not unkindly, ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... infancy! It is useless to conceal it; I am placed in the most disagreeable, the most inextricable situation. 'Inextricable! Am I, then, the Duke of St. James? Am I that being who, two hours ago, thought that the world was formed alone for my enjoyment, and I quiver and shrink here like a common hind? Out, out on such craven cowardice! I am no Hauteville! I am bastard! Never! I will not be crushed. I will struggle with this emergency; I will conquer it. Now aid me, ye heroes of my ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... notion, got up to put the screw on you, by surprise. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll go down to the shop tomorrow morning, see the woman, and extract the truth if possible, and I fully expect that the story will shrink ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Dakota Joe, in his sudden panic, who came to disaster. He had always been afraid of Wonota. She was a dead shot, and he believed that she would not shrink from killing him. ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... history, or to him who can read the signs of the times, there was such a profound significance in this occasion as makes one shrink from dwelling too much upon the external details. Yet as a pageant only it was a most inspiring sight, and one truly worthy of a queen. Indeed as we run the mind back over the pages of history, what queen came to a more triumphant ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... they define them more strictly, in order not only the better to show how blamable they are, but to discover how much they are in our power. Grief, then, is a recent opinion of some present evil, in which it seems to be right that the mind should shrink and be dejected. Joy is a recent opinion of a present good, in which it seems to be right that the mind should be elated. Fear is an opinion of an impending evil which we apprehend will be intolerable. Lust is an opinion of a good to come, which would be of advantage ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... I wish he had been more handsome," the Contessa said; but Bice's indifference on this point was sublime. "What can it matter?" she said loftily. She was not even very deeply interested in his disposition or mental qualities. Everything else being so suitable, it would have been cowardly to shrink from any minor disadvantage. She silenced the Contessa in the attempt to make the best of him. "All these things are so secondary," the girl said. Her devotion to the career chosen for her was above all weakly arguments of this kind. She looked upon them even with a certain scorn. And though there ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... the direct question: Do you not share the common feeling of interest in criminal stories? This question would doubtless have elicited a categorical reply; but somehow, the consciousness of an arriere-pensee made me shrink ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... First, which was painted some few years later than the time at which we have now arrived, and at about the same period as the Isabella d'Este. Though as a portrait d'apparat it makes its effect, and reveals the sovereign accomplishment of the master, does it not shrink into the merest insignificance when compared with such renderings from life as the successive portraits of Charles the Fifth, the Ippolito de' Medici, the Francesco Maria della Rovere? This is as it must and should be, ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... that they had also differed as to what the herd would dress out, and invited my opinion. "Those beeves will dress off from forty-five to fifty per cent.," I replied. "The Texan being a gaunt animal does not shrink like a domestic beef. Take that 'Open A' herd straight through and they will dress from four fifty to six hundred pounds, or average better than five hundred all round. In three months, under favorable conditions, those steers ought to easily ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... was not a popular passenger. People seemed instinctively to shrink from him, although it must be admitted that he made no advances. All went well until the Gibrontus was about half-way over. One forenoon the chief officer entered the captain's room with a pale face, and, shutting the door ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... reputation.[542] Dante seems to regard him as second only to Vergil; and it was scarcely before the nineteenth century that he was dethroned from his exalted position. Before the verdict of so many ages one may well shrink from passing an unfavourable criticism. That he had many of the qualifications of a great poet is undeniable; his technical skill is extraordinary; his variety of phrase is infinite; his colouring is often brilliant. And even his positive faults, the faults of ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... 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 to ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... when a caterpillar finishes eating and is ready to go into winter quarters it crawls rapidly around for a time, empties the intestines, and transformation takes place. Why do not some of them explain further that a caterpillar of, say, six inches in length will shrink to THREE, its skin become loosened, the horns drop limp, and the,creature appear dead and disintegrating? Because no one mentioned these things, I concluded that the first caterpillar I found in this state was lost to ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... necessary experience in America; he must go to Italy, the land of song, to gain the required training and experience. He was also fully aware of the fact that there was plenty of hard work, and probably many disappointments before him, but he did not shrink from either. ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... came to me and said he had something to communicate, which was so terrible, if I heard it I should give up the march. Lumeresi was his authority, but he would not tell it until Grant arrive. I said to him, "Let us wait till Grant arrives; we shall then have some one with us who won't shrink from whispers"—meaning Bombay; and so I let the matter drop for the time being. But when Grant came, we had it out of him, and found this terrible mystery all hung on Lumeresi's prognostications that we never should get through Usui with so ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... not try to disguise it. It sees the difficulties, and does not discount them. But seeing all this, it looks beyond and sees God, its all-sufficient help. It sees him greater than the needs or the dangers or the difficulties, and it does not shrink before them. ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... By the mouth of the prophet Ezekiel, God distinctly says that, if we neglect "to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand." We are all sent, and if we shrink or excuse ourselves from our great mission ...
— The Art of Soul-Winning • J.W. Mahood
... offered a resolution in favor of impartial suffrage, only to find himself in a minority of two; but persevered nevertheless, year after year, until the very same resolution, word for word, was unanimously adopted by another Republican convention! Of course, Judge Goddard will not be likely to shrink from giving his reasons hereafter, if the movement should propagate itself, as ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... eyebrows were raised, her cheeks were pink, her eyes sparkling. She rose slowly to her feet, and, child though she was, the dignity of her demeanour was such that Lady Delahaye with her accusing forefinger seemed to shrink into insignificance. ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... now no longer practise those reserves in speaking to Sue of her father, which he had observed so painfully hitherto. Neither did she shrink from the fact they had to deal with. In the trust established between them, they spoke of it all openly, and if there was any difference in them concerning it, the difference was in his greater forbearance toward the unhappy man. They both spoke of his wrong-doing as if it were his infirmity; ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... away in ruins and smoke, and one cannot fabricate gold any more than soldiers. We no longer know how to count; we no longer know anything. A billion—a million millions—the word appears to me printed on the emptiness of things. It sprang yesterday out of war, and I shrink in dismay from the new, ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... that the Indians would manage their own affairs better than we can manage affairs for them. Anybody who pictures to himself the anarchy, the bloody chaos, that would follow from any such deplorable step, must shrink from that sinister decision. We, at all events—Ministers and Members of this House—are bound to take a completely different view. The Government, and the House in all its parties and groups, is determined that we ought to face all these mischiefs and difficulties and ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... of his age will not quietly submit to neglect its current acquisitions, but will go on improving as long as means and opportunities offer; while he who finds himself ignorant of most things, is only too apt to shrink from a labour which becomes Herculean. In this manner ambition is stifled, the mind gets to be inactive, and finally sinks into unresisting apathy. Such is the case with a large portion of the European ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... I shrink from no suffering, how painful soe'er, When once I can feel that my God's hand is there; For soft on the anvil the iron shall glow When the Smith with his hammer deals blow ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... also, that he does not suffer so deeply, as would a white man in the same circumstances. By long exposure, and the endurance of hardships incident to his savage life, his body acquires an insensibility akin to that of wild animals.[38] His nerves do not shrink or betray a tendency to spasm, even when a limb is amputated. Transmitted from one generation to another, this physical nature has become a peculiarity of the race. And when assisted by the fierce hatred above referred to, it is not at all strange that it should enable him ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... attracted as much by the daughter as repelled by the mother, he could move no farther. The mother's masculine boldness heightened, by contrast, the charms of the daughter's soft sentimentality. The Lady Isabel seemed to shrink from the indelicacy of her mother's manners, and appeared peculiarly distressed by the strange efforts Lady Dashfort made, from time to time, to drag her forward, and to fix upon her the attention of gentlemen. Colonel Heathcock, who, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... Baroness Caroline, wrote a fairly pretty story on the sylphs of fire. But Undine's freakish playfulness and mischief as an elemental being, and her sweet patience when her soul is won, are quite original, and indeed we cannot help sharing, or at least understanding, Huldbrand's beginning to shrink from the unearthly creature to something of his own flesh and blood. He is altogether unworthy, and though in this tale there is far less of spiritual meaning than in Sintram, we cannot but see that Fouque's thought was that the grosser human nature ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... snout, with a pair of little fiery blasting eyes, appeared, and a thin black neck glanced in the sun. The lizard saw it. I could fancy it trembled. Its body became of a dark blue, then ashy pale; the imitation of the flower, the gaudy fin was withdrawn, it appeared to shrink back as far as it could, but it was nailed or fascinated to the window sill, for its feet did not move. The head of the snake approached, with its long forked tongue shooting out and shortening, and with a low hissing noise. By this time about two feet of ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... dragged out, with its entire capsule, by means of a blunt hook. A large goitre in a feeble patient, however, is better left alone, as it is difficult to remove all the intricate roots of the tumor, and if any portion is left it is prone to return. In such cases Gilbert says we shrink from the application of the actual cautery, for fear of injury to the surrounding vessels and nerves. Whatever method of operation is selected, the patient is to be tied to a table ...
— Gilbertus Anglicus - Medicine of the Thirteenth Century • Henry Ebenezer Handerson
... vouchsafed to you higher blessings, but at the same time imposed on you sterner duties than those which women in general are called upon to bear. You have enjoyed the blessings, and if I know your character, you will not shrink ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... themselves—it is high time—but criticism has not died. Refined natures have heartstrings like the chords of Aeolian harps, sensitive to the faintest touch, responsive to the gentlest whisper of the evening breeze; such shrink in terror from the icy breath of the scoffer: the purpose is frozen dead within their souls. O criticism! what crimes have been committed in your name! How many noble careers have ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... that sort of talk, Adam Ward." Peter Martin was on his feet, and there was that in his usually stolid countenance which made the Mill owner shrink back. "I was a fool, as you say. But my mistake was that I trusted you. I believed in your pretended friendship for me. I thought you were as honest and honorable as you seemed to be. I didn't know that your religion was all such a rotten sham. I have never ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... burden on the ground; Clang the strong arms, and ring the shores around; Back shrink the Myrmidons with dread surprise, And from the broad effulgence turn their eyes. Unmoved the hero kindles at the show, And feels with rage divine his bosom glow; From his fierce eyeballs living flames expire, And flash ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... winter vegetables that keep well in the cellar through cold weather that if we did not have the new ones from the South, there would be, nevertheless, a variety from which to choose. It is late in the spring, when the old vegetables begin to shrink and grow rank, that we appreciate what comes ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa
... occasion for. about 12 O'Clk. the hunters returned; they had killed 10 deer but no Elk. I begin to fear that we shall have some difficulty in procuring skins for the boat. I wold prefer those of the Elk because I beleive them more durable and strong than those of the Buffaloe, and that they will not shrink so much in drying. we saw a herd of buffaloe come down to water at the sulpher spring this evening, I dispatched some hunters to kill some of them, and a man also for a cask of mineral water. the ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... space or personal contact—still one cannot but be sensible of the fact that the innovator is a person with whom it is at least distasteful to be associated, and from whose social contact one must shrink. Innovation ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... what, I dare not think! We all are changed. God judges for us best. God help us do our duty, and not shrink, And trust in heaven humbly ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... at half hour intervals meant missing the edition. She was paid to stand it, she told herself, as she stamped her feet which were almost without feeling. The doctor's emphatic warning came to her mind with each icy blast that made her shrink and huddle closer to the wall of the big storage building. Exposure, wet feet, were as suicidal in her condition as poison, he had told her. She could guard against the latter but there was no escape from the former if she would do her work conscientiously for long, cold ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... clear enough," says Moll. "Pressed by his necessities, he came hither to claim assistance of his kinsman; but finding he was dead and none here but me, his pride did shrink from begging of a mere maid that which he might with justice have demanded from a man. And then, for shame at being handled ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... are growing too, as all must grow who live on life's firing line, and shrink not from meeting the very hardest problems of today. The working-woman, in her daily struggle comes up against every one of them, and not one ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... Narnay seemed to know what the matter was, for he flung down the axe he was using and was first of the three at the side of the car when Janice stopped. Mr. Trimmins sauntered up, too, but the sullen Jack Besmith seemed to shrink ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... After the first month, if the weather is exceedingly warm, this woolen shirt may be displaced by a thin silk or lisle shirt. In buying the second-size shirts always secure the stretchers at the same time, for in the laundering they soon shrink so that they are very uncomfortable for the ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... invented; one draws another on, and the multitude are infected; riches outweigh virtue; lovers of money take the place of lovers of honour; misers of politicians; and, in time, political privileges are confined by law to the rich, who do not shrink from violence in order to effect ...
— The Republic • Plato
... the soil is very wet. Trees will stay in good condition for several days, if the burlap sacks are kept moistened. Wet, soggy soil is certain to shrink away from the roots and leave air pockets which will, in time, kill the trees. If trees are transplanted during a very dry season, they should be thoroughly watered. To do this, remove several shovelfuls ...
— Growing Nuts in the North • Carl Weschcke
... the amaranthine flower Of Faith, and round the Sufferer's temples bind Wreaths that endure affliction's heaviest shower, And do not shrink from ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... complacency the field of her own nature; she was in the habit of taking for granted, on scanty evidence, that she was right; she treated herself to occasions of homage. Meanwhile her errors and delusions were frequently such as a biographer interested in preserving the dignity of his subject must shrink from specifying. Her thoughts were a tangle of vague outlines which had never been corrected by the judgement of people speaking with authority. In matters of opinion she had had her own way, and it had led her into a thousand ridiculous zigzags. At moments she discovered she was grotesquely wrong, ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... ordeal I must face when I make such a statement. I see clearly before me the solid phalanx of men from Missouri, some urging me to tell it to the King of Denmark, others insisting that I produce my Eskimos. Nevertheless, I do not shrink. I state once more that in his thirty-first year Archibald Mealing went in for a golf championship, ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... companion of a high-spirited, honest boy. Was it fair to Percy to keep a secret what would certainly shut the doors of Wildtree against him for ever? Was it fair to Mr Rimbolt to accept this new responsibility without a word? Was it fair to Raby, who would shrink from him with detestation, did she know ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... quivered either with rage or fear, and, his own self-possession completely restored, stood gazing upon him with folded arms, and his usual deep and passionless composure of countenance; and Houseman, if he could not boldly confront, did not altogether shrink from, his eye. So there and thus they stood, at a little distance from each other, both silent, and yet with something ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... but by tens of millions at one blow; that will blot them and their peoples from the face of earth and that will cause the deep seas to roll where now their pleasant lands are fruitful in the sun. They shrink before his fury; behold, their knees tremble because they know that he has this power. He mocks them, does the Lord Oro. He asks for their submission here and now, and that in the name of the Nations they should take the great oath which may not be broken, swearing to ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... flank, lies down and rises, arches the back, and attempts to urinate as before. If the oiled hand is introduced into the rectum the greatly distended bladder may be felt beneath, and the patient will often shrink when it ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... little fly; and it was with my whole heart that, at parting, I wished him success in his career, and the fame that so much conscientious labour merited. From my allusion to this last reward, however, he seemed almost to shrink, and, with a sincerity it was impossible to doubt, disclaimed as ignoble so poor a motive as a thirst for fame. His was one of those calm laborious minds, seldom found but among the Teutonic race, that—pursuing day by day with single-minded energy some special ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... year. The boast will not be thought an empty one by those who have choice friends that have stocked themselves according to his directions. Such treasuries of sparkling laughter are wells in our desert. Sensitiveness to the comic laugh is a step in civilization. To shrink from being an object of it is a step in cultivation. We know the degree of refinement in men by the matter they will laugh at, and the ring of the laugh; but we know likewise that the larger natures ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... great, strengthened and urged on by all they believe to be the highest and holiest in religion and principle. The Boer will fight on, giving his last drop of blood and his last breath for his freedom. And the women-folk of his land are bearing their share of this task; they do not shrink; they are helping their fathers, brothers, and sons in this fight. They think no distance too great to travel, no burden too heavy to carry. The wife, with her little children round her knees, bids her husband a tearful but brave God-speed. The mother, as she gazes with a full heart on the boy who ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... though the Turk was Dicky's idea entirely. Yet Oswald is just, and he owns that he helped as much as he could in packing the Hamper of the Avenger. Dora paid her share, too, though she wasn't in it. The author does not shrink from owning that this was very decent ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... you for your preparation," returns Sir Leicester after a silence, without moving hand, foot, or feature, "which I hope is not necessary; though I give it credit for being well intended. Be so good as to go on. Also"—Sir Leicester seems to shrink in the shadow of his figure—"also, to take a seat, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... not heed their presence, And you will not shrink before them, 270 Come, O forest, with thy people, Junipers, bring all your army. Come, O pinewoods, with your household, And thou pond with all thy children, With their swords a hundred swordsmen, And a thousand mail-clad heroes, That ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... 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 of ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... without any doubt, How soone I may ride the whole world about; And at the third question thou must not shrink, But tell me here truly what I ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... down a root the hypocotyl began to develop into a strong stem which crooked itself until it reached the surface of the soil and then pulled the cotyledons or seed-leaves after it (Fig. 42). These turn green and after a time shrink and fall off. ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich
... in a flutter of expectation and alarm not untinged with horror. Clarence, nay, the whole of Fernando Po, was about to become so rackety and dissipated as to put Paris and Monte Carlo to the blush. Clarence was going to have a cafe; and what was going to go on in that cafe I shrink ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... season is a busy time on a large plantation. All hands join in the work—men, women and children; for it must be rushed. Over-ripe berries shrink and dry up. The pickers, with baskets slung over their shoulders, walk between the rows, stripping the berries from the trees, using ladders to reach the topmost branches, and sometimes even taking immature ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... ethical qualities were revealed notably in his pamphlet Dibre Shalom wa-Emet ("Words of Peace and Truth," Berlin, 1781), elicited by the edict of Emperor Joseph II ordering a reform of Jewish education and the establishment of modern schools for Jews. Though well on in years, he yet did not shrink from the risk of incurring the anger of the fanatics. He openly declared himself in favor of pedagogic innovations. With sage-like modesty and mildness, the poet stated the pressing need for adopting new educational methods, and showed them to be by no means in opposition ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... father, it 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 ...
— The Miser (L'Avare) • Moliere
... done this, knowing very well that at the caressing touch of her fingers, she would have felt his strong arms around her in a passionate and distasteful embrace. But there was no fear of this now. She would never have to shrink away from him again. ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... instances, than can be discovered in the mass of harangues poured forth by Mr Cobden, were the flowers ever so carefully culled and separated from the loads of trashy weed. His forte consists in a coarse but dauntless intrepidity, with which respectability and intellect shrink from encounter. The country squire, educated and intelligent, but retiring and truth-loving, retreats naturally from contest with a bold, abusive, and unscrupulous demagogue; even the party he serves, holds off from contact and communion with him. He never ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... 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
... with time. But I cannot believe that any impartial mind can read the evidence without seeing that the British Government was doing its best under difficult circumstances to carry out the most humane plan possible, and that any other must involve consequences from which a civilised nation must shrink. ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... his sister were handcuffed together, and confined in prison. Their dear little twin brother and sister were sold, and taken where they knew not. But it often happens that misfortune causes those whom we counted dearest to shrink away; while it makes friends of those whom we least expected to take any interest in our affairs. Among the latter class Frank found two comparatively new but faithful friends to watch the gloomy paths of ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft
... to him by signs, and he understands him perfectly well. They are strange things. It must have been the finger of God. That executioner cut off Jurand's hand, tore out his tongue, and put out his eyes. That executioner is such that where men are concerned he would not shrink from inflicting any torture, even if he were ordered to pull the teeth of the victim; but, where girls are concerned, he would not lift up his hand to kill them, or to assist in torturing them. The reason for this determination ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... 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 through ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... are many promises of good to give spring to hope and effort; and it is not wise to open our eyes and ears to ill omens alone. It is to be lamented that men who boast of courage in other trials, should shrink so weakly from public difficulties and dangers, and should spend in unmanly reproaches, or complaints, the strength which they ought to give to their country's safety. But this ought not to surprise us in ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... written his immortal poems on Hell and Purgatory, the people of Italy used to shrink back from him with awe, and whisper, "see the man who has looked upon Hell." To-day we can in fancy look on the face of the beloved Apostle, who saw Heaven opened, and the things which shall be hereafter. We have ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... hard on the Tripos that year, but Darsie took no part in the festivities. The remembrance of the tragic event of last summer made her shrink from witnessing the same scenes, and in her physically exhausted condition she was thankful to stay quietly in college. Moreover, a sad task lay before her in the packing up her belongings, preparatory to bidding adieu to the beloved little room which had been the ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... that exactly; though there are stakes of that kind some men would not shrink from. What are called "arms of precision" have had a great influence on modern politics. When there's no time for a plebiscite, there's always ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... Murembwe Point, which, being a delta of a river of the same name, was well protected by a breadth of thorny jungle, spiky cane, and a thick growth of reed and papyrus, from which the boldest Mrundi might well shrink, especially if he called to mind that beyond this inhospitable swamp were the guns of the strangers his like had so rudely challenged. We drew our canoe ashore here, and, on a limited area of clean ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... funds. He would give her another and more thrilling taste of the joy that was to be hers through him—and soon she would be giving even as she got—for he would teach her not to fear love, not to shrink from it, but to rejoice in it and to let it permeate and ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... the murderer, could never again meet the wife of the murdered man as a friend. If the punishment of the father descended to the children, did not their guilt descend too? Already she seemed to feel the stain of blood upon her hand, and to shrink from herself, as all innocent persons ought to do, henceforward. And Bella, her old companion and friend, must shrink from her most of all; the very spirit of the dead would surely rise up to forbid ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... itself in its toils. No burning language of prophecy would be too solemn and too stinging for the premeditated wretchedness, and incurable calamity, of such a bond. No; if we must violate the simplicity of our national interests by such degrading, and such desperate involvements—if we should not shrink from this conspiracy against mankind, let it, at least, not be consummated in the face of day; let us at once abandon the hollow pretences of human honesty; let us pledge ourselves to a perpetual league of rapine ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... entrance, Paulina had noticed a man of striking and farouche appearance,—hair black and matted, eyes keen and wild, and beaming with malicious cunning, who surveyed her as she passed with a mixed look of insolence and curiosity, that involuntarily made her shrink. He had been half reclining carelessly against the wall, when she first entered, but rose upright with a sudden motion as she passed him—not probably from any sentiment of respect, but under the first powerful impression of surprise on seeing a young woman of peculiarly splendid ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... "murobrecheis cincinni," "curled locks reeking with ointment." We hear of a treatise called Prometheus, certain dialogues, among them a Symposium, in which Messala, Virgil, and Horace were introduced; and Horace implies that he had planned a prose history of Augustus's wars. [22] He did not shrink from attempting, and what was worse, publishing, poetry, which bore imprinted on it the characteristics of his effeminate mind. Seneca quotes one passage [23] from which we may form an estimate of his level ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... whate'er the Heav'n contains, The Earth beneath it, and the Air between, The Rivers and the restless deep, may all Prove intellectual gain to me, my wish Concurring with thy will; Science herself, 110 All cloud removed, inclines her beauteous head And offers me the lip, if, dull of heart, I shrink not and decline her gracious boon. Go now, and gather dross, ye sordid minds That covet it; what could my Father more, What more could Jove himself, unless he gave His own abode, the heav'n in which he reigns? More eligible ...
— Poemata (William Cowper, trans.) • John Milton
... respect to drink may, upon the whole, serve as a model. He is no drunkard, nor is he fond of intoxicating other people; yet when the horrors are upon him he has no objection to go to a public-house and call for a pint of ale, nor does he shrink from recommending ale to others when they are faint and downcast. In one instance, it is true, he does what cannot be exactly justified; he encourages the Priest in the dingle, in more instances than one, in drinking more hollands ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... perfectly chosen fashion, lay in her silken lap. As his glance fell upon these hands some whimsical thought brought to Brown's mind Mrs. Kelcey's red, work-roughened ones. He wondered if by any chance the two hands would ever meet, and whether Mrs. Brainard's would shrink from the contact, or meet it as that of a sister, "under ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... as the visible absence of colour; and at the same time the concrete of all colours; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows—a colourless, all-colour of atheism from which we shrink? And when we consider that other theory of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues—every stately or lovely emblazoning—the sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods; yea, and the gilded ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... misconceived by others, to encroach upon the powers of the House. Principles that bear a remote affinity with usurpation on those powers will be rejected, not merely as errors, but as wrongs. Our sensibilities will shrink from a post where it is possible they may be wounded, and be inflamed by the slightest suspicion of ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... he was mad all day, and dictated a panic interview to Ward, which Ward was to give to the Associated Press when they went to Chicago the next day. In the interview, Barclay said that economic conditions were being disturbed by half-baked politicians, and that values would shrink and the worst panic in the history of the country would follow unless the socialistic ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... responsibility is different. This group was the victim of a nation-wide depression caused by conditions which were not local but national. The Federal Government is the only governmental agency with sufficient power and credit to meet this situation. We have assumed this task and we shall not shrink from it in the future. It is a duty dictated by every intelligent consideration of national policy to ask you to make it possible for the United States to give employment to all of these three and one half million employable people now on relief, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Ann, Snowdrop, Pearl, Susan, Tilly—all, usually cheerful and smiling, wore distressful countenances now. Nor did they speak to him as had been their wont. They seemed to be afraid of him, yet what had he done—what had he ever done that these well-fed, well-treated slaves should shrink from him in his ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... not to give his name and to shrink from thanks," said Mrs. Campian. "He never enters society, ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... be felt that the true history of a nation was indeed not of its wars, but of its households; and the desire of men would rather be to obtain some conspicuous place in these honorable annals, than to shrink behind closed shutters from public sight. Until at last, George Herbert's grand word of command would hold not only on the conscience, but the actual system and outer economy ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... of the Ash Goblin perish before the power of the Sword of Fire!" exclaimed the Prince, and as he uttered the words the Ash Goblin saw the web that he had been at such pains to prepare, begin to shrivel and shrink away, and presently it had vanished completely from ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... beheld the Lady Brandon upon her knees within a yard of me, saw her shrink before my gaze and the griping passion of my hands; for now, reading in her look all her scorn and loathing for the thing I was, I must needs turn my fury upon her and did that the which shames me to this day, for even as she fronted me, all ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... frisk that sent the straw flying, and made me shrink into a corner, while she pranced about the box with a neigh which waked the big brown colt next door, and set poor Buttercup to lowing for her calf, the loss of which she had forgotten for ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... civilization. They share equally with other vehicles the drives in the parks, though their speed is tempered there to the prevalent pace. They add to the general noise the shuddering bursts of their swift percussions, and make the soul shrink from a forecast of what the aeroplane may be when it shall come hurtling overhead with some peculiar screech as yet unimagined. The motor plays an even more prominent part in the country than in London, especially in those remnants of time which the English ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... eyes, rather too prominent, and but for his receding forehead, and the expression of his lips, he would have been a handsome man of princely mien. Something, too, there was of fear, something of a scowl; he seemed to shrink from the open and manly demeanour of Edward, and to turn with greater ease to converse with John, who, less lofty in character than his brother, better suited ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a work, before which we find indeed no critical essay, but which disdains to shrink from the touchstone of the severest critic; and which certainly, as I remember to have heard you say, if it contains some of the worst, contains also some of the best ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... [All shrink back horrified. REZON retires into the temple; the crowd melts away, wailing; TSARPI is among the first to go, followed by her attendants, except RUAHMAH, who crouches, with her face covered, not far ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... resemblances which may be traced between himself and the beasts, he has often supposed, like Darwin himself, that mankind has been developed out of lower forms of animal life. For the simple savage has none of that high notion of the transcendant dignity of man which makes so many superior persons shrink with horror from the suggestion that they are distant cousins of the brutes. He on the contrary is not too proud to own his humble relations; indeed his difficulty often is to perceive the distinction between him and them. Questioned by a missionary, a ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... Optimists in the labor movement maintain that a repetition of the legal murder of 1887, that has caused shame and horror even in the ranks of the upper ten thousand, is impossible—that the authorities would shrink from such an outrage, such an awful crime. That which has happened in Colorado and Idaho warrants no ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... rainless land must have been driven by. It is in the "Great Basin," and the south wind is the broom that sweeps it clean. Not only dust does the south wind bring, but heat, terrible and suffocating, like that of a fiery furnace. Before it the human and the vegetable worlds shrink and wither, and birds and ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... to shrink away from filth and sin, to pull His garments closer around Him and turn aside to walk in ...
— Have We No Rights? - A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries • Mabel Williamson
... triumph is due to the fact that in the midst of the fray Prince Arthur's shield is accidentally uncovered and its brightness quells both giant and beast. But no sooner are the fallen pierced with the victors' swords than they shrink to nothing, for they are mere wind-bags, ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... 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 of ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... translated into acts, they would carry the country appreciably nearer war; but the members of the committee were not inclined to shrink from the consequences. To a man they agreed that war was preferable to inglorious submission to continued outrages, and that the outcome of war would be positively advantageous. Porter, who represented the westernmost district of a State profoundly interested in the northern ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... their "able dispatches," From trusting the tube with their wisdom may shrink. The brain that in secret shrewd policies hatches, May not care to canvas 'cute schemes "o'er a drink." Yet times must be many when sense will be winner By chatting of trifles, which nations have riled, As freely ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 28, 1891 • Various
... chambers but a moment since, Whither in mantle, lo, and plumed hat Stealthily through the screening dusk he came— Furtive, perturbed, abashed, unworthy all, A miserable, pitiable sight. I never guessed a man could sink so low Whom history applauded as her hero. For look—I am a woman and I shrink From the mere worm that draws too near my foot; But so undone, so void of all control, So unheroic quite, though lion-like Death fiercely came, he should not find me thus! Oh, what ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... in their light passage. The light period for stars of the first magnitude has been estimated at thirty-six and a half years; this applies to the brightest stars, which are also regarded as the nearest. At the distance indicated by this period, the Sun would shrink to the dimensions of a seventh-magnitude star and become invisible to the naked eye; this of itself affords sufficient proof that the great luminary of our system cannot be regarded as one of the leading orbs of the firmament. Stars of ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... reprehension. As has been finely said, righteousness and sinfulness were for the while "in strange and dreadful peace with each other. The wicked man did not dislike virtue, nor the good man vice: the villain could admire a saint, and the saint could excuse a villain, in things which we often shrink from repeating, and ...
— The Jewel Merchants - A Comedy In One Act • James Branch Cabell
... will shrink and tremble at the thought of the Judge we must meet," said Edmund; "but He is a gracious Judge, and He knows that it is rather than turn from our duty that we are exposed to death. We may have a good hope, sinners as we are in His sight, that He will grant us His mercy, and be with us ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not know, Humphrey, yet I think it will be saved, perchance by sacrifice. That is the keystone of your faith, is it not? Therefore if it is asked of you to save the world, you will not shrink ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... smaller, and as he shrunk in size, his light alpaca duster became gauzy, and formed itself into wings. Just as he had begun to wonder how long it would take him to shrink into nothing, the bee said, "There, ...
— Harper's Young People, April 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... been thinking of him, even while she spoke earnestly of other things. Would she ever see him again, she wondered with a sinking of the heart, would she ever see him again. Never had he thought or care for himself, never would he shrink from fear of consequences if it seemed to him that a certain course was "straight." She would not have him shrink, of course. He was dear to her because he was what he was, and yet, and yet, it pained her so to think that she nevermore might see him. Seldom she saw him it was ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... 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 ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald |
