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More "Coward" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the midst of his own village, when Mahto-Tatonka entered it alone, and approaching the dwelling of his enemy, called on him in a loud voice to come out, if he were a man, and fight. Smoke would not move. At this, Mahto-Tatonka proclaimed him a coward and an old woman, and striding close to the entrance of the lodge, stabbed the chief's best horse, which was picketed there. Smoke was daunted, and even this insult failed to call him forth. Mahto-Tatonka moved haughtily away; all ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... physique, but a giant in intellect, the brilliant naval officer, the Marquis de la Galissoniere, destined later to inflict upon the English in the Mediterranean the naval defeat which caused the execution of Admiral Byng as a coward. This remarkable man—planning, like his predecessor Frontenac, on a scale suited to world politics—saw that the peace of 1748 settled nothing, that in the balance now was the whole future of North America, and that victory would be to the alert and the strong. He chose ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... of it. Hassan is a coward, and you have but to look him in the face to see he has no self-reliance. He must lean on some one else. He shall lean on me. And Nedjma shall console him, so that time will pass, and he shall hardly know how it is going. He will speak when we want ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... . . . Then did the famous warrior arise beside his shield, hard under helmet he bare the sword- shirt, under the cliffs of stone, he trusted in the strength of one man; nor is such an expedition for a coward." ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... and he meant to have it. For some seconds, we both waited on the wall in breathless silence, and then Alec, with a reckless disregard of what might be in store for him, gently let himself drop, and I, fearing more, if anything, than the present danger, to be for ever after branded as a coward if I held back, timidly followed suit. By a great stroke of luck we alighted in safety on a soft carpeting of moss. Not a word was spoken, but, falling on hands and knees, and guiding ourselves by means of a dark lantern Alec had bought second-hand from the village blacksmith, ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... This play has many delightful scenes, though not sufficiently probable, and some happy characters, though not new, nor produced by any deep knowledge of human nature. Parolles is a boaster and a coward, such as has always been the sport of the stage, but perhaps never raised more laughter or contempt than in the hands ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... was vacancy, I took another step, this time in the direction of the voice—and started back with a smothered curse. Bang-ang! I had run into a suit of old armor, the shield of which had clattered to the stone floor. As I have observed, I am not a coward, but I had all I could do to keep my legs—which were stirrup-weary, ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... feeble boy; not good at work; womanish in his ways; inclined to go in for petty bullying, until a boy showed fight, when he discovered himself to be an arrant coward. Four or five years later I met him at the university. His greeting was cool. My next affair was with a boy who was about my age (13), strong, full-blooded, coarse, always in 'hot water.' He was the son of the headmaster of one of the best-known public schools. It was reported ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... an end when Grady, following the glances of his auditors, turned and saw who was coming. Bannon noted with satisfaction the scared look of appeal which he turned, for a second, toward the men. It was good to know that Grady was something of a coward. ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... of a coward, but by the time he had eaten his lunch and washed it down with more whisky than he had meant to take, he was ready to handle the sail himself and ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... do it, and he slapped John and called him some names and told him he is a coward to fight him. All dis made John awful mad and he flew into him and give him the terriblest licking a man ever toted. He went on home but knew he would git into ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... blessed eternity was in a single kiss of that woman, and that without her life was senseless, and no more than an evil dream? Oh, stupid fool! thou hast seen her, and thou hast desired the good things of the other world! Oh, coward! thou hast seen her, and thou hast feared God! God! heaven! what are they? And what have they to offer thee which are worth the least tittle of that which she would have given thee? Oh, miserable, senseless fool, who sought divine goodness elsewhere ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... hardhearted mistress of hers. She certainly has been well trained in the management of children. And it makes her impatient, and annoyed, and unhappy, when she sees the squire giving the child nuts and ale, and all sorts of silly indulgences, and spoiling him in every possible way. Yet she's a coward, and doesn't speak out her mind. Now by being in lodgings, and having her own servants—nice pretty rooms they are, too; we went to see them, and Mrs. Jennings promises to attend well to Mrs Osborne ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... lesson from the battle of Blue Licks: Never go into a battle merely to show that you are not a coward: that of itself shows what a coward ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... with gentleness and love. No rancor should remain, no vengeance should be sought; they who met in mortal conflict on the battle-field should be no longer enemies, but embrace as comrades, as friends, as brothers. None but a coward kicks a fallen foe; a brave people is generous, and the victors in the late war can afford to be generous generously. They fought for the Union, and the Union has no longer an enemy; their late enemies are willing and proud to be their countrymen, fellow-citizens, ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... Can any one who calls to mind Deliverances past, Discouraged be at what's behind, And murmur now at last? Oh that no unbelieving heart Among us may be found, That from the Lord would now depart, And coward-like give ground. For without doubt the God we serve Will still our cause defend, If we from Him do never swerve, But trust Him to the end. What if our goods by violence From us be torn, and we Of all things but our innocence Should wholly stripped be? Would this be more than did befall Good Job? ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... be a fool now. You know that I do not wish to injure you. You are not such a coward as to be afraid to ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... you don't pretend not to remember that you signed these bills, for money lost in my rooms: money LENT to you, by Madame de Florval, at your own request, and lost to her husband? You don't suppose, sir, that I shall be such an infernal idiot as to believe you, or such a coward as to put up with a mean subterfuge of this sort. Will you, or will you not, pay ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... will not do that, I think," replied von Schalckenberg. "He is a cruel, unscrupulous, and absolutely selfish man, but, if I have read his character aright, we shall also find that he is far too much of a coward to attempt to ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... reminded the Boers that the expedition had been voted for by a Parliament elected by them. He added that he personally would always lead his people along the white man's path of honour and Christianity, and that he would never choose the coward's way of disloyalty and treason. The whole of the speech might be summed up in a few lines taken out of General Smuts's reply to General Beyers: "I cannot conceive anything more fatal and humiliating than a ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... happy," one day when Margot Lorenzi had tearfully confessed her love for him, it would be doubly weak—worse than weak, Stephen thought—to throw her over now. It would look to the world as if he were a coward, and it would look to himself the same—which would be more painful in the end. So he could listen to no advice, and he wished to hear none. Fortunately he was not in love with any other woman. But then, if he had loved somebody else, ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... to speculate on what might have happened if he had stayed, instead of running from his guns—no, I mean to his guns, for he was no coward. Discount a good deal from him and he remains a taking man. It flatters any woman to be coveted by a man of parts, good or bad. She likes the homage thus implied, and if she did not she would be no woman. She says ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... have done little harm had they spoken. You have the fate of the Earth in your hand, yet you hesitate. I am Lura's father and I know her better, it seems, than do you. If you abandon her countrymen, she will despise you for a coward. It is better that one or that many be lost than that all ...
— Giants on the Earth • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... said contemptuously. "You must eat less supper, Eleanor. If you were not such a coward you would not dream such things. I have ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... also of the difference between these two that Devine should have had his plan stage-set and put to motion long before the woman dreamed of acting. It was all within his orderly scheme of the thing proposed that he, a shrinking coward, should have set his squirrel teeth hard and risked detection twice in that night: once to buy a basket of overripe fruit from a dripping Italian at a sidewalk stand, taking care to get some peaches—he just must have ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... armed. Some of his friends congratulated him on the decided stand he had taken, and hoped he would settle the matter amicably with Elfonzo, without any serious injury. "Me," he replied, "what, me, condescend to fellowship with a coward, and a low-lived, lazy, undermining villain? no, gentlemen, this cannot be; I had rather be borne off, like the bubble upon the dark blue ocean, with Ambulinia by my side, than to have him in the ascending or descending line of relationship. Gentlemen," continued he, "if Elfonzo ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... his purple face to catch Little's eye. In the ex-salesman, so swiftly transferred from an atmosphere of peaceful trade to one of lurid tragedy, the skipper saw a pale, awed fear of the horrible; but not one trace of weakness was there: none of the coward. Little returned his friend's gaze and, bravely trying to conceal the effort it cost him, he winked slowly, whimsically, then wrinkled his ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... winter wind!" Thou canst not blow away the modest wealth which makes my security. Nor can any "rain upon the roof" put my soul to question; for life has given me all I ever asked—infinitely more than I ever hoped—and in no corner of my mind does there lurk a coward fear ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... change all your ideas now, Cutlip," he said. "You see that the German is not a superman. We have beaten them. Besides, your country is at war with Germany. Only a traitor, or a coward, would refuse to help ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... and afterwards his evil hour." Hugh's evil hour had come. But was he a coward? Men not braver than he have earned the Victoria Cross, have given up their lives freely for others. Hugh had it in him to do as well as any man in hot blood, but not in cold. That was where Lord Newhaven had the advantage of him. He had been overmatched from the first. ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... young Irishman, looking his ci-devant adversary full in the face, "as I proved you not worth thrusting with my sword, I now pronounce you not worth words—even to call you coward,— though that you are from the crown of your head to the soles of your feet. Not even brave when your body is encased in ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... before we arrived on the scene, and bore traces of their customary depredations and violations. The stories related by the nuns themselves were not of a description to bear retailing in the public Press. I would to God that they could be told to every coward of a shirker at home, to every skunk of a "conscientious objector," to every rat of a "stop-the-war" "pacificist." They would stir to boiling indignation the dregs of their manhood—if they have any dregs. They would ...
— A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire • Harold Harvey
... of the weak and coward with the strong," he cried, "when there's any pleasant charge, you send the other servants, but when it's a question of seeing any one home in the dark, then you ask me, you disorderly clown! a nice way you act the steward, indeed! Do you forget that if Mr. Chiao Ta chose to raise ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... not a coward. After his adventure in Balak, he feared neither man nor devil, and he insolently returned the black fellow's gaze. They stood about a buffet and drank coffee. The young woman—her outlines were girlish—did not touch anything; she turned her ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... more strongly to thy merit, Maso, in face of this or any tribunal;" he said, grasping the hand of the Italian. "One who showed so much bravery and so strong love for his fellows, would be little likely to take life clandestinely and like a coward. Thou mayest count on my testimony in this strait—if thou art guilty of this crime, who can hope ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... more dangerous to me than those self-sacrificing, self-denying cannibals whom I had thus far known, he might prove of some assistance, and might help me to devise means of escape. If I could only find someone who was a coward, and selfish and avaricious—if this Kohen Gadol could but be he—how much brighter my life would be! And so there happened to me an incredible thing, that my highest wish was now to find in the Kohen Gadol cowardice, avarice, ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... is horrible!" she cried. "I will not believe it. I will not yield to such things. I will not be coward enough to give up a ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... this story from the lips of Friend-wealth, he was deeply grieved and said: "My friend, wretched indeed is that king Vasuki who deliberately sacrifices his own subjects to their enemy. He is a coward. He has a thousand heads, yet could not find a single mouth to say: O Garuda, eat me first.' How could he be so mean as to beg Garuda to destroy his own race? Or how can Garuda, the heavenly bird, do such ...
— Twenty-two Goblins • Unknown
... boat turned his head, and there was the lovely vision which had a moment before bewitched him. The owner of all that loveliness must, he thought, have flung the bouquet. It was a challenge: how could he be such a coward as to ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... who speak to him, now words come from his lips that shock the hearer. Now he would scorn to have his word doubted by a comrade, now he does not hesitate to lie to escape punishment. Now fearless, now a coward, now full of spirits, now in the depths of woe—sunshine or joy, wind and calm, silence and tumult, all seem to have their place, and to make up that incomprehensible and yet delightful ...
— Boys - their Work and Influence • Anonymous
... swore our way into the army, I thought Skinny was a coward; I figgered if he ever got in a regular scrap with Bill the Twicers hired patriots his knees would knock together like a pair of castnets played by a Spanish bull fiter; but I take it all back, Skinny ...
— Love Letters of a Rookie to Julie • Barney Stone
... farther down the stream, like a diminishing reflection of it, the softer swell of South Mountain. An ordinary rifle-cannon on Maryland Height can with the greatest ease play at bowls to the other summits. From this eminence one Colonel Ford, on September 13, 1862, toppled down his spiked and coward cannon: the hostile guns of the enemy quickly swarmed up the summit he had abandoned, and the Virginia crests of Loudon and Bolivar belched with rebel artillery. The town was surrendered by Colonel Miles at the very moment when McClellan, pressing forward through ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... "Coward! why can't you speak out, and tell me that the corpse will soon be here, and a coffin must be ordered? This is the last blow! Surely, God will let me alone, now; for there is nothing more that He can send to afflict ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... realms beyond the northern star, To loud Valhalla's echoing halls, I bear the hero ere he falls; The valiant dwell in those abodes, And sit amid carousing gods; Not goblets rich, nor flasks of gold, But skulls of mantling mead they hold; The coward while he gasps for breath, Sinks darkling ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... he was always a coward. 'Go up alonger this drivelling sick man,' he says to his wife, 'and Magwitch, lend her a hand, will you?' But he ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... love which is forgiveness, is thereby led into a higher and a nobler life. Peter's bitter fall, Peter's gracious restoration, were no small part of the equipment which made him what we see him in the days after Pentecost—when the coward that had been ashamed to acknowledge his Master, and all whose impulsive and self-reliant devotion passed away before a flippant servant-girl's tongue, stood before the rulers of Israel, and said: 'Whether it be right in the sight of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... already; that the dreadful smiles At my lost brightness, my impassion'd wiles, Had waned from Olympus' solemn height, And from all serious Gods; that our delight Was quite forgotten, save of us alone! And wherefore so ashamed? 'Tis but to atone For endless pleasure, by some coward blushes: 790 Yet must I be a coward!—Honour rushes Too palpable before me—the sad look Of Jove—Minerva's start—no bosom shook With awe of purity—no Cupid pinion In reverence veiled—my crystalline ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... simply Wild Cat. In others he is called the Catamount. He is not so fond of the thick forests as he is of swamps, brush-grown hillsides, old pastures and places where there are great masses of briars. Rocky ledges where there are caves in which to hide and plenty of brush also suit him. He is a coward, but when cornered will fight, though he will run from a little Dog half his size and take to a tree. In the South he is quite common and there often steals Chickens and Turkeys, even young Pigs. He prefers to hunt at night, but sometimes is seen ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... it—and shoot!" Her eyes moved quickly in a cautious, side-long glance that commanded impatiently. Her straight eyebrows drew together imperiously. Then, when he met her eyes with that same helpless look, she said another word that hurt. It was "Coward!" ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... hypocrite, a wretch, a coward!" he exclaimed, impetuously. "They overwhelmed me with exhortations, supplications, and representations. They knew so well to flatter me with the idea that the beautiful, wealthy, and much-courted heiress, Julia Gilly, had fallen in love with me, the poor, unknown Frederick Gentz, the humble military ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... tried to run away. Even with the anger surging through her, Rose-Marie admitted that the child was not—in one sense—a coward. He had waited, brazenly perhaps, to hear what she had to say. With blazing ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... even now have made his bid for liberty; but he was no coward to desert his companions. He uttered a choking cry of mingled fear and defiance, and rushed in between his friends to swing a heavy blow with his fist fair upon the giant's unprotected temple. Now Milo gave sign of interest. He laughed: a deep, rumbling, pleasant ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... coward, giving you up in this way. Yes—giving you up; for you have a traitor in your fortress who has offered me the keys, who offers them to me now. But I do not trust you; and I can't trust myself. The curse of luxury ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... you crazy, man?" interposed Lance, tremblingly; "that is not Bob Ridley, but a dog, a coward, a liar, gone to his reckoning. Hear me! If your son was Bob Ridley, I swear to God I never knew it, now or—or—then. Do you hear me? Tell me! Do you believe me? Speak! ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... that the man who had met death here upon this wild, lonely mountain was none other than the owner of the gray roadster, the coward who had fled from the consequences of his negligence, and turned it into ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... further illustrates the same characteristics. This man, so genial and kindly, rages fiercely in his heart against him whom he has unwittingly wronged. Frank and open, apparently the very soul of honour, he shuffles and lies like a coward and a knave; and this in no personal fear, but because he shrinks to lose utterly that goodwill and esteem of others,—of Adam in particular, because Adam constrains his own high esteem,—which are to him the reflection of his own self-worship. Repentance comes to him at last, because conscience ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... slave-trading? Do you know that cargoes of slaves came into Bristol Harbour in the time of our fathers? I would have given L500 to have had you and the Anti-Slavery Society in Dara during the three days of doubt whether the slave-dealers would fight or not. A bad fort, a coward garrison, and not one who did not tremble—on the other side a strong, determined set of men accustomed to war, good shots, with two field-pieces. I would have liked to hear what you would all have said then. I do not say this in brag, for God knows ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... but bring him to the block: Let God's eye be upon the multitude, Theirs on the scaffold, the attesting sun Shine on the bare axe and th' uncover'd head. It is no coward act, lest he might sin; For he hath sinn'd, until our very dreams Bid England's ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... I have little of their hardihood and prowess, but thou hast naught to do, to lay a coward's name upon me, when I am scarce out of my childish years. Why dost thou egg me on ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous
... humanity, where every thing good was only the more commended to his manly mind by disadvantages of social position. They love him, because he saw with just anger, how much the judgments of "silly coward man" are determined by such accidents, to the neglect or contempt of native worth. They love him for his independence. What wonder! To be brought into contact with rank and wealth—a world inviting ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... children, and home because of her passion for another man was a heroine, braving the hypocritical judgments of society to assert the claims of the individual soul. The woman who refused to abandon all for love's sake, was not only a coward but a criminal, guilty of the deadly sin of sacrificing her soul, committing it to a prison where it would languish and never blossom to its full perfection. The man who was bound to uncongenial drudgery by the chains of an early ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... comfort oneself with that cheap substitute for immortality! The unconscious processes that take place in nature are lower even than the stupidity of man, since in stupidity there is, anyway, consciousness and will, while in those processes there is absolutely nothing. Only the coward who has more fear of death than dignity can comfort himself with the fact that his body will in time live again in the grass, in the stones, in the toad. To find one's immortality in the transmutation of substances is as strange as to prophesy a brilliant future ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... investigated were to invite decay; and he pictured himself growing more unctuous, apologetic, plausible. He had, at any rate, escaped the more despicable fate, and if he went to pieces now it would be as a man, looking the facts in the face,—not as a coward ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... purest passion. Thou, my Friend! wert reared In the great city, 'mid far other scenes; [a] But we, by different roads, at length have gained The self-same bourne. And for this cause to thee I speak, unapprehensive of contempt, 455 The insinuated scoff of coward tongues, And all that silent language which so oft In conversation between man and man Blots from the human countenance all trace Of beauty and of love. For thou hast sought 460 The truth in solitude, and, since ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... "The coward! Are all books lies? I thought he would fly to the front, and be brave and noble, and stand up for me against all the world, and defy my enemies, and wither these gossips with his scorn! Poor crawling thing, let him go. I do begin to ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... wish I had a couple of the fellows here now," retorted Dick with spirit. "We'd soon make a coward like you seem small. You'd be on your knees, begging, if I had a couple of my ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... upon, begged Casanova on his knees to leave him behind, praying for the fugitives—and this Casanova was thankful to do, for Soradici could only have encumbered him. Father Balbi, though for the last hour he had been heaping reproaches on his friend's rashness, was less of a coward than the spy, and as the time had come to start he followed Casanova. They crept out on the roof, and began cautiously to ascend it. Half-way up the monk begged his companion to stop, saying that he had lost one of the packages tied round ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... the shot crashing in through the ship's sides, and to see strong men struck down maimed and bleeding, or perhaps killed outright, and I have a horrible feeling that when I see these things for the first time I shall turn sick and faint, and perhaps misbehave in some way. And I wouldn't act like a coward for the world; my father is a very proud man, and I don't think he would ever forgive me for bringing ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... lasted some months the fancy came to me that I could get nearer to her by going into it. I might even die, which would be best of all. I did not wish to kill myself because I felt that to be a coward's death, and in such a way I thought that I would only separate myself from her. But in the war, perhaps, I might meet death in such a way as to show him that I despised him both for myself and her. By suicide I ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... decide against duelling—until it has become the usage to offer the other cheek upon the first having been smitten, then, and not till then, will the practice be discontinued. When a man refuses to fight a duel, he is stigmatised as a coward, his company is shunned; and, unless he is a wretch without feeling, his life becomes a burden. Men have refused from purely conscientious motives, and have subsequently found themselves so miserable from the ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... strongly objected. He was going out on a sort of a bear-hunt, and to him half the pleasure would be lost if he did not carry a gun. I am not a coward, but a boy with a gun is a terror to me. My expression may have intimated my state of mind, for Mr. Larramie said to me that we had now gone so far that it would be a pity to send Percy back, and that he did not think there would be any danger, for ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... Highland wind it seemed as if the Stuart luck had turned. Charles might well conceive himself happy. Upon his sword sat laurel victory. Smooth success was strewn before his feet. The blundering and bewildered Cope actually allowed Charles and his army to get past him. Cope was neither a coward nor a traitor, but he was a terrible blunderer, and while the English general was marching upon Inverness Charles was triumphantly entering Perth. From Perth the young prince, with hopeless, helpless Cope still in his rear, ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... were forced to retreat because the other fighters failed to advance as fast as we. Then came the long wait for the time when Russia should find herself, as she is still trying to do. The Slav is not a coward once his mind is trained. There is hope for his ultimate recovery. The power of Czardom was enforced ignorance, and this made possible the infamous treaty of Brest-Litovsk. But we saw that there was no hope for ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... Rossetti. Browning also smoked, but not, I think, a pipe. Swinburne, on the other hand, detested tobacco, and expressed himself on the subject with characteristic extravagance and vehemence—"James I was a knave, a tyrant, a fool, a liar, a coward. But I love him, I worship him, because he slit the throat of that blackguard Raleigh who invented this filthy smoking!" Professor Blackie, in a letter to his wife, remarked: "The first thing I said on entering the public room was—'What a delightful thing the smell of tobacco is, in a warm ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... used to call it, is truly one of the most dreadful scourges of the West Indies. There is no avoiding him. All ranks are equally sufferers, for he picks off rich and poor alike, the strong and weak, the brave man and the coward. Still, I believe that the best way to prevent his attacks from proving fatal is to live moderately but well—not to be afraid, and to avoid exposure to rain and fogs. It is wiser to soak the clothes in ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... struck off his head. Why should I kill this man? I asked myself. I know him not, he has done me no harm, yet because it is war, arranged by princes and kings, we must become murderers. And why should I kill him? because others would misconstrue my act of mercy if I did it not, and brand me a coward, aye and worse, a traitor. Why should I make that mother childless? why must I rob that loving wife of her husband? Why I be the means of making those little children ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... no better than a maid! Shame upon me for a coward! I will not call to Edred and Julian. It shall not be said of me, even by mine own self, that I dared not face even a spirit from the lower world alone. I will find out what this sound is, and that without the help of any other living ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... specially watchful of Gallego, the cook. He is our man of dirty work,—a shameless coward, though revengeful as a cat. If it shall ever happen that you come in collision with him, strike first and well; no one cares for him; even his death will make no stir. Take this cuchillo,—it is sharp and reliable; keep it near you day and night; and, in self-defence, do not hesitate ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... Wiley, and offered, if the Baronet were not satisfied, to fight either Mr. Chanticleer or the Baronet himself, whichever was preferred. But Sir Wiley replied very politely that he was perfectly satisfied with Captain Bulldog, and that he only regretted that the Captain should act for such a coward as Mr. Thomas Leverett. On this the Captain began abusing poor Tom so terribly, that I thought it best to beat a retreat and see after my runaway friend. When I arrived home I found him sitting in my little back-parlour, just as I expected. He had covered ...
— Comical People • Unknown
... what a coward she is! She loves. She will pardon. Will there, then, be no one to aid me? No one to smite them in their insolent happiness." After meditating awhile, her face still more contracted, she placed the letter in the drawer, which ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... shrieked. "Joan! Whence come ye? Saw ye aught? What do they to him? who be the miscreants? Is my son there? Have they won him over—the coward neddirs [serpents] that they be! Speak I who be they?—and what will they do? Ah, Mary Mother, what will they do ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... loved you with all my soul. When you appealed to me, I would have responded at once, but could not. The fact is, Mrs. Mowbray was present. Mrs. Mowbray is not what she appears to be. Before her I had to pretend an indifference that I did not feel. In short, I had to make myself appear a base coward. In fact, I had to be on my guard, so as not to excite her suspicions of my feelings. Afterward, when I might have redeemed my character in your eyes, I did not know how to begin. Then, too, I was afraid to help ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... "friend" was dead? Then the man had not meant Martin, after all. It was a case of conscience making a coward of him, he reflected. And so the two parted, all unconscious of how near each had come to giving an uplift ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... undeceiving, undeceived, That nor too little nor too much believed; That scorn'd unjust suspicion's coward fear, And without weakness knew to be sincere." Lord Lyttelton's Monody on ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... Magique you have brought with you, And such an exorcisme in your name That I forbeare the combate to my shame. But that I am no coward, from your host Elect two of the valiantst that dare most; Double that number, treble it, or more, I have heart at will t'encounter with a score. Or had your selfe come in a strange attire, One of us twaine had lost ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... I am without the smooth tongue of my class. I find you in a woman's house, where you are a guest by night as well as by day. I bid you begone. You are a soldier lacking chivalry—a man who makes war upon weakness —you are a coward! (step) ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... have acted wisely. As you say, the cost is as nothing; and though my reason revolts against a belief in this nightmare of yours, I am not such a fool as to refuse to pay any attention to it. I know that you are no coward, and certainly not one to indulge in ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... "My uncle is a coward or rather he is very wise, and has left the house. And Prothero means to follow, but he wants us to think he's still on guard. If we only KNEW!" ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... that nothing but Blood can expiate. The Reason perhaps may be, because no other Vice implies a want of Courage so much as the making of a Lie; and therefore telling a man he Lies, is touching him in the most sensible Part of Honour, and indirectly calling him a Coward. [I cannot omit under this Head what Herodotus tells us of the ancient Persians, That from the Age of five Years to twenty they instruct their Sons only in three things, to manage the Horse, to make use of the Bow, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... you that you saw as pretty a fellow hanged as ever trod shoe leather. Aye!" putting his face nearer to that of the officer, "and there was many a coward looked on, that might much better have swung ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... "hold my books. Paul, here is my jacket and hat. Stand back, boys, and see if I am the coward they think me," and soon his legs and arms were in motion. The laughter and jeering of the Trojans stimulated him to his greatest effort, and he had almost reached the top ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... Phil," said Harry, grinning. "I say, Fred, he is such a coward; worse than you are a ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... different, but quite as fatal to the French. That battle was fought on the 25th of October, 1415, and the French should have won it according to all the rules of war,—but they did not win it, because they had too much valor and too little sense. A cautious coward makes a better soldier than a valiant fool, and the boiling bravery of the French has lost them more battles than any other people have lost through timidity. Henry V.'s invasion of France was the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... of days. On some days, you think, in a curious sort of a way, that your turn has come, and that it will be all over in a few minutes. You try to convince yourself by silent arguing that such thoughts are the merest foolishness, that you are at heart a real coward; but in spite of every device the feeling remains, and in place of your former unconcern a nervousness takes possession of you. This nervousness is not exactly the nervousness of yourself, for your outer self surveys your inner depths with some contempt, but the ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... time to turn deliberately about and flee in the other direction, but that would be all too obvious, and an open confession of weakness. John Cameron was never at any time a coward. ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... more as if I were a coward, I think," retorts Arthur, laughing, but shooting an angry glance at the gallant captain ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... for her to do. Gad! I'm almost inclined to despise myself. (Surveys himself in the mirror at one end of the room. Then walking up to it and peering intently at his reflection, he continues.) Bah! you coward! Afraid of a woman—a sweet little woman like Dorothy. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Bob Yardsley. She won't hurt you. Brace up and propose like a man—like a real lover who'd go through fire ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... hours, gave up the spirit, and like her child [was] murdered in the most dissolute manner.... Can we longer allow that our fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, relatives, yes, our children, are murdered by these coward and common murderers? or has not the time yet arrived to prevent this civilised nation, or to punish them for ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... the Little Chaplain attached great importance, with a gesture of indifference. What of that? He had already punished the insolent Minstrel, and as for the man-slayer, he had sneaked off when he had challenged him at the door of the farmhouse. He was a coward. ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... our nation, has hit off a marked feature in our national physiognomy. "So violent did I find parties in London, that I was assured by several that the Duke of MARLBOROUGH was a coward, and Mr. ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... the only animal that kills Just for the wanton love of slaughter; spills The blood of lesser things to see it flow; Lures like a friend, to murder like a foe The trusting bird and beast; and, coward like, Deals covert blows he dare not boldly strike. The brutes have finer souls, and only slay When torn by hunger's pangs, or ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... hand of mine; I grudge thee this quick-beating heart; They never gave me coward sign, Nor played ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... kept silent they would have accused me of being a coward. I protested naively, that is to say ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... few seconds beneath the electric light at Long Wharf on the waterfront. But he would have known it anywhere, for it had been indelibly impressed upon his memory. So Ben Stubbles was the contemptible coward who had pushed that woman into the water and left her to her fate! He had often longed to come face to face with that man, and he had planned what he would do when they met. But here he was before him, haughty and impudent, Nell's lover, ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... essay on; the Whigs and. Churches, scheme for building new. Clement, Jacques. Clendon, John. Coffee-houses, signification of the. Coin, clipping of. Coligny, Admiral de, assassination of. Collins, Anthony. Coningsby, Mrs. Court of Alienation. Coward, William. Cowper, Earl. Crackanthorpe, Mrs. Crassus, Marcus, the Duke of Marlborough attacked under the name of. Crawley, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... "you should never ask a coward whether he is afraid, you only risk his telling a lie. He will say 'No,' but ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... pumps, you coward, or I will shoot you down like a dog! Call yourself a man? Why, that youngster there ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... right. All hollow,—all false!" Thus said Lucretia, with a strange sort of musing accent, at first scornful, at last only quietly abstracted. "Rise, sir," she then added, with her most imperious tone; "do you not hear your Susan weep? Do you fear in my presence to console her? Coward to her, as forsworn to me! Go, ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... scene in the cutting-out room. Tell me." She ought to have talked in this strain. But she could not. That energetic woman had not sufficient energy left. She wanted rest, rest—even though it were a coward's rest, an ostrich's tranquillity—after the turmoil of apprehensions caused by Sophia. Her soul cried out for peace. She was ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... maid silently ran in ahead of me; I went first to the mother. When I found Mrs. Fontenette again she had the child undressed and in his crib, and I remembered how often I had, in my heart, called her a coward. ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... wrestle in the contests at the fort, and had failed to fight the man who had warmly called him a coward ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... suggestion. He pointed a lean finger at the shifty peace officer. "Deputize me to do it, if you dare, Brush!" he softly exclaimed, fixing his brown eyes on the flushed face of the coward. ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... be!" said polite Sir John. "He served you many a good purpose. I saw you talking out yonder with Schuyler, that coward who dared not go to Philadelphia and risk his neck for his treason. I dare say he, too, was convulsed with grief ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... finger at the murderer. "No, I won't get out of this door. Shoot, you coward! Shoot an unarmed man. You will not live to get a hundred feet away. This place is watched for you; you could not have got within a hundred yards of it to-night except for this snow." Barnhardt pointed through the storm. "Sinclair, you ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... Nicholas confronted the party and, throwing down his card on the table, declared that the lady in question was his sister, and demanded of Hawk his name. Hawk refused to answer. Nicholas called him a liar and a coward, and seating himself, swore the other should not leave his sight before he ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... bring an offer of ten cents a share; but I wouldn't take that money if it was the last act of my life—I just hate that Honest John Holman! He cheated my husband out of everything he had—and yet he did it in such a deceitful way that the Colonel would never believe it. I've called him a coward a thousand times for tolerating such an outrage for an instant, and now that he's gone I'm going to show Honest John that he ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... knights. One of his arms he carried in a sling, because of a recent injury. To render his condition yet more deplorable, his thigh had just been broken, as he rode up, by a kick from the unmanageable horse of his brother-in-law, La Rochefoucauld. The prince was no coward. Turning to his little company of followers, he exclaimed: "My friends, true noblesse of France, here is the opportunity we have long wished for in vain! Our God is the God of Battles. He loves to be so called. He always declares ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... wandered to the great leather chair, which had been replaced in its usual position. "Now that you have restored Ramon to me, I want only to avenge my father, and I shall be content. To be murdered, in his own home! Poisoned like a rat in a trap! I shall not rest until the coward who killed him ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... Burghe. Don't you dare to take my name between your lips again! and don't you dare to come near me as long as you live, or even to say to anybody that you were ever acquainted with me! If you do I will make my papa have you hanged! For I do not choose to know a thief, liar, and coward!" ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... no compromise short of the offender's blood. He had been struck by the white man, and blood alone must atone for the aggression. Unless that should wipe out the disgrace he could never again hold up his head among his people—they would call him a coward, and say a white man struck the Big Eagle and he ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... tell what she said as she raved there. She wept and sobbed, flinging reproaches—at the dead! She scolded, as one reproves a child that has cut itself with a knife. She asked why he did this. And again she heaped grave calumny upon him, called him coward, wretch, threatened him with God, with God's wrath, and with eternal damnation;—then asked pardon of him, babbled out words of conciliation, called him back, called him dear, sweet, and good; related to him what a faithful, ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... not killing, but overcoming; and there was reason that it should be so, for Helen ought to be the wife of the bravest. Now the bravest is he that overcomes; for it often happens that an excellent soldier might be killed by a coward, as is evident in what happened afterward, when Achilles was shot by Paris. For I do not believe that you will affirm, that Achilles was not so brave a man as Paris because he was killed by him, and that it should be called the victory, and not rather the unjust good ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... and on, block after block; but then, all at once, he stopped again and faced about. He gripped his hands until the nails cut him, and shut his teeth together like a steel-trap. "No, no!" he muttered. "No—you coward!" ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... way to her, but it went against the grain, for even while she was urging me she must have felt in her heart it would be cowardly of me to go. However, she will know some day that Victor de Gisons is no coward." ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... prefer him to a hot-blooded one. Do you want to pick a quarrel with me? Do you want to make me lose my temper? I shall refuse you that satisfaction. You have been a coward, and you want to frighten some one before you go to bed to make up for it. Strike me, and I'll strike you in self-defence, but I'm not going to mind your talk. Have you anything to say? No? Well, then, good evening." And Major ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... thought you'd be such a coward? It's all over now, and we can't go away all of a sudden like this, even if we wanted to, and I don't. I want to stop and see what will happen next, and help if ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... Even the religions with most dross in them have had something of this virtue; but the Christian religion manifests it with unexampled splendor. "Lead me, Zeus and Destiny!" says the prayer of Epictetus, "whithersoever I am appointed to go; I will follow without wavering; even though I turn coward and shrink, I shall have to follow all the same."[187] The fortitude of that is for the strong, for the few; even for them the spiritual atmosphere with which it surrounds them is bleak and gray. But, "Let thy loving spirit lead me forth into the ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... required his superintendence. This story is proved to be false by Herakleides of Pontus, he quoting Anakreon's poems, in which Artemon Periphoretus is mentioned many generations before the revolt and siege of Samos. He tells us that Artemon was an effeminate coward who spent most of his time indoors, with two slaves holding a brazen shield over his head for fear that anything should fall upon it, and if he was obliged to go out, used to be carried in a hammock slung so low ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... departing companions, and could retain only with the gallant Tancred three hundred knights, and two thousand foot-soldiers for the defence of Palestine. His sovereignty was soon attacked by a new enemy, the only one against whom Godfrey was a coward. Adhemar, bishop of Puy, who excelled both in council and action, had been swept away in the last plague at Antioch: the remaining ecclesiastics preserved only the pride and avarice of their character; and their seditious clamors had required that the choice of a bishop ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... was fallen, ruined, ridiculous by his unsuccessful suicide? Sauvresy had held out his arms to him. Sauvresy was a noble fellow, and loved Hector sufficiently not to perceive the falseness of his position, and not to judge him a coward because he shrank from suicide. ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... pursuit off. Then he announced his intention to drive the machine home himself, taking the route that led past Mr. Hunter's home. He had no fear of further trouble with the driver or his confederates, for he was certain that Jake was a coward at heart and the two highwaymen could hardly have arrived in the vicinity of the cave on foot, since they were driven off in mad haste in the opposite direction, even if they had been disposed to make ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... how she managed to do what she did when the enemy got to Woodside in the war. That was quite remarkable, considering what a coward she was. During 1864 the Yankees on a raid got to her house one evening in the summer. As it happened, a young soldier, one of her cousins (she had no end of cousins), had got a leave of absence, and had come there sick with fever just the day before (the house was always a ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... Blank, they whetted their swords together when peace was declared. Captain said, 'General, I'm not crazy and neither am I a coward. I looked up and seem like a man was comin' out the clouds, and so ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... Now, that fine-looking cockerel of mine is the stupidest one of the lot, and the ugly, long-legged chap is the king of the yard, he's so smart; crows loud enough to wake the Seven Sleepers; but the handsome one croaks, and is no end of a coward. I get snubbed; but you wait till I grow up, and then see'; and Ted looked so like his own long-legged pet that everyone laughed at ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... mean that you won't be there the day after to-morrow?" cried Potel, interrupting his friend. "Do you wish to be called a coward? and have it said you are running away from Bridau? No, no! The unmounted grenadiers of the Guard can not draw back before the dragoons of the Guard. Arrange your business in some ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... turned against Major Selover with unrestrained virulence. He had no equal means of reply or defence at his command, but he had at last uttered threats of personal nature, and published King as a liar, a swindler and a coward. To all this Mr. King responded in his Bulletin, by stating in that paper that he defied Selover; and he went on to state the place of his residence; the time he left home to go to his office in the morning; the route thither he usually ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... quiet, kind, cold, austere uncle—the apprentices—the strange servants— and, oh! more than all, those hardeyed, loud-laughing tormentors, the boys of his own age! Naturally timid, severity made him actually a coward; and when the nerves tremble, a lie sounds as surely as, when I vibrate that wire, the bell at the end of it will ring. Beware of the man who has been roughly treated ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... allows the clearest perception of disagreeable consequences, such as pain, loss of ease, loss of reputation, loss of money, or any other harmful results that may follow, to frighten him out of the road that he knows he ought to take, is a worse fool still, for he is a coward and recreant ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... answered Lord Glenvarloch; "I will cleanse them from a calumniator and a coward." He then pressed on Lord Dalgarno, and struck him with the flat ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... Nick, with a sigh, "this is considerably more than I counted on. I didn't think, from the way you acted in the water, that you were anything but a big coward; but I'm thankful enough you didn't get your claws ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... him, "I can't help being angry with Mr. Townsend. I think I'm a little afraid of him. I'm a coward in some ways. You're different. You just smile kindly at me, as if you were older than Methuselah, and had all the wisdom of Solomon or Socrates, and were inclined to be tolerant ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... to his feet, his slow features working. "That ain't right, Cap," said he. "I know I'm scared to do some things, but I—I don't believe I'm no coward. I ain't afraid to go down there, but I won't go to-night, ner let you go, fer it's the same as death to start now. We couldn't maybe make it in the daytime, but I'm willin' to try it then. Don't you call no coward ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... to know who threw that rope? If he isn't too big a coward, he'll tell me. I guess Mr. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... I have discovered that I have suddenly become a moral coward, and am obliged to descend to subterfuges in order to bolster up my courage. This isn't a usual thing with me, I think, but neither is the occasion. I've been wanting and planning to tell you something, face to face, for a long time; but at the crucial moment my courage has failed each time. I ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... on the Flemish artisan, for such was Wilkin Flammock, with such a mixture of surprise and contempt, as excluded indignation. "I have heard much," he said, "but this is the first time that I have heard one with a beard on his lip avouch himself a coward." ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... rose with ghastly face. He had gathered a watch, a whistle, a pipe, a tobacco pouch, a handkerchief, a little case of cards and papers. He looked at the adjutant. There was a silence. The adjutant was feeling that he had been a coward to make Lean do ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... waxed when all of a sudden she wanted to cross the deck and go below to comfort that donkey Achleitner. Frederick would not allow her. He was ashamed of his previous attack of fright, called himself a miserable coward, and got himself under perfect control. In this attitude he played the role of a severe mentor, Ingigerd's responsible guardian and protector, strict, but fatherly and good-natured. Though she laughed at him, it by no means displeased her to let him ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... in Nature, tho' we cannot readily determine where to fix it. This brings to my Mind, when Glendour was boasting in the Play, that at his Nativity the Heavens were full of fiery Shapes, and the Foundation of the Earth shook like a Coward; Hotspur reply'd humourously, Why so it would have done at the same Season, if your Mother's Cat had but kitten'd, tho' your ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe
... despising you for a coward and a flirter," said Maria Angelina in a low but exceedingly penetrative voice, and so intense was her command of the situation that neither man found humor, then, in the ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... o' their manhood! See," added she, "do ye see wha yon is, skulking as far as he can get frae our door wi' the weel-filled sack upon his shouthers? It is yer ain dearie, Florence Wilson! O the betrayer o' his country!—He's a coward, Janet, like the rest o' them, and shall ne'er ca' ye his wife while I ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... mighty interest at stake: if he passed this room, he might at the worst die like a soldier; and he should see Miss Walladmor! His firmness was now tried to the uttermost, and somewhat shaken: his heart palpitated a little; and he smiled to see that his hand trembled like the hand of a coward. ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... "And the coward," said he, grinding his teeth, "got out of his window—and three policemen in his garden. He must have bribed a pickpocket—low knave that he is. But ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... as the two men with the toothache," said Peter. "They both met at the dentist's, who it seems had only time to pull one tooth. The question arose as to which it should be. 'I'm so brave,' said one, 'that I can wait till to-morrow.' 'I'm such a coward,' said the other, 'that I don't ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... himself for small things, but megalokindynos, i.e. endangering himself for great things. And Seneca says (De Quat. Virtut.): "Thou wilt be magnanimous if thou neither seekest dangers like a rash man, nor fearest them like a coward. For nothing makes the soul a coward save the consciousness ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... like her now. She pinched little Jacques Moet until he cried out and then she laid it to Pierre Dessau, who was well thrashed for it, and I called her a coward. I am afraid girls ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... you take me for a fool?" shouted the injured man, in a great rage. "Don't tell me such cock-and-bull stories. First you insult me, and then you lie like a coward; but I'll ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... as much surprised as pleased at this change in the young man's character, and he the more regretted having to tell the whole of the narrative, which was sure to cause further pain to the lad. However, it had to be done, and Jim, who was no coward, took it all better than ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare
... from the forces under Gen. Lewis, two of his men (Clay and Coward) who were out hunting and at some little distance from each other, came near to where two Indians were concealed. Seeing Clay only, and supposing him to be alone, one of them fired at him; and running up to scalp ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... chorus! They were a lot of tabby-cats—afraid to wet their precious feet. If it hadn't been for Tom, Miss Gray would have been drowned before the eyes of that mean director and those other imitation men. Ugh! I de-test a coward!" ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... blasted coward! Three weeks and this is the last day." He looked at his watch. "Only another hour and then I'm free to speak. Stick it for another hour. ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... "and in the innermost of my heart lieth the fear that mayhappen there is no Well, and no healing in it if we find it, and that death, and the backward way may yet sunder us. This is the worst of my heart, and evil is my coward fear." ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... the animal on his shoulders he took to the brazen underground chamber, which he had built, when Hercules came in with the body of the Nemean lion. There he stayed for several days, according to a good old historian, Diodorus, who in writing of the King told that he was so great a coward. ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... call me a coward, but I'll never let you count me a mean, miserly rascal," and the cheque with Drumsheugh's painful writing fell in fifty pieces on ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... some one else at that moment, most likely he would not have valued his life so slightly. He clewed up his canvas like a wise mariner, and lay to while the Symplegades butted one another with their foreheads of adamant, and the sea was white with terror all about them. Jason was no coward: he would have braved the passage had he alone been concerned in the result; but for Maud in her rose-garden and for the future, dear to him as his hope of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... makes me feel a coward. I want it to come; I want to taste life, to drain the whole cup, to understand, to feel. But that is the boy in me. I am more than half a boy, I always have been. But the woman in me: it ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... a sort of coward inpricking that I sha'n't come out of this with a whole skin, Jack; and there's a thing on my mind that mayhap you can take off. You have had Madge to yourself a dozen times since that day last autumn when I asked ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... always thought herself a coward, she feared death with a terrible repugnance; but now she found, to her surprise, that she would have light-heartedly changed places with her husband. She had much more courage to die than to watch him die—to watch Vincent die, to see him day by day grow weak ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... that!" declared Jack, with a sneer on his face to express his contempt, "he's a regular coward about the water. And if they do have the hard luck to run up against a Hun torpedo, Randolph will ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... morning, I was coming into the kitchen to light the fire, and met Grace Marks with the pails in her hand, going out to milk the cows. As she passed me, she gave me a poke with the pail in the ribs, and whispered with a sneer, 'Arn't you a coward!' ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... expression that almost daunted poor Joyce, who was half a coward at heart, anyhow, so she meekly rose ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... street, determined to wait there for the thirty minutes, when he noticed that to his left only a few of the tables were occupied. At one of these he could wait in the shade. Besides, he had a feeling that he was little more than a coward if ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... was a coward, Miss Burnham!" he replied, warmly. "You are speaking cruelly and unjustly of as brave a set of fellows as ever lived! The strongest man among them set the example; he volunteered to stay by Frank, and to bring him on in the track of the ...
— The Frozen Deep • Wilkie Collins
... that, as soon as war came, and his regiment was ordered on active service, he deserted at once, and went off and hid himself. What should you call such a man? You would call him a base and ungrateful coward, and you would have no pity on him, if he was taken and ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... are sullen; and Osman Digna, who was on bad terms with him a short time ago, and who, Mahmud suspects, is intriguing with them against him, is foremost in urging that an attack should take place; though everyone knows he is a coward, and never shows himself in battle, always running away directly he sees that things are going against him. Still, he has five thousand followers ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... to me, Dr. Perrin. You are a chivalrous gentleman, and you think you are helping a man in desperate need. But I say that anyone who would permit you to tell such a tale is a contemptible coward!" ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... tumours for the sake of obtaining credit for different qualities. Thus a terrific crack at the back of the ear might produce so great an elevation of the organ of combativeness as might obtain for the greatest coward a reputation for the greatest courage; and a thundering rap on the centre of the head might raise on the skull of the veriest brute a bump of, and name ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... a Shawanoe!" exclaimed Deerfoot, his voice as firm and unwavering as his nerves; "coward! Serpent that creeps in the grass and strikes the heel of the hunter; Arorara speaks with a double tongue; he says he took the scalp of Deerfoot, but the scalp of Deerfoot is here, and he dares Arorara and Waughtauk and Tecumseh and all the chiefs and sachems and warriors of the Shawanoes, ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... Ragged Men now, Von Holtz believed. He had fled a week or more before, when Jacaro—already learning the language of his half-mad allies—began to plan a grandiose attack upon the Golden City. Von Holtz was born a coward, and he knew where Tommy Reames and Denham would shortly thrust a Tube through. It would come out just where the catapult had flung Evelyn and Denham, months before, the same spot where he had marooned them. He ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... is a coward sparing in the heart, Offspring of penury and low-born fear:— Prayer must take heed nor overdo its part, Asking too much of him with open ear! Sinners must wait, not seek the very best, Cry out for peace, ...
— A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul • George MacDonald
... us on, And many a battle there we join amid the eyeless night, And many a Danaan send adown to Orcus from the light: Some fled away unto the ships, some to the safe sea-shore, 399 Or smitten with the coward's dread climbed the great horse once more And there they lie all close within the well-known womb ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... Irishman, looking his ci-devant adversary full in the face, "as I proved you not worth thrusting with my sword, I now pronounce you not worth words—even to call you coward,— though that you are from the crown of your head to the soles of your feet. Not even brave when your body is encased in armour. Dastard! ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... it up, and—Heaven is my witness that I am writing only the bare truth—before I had raised myself there was a sound of metal hinges creaking, and I distinctly saw the lid shifting upwards. I may have behaved like a coward, but I could not for my life stay for one moment. I was outside that dreadful building in less time than I can write—almost as quickly as I could have said—the words; and what frightens me yet more, I could not turn the key ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... for a loup-garou, Father Gaspard: a loup-garou may have a harder time in this world than the other beasts, but he is no coward; he can make ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... told him, that this was the very ship they had attacked; and gave him a full account of the skirmish we had with their boats, and how foolishly and coward-like they had behaved. I told him all the story of our buying the ship, and how the Dutchmen served us. I told him the reasons I had to believe that this story of killing the master by the Malaccans was not true; as ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... figure fills the postern, and in an instant Angelica is torn aside by Master Willie Joffers (well versed, for all his mumming, in matters of chivalry). "Kisses for such coward lips?" cries he. "Nay, but a swinge to silence them!" and would have struck trousered Angelica full on the mouth. But decollete Geoffrey Dizzard, crying at him "Sweet termagant, think not to baffle me by these airs of manhood!" ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... Clarissa is firmly brave; her Soul abhorred Self-murder, nor would she, as she told Miss Howe, willingly like a Coward quit her Post; but in this Case, could she not have awed Lovelace into Distance, tho' her Hand had pointed the Knife, yet might he properly have been said to have struck the Blow. The picturesque Attitude of all present, when Clarissa suddenly cries out, 'God's Eye is upon us' ...
— Remarks on Clarissa (1749) • Sarah Fielding
... dare,' said Mr. Tyson, in a voice of thunder, 'but thee dare not, coward as thou art, for well does thee know, that the ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... ears for his torrent of invective, having no eyes for his writhings and threats, he had no longer the courage to perpetrate this dark deed. After the first fury of his rage had passed, he could not bring himself to it, and quitted the room like a coward and a man taken in crime, stung to the quick by those prayers continuously said for the monk. The night was passed ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... believe it's true at all," averred the Bonnie Lassie loyally. "I don't believe Plooie is a coward. There's some reason why he doesn't go over and help! I want ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... horror at seeing a huge Snake crawling in at the door. They all ran away except the King, who felt that his rank forbade him to be a coward, and the King's son. The King called out for somebody to come and kill the Snake; but this horrified them still more, because in that country the people believed it to be wicked to kill any living thing, even snakes, and scorpions, and wasps. So the courtiers did nothing, ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... times. And they scurry along without a glance at one another, each innately convinced that his ideas, his prejudices, his ambitions, his tastes are the Great Standard, the Normal Criterion. Puritan, paranoiac, sybarite, katatoniac, hardhead, dreamer, coward, desperado, beaten ones, striving ones, successful ones—all flaunt their umbrellas in the rain, all unfurl their invisible umbrellas to the world. Let it rain, let it rain—calamities and ecstasies tipped with fire and roaring with ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... myself. I know him not, he has done me no harm, yet because it is war, arranged by princes and kings, we must become murderers. And why should I kill him? because others would misconstrue my act of mercy if I did it not, and brand me a coward, aye and worse, a traitor. Why should I make that mother childless? why must I rob that loving wife of her husband? Why I be the means of making those little ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... nobleman and since the nobleman had no other vocation he began to become extinct. A bullet fired from a mile away is no respecter of persons. It is just as likely to kill a knight as a peasant, and a brave man as a coward. You cannot fence with a cannon ball nor overawe it with a plumed hat. The only thing you can do is to hide and shoot back. Now you cannot hide if you send up a column of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night—the most conspicuous of signals—every time you shoot. So the next step was the invention ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... the cure, smiling, "you should never ask a coward whether he is afraid, you only risk his telling a lie. He will say 'No,' ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... East A jocund and a welcome conqueror; And Aphrodite, sweet as from the sea She rose, and floated in her pearly shell A laughing girl; when lawless will erects Honour's gay temple on the Mount of God, And meek obedience bears the coward's brand; While Satan in celestial panoply With Sin, his lady, smiling by his side, Defies all heaven ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... darkness? Was he ashamed to face her—or angered by the reminder of her existence? No doubt it seemed to him now a monstrous absurdity that he should ever have said he loved her! He despised her—thought her a base and coward soul. Very likely he would make it up with Mary Lyster now, accept ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... ran on. When I adverted to the question of their entire separation, she replied: "Be it so! One day the period will arrive; I know it, and feel it. But in this I am a coward. This imperfect companionship, and our masquerade of union, are strangely dear to me. It is painful, I allow, destructive, impracticable. It keeps up a perpetual fever in my veins; it frets my immedicable wound; it is instinct ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... there are no songs about them and no praises in the West, whatever there may be in the South. Why would there, and they running away and leaving the country the way they did? And what good did they ever do it? James the Second was a coward. Why didn't he go into the thick of the battle like the Prince of Orange? He stopped on a hill three miles away, and rode off to Dublin, bringing the best of his troops with him. There was a lady walking in the street at Dublin when he got there, and he told her the battle was lost, and she ...
— The Kiltartan History Book • Lady I. A. Gregory
... to think the visitor's descent effected with unwarranted eclat, and accordingly he growled once more. Malone, however, was no coward. The spring of the dog had taken him by surprise, but he passed him now in suppressed fury rather than fear. If a look could have strangled Tartar, he would have breathed no more. Forgetting politeness in his sullen rage, Malone pushed into the parlour before Miss Keeldar. He glanced at Miss Helstone; ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... a jugful!' says I, emphatic. 'I'll borrer a boat to get to Orham in, when I'm ready to go. You won't ketch me in that man-killer again; and you can call me a coward all you want to!' ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... on the window panes). I ought never to have concealed what sort of a life my husband led. But I had not the courage to do otherwise then—for my own sake, either. I was too much of a coward. ...
— Ghosts - A Domestic Tragedy in Three Acts • Henrik Ibsen
... make a coward violent to see his mother tormented as you are by this fellow, and not to be allowed to put a stop to it. ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... grave, sweet smile. Then I could do no otherwise than set him hastily down and look away, for so unearthly a smile I had never seen. He was, though fragile, not an unhealthy child; though so delicately formed, and intensely sensitive to nervous shocks, had nothing of the coward in him, as was proved to us in a thousand ways; shivered through and through his little frame at the sight of a certain picture to which he had taken a great antipathy, a picture which hung in the public gallery at the Tonhalle; he hated it, because of a certain ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... that would be murder," she continued. "We should have to call it murder, shouldn't we? And that is a fearful word. I could never quite forget it. I should always ask myself if I were right, if I had the right to judge. I am a coward. The work is too much ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... False coward, wreak thy wif; By corpus domini, I will have thy knife, And thou shalt have my distaff and ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... or bending o'er The sweet-breathed roses which he loved so well, While through long years his burdening cross he bore, From those firm lips no coward accents fell. ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... began, sitting upright and clasping my hands round my knees, "this is a pretty bad business for me. I haven't the reputation of being a coward, but I'll own I feel pretty rocky and mean when I see you sitting there on the floor with that iron collar round your neck and that chain holding you to the wall, and know that it's, in a measure, all my stupid, blundering folly that has ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... the miser, when he hugs his gold; the courtier, who builds his hopes upon a smile; the savage, who paints his idol with blood; the slave, who worships a tyrant, or the tyrant, who fancies himself a god;—the vain, the ambitious, the proud, the choleric man, the hero and the coward, the beggar and the king, the rich and the poor, the young and the old, all live in a world of their own making; and the poet does no more than describe what all the others think and act. If his art is folly and madness, it is folly and madness at second hand. "There is warrant for it." Poets ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... these excessive characters are singularly contrasted. Jezebel scoffs at approaching retribution, and, shining with paint and dripping with jewels, is pitched to the dogs; Lady Macbeth goes like a coward to her grave, and, curdled with remorse, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... this,—for surely you will not be a coward, and dodge consequences,—you name a scheme of life-hire. This you esteem so much superior to our democratic way of holding each man and woman to be the shrine of rights which have an infinite sanctity, and of adjudging ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... armies of Kerensky. At Zborov, we pierced six enemy lines but were forced to retreat because the other fighters failed to advance as fast as we. Then came the long wait for the time when Russia should find herself, as she is still trying to do. The Slav is not a coward once his mind is trained. There is hope for his ultimate recovery. The power of Czardom was enforced ignorance, and this made possible the infamous treaty of Brest-Litovsk. But we saw that there was no hope for a mere handful of us to hold the Russian ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... meditatively. "So you've heard we've gotten on a bit. You must even have heard of this"—placing her hand over the jar of the Brown Cold Cream. "You want to be in at the feast. You're so easy to read that I can tell you what you're after before you can get the coward words out. Marry you! ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... let me tell you that you saw as pretty a fellow hanged as ever trod shoe leather. Aye!" putting his face nearer to that of the officer, "and there was many a coward looked on, that might much better have ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... suddenly to an end when Grady, following the glances of his auditors, turned and saw who was coming. Bannon noted with satisfaction the scared look of appeal which he turned, for a second, toward the men. It was good to know that Grady was something of a coward. ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... me, Elsa, these hours past, that I am a coward and a villain to let you go on with this miserable life. Nay! it's worse than that, for your future life with that bully, that brute, will be far more wretched than you have any idea now. He doesn't care for you, Elsa—not really—not as I care ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... the few, rapid, and significant words which conveyed some hasty order, counsel, or notice, suited to any sudden occasion or emergency: e. g. 'To him flying from the field the hero addressed these winged words—"Stop, coward, or I will transfix thee with my spear."' But by Horne Tooke, the phrase was adopted on the title-page of his Diversions of Purley, as a pleasant symbolic expression for all the non-significant particles, the articuli or joints of language, which ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... answered; "but I wish it was over. I dread something, and I do not know what it is. Though nothing shall induce me to waver, I am afraid, Munro. I am not ashamed to say it: I am afraid, as I was the first night I stayed in this house. I am not a coward, ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... "Don't be a coward!" hissed Halloran. "If worst comes to worst, whoever it is can share the girl's fate," and with these words he opened the door of the coach, ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... old Grip!" cried Tom Tallington, kicking his heels together as the big dog gave his ears a shake, and lay down with his head between his paws, blinking at the fire, while his little assailant uttered a snarl, which seemed to mean "Oh you coward!" and trotted away to meet a tall rugged-looking man, who came slouching up, with long strides, his head bent, his shoulders up, a long heavy gun over his shoulder, and a bundle of wild-fowl in his left hand, the birds banging against his leather legging as he walked, and ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... Dutch of origin. For he will have it a weir to catch fish, when all the world doth know that Veritas is Latin for truth, and Vere cometh of that, or else of vir, as though it should say, one that is verily a man, and no base coward loon. And 'tis all foolishness for to say, as doth Mynheer, that the old Romans had no surnames like ours, but only the name of the family, such like as Cornelius or Julius, which ran more akin unto our Christian names. I believe it not, and I won't. Why, was there not ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... rather to have the crown in possession than to hope for it hereafter. Such an one I thought to find in thee; and if I thought right, then truly I call thee true husband and King, but if not, then I count myself to have suffered loss, seeing that thou art not a coward only, but also bloodguilty. Be up and doing, therefore. Thou hast not, as had thy father, to pome from Corinth, or even from Tarquinii, to win for himself a kingdom among strangers. All things that are about thee mark thee out for kingship, to which, if thou judge thyself ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church
... Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning; but give me the man who has pluck to fight when ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... past, for it seemed to all that yesterday's adventures were quite enough to last for at least a week. Yet each felt a little anxious that the others should not think it was afraid, and presently Cyril, who really was not a coward, began to see that it would not be at all nice if he should have to think ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... convictions, and to do Their part in shaping issues to an end. Silence may guard the door of useless words, At dictate of Discretion; but to stand Without opinions in a world which needs Constructive thinking, is a coward's part. ...
— Poems of Optimism • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... believe, Fred Oakes and I betrayed ourselves genuine adventurers. Any fool could have talked glibly about setting the town on fire; any coward could have yelped about the danger of it, and improbability of success. It needed adventurers to size up instantly all the odds against the idea, recognize the one infinitesimal chance, and plump for it. And we ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... craven scruple Of thinking too precisely on the event— A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom, And ever three parts coward; ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... whom it cost the soutar so much care and effort to love, and who, although intellectually small, was yet a good man, and by no means a coward where he judged people's souls in danger, thought to save the world by preaching a God, eminently respectable to those who could believe in such a God, but to those who could not, a God far from lovely because far from righteous. His life, nevertheless, ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... than sorry; and it is better to be scared than syphilitic. "I dare do all that may become a man," says Macbeth; "who dares do more is none"; let a man dare if he will with his own body, aye, his own soul; he is but a coward who does not shrink from buying voluptuous moments with the hazard of wife and child. Hydrophobia is far less perilous than venereal disease, and if one hundredth as many were attacked by it the world would be placarded with scarlet ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... really horrible eugenist, because he wants to get a super-man who, having more than two legs, will be a vastly superior person to a man. Chesterton loves men. He tells us why St. Peter was used to found the Church upon. It was because he 'was a shuffler, a coward, and a snob—in a word, a man.' Even the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Councils of Trent have failed to find a better reason for the founding of the Church. It is a defence of the fallibility of the Church, the practical nature ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... the outlaw's life! Hurrah for the felon's doom! Hurrah for the last death-strife! Hurrah for an exile's tomb! Come life or death, 'tis still the same, So we preserve our stainless name From losel of the coward's shame. Hurrah for the mountain side! Hurrah for the bivouac! Hurrah for the heaving tide! If rocking ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... of me, sir, that I was a coward. I have looked death in the eyes; I have often hunted and arrested criminals who would not have had the least hesitation in doing away with me. There are whole gangs of rascals who have vowed my death. All manner of horrible revenges threaten me to-day. For all that I have the most complete ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... object and destination? The memory of his cleverness and initiative in their night ride to Konopisht gave her new hope. Why should he not come to Sarajevo? Between the lines of the note she had written him he must have read the tenderness that had always been in her heart. He was no coward, and the idea of fleeing to England when danger threatened her would, of course, be the last that would come into his mind. It was curious that she had not thought of this before. He would come to Sarajevo if he ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... magnates deem themselves, I would not, while the mountains can yield one free spot for my footstep, change my place in the world's many grades for theirs. To the brave, there is but one sort of plebeian, and that is the coward. But you, sage Rienzi," continued the Knight, in a gayer tone, "I have seen in more stirring scenes than the hall of ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... dungeons of a wicked lord named Sir Damas. He has a younger brother, and the two brothers are enemies, quarreling about their inheritance. Now the younger brother, Sir Ontzlake, is very strong, but Sir Damas is not strong, and moreover, he is a coward. So he tries to find a knight who will fight for him against ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... rule, 730 The sword, the laurel, and the purple robe, To slavish empty pageants, to adorn A tyrant's walk, and glitter in the eyes Of such as bow the knee; when honour'd urns Of patriots and of chiefs, the awful bust And storied arch, to glut the coward rage Of regal envy, strew the public way With hallow'd ruins; when the Muse's haunt, The marble porch where Wisdom wont to talk With Socrates or Tully, hears no more, 740 Save the hoarse jargon of contentious monks, Or female Superstition's ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... Creil in a train with a French officer. When they got to Creil, they knocked up the Mayor, and begged him to procure them a horse. He gave them an order for the only one in the town. Its proprietor was in bed, and when they knocked at his door his wife cried out from the window, "My husband is a coward and won't open." A voice from within was heard saying, "I go out at night for no one." So they laid hands on the horse and harnessed it to a gig. All night long they drove in what they supposed was the direction of ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... Father! For Thou callest me Thy child, As in Thy holy Jesus and Good Spirit reconciled,— O Father, in this evil day when atheism is found Dropping its poison seeds about in all our fallow-ground, Shall I keep coward silence, and ungenerously forget The Friend that hitherto hath helped me—and shall help me yet? Shall unbelief, all unabashed, proclaim that God is Not,— Nor faith with honest zeal be quick ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... somewhat unusual, as he was generally very bland and polite, but to-night he was so cantankerous that I fancied he must have been drinking. To me he was especially insulting, and went so far as to hint that I, unlike other Englishmen, was a coward; that I hadn't courage to resist a man manfully, but would act towards an enemy in a cunning, serpent-like way. This was not the first occasion on which he had sought to pick a quarrel with me, and I felt like resenting it. I desisted, ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... Menones? Governor of Nineveh? Who fled my sword, fear-cold, and pale with terror? Insult not Husak with so poor a suit! That coward's race— ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... thing to laugh about it in London, and it is another to stand out here in the darkness of the moor and to hear such a cry as that. And my uncle! There was the footprint of the hound beside him as he lay. It all fits together. I don't think that I am a coward, Watson, but that sound seemed to freeze my very blood. ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... Tom was no coward, in the ordinary sense of the word: there was in him a good deal of what goes to the making of a gentleman; but he confessed to being "in a bit of a funk" when he heard who was below: there was but one thing it could mean, he thought—that Letty had been found out, and here was her cousin ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... You spoil it. He'll scream. He'll turn pale and tremble like the coward he is. But he can't get away, Jose, he can't get away! I've got him, Jose! And I'll unbutton his jacket, that hated Yankee uniform. And I'll take this knife and I'll put it right close to his soft, white skin. Then I will press down—down! ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... been emulated, he ordered the saddle to be taken from his horse and placed against a large beech-tree near by. Here seated, with his men falling and the bullets of the enemy whistling perilously near, he steadily gave his orders while many of those who had called him coward were in full flight. During the heat of the action he took his tinder box from his pocket, calmly lighted his pipe, and sat smoking as composedly as though by his own fireside. A striking spectacle, that old man, sitting in the midst of hottest battle, with the life blood ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... half the American fleet may have been destroyed for lack of warning," groaned Ridge. Then he added, his face blazing with anger: "I hope you are not an American, and I don't believe you can be, for you are a traitor, a coward, and a contemptible cur. I only hope I may meet you again some time when I am off duty, and can give you the ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... danger is little or nothing to the daring and courageous. The fellow that isn't afraid of the ball, is scarcely ever hurt. He defends himself with eye and hand. The coward is the one most likely to get hurt. I think that there is just enough risk in these games to engender a manly contempt for pain, and a bold handling of a danger. If the cricket ball were a soft affair, it would be a game for babies ...
— A Lecture on Physical Development, and its Relations to Mental and Spiritual Development, delivered before the American Institute of Instruction, at their Twenty-Ninth Annual Meeting, in Norwich, Conn • S.R. Calthrop
... same cruel and unjust manner, and so on, and so on. Nothing I could say.... It is morbid obstinacy.... She said that she felt there was something, some change in me.... If my convictions were calling me away, why this secrecy, as though she had been a coward or a weakling not safe to trust? 'As if my heart could play traitor to my children,' she said.... It was hardly to be borne. And she was smoothing my head all the time.... It was perfectly useless to protest. She is ill. Her ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... towards the fervent sunlight. But he could not speak; he could scarcely collect his thoughts, conscious though he was of the absurdity of his silence. What was he waiting for? what did he expect? He was not usually bashful, he was no coward; there was nothing in her attitude to make him hesitate to give expression to what he believed was his first real passion. But he could do nothing. He even fancied that his face, turned towards hers, was ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... he said. "In ten years I ain't run out the white flag once. It's something that ain't known in the service. There ain't a coward in it, or a man who's afraid to die. But I'll play you square. I'll wait until we're both on our feet, again, and then I'll give you twenty-four hours the start ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... went on, as if Field had spoken, perhaps a shade darker in the face, but with the same even manner and voice. "Our bears don't carry no coward's devil-fingers that kill by p'inting at twenty foot, but they ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... he ag'in refreshes hims'ef, 'it's needless to go over that hunt in detail. We hustles the flyin' demon full eighteen miles, our faithful dogs crowdin' close an' breathless at his coward heels. Still, they don't catch up with him; he streaks it like some ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... they use against us are made in our factories or sold by our firms. It is not by a cunning policy, but peacefully through our own industry, that we have won our real empire over this country, and, therefore, he who stands here as one of the conquering nation, plays a coward's part if he forsakes his post ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... am also afraid? Then I will not give up. My dear sir, I see you do not know the Miliszewskis. We do not know how to handle the women, but there is not a coward in our family. I know that people laugh at me, but the one who would dare to call me a coward would not laugh. I will show them at once that I am not a coward. ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... was Queen Elizabeth who made the first European law to buy and sell human beings like brute beasts. She was England's glory as a Protestant, and Scotland's shame as the murderer of their bonnie Mary. The auld hag skulked away like a coward in the hour of death. Mary, on the other hand, with calmness and dignity, repeated a Latin prayer to the Great Spirit and Author of her being, and calmly resigned herself into the hands ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... and already they could all see the base design by which the coward hoped to save his own life. He was about to betray the women. They saw the chief, with a brave man's contempt upon his stern face, make a sign of haughty assent, and then Mansoor spoke rapidly and earnestly, pointing up the hill. At a word from the Baggara, a dozen of the raiders rushed ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... said, "they may try to kill me, but I have a will, too, and I say that I will not die till I have found a successor to carry on—to the end—what I have begun. Mind, it is no coward's game! It is a walk with death, hand in ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... it thou?" she shrieked. "Joan! Whence come ye? Saw ye aught? What do they to him? who be the miscreants? Is my son there? Have they won him over—the coward neddirs [serpents] that they be! Speak I who be they?—and what will they do? Ah, Mary Mother, what will they do ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... "Amen, coward. But the woman remains with me," answered the Queen of Sheba. [Footnote: In order to maintain uninjured the tone of passion throughout this dialogue, it has been judged expedient to discard, in the Language of the Begum, the patois of ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... of Aselzion's instruction was the test of the Brain and Soul against 'influences'—the opposing influences of others— and this is truly the chief hindrance to all spiritual progress. The coward sentiment of fear itself is born in us through the influence of timorous persons—and it is generally the dread of what 'other people will say' or what 'other people will think' that holds us back from performing many a noble action. It should be thoroughly understood ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... cried Felix; "he will beat them off. See, he is forming up his men. Ah, bravo! bravo! Look, there isn't a coward ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... left her to go into the inner room Eva's fears revived and she wished to follow him. But she was ashamed to have him think her a coward. She forced herself to ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... be sorry for what you have done, when you know that I AM BLIND." He who bullies those who are not in a position to resist may be a snob, but cannot be a gentleman. He who tyrannizes over the weak and helpless may be a coward, but no true man. The tyrant, it has been said, is but a slave turned inside out. Strength, and the consciousness of strength, in a right-hearted man, imparts a nobleness to his character; but he will be most careful how he ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... with a graceful phrase was well illustrated in the case of a friend of mine, not remarkable for physical courage, of whom a tactful phrenologist pronounced that he was "full of precaution against real or imaginary danger." It is not every one who can tell a man he is an arrant coward without offending him. The same art, as applied by a man to his own shortcomings, is exemplified in the story of the ecclesiastical dignitary who gloried in his Presence of Mind. According to Dean Stanley, who knew ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... think I shall, though I am not such a coward as mortem conscire me ipso. But I 'gin to grow aweary of the sun, and when the plant no longer receives nourishment from light and air, there is a speedy ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... intrusion. The old restlessness coming over him, he paced up and down the narrow, cagelike room. Presently he approached a tiny mirror that hung upon the wall, and stood looking into it intently. "Fool!" he muttered. "Liar, and fool, and coward—you, you! You'll take care of Tom, will you? But ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... of in a woman—all that I hadn't found in that other woman. But I was afraid. So I left Montricheux—went away at once. I didn't want to care for you. I'd been too badly hit before. Cowardly, you'll say, perhaps—you were never a coward, were you, Ann? Well, it may have been. Anyhow, I did go away and I tried to forget all about you. It wasn't easy, God knows, and then, by a trick of fate, I found you again, at my cottage—living there, sister of the man with whom ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... wounded men who lay near to me groaned a good deal, or when they were not groaning uttered loud prayers to their local gods. We had done the best we could for these unlucky fellows. Indeed, that kind-hearted little coward, Sammy, who at some time in his career served as a dresser in a hospital, had tended their wounds, none of which were mortal, very well indeed, and from time to time rose to minister ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... likely the issue would go against me, and that my own existence would pay the price of the venture and expound its moral. This consideration soothed my conscience somewhat, for when a man backs his actions with the risk of his life, right or wrong, at any rate he plays no coward's part. ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... why he does not go: he is no coward; it is not that. I verily believe it is as he said: he is selfish, and does not want the trouble. How he laughs, and disbelieves in everybody, even himself! and what a narrow life he must lead! And yet, sometimes ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various
... previous evening. And what had led him to this? If he had been wronged and injured, why could not he redress himself like other injured men? If revenge were necessary to him, why could he not avenge himself like a man, instead of leaguing with others to commit murder in the dark, like a coward and a felon? And then he thought of his position with Keegan and Ussher. There was something manly in his original disposition; he would have given anything for a stand up fight with the attorney with equal weapons; if it had been sure death to both, he would have ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... war had lasted some months the fancy came to me that I could get nearer to her by going into it. I might even die, which would be best of all. I did not wish to kill myself because I felt that to be a coward's death, and in such a way I thought that I would only separate myself from her. But in the war, perhaps, I might meet death in such a way as to show him that I despised him both for myself and her. By suicide I would be paying him reverence.... Some such thought ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... Reservation away to the north. There was a hard look, such as is to be seen only in pale blue eyes;—a look of unyielding hatred and obstinacy; a look which, combined with the evident weakness of character displayed in his features, suggested rather the subtle treachery of a coward than the fierce resentment of ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... he hears not. Now, my warrior guests, I drink to the onward passage of his soul Death. Had my hand turned coward or played me false, This man that is my hand, and less than I And less than he bloodguilty, this my death Had been my husband's: now he has left it me. [Drinks. How innocent are all but he and I No ...
— Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... because no other Vice implies a want of Courage so much as the making of a Lie; and therefore telling a man he Lies, is touching him in the most sensible Part of Honour, and indirectly calling him a Coward. [I cannot omit under this Head what Herodotus tells us of the ancient Persians, That from the Age of five Years to twenty they instruct their Sons only in three things, to manage the Horse, to make use of the ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... They might dispute his claim and make the affair so awkward and so unpleasant for him that he would withdraw, but what would be their gain? The man existed. He was the real father. Kathleen was the flesh and blood of this tardy penitent, this betrayer of women, this coward. Never again, so long as she lived, could she be looked upon as theirs. Even though she remained with them, and in perfect contentment, there would still be the sinister shadow lying across the path—the ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... Bargee stood off, and I saw what was passing through his mind. And I went up to him and laid my hand on his shoulder and said: 'You know what I mean, and you know what manner of man I am that talks to you like this; for you're no coward,' I said; 'but you marry Fanny Montrose within a week after she gets her freedom, or I am going to kill you wherever you stand. And that's the choice you've got to make, ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... onlawfully," chimed in Morris Jones. "Not as I've ever believed in sperrits and ghostesses till now; but, seein' is believin', an' I can't go agen my own eyesight. I'd take my davy 'twere Sam Jedfoot I seed jest now; and though I'm no coward, mates, I don't mind saying I'm mortal feared o' going nigh the ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... at the dope—but at who'd got it. You sold it to Jack Purdy an' you knew he aimed to give it to me. What's more, your eyesight an' hearin' is as good as mine. You seen me an' heard me in the saloon an' you was scairt an' run an' hid in the harness room. You're a coward, an' a crook, an' a damn liar! Wolf River don't need you no more. You're a-comin' along with me an' fix Cinnabar up an' then you're a-goin' to go down to the depot an' pick you out a train that don't make no local stops an' climb onto it an' ride 'til you get where the buffalo grass don't grow. ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... him, sir,' says I, in a rage; 'and just let me have the pleasure of telling him that he's a coward and a liar; and that my lodgings are in Piccadilly, where, if ever he finds courage to meet me, he ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that wouldst be a bawd, in way of good service and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar.' King Lear, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... the water was at boiling point, and some one called him a coward for hesitating to get in. 'What,' said he, 'is my country expecting me ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... against him now, cannot blot out the memories of the past. We find it difficult to believe that a young, high-spirited, honorable warrior, in whose heart every chivalric feeling appeared to beat, could become, under any temptation, under any impulse, that base and loathsome coward—a midnight murderer! On your counsels, then, we implicitly depend: examine, impartially and deliberately, the proofs for and against, which will be laid before you. But let one truth be ever present, lest justice herself be but a cover for prejudice and hate. Let not ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... a coward in fleeing from the land of Egypt? Naturally he went to the land of Midian. The wilderness to the east of Egypt had for centuries been the place of refuge for Egyptian fugitives. From about 2000 B.C. there comes the Egyptian story of Sinuhit, an Egyptian prince, who, ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks
... strands of gray-green moss hung, waving and coiling, in the night wind. Only one old man was on his hands and knees as if to crawl from the field; but a comrade spurned him with his foot and wound his bony hand about the coward's neck. Another had turned his head to the enemy, pointing his index finger in scorn, although he ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... carriage; but he still hesitated. An anxiety, such as he had never known before, had crept over him; and, what had never before happened to him, his heart beat with fear. "That was just wanting to me," he murmured. "I have become a white-livered coward, whose legs are trembling, and whose heart is throbbing! What am I afraid of, then? Is that wrong which I am about to do? My heart has never acted thus even in the storm of battle. What does it mean? Bah! it is folly; no attention should be paid to it. I hope, however, ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... title) embraced his departing companions, and could retain only with the gallant Tancred three hundred knights, and two thousand foot-soldiers for the defence of Palestine. His sovereignty was soon attacked by a new enemy, the only one against whom Godfrey was a coward. Adhemar, bishop of Puy, who excelled both in council and action, had been swept away in the last plague at Antioch: the remaining ecclesiastics preserved only the pride and avarice of their character; and their seditious ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... Where were Osbourne's wits? Will it be believed, the column at Lone Bluff is again short of ammunition? This old man of the sea, whom all the world knows to be an ass and whom we can prove to be a coward, is apparently a peculator also. If we were to die to-morrow, the word Osbourne would be found engraven backside foremost on ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is exceedingly keen," said I; "and though only a coward will boast of his nerves in situations wholly unfamiliar to him, yet my nerves have been seasoned in such variety of danger that I have the right to rely on them,—even in a ...
— Haunted and the Haunters • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... with his drawn sword grasped firmly in his right hand, while his left held his projected shield, and thus unsupported and alone, this determined fellow marched slowly forward until within a few yards of the lion, which, instead of rushing to attack, crept like a coward into impenetrable thorns, and was seen no more. The Arab subsequently explained that he had acted in this manner, hoping that the lion would have crouched preparatory to a spring; he would then have halted, and the delay would have ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... reason, weighty reason, to hope that friends are not far distant," he said, half aloud. "There fled one coward, unwounded, in the beginning of the fight, and most probably he made good speed. Every true man on the frontier would shoulder his musket at the news; and, though no party may range so far into the woods as this, I shall perhaps encounter ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... shot him outright, as he begg'd, and he had gone directly to heaven, for he was as innocent as your honour.—I thank thee, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby.—I never think of his, continued Trim, and my poor brother Tom's misfortunes, for we were all three school-fellows, but I cry like a coward.—Tears are no proof of cowardice, Trim.—I drop them oft-times myself, cried my uncle Toby.—I know your honour does, replied Trim, and so am not ashamed of it myself.—But to think, may it please your honour, continued Trim, a tear stealing into the corner of his eye as he spoke—to think ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... she cried. "I will not believe it. I will not yield to such things. I will not be coward enough to give up a friend for ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... objected. He was going out on a sort of a bear-hunt, and to him half the pleasure would be lost if he did not carry a gun. I am not a coward, but a boy with a gun is a terror to me. My expression may have intimated my state of mind, for Mr. Larramie said to me that we had now gone so far that it would be a pity to send Percy back, and that he did not think there would be any danger, for his boy had been taught how ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... branded as a traitor, a coward, and butcher, but such an opinion, I unhesitatingly assert, is based ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... fleeing, as she passed, One look upon her shrinking lover cast That seared his coward heart for many a day, Into the deepest woods she took her way. The dance was soon resumed, and as she fled, Like hollow laughter chasing overhead, Pursued the music and the maidens' song. Just as she ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... has not, and I am very glad that I did learn it; I am a coward in apprehension, Alfred, but, perhaps, if I were put to the test, I should ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... Fridolin, where two men are pushing Robert into the burning iron furnace. It is the man who has his arm on Robert's breast. Physiognomy here spoke the truth; this chief had been a notorious murderer, and was an arrant coward to boot. At the point where the boat landed, Mr. Bushby accompanied me a few hundred yards on the road: I could not help admiring the cool impudence of the hoary old villain, whom we left lying in the boat, when he shouted to Mr. ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... longer felt as in the previous September, that the United States had no immediate interest in the war, this group included influential men of business and many writers. They had lost patience with Wilson's patience. His policy was, in their opinion, that of a coward. On the other hand, Wilson was assailed by pro-Germans and die-hard pacifists; the former believed that the British blockade justified Germany's submarine warfare; the latter were afraid even of strong language in diplomatic notes, lest it lead to war. At the ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... it is always used as meaning a bad one—one without mettle. When figuratively applied to a man, it means a coward ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... liar, and bid me keep my distance, for he'd a pocket pistol about him. "I don't care what you have about you—you have not the truth about ye, nor in ye," says I; "ye are a liar, Pat Coxe," says I: so he cocked the pistol at me, saying, that would prove me a coward—with that I wrenched the pistol from him, and bet him in a big passion. I own to that, plase your honour—there I own I was wrong (turning to HONOR), to demane myself ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... forbearance I scarce knew how to act. At last I said, sneeringly, 'I never quite believed you to be a coward until to-day.' ...
— The Thorogood Family • R.M. Ballantyne
... details. Jack Dalhousie would then gratefully return from Texas (where he was really getting on much better than he had ever done at home—Dr. Vivian had practically said so); his father would quietly take him back; and it would be generally understood that Jack was not a coward now, and was greatly improved morally by the disciplinary exile, and everything would be all right. But of course the difficulty here was that somebody (like Colonel Dalhousie, for instance) might think to ask why the discovery ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... but he was always a coward. 'Go up alonger this drivelling sick man,' he says to his wife, 'and Magwitch, lend her a hand, will you?' But he never ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... drew back a step; for the wrath of such a woman was terrible,—more terrible perhaps to a brave man than to a coward. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... agree to the demand, for if he refused and sought help elsewhere the Bravi would warn the musician and offer the latter their protection. The Senator was uncomfortable in their company, as many of his friends would have been; for if a born coward ever comes into contact with such men, he regards them much as a timid woman looks on a loaded gun. Though the two cut-throats behaved with the outward courtesy of gentlemen, there was something terrifying in their looks which it would have been ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... I am prepar'd, and full resolu'd, Foule spoken Coward, That thundrest with thy tongue, And with thy ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... said Fred, wheeling round. "Strike fair and in front if you want to, but don't hit in the back—that's a coward's trick." ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... Mary, taking long horseback rides with her, and going to see her whenever he pleases, I don't know how I keep from killing him. He isn't fit to be in the same town with her. I know the man, went to school with him. He's a cad and a coward and a big fat fool. He has some money— that is, his father has—and a smearing of education, but he's coarse and common and not to be trusted. Van Orm was a gentleman at least, and ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... were my duty to fight," returned Jack coolly; "but as I don't want to fight, and don't intend to fight, if they offer to attack us I'll run away like the veriest coward that ever went by the name of Peterkin. So ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... afterwards when we had to knock off, he preached, and Trent took the chair and made 'em all listen. Well, when we got a bit inland we had the natives to deal with, and if you ask me I believe that's one reason Cathcart hated the whole thing so. He's a beastly coward I think, and he told me once he'd never let off a revolver in his life. Well, they tried to surprise us one night, but Trent was up himself watching, and I tell you we did give 'em beans. Great, ugly-looking, black chaps they were. Aunt Ernie, I shall never forget how I felt when I saw ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... creature in the world, and not love the rest; I thought it possible that I could truly mourn for one creature gone out of the world, and not have some part in the grief of all who mourned. Thus the lessons of my life have been perverted! I have preyed on my own morbid coward heart, and it has preyed on me. Sordid in my grief, sordid in my love, sordid in my miserable escape from the darker side of both, oh see the ruin I am, and hate ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... keeper both! I will teach them that the wood was disforested in terms of the great Forest Charter. But enough of this. Go to, knave, go to thy place—and thou, Gurth, get thee another dog, and should the keeper dare to touch it, I will mar his archery; the curse of a coward on my head, if I strike not off the forefinger of his right hand!—he shall draw bowstring no more.—I crave your pardon, my worthy guests. I am beset here with neighbours that match your infidels, Sir Knight, in Holy Land. But your homely fare is before you; feed, and let welcome ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... you're not going to get it. No, by God, not if you put a coward's bullet into me for refusing," burst out Donald, with his pent-up anger breaking its bounds at the other's dictatorial demands. "I agreed that what you did with your time wasn't my business, but what I do with mine, is. And I don't ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... in the present instance. Here, with permission of the chair and committee, and without a call to order from anybody, we see and hear one member (Mr. Johnson) say to another (Mr. Duncan) that he had been branded as a coward on this floor. The other says back that 'he is a liar!' And, sir, there the matter will stop. There will be no fight." Before proceeding to comment, Mr. Adams called for the reading of this statement, as reported in the National Intelligencer. On which Mr. Wise ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... attempt; and yet more mad were now Repentance of the irrevocable deed. Therefore I chose this ruin with the glory Of not to be subdued, before the shame Of reconciling me with him who reigns By coward cession. Nor was I alone, Nor am I now, nor shall I be, alone. And there was hope, and there may still be hope; For many suffrages among his vassals Hailed me their lord and king, and many still Are mine, and many more ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... was no heroine,—a miserable coward. There was not a black stump of a tree by the road-side, nor the rustle of a squirrel in the trees, that did not make her heart jump and throb against her bodice. Her horse climbed the rocky path slowly. I told you the girl thought her Helper was alive, and very near. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... me this instant.' He looked so wild, so mad, so desperate, that Norah felt herself to be in bodily danger; but her time of dread had gone by. She had been afraid to tell him the truth, and then she had been a coward. Now, her wits were sharpened by the sense of his desperate state. He must leave the house. She would pity him afterwards; but now she must rather command and upbraid; for he must leave the house before her mistress came home. That one ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... infernal experience of noise and stench, the screams at times of dying horses and men joined with the fury of gunfire and rising shrill above it, no man may boast of his courage. There were moments when I was a coward with ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... do what you like," answered the Prince, who was no coward and had recovered from his astonishment. "You have bewitched the Princess Pansy, and I mean to hide you where no one will be able ...
— All the Way to Fairyland - Fairy Stories • Evelyn Sharp
... of the new king of Vijayanagar should turn to the chronicle of Nuniz. It will suffice here to say that he alienated his best friends by his violent despotism, and at the same time proved to the whole empire that he was a coward. His conduct and mode of government ruined the Hindu cause in Southern India and opened the whole country to the invader, though he himself did not ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... to repay your hard words by a shot or a stab; I can afford to laugh at any who blame my forbearance. When next we meet the enemy, look where the fire is hottest, and you will be convinced that the names of coward and of the Mochuelo can ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... want to hear a word on that?" demanded the Cap'n, grimly. He came close up, whirling the cudgel. "You're an old, cheap, ploughed-land blowhard, that's what you are! You've cuffed 'round hired men and abused weak wimmen-folks. I knowed you was a coward when I got that line on ye. You don't dast to stand up to a man like me. I'll split your head for a cent." He kept advancing step by step, his mien absolutely demoniac. "I've married your sister because she wanted me. Now I'm goin' to take ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... was just cutting space? We start out in about a foot of topsoil, then some hard rock and then more hard rock. Can we harness enough energy to last through the diggin'? Do you mind if I change my mind for a very good reason which is that I'm an awful coward?" ...
— Operation Earthworm • Joe Archibald
... Polydamas! Not in thy craven bosom beats a heart That bides the fight, but only fear and panic. Yet dost thou vaunt thee—quotha!—still our best In counsel!—no man's soul is base as thine! Go to, thyself shrink shivering from the strife! Cower, coward, in thine halls! But all the rest, We men, will still go armour-girt, until We wrest from this our truceless war a peace That shall not shame us! 'Tis with travail and toil Of strenuous war that brave men win renown; But flight?—weak women choose it, and ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... be as you say, sir," he said calmly. "You are right. I am a traitor. I would not have been, but—but—well that makes no difference now. You shall see, sir, that I am no coward. I am not afraid to die. Neither need you fear that I shall not do as you command. Thus shall I atone for ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... usual, he rolled out the long call, drawing himself up straight the instant it was done, turning his head from side to side to catch the first beat of his rival's answer—"Come out, if you dare; drum, if you dare. Oh, you coward!" And he hopped, five or six high, excited hops, like a rooster before a storm, to the other end of the log, and again his quick throbbing drumcall rolled ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... how Otoo and I first came together. He was no fighter. He was all sweetness and gentleness, a love-creature, though he stood nearly six feet tall and was muscled like a gladiator. He was no fighter, but he was also no coward. He had the heart of a lion; and in the years that followed I have seen him run risks that I would never dream of taking. What I mean is that while he was no fighter, and while he always avoided precipitating a row, he never ran away from trouble when it started. And it was "'Ware shoal!" ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... and "Meander," and "hallowed fountains," and "solemn sound;" but in all Gray's odes there is a kind of cumbrous splendour which we wish away. His position is at last false. In the time of Dante and Petrarch, from whom we derive our first school of poetry, Italy was overrun by "tyrant power" and "coward vice;" nor was our state much better when we first borrowed the Italian arts. Of the third ternary, the first gives a mythological birth of Shakespeare. What is said of that mighty genius is true, but it is not said happily; ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... Pepysian minuteness every incident which was likely to be important at home; how Mr. Scawen had taken him to see the House of Commons, and how Lady Abney carried him out in her coach to Newington; how soon his wrist-bands got soiled in the smoke of London, and how his horse had fallen into Mr. Coward's well at Walthamstow; and how he had gone a fishing "with extraordinary success, for he had pulled a minnow out of the water, though it made shift to get away." They also contain sundry consultations and references on the subject of fans ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... 'Sammy House' on the 1st and 2nd August, when Lieutenant Travers of his regiment was killed, Ruttun Sing, amidst a shower of bullets, jumped on to the parapet and shouted to the enemy, who were storming the piquet: 'If any man wants to fight, let him come here, and not stand firing like a coward! I am Ruttun Sing, of Patiala.' He then sprang down among the enemy, followed by the men of his company, and drove them off with ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... rule the law,[45] The wealth of climes where savage nations roam[46] Pillaged from slaves to purchase slaves at home, Fear, pity, justice, indignation start, Tear off reserve, and bare my swelling heart; 390 Till half a patriot, half a coward grown, I fly from ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... Do you know that cargoes of slaves came into Bristol Harbour in the time of our fathers? I would have given L500 to have had you and the Anti-Slavery Society in Dara during the three days of doubt whether the slave-dealers would fight or not. A bad fort, a coward garrison, and not one who did not tremble—on the other side a strong, determined set of men accustomed to war, good shots, with two field-pieces. I would have liked to hear what you would all have said then. I do not say this in brag, ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... of young Kromlaix men looked at each other in consternation. Was the handsomest, the strongest, and the most daring lad in their village a coward? It was the dark year of 1813, when Napoleon was draining France of all its manhood. Even the only sons of poor widowed women, such as Rohan Gwenfern was, were no longer exempted from conscription. Having lost half a million men amid the snows of Russia, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... what we have agreed upon, and he states our case better than we could. He has already spoken feelingly to you, he has already spoken feelingly to me, and he'll put the whole thing feelingly to Jack. That's it! I am not a coward, Rosa, but to tell you a secret, I am a little afraid ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... before she could know that prayers were vain. Easier to kill her body than to listen to this. How, though? With his hands about her throat. Murder was an old business. It would be mercy to her. But he was too much a coward. A cowardly audience listening to words ... far away ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... student, fresh from his scholastic ethics, amazes the company at his father's table, who are all devout believers in the virtues of the hair-trigger, by an eloquent declamation against the folly and the sin of duelling. At last one of the set gets sufficient breath to call him a coward. The hot Irish blood is up in an instant, a tumbler is thrown at the head of the doubter of his courage, and in ten seconds the young moralist is crossing swords with his antagonist in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... cold-blooded tone in which these men discussed the killing of the boys, but Ted only smiled, for he knew that Burk was at heart a coward, and that he did not care to rush, nor would he stand a rush ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... in vain for U75's consort. The unterseeboot that was to deal the coward's blow was not to be seen. Her presence was to be kept a secret from the crew of ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... said in a moment of warmth, in a fit of exasperation at the "Mitchelstown massacre," which took place a year afterwards. What had annoyed him when at Limerick he said that any man who stood aside from the national movement was "a dastard and a coward, and he and his children after him would be remembered in the days that are near at hand, when Ireland was a free nation?"—Date September 20th, 1887. Dillon delights in dates. Again, what had ruffled the patriot soul, when at Maryborough he spoke of dissentients in the following terms:—"When the ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... had got him to ride forth, Vallancey had had occasion to regret that he stood committed to a share in this quarrel, for he came to know Richard as he really was. He had found him in an abject state, white and trembling, his coward's fancy anticipating a hundred times a minute the death ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... megalokindynos, i.e. endangering himself for great things. And Seneca says (De Quat. Virtut.): "Thou wilt be magnanimous if thou neither seekest dangers like a rash man, nor fearest them like a coward. For nothing makes the soul a coward save the consciousness ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... understand women just like a pig understands Sunday—you don't know anything about 'em. She was mad at Maurice Rodaine and she wanted to give him a lesson. She never thought about the consequences. After the dance was over, just like the sniveling little coward he is, he got his father and went to the Richmond house. There they began laying out the old man because he had permitted his daughter to do such a disgraceful thing as to dance with a man she wanted to dance with instead of kowtowing and butting her head against the floor every time Maurice ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... seemed to have been born towards the north-east, in the direction of Crown Square, and the shock seemed to pass southwards in the direction of Knype. The bed shook; the basin and ewer rattled together like imperfect false teeth in the mouth of an arrant coward; the walls of the hotel shook. Then silence! No cries of alarm, no cries for help, no lamentations of ruin! Doubtless, though earthquakes are rare in England, the whole town had been overthrown and engulfed, and only Mr Cowlishaw's bed left standing. Conquering his terror, Mr Cowlishaw ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... curse my name. I sate one hour upon the barren rock And longed to kill myself; but then I said, I will not leave my name in infamy, I will not be perpetual rottenness Upon the Spaniard's air. If I must sink At last to hell, I will not take my stand Among the coward crew who could not bear The harm themselves had done, which others bore. My young life yet may fill some fatal breach, And I will take no pardon, not my own, Not God's—no pardon idly on my knees; But it shall come to me upon my feet And in the thick of action, and each deed That carried ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... fought for no other end than to make enemies when, really, he enjoyed far more the good give-and-take argument that preserved to him his friends, provided those friends fought fair and did not play the coward, or the toady, to ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... wounds were long in healing. The principal injuries were in the head and thigh. One or two of his physicians feared that he would never walk again; the limb seemed to contract, and neuralgic pains made his life a misery. To add to his troubles, his nerves were seriously affected, and though he was no coward, depression held him at times in its fell grip, and mocked him with delusive pictures of other men's happiness. Like Bunyan's poor tempted Christian, he, too, at times espied a foul fiend coming over the field to meet him, and had to wage a deadly combat with ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... I think o't, Its pride, and a' the lave o't, Fie, fie on silly coward man, That he should be the slave ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... when footfalls were again audible outside, and all the denizens of the place sat calmly smoking their pipes without so much as a movement toward investigating the sound, he, knowing whose steps he had invited thither, had great ado with the coward within to keep still, as if he had no more reason to fear an ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... strangers but to one another, so meanly submissive when subjected, so insolent, or barbarous and tyrannical, when superior, that I thought there was something in them that shocked my very nature. Add to this that it is natural to an Englishman to hate a coward, it all joined together to make the devil and a Portuguese ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... consequence, not of such importance as he imagined, but, nevertheless, before his fellows. He had been at the storming of the Bastille, that gave him prestige; he had a truculent swagger which counted in these days, especially if there had been no opportunity of being proved a coward. Perchance Sabatier had never been put to the test. In a rabble it is easy to shout loudly, yet be where the danger is least, and this wide-mouthed patriot had much ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... say this for a loup-garou, Father Gaspard: a loup-garou may have a harder time in this world than the other beasts, but he is no coward; he ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... in a country and enjoy its freedom, peace and comforts and not do our part toward maintaining such peace and comforts we have failed to do our duty toward our fellowman and government, and may be called a sponger, a coward and a shirker if we fail to vote and do our part toward maintaining ...
— Citizenship - A Manual for Voters • Emma Guy Cromwell
... his son. Imogine re- appears at the convent, and dies of her own accord. Bertram stabs himself, and dies by her side, and that the play may conclude as it began, to wit, in a superfetation of blasphemy upon nonsense, because he had snatched a sword from a despicable coward, who retreats in terror when it is pointed towards him in sport; this felo de se, and thief-captain—this loathsome and leprous confluence of robbery, adultery, murder, and cowardly assassination,—this ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... they, child?" cried Lady Catherine. "I will see them." Her ladyship snatched the notes, read, and when she saw that her son, in the grossest terms, was called a coward, for refusing the challenges of two such fashionable men as Sir Philip Gosling and Major O'Shannon, all her hopes of him were at an end. "Our family is disgraced for ever!" she exclaimed; and then, perceiving that she ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... was quite unsuitable. Thus, too, it was very chivalrous and orderly perhaps, for him to hate De Wilton, and to seek to supplant him in his lady's love; but, to slip a bundle of forged letters into his bureau, was cowardly as well as malignant. Now, Marmion is not represented as a coward, nor as at all afraid of De Wilton; on the contrary, and it is certainly the most absurd part of the story, he fights him fairly and valiantly after all, and overcomes him by mere force of arms, as he might have done at the ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... look at Nan again. Bess was crying frankly, with her gloved hands before her face. "Oh, Nan! Nan!" she sobbed. "I didn't do a thing, not a thing. I didn't even hang to the tail of your skirt as you told me. I, I'm an awful coward." ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... in the bottom of the deep arroyo. He rode down and recovered the tool, in no hurry now, for he was quite certain that the fence-cutter would not have another. He would discover his loss when he came to the fence, and then, if he was not entirely the coward and sneak that his actions seemed to brand him, he would have ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... like a coward," answered the stranger, "for thou standest there with a good yew bow to shoot at my heart, while I have nought in my hand but a plain blackthorn staff wherewith ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... however, will not withstand the threatenings of shame which I have always contemplated with terror. Time and fortune have taught me to meet all other evils with fortitude; but I grow every day more and more a coward at the idea of the approach of a stigma on my character; and as now I must live and die in England, and get the greater part of my subsistence from my labour, I ought to reconcile, if not ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... ever since. You niver know when it may be useful." As he spoke he continued to hold the black muzzle of his pistol in a dead line with the centre of the young man's forehead, and to follow the latter's movements with a hand which was as steady as a rock. Ezra was no coward, but he ceased his advance ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was a regular coward after all. He looked this way and that with frightened eyes, ran on a few paces as if hoping to find a way out, came back, and finally made a ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... But his intellect was small; his nerves were weak; and the women and priests who had educated him had effectually assisted nature. He was orthodox in belief, correct in morals, insinuating in address, a hypocrite, a mischiefmaker and a coward. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... no hounds of heaven, nor ravening band Of earthly wolves to tear your kingdom down. We stand for human reason; at our frown The coward sword shall fall from your ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... say he might not be lying in ambush within close gunshot of the horse to which the conjecturer dared not now return? In those hills a man would sometimes lie whole days in ambush for a neighbor, and one need not be a coward to shudder at the chance of being assassinated by mistake. To wait on was safest, but it was very tedious. Yet soon enough, and near and sudden enough, seemed the appearance of the man waited for, ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... lache que vous," Said PIERRE, the doughty son of France. "I fight not coward foe like you!" Said our ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... duel a myth, or did they merely want to frighten him? But these petty creatures, impudent and teasing as flies, had succeeded in wounding his vanity, in rousing his pride, and exciting his curiosity. Unwilling to become their dupe, or to be taken for a coward, and even diverted perhaps by the little drama, he went to the ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... yet," he said, "that would fight. You've listened to that blat until it's a part of ye; you've run with them Mexicans until you're kin to 'em; you're a coward, Jasp Swope, and I always knowed it." He paused again, his eyes glowing with the hatred that had overmastered his being. "My God," he said, "if I could only git you to fight to-day I'd ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... to meet the writer of the aforesaid letter in the presence of two or more witnesses, in order that he (or she) may be given a chance to substantiate his statements; and until this is done, I shall continue to consider said letter the work of a coward instead of ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... expression, as though I were a baby playing with a gun. You see, I had graduated on Lewis Wentz's steamer and a twenty-mile clip didn't feaze me any, though there were times when I'd forget which things to pull, and this always seemed to rattle his little nerves. It was strange, however, what a coward I was when I first went out by myself. There was no devil left in me at all, and I was certainly the crawly-crawliest bubbler you ever saw, and I teetered at street-car crossings till everybody went mad. It might have been worse than it was, though, for the only ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... wrists and ankles of Ganelon and fastened to four prancing horses. Whining and begging for his life, the traitor lay extended while the horses, proud of their part, stood with noble arching necks ready without whip or spur to drag the coward traitor limb from limb. The halters were cast off, the horses sprang away, and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... howers by course, We haue maintaind stoute warre, and still vndoone Our foes assaults, and driue them to the worse, Fifteene Armados boardings haue not wonne Content or ease, but beene repeld by force, Eight hundred Cannon shot against her side, Haue not our harts in coward colours died. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... his first and chiefest thought, for they attached him to something in his base career which had been noble. So careful was he, so fearful of facing eternity and judgment—if drown he must—without them, that, although the time was short and the danger instant, and the man by this time a coward, he had stripped off oilskin coat and pea-jacket to indue them again and button them ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... voice that shook the vaulted skies, The king insults the goddess as she flies: "Ill with Jove's daughter bloody fights agree, The field of combat is no scene for thee: Go, let thy own soft sex employ thy care, Go, lull the coward, or delude the fair. Taught by this stroke renounce the war's alarms, And learn to tremble at the name ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... wanted to run away from it that way, too," he owned, "for failure made a coward of me more than once in those hard years. There's a prospect of independence and peace in the picture you make with those few swift strokes. But I don't see any—you haven't put any—any—man in it. Isn't there ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... traitor knave? Wha can fill a coward's grave? Wha sae base as be a slave? Traitor! coward! turn ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Masha is a coward. Till now she has never been able to hear a gun fired without trembling all over. It is two years ago now since Ivan Kouzmitch took it into his head to fire his cannon on my birthday; she was so frightened, ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... though he had few with him, defended the convoy right well, and did great hurt to the Moors, slaying many of them, and drove them into the town. This Martin Pelaez who is here spoken of, did the Cid make a right good knight, of a coward, as ye shall hear. When the Cid first began to lay siege to the city of Valencia, this Martin Pelaez came unto him; he was a knight, a native of Santillana in Asturias, a hidalgo, great of body and strong of limb, a well ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... story," and with a frown he threw himself into a chair near Lucian. Apparently he saw that he was found out, for it took him all his time to keep his voice from trembling and his hands from shaking. The man was not a coward, but being thus brought face to face with a peril he little expected, it was scarcely to be wondered at that he felt shaken and nervous. Moreover, he knew little about the English law, and hardly guessed how his misdeeds ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... change of commanders. Lord Derwentwater was ignorant of military affairs, and he was greatly swayed by a Mr. Forster, who was somehow at the head of the business, and who was not only incompetent, but proved to be a coward, if not, as most folks believed, a traitor. So dissension soon broke out, and four hundred Highlanders marched away north. After a long delay it was resolved to move south, where, it was said, we should be joined by great numbers in Lancashire; ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... homage to society—shorn of his virtues or his splendor, he does not care to face his fellows. Among atheists—Christians being without the question of suicide—among atheists, whatever may be said to the contrary, none but a base coward can take up ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... me a week ago I should have had to ask to be excused from trying to tell you in the presence of ladies. I would have quit if I hadn't been too much of a coward. But now—" ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... and discretion of M. de la Marche. Set before him the details of your position, and then let him give the verdict. You have a perfect right to intrust him with your secret, and you are quite sure of his honour. If he is coward enough to desert you in such a position, your remaining resource is to take shelter from Bernard's violence behind the iron bars of a convent. You can remain there a few years; you can make a show of taking ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... strong enough to crush the infuriated lad, but drink had made him a coward at heart. He stooped over and picked up an iron-ringed stake from ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... fiercely, "I tell you, Horace, that even if we had guns, food, and yaks, I would not turn back upon our spoor, since to do so would prove me a coward and unworthy of her. I ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... anybody else. She'll be welcome to me any time she comes, an' let me see who'll dare to mislist her. She feels as she ought to do, an' as every woman ought to do, ay, an' every man, too, that is a man, or anything but a brute an' a coward—she feels for that unfortunate, heart-broken girl 'ithout;' an' it'll be a strange thing if them that brought her to what she's sufferin' won't suffer themselves yet; there's a God above still, I hope, glory be to His ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... one so-called white man in these woods who is coward enough to strike a man whose hands ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... crowd of boys strove to hold Martin Rattler back, while they assured him that he had not the smallest chance in the world, Bob turned towards the kitten, which was quietly and busily employed in licking itself dry, and said, "Now, Martin, you coward, I'll give it ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... her, and show her how"? She wondered. If, indeed, it were best that she should never be Dick's wife, it seemed to her that He would help her about it. She had been a coward last night; her blood leaped in her veins with shame at the memory of it. Did He understand? Did He not know how she loved Dick, and how hard ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... no sense a coward. In action he was never afraid. It was the waiting and wondering and the uncertainty that might have loosened his nerves a little. But, somehow, a wave of intense horror swept over him for a second as he thought of the bestial maniac and his attendant ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... on the sofa that last time. I knew then that you would, perhaps, lose your head again, and yet I loved you so much that I could not give you up. Then came the night of your father's ball and all the misery, and I was a coward and shut myself up instead of keeping my arms around you and holding you up to the best that was in you, just as Uncle George begged me to do. And when your father turned against you and drove you from your home, ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... and no more fear death in his own house than at an assault. We should not then see the same man charge into a breach with a brave assurance, and afterwards torment himself like a woman for the loss of a trial at law or the death of a child; when, being an infamous coward, he is firm in the necessities of poverty; when he shrinks at the sight of a barber's razor, and rushes fearless upon the swords of the enemy, the action is ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... of Carmen. Was she worth such sacrifice as he and Rosendo were making? God forgive him! Yes—a thousand times yes! If he betrayed Rosendo's confidence and fled like a coward now, leaving her to fall into the sooty hands of men like Padre Diego, to be crushed, warped, and squeezed into the molds of Holy Church, could he ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... his territory, at Grjottungard. It was very foolish of me, he said, that I left my shield and my flint-stone at home; had I my weapons here, you and I would try a holmgang (duel on a rocky island); but as this is not the case, I declare you a coward if you kill me unarmed. Thor was by no means the man to refuse to fight a duel when he was challenged, an honor which never had been shown him before. Then Hrungner went his way, and hastened with all his might back to Jotunheim. His journey became famous among the giants, and the proposed ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... what he might say, and at last, being hard pressed by me, he confessed that indeed Goethe was perfectly right and Newton wrong, but that he had no business to tell the world so. He has died since, the old coward!" ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... go down among 'em—th' settlers—an' take 'em that word from me. Tell 'em Jim Last's daughter stands facin' Courtrey, an' she'll need at her back t' fight him every man in Lost Valley that ain't a coward." ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... dead by her poisonous communications as fair Rosamond was by her royal and legitimate rival? Is Hero then lighting the lamp up, and getting ready the supper, whilst Leander is sitting comfortably with some other party, and never in the least thinking of taking to the water? Ever since that coward's blow was struck in Lady Maria's back by her own relative, surely kind hearts must pity her ladyship. I know she has faults—ay, and wears false hair and false never mind what. But a woman in distress, shall we not pity her—a lady of a certain age, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... respect f'r me an' none at all f'r Mulligan. Th' other mornin' I see him standin' on a corner near th' bank as Mulligan dashed by with a copy iv his fav'rite journal in wan hand an' a pass book in th' other. 'That man is a coward,' says Mulligan. 'Tis th' likes iv him that desthroys public confidence,' says he. 'He must've been brave at wan peeryod iv his life,' says I. 'Whin was that?' says he. 'Whin he put th' money in,' says I. 'It's th' likes iv him that makes panics,' says he. 'It's th' likes iv both iv ye,' says ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... little bit of a coward in the business, I confess, Milly,' he said, in the midst of this talk, 'and hadn't courage to tell you anything till the deed was done; and then I thought it was as well to ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... even to carry a switch on the main island, either from fear of the horses or their owners. To-day he was beating the baggage horse unmercifully, when I rode back and interfered with some very strong language, saying, "You are a bully, and, like all bullies, a coward." Imagine my aggravation when, at our first halt, he brought out his note-book, as usual, and quietly asked me the meaning of the words "bully" and "coward." It was perfectly impossible to explain them, so I said a bully was the worst name I could call him, and that a coward ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... cool and calm. The bravest of men have the least of a brutal bullying insolence, and in the very time of danger are found the most serene and free. Rage, we know, can make a coward forget himself and fight. But what is done in fury or anger can never be placed to the account ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... Round and round he went, tugging at the bars in vain; then he mounted on the top, and peered at me through the openings, grinning in a very ugly manner. Now, I had always been considered a bold cockatoo, and anything but a coward; and so, when I saw his tail sticking between the bars, I flew down to the bottom of the cage, and seizing it, gave it such a bite that I nipped the piece quite out! Away he went, howling and yelling; but though he showed it ...
— The Cockatoo's Story • Mrs. George Cupples
... and entered the room. "How could I ever frighten her to death?" she laughed. "It's just your way; you're as great a coward as an ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... son shall wear his father's sword." You said: "Shall hands once blossoms at my breast Be stained with blood?" I answered with a word More bitter, and your own, the bitterest Stung me to sullen anger, and I said: "My son shall be no coward of his line Because his mother choose"; you turned your head And your eyes grew implacable in mine. And like a trodden snake you turned to meet The foe with sudden hissing ... then you smiled, And broke our life in pieces at my feet, "Your ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... the Portuguese were forced to retreat with disgrace, having only cut the hawser of one of the frigates, which drove on shore and was stove in pieces. This belonged to the governor, who was well served, for he remained like a coward in the country, keeping four or five great guns that were in the town locked up, except one, and for it they had only powder and shot for two discharges. Before the fight ended, some 4000 nayres were come in from the country, and several were slain on both sides. Nine or ten Portuguese were driven ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... and humiliated, the man was proud, and had the consciousness of right on his side. Only for his child, he might have defied the landlord and all the people, but the dread of leaving her alone and uncared for almost made a coward of a lion. They walked on for a long time, turning down streets new and strange to them, and in their sorrow forgetting their fatigue. The sun had set and darkness was falling over the landscape, when the father, ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... courage at the prospect of it. I sincerely wish I had never suggested the idea, which I was induced to do from the hope of the war being over, and that you would pass the winter more comfortably than in England during the dreary months. I am now become a very coward on the subject, and leave it to you to determine as you think best; at the same time assuring you that I shall endeavour to be reconciled to whatever plan is adopted which is most likely to conduce to your comfort. Your account of our dear girls gives me the most heartfelt satisfaction, ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... do with fear. Not all kinds; for there are some things we ought to fear, such as dishonour and pauperism, the fear of which is compatible with dauntless courage, while the coward may not fear them. Fearlessness of what is in our control, and endurance of what is not, for the sake of true honour, constitute the courageous habit. Its excess is rashness or foolhardiness, the ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... fool, he knew when he was beaten; and he was no coward either, for he stepped to the bunk, took the infected bed-clothes fairly in his arms, and carried them out of the house without a check ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... that the American forces at Ft. Schuyler were ready to co-operate in the battle. His subordinate officers, however, retorted that they "came to fight, not to see others fight" and finally accused Herkimer of being a "Tory and a coward." Gen. Herkimer, thoroughly enraged, gave ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... However much he attributed this answer of the shaman to inspiration from those on high, it appeared to him dangerous. Tyope felt very uneasy, but he was no coward. In case the worst had really happened, if the Tehuas had anticipated and surrounded him, he still inclined to the conviction that concentration of his forces and a rapid onslaught on the foes in his rear would not only save him, but secure a reasonable number of coveted trophies. ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... think him a coward, for you must remember he was hardly sixteen years old at the time, and that this was the first affair of the sort he had encountered. Afterwards, as you shall learn, he showed that he could exhibit ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... a man first of her own race, and he made her go! Would she have gone if a coward asked her, think you? Sahib—women are good—at the other end of things! We will ride and fetch her. Ha! I saw! My eyes are old, but they bear witness yet!—Now, food, sahib—for the love of Allah, food, before my belt-plate and my ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... the irritation of a nervous thread, a slight congestion, a small disturbance in the imperfect and delicate functions of our living machinery, can turn the most lighthearted of men into a melancholy one, and make a coward of the bravest! Then, I go to bed, and I wait for sleep as a man might wait for the executioner. I wait for its coming with dread, and my heart beats and my legs tremble, while my whole body shivers beneath the warmth of the bedclothes, until the moment ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... was because he was a coward, and had not the moral courage to go to sleep with a lie on his soul, for fear he might wake up and see an angel with a fiery sword standing by his bedside. And I must sorrowfully acknowledge this seemed a truer view of the case than believing the boy was really impressed with the heinousness ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... such a coward," I cried, hurrying down stairs, while the poor little Rhymester, afraid to be left alone ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow
... it if a man called you a coward. Don't try my woman's friendship for you too far. You insult me by ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... he gave himself up, the coward—the lying turn-tale! The treacherous dog! Swearing it off on me to save a few years of his miserable life out of jail. See here!" stopping suddenly before Mr. Pinkerton, "That traitor made me swear I would ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... one mile; and, clearly, this was not like flying from danger as a coward, but fleeing from attempted crime, as a brother and a Christian. Julian snatched at him to catch him as he passed: and, failing in this, rushed after him. It was a race for life! and they went like the wind, for two hundred yards, along ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... is a sin to wish bad luck to an enemy," the widow remarked. "I will do penance for it. Still, I would strew flowers on his grave with the greatest pleasure, and that is the truth. Black-hearted, that he is! The coward couldn't speak up for his own mother, and cheats you out of your share by deceit and trickery. My cousin had a pretty fortune of her own, but unluckily for you, nothing was said in the marriage-contract about anything that she might ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... of him, convey an impression of feeble, unpractical piety that one is loth to associate with a malicious impostor. In addition to this, one of the witnesses against him, Tyrell, was a manifest knave and coward; another, Mainy, as conspicuous a fool; while the rest were servant-maids—all of them interested in exonerating themselves from the stigma of having been adherents of a lost cause, at the expense of a ringleader ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... and the next day at three o'clock, instead of seeing me herself, sent me ten guineas in a note, by her French maitre d'hotel; which chinked as they slided from side to side, and proclaimed me a pauper! My heart almost burst with indignation! Yet, coward that I was! I wanted the fortitude to refuse the polluted paper! I thought it would be an affront, and still fed myself with the vain hope of procuring from her that countenance to my own labours which I imagined they deserved, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... in his life. He had to escape regeneration. To do that, he was willing to take any chance, coward though he was—even if it meant that he had to become ...
— Divinity • William Morrison
... frightened!" exclaimed her father. "The daughter of all the Dantons that ever fought and fell, turn coward! ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... evil; just as a pebble on a railway can stagger the Scotch express. It is enough for the great martyrs and criminals of the French revolution, that they have surprised for all time the secret weakness of the strong. They have awakened and set leaping and quivering in his crypt for ever the coward ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... withal, whose days are summer bright, * Whom maids e'er greet with smiling lips' delight; Whom spicey breezes fan in every site * And wins whate'er he wills, that happy wight White blooded coward heart ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... socially they should not give a false showing of themselves or of their means. The proudest spirit acknowledges the limitations of poverty with dignified truthfulness; it is the moral coward who seeks to hide these limitations by a greater display than his circumstances warrant. And he reaps as he sows. His "entertainments" fill an idle hour for the class of visitors who gravitate mainly to the supper-room, while the giver of the feast, ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... make the guns safe,' he cried to his men—he was not all a coward, poor fellow—and as they ran for it he picked up the spikes and the hammer. Tap! tap! tap! one gun was spiked. Tap! tap! tap! another. Then we heard the Russians beginning ...
— For The Honor Of France - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... been cut, lying in the bottom of the deep arroyo. He rode down and recovered the tool, in no hurry now, for he was quite certain that the fence-cutter would not have another. He would discover his loss when he came to the fence, and then, if he was not entirely the coward and sneak that his actions seemed to brand him, he would have recourse ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... Wyn was no coward; she had shown that the time she and Bessie Lavine were spilled out of their canoes in the middle of the lake. But she had not lived, like Polly, in the woods with few ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... so the under-sheriff and justice thrived for some time. But one day the under-sheriff served his patent automatic warrant on a young man who refused to come down. The officer then drew one of those large baritone instruments that generally has a coward at one end and a corpse at the other. He pointed this at the young man and assessed a fine of $50 and costs. Instead of paying this fine, the youth, who was quite nimble, but unarmed, knocked the bogus officer down with the butt end of his ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... each other. Long and long they looked, and the heart of each was elated. "I comprehend," Demetrios said. He clapped spurs to his horse and fled as a coward would have fled. This was one occasion in his life when he overcame his pride, and should in ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... court. Two executioners with pinafores reversed, led me in. Under the shade of an umbrella, I perceived my Bride, supported by the Bride of the Pirate-Colonel. The President (having reproved a little female ensign for tittering, on a matter of Life or Death) called upon me to plead, "Coward or no Coward, Guilty or not Guilty?" I pleaded in a firm tone, "No Coward and Not Guilty." (The little female ensign being again reproved by the President for misconduct, mutinied, left the ...
— The Trial of William Tinkling - Written by Himself at the Age of 8 Years • Charles Dickens
... Captain made for each Mess, laid this Storm for a while; but that which at first pacify'd these turbulent Spirits, was what blew them up again: For when they were all drunk, the Boatswain said the Captain was a Coward, and took a Merchant-man for a Man of War: That his Fear had magnified the Object, and deprived them of the Means of either taking others, or defending themselves. This he said in the Captain's Hearing, who, without returning ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... an unblushing face of innocence. Montoni, you are a villain! If there is treachery in this affair, look to yourself as the author of it. IF—do I say? I—whom you have wronged with unexampled baseness, whom you have injured almost beyond redress! But why do I use words?—Come on, coward, and receive ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... was the Secretary of the Festival Committee which had been formed for the celebration of Liszt's Artist-Jubilee in November 1873 at Budapest, had in their name invited Liszt to take part in this.] Nevertheless I could not suit myself to the role of a coward; I will therefore endeavor to surmount my fear and to make myself worthy to share with my brave compatriots in the joy they ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... he WARN'T a coward. Not by a blame' sight. There ain't a coward amongst them Shepherdsons—not a one. And there ain't no cowards amongst the Grangerfords either. Why, that old man kep' up his end in a fight one day for half an hour against three Grangerfords, and come out winner. They was all a-horseback; he lit off ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... delivering "a low attack that could not be answered." Accusation summarised by other Members with yell of "Coward!" ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... had taken the veil, could not refuse visits, some of which must have been as a second entering of iron into this proud woman's soul. The coward Gaston, when passing through Moulins, sought an interview. Richelieu, also, whose emissary received the following message: "Tell your master, that my tears reply for me and that I am his humble ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... within her to cause her to falter or stand abashed. But the tired man, in the poor fellow, cried out to this strong, brave creature to aid him understandingly where his own knowledge and slowness of nature made him a coward. And so they stood looking in ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... I did! I fully intended to, but found myself too great a coward. I dare not—I cannot risk losing her. I am fearful that if she knew it she would throw me ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... of blood. He himself must go,—or the man. Then he remembered that she was the man's wife, and that it behoved him to spare the man for her sake. Then, when he came to think in earnest of self-destruction, he told himself that it was a coward's refuge. He took to his classics for consolation, and read the philosophy of Cicero, and the history of Livy, and the war chronicles of Caesar. They did him good,—in the same way that the making of many shoes would have done him good had he been ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... these very words: "Thou traitor, I don't care what becomes of thee." I replied, "Very well, Friend Franchise" (we gave him that nickname in our party); "you are a coward" (I told a lie, for he was certainly a brave man), "and I am a priest; but dueling is not allowed us." M. de Brissac threatened to cudgel him, and he to kick Brissac. The President, fearing these words would end in blows, got ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... "You coward, to take advantage of two girls driven to you by the storm. I didn't think the man lived that would ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... condemn myself out of my own mouth, by allowing the absolute nature of justifying grace and the impossibility of the elect ever falling from the faith, or the glorious end to which they were called; and then he said, this granted, self-destruction was the act of a hero, and none but a coward would shrink from it, to suffer a hundred times more every day and night ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... Queen ELIZABETH II of the UK (since 6 February 1952) head of government: Lieutenant Governor and Commander in Chief Vice-Admiral Sir John COWARD (since NA 1994) and Bailiff Mr. Graham Martyn DOREY (since February 1992) cabinet: Advisory and Finance Committee (other committees) appointed by the Assembly of the States elections: none; the queen is a hereditary monarch; lieutenant ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... sale in his book-store. During the popular excitement on this subject, in 1834, he was told that his store was about to be attacked by an infuriated rabble, and he had better remove all such publications from the window. "Dost thou think I am such a coward as to forsake my principles, or conceal them, at the bidding of a mob?" said he. Presently, another messenger came to announce that the mob were already in progress, at the distance of a few streets. He was ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... little time taken to recover his lost equanimity, Wanhope went on: "I don't know whether you knew that Ormond had rather a peculiar dread of death." We none of us could affirm that we did, and again Wanhope resumed: "I shouldn't say that he was a coward above other men I believe he was rather below the average in cowardice. But the thought of death weighed upon him. You find this much more commonly among the Russians, if we are to believe their novelists, than among Americans. ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... we?' She went on crying: 'You have ruined my chances in life!' And I pitied her very much. 'It's nothing,' I said; 'things will come all right. Or,' I continued, 'you can go into a convent.' And she began to insult me. 'You are a stupid fool, Mitia! a coward!'" ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... a comedian convulse thousands with his delineations of the weaknesses of humanity in the inimitable "Rip Van Winkle." I saw him make laughter hold its sides, as he impersonated the coward in "The Rivals;" and I said: I would rather have the power of Joseph Jefferson, to make the world laugh, and to drive care and trouble from weary brains and sorrow from heavy hearts, than to wear the blood-stained laurels of military glory, or to be President of the United ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... so and so; and you get another star for your breast; and all the world sings your praises. And who is to court-martial a great hero for reckless waste of human life? Who is to tell him that he is a cruel-hearted coward? Who is to take him to the fields he has saturated with blood, and compel him to count the corpses; or to take him to the homesteads he has ruined throughout the land, and ask the women and sons and the daughters what they think ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... at the cold-blooded tone in which these men discussed the killing of the boys, but Ted only smiled, for he knew that Burk was at heart a coward, and that he did not care to rush, nor would he stand a rush should ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... such solitude. His heart, during those first weeks at Ellisland, (p. 097) entirely sank within him, and he saw all men and life coloured by his own despondency. This is the entry in his commonplace book on the first Sunday he spent alone at Ellisland:—"I am such a coward in life, so tired of the service, that I would almost at any time, with Milton's Adam, 'gladly lay me in my mother's lap, and be at peace.' But a wife and children bind me to struggle with the stream, till some sudden squall shall overset the silly vessel, or in the listless return of years ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... are! How can there be atonement? You cannot wipe things out—on earth. We are of the earth. Records remain. If a man plays the fool, the coward, and the criminal, he must expect to wear the fool's cap, the white feather, and the leg-chain until his life's end. And now, please, let us change the subject. We have been bookish long enough." She rose with a gesture ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... "Come back, miscreant! coward!" shouted Woodburn, dismounting, and leaping forward to the place where the other had disappeared—"come back, and decide your fate ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... tears, O Rome! began to flow; So sad the scene! What then must Perseus feel, To see Jove's race attend the victor's wheel: To see the slaves of his worst foes increase, From such a source!—An emperor's embrace! He sicken'd soon to death; and, what is worse, He well deserv'd, and felt, the coward's curse; Unpitied, scorn'd, insulted his last hour, Far, far from home, and in a vassal's power: His pale cheek rested on his shameful chain, No friend to mourn, no flatterer to feign; No suit retards, no ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... for God's sake!" he said passionately. "I must not dream of it,—I dare not! I become the slave of my own imagined rapture,—the coward who falls conquered and trembling before his own desire of delight! Rather let me strive to be glad that she, my angel-love, is so far removed from my unworthiness,— let her, if she be near me now, read my thoughts, and see in them how dear, how sacred is ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... an awful coward, I'm afraid," Dolly said, as the camp was approached. "Will you tell Miss Eleanor what happened; everything! I'm afraid that if I told her myself I wouldn't put in what I ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake - Bessie King in Summer Camp • Jane L. Stewart
... he isn't a coward or a fool and he knew that I'm not a coward or a fool either. He thought Ally had nobody but me. She'll have nobody but you when I'm gone. You mustn't let her see you think her awful. You mustn't think it. She isn't. She's as good as gold. Steven Rowcliffe said ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... man enough to take the responsibility for your words and actions on your own shoulders? Are you ashamed to wear a present I gave you, while you expect me to wear yours? You're a coward! And you imagine ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... had proved often enough that she was no coward, but even the brave turn poltroon when they fight without a sense of justification. Her pride told her that she ought to cross over to Lady Clifton-Wyatt and demand that she speak up. But her sense of guilt robbed her of her courage. And that oath she had given to Mr. Verrinder ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... dock Warrington had mapped out his campaign. Fair play from either of these men was not to be entertained for a moment. One was naturally a brute and the other was a coward. They would not hesitate at any means to defeat him. And he knew what defeat would mean at their hands: ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... He was horrid. But I don't wish you to meet him again just now. He is no coward, and he might ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... as he was going under another name, he wanted people to believe they had legalised their union, and to respect Lalage accordingly. Had he not belonged to a family of position, he might have seen himself as a coward or a cad; but the Griersons were essentially of the Victorian age, and so he was able to quiet his conscience with platitudes; whilst under the seeming calmness with which Lalage had accepted his proposal, she was too glad of any change from the nightmare of the ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... of the unwashed patriots dashed through the Bar towards Somerset House, full of vague notions of riot, and perhaps (delicious thought!) plunder. But at St. Mary's, Commissioner Mayne and his men in the blue tail-coats received the roughs in battle array, and at the first charge the coward ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... the live Walker. His consort, with the solicitude of an affectionate wife, together with some friends, advised him to go to Canada, lest he should be abducted. Walker said that he had nothing to fear from such a pack of coward blood-hounds; but if he did go, he would hurl back such thunder across the great lakes, that would cause them to tremble in their strong holds. Said he, "I will stand my ground. Somebody must die in ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet
... anniversary of the passing of Napoleon centers attention anew on one of the baffling figures of all time—a man at once attractive and repulsive; a soldier of infinite courage who on at least one occasion acted the coward; a master strategist who, to the last, seemed never to fully grasp that strategy by which he ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... James's person, his lack of courage on certain occasions (he was by no means a constant coward), and the feebleness of his limbs might be attributed to pre-natal influences; he was injured before he was born by the sufferings of his mother at the time of Riccio's murder. His deep dissimulation he ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... even to the end of my days I shall be a coward and a weakling, or it may be I am too young, and have as yet no trust in my hands to defend me from such an one as does violence without a cause. But come now, ye who are mightier men than I, essay the bow and let us make an end ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... discomfiture of Manassas, I with my own hands did buckle on his armour, trusting in the great Comforter for strength according to my need. For truly the memory of a brave son dead in his shroud were a greater staff of my declining years than a coward, though his days might be long in the land and he should get much goods. It is not till our earthen vessels are broken that we find and truly possess the treasure that was laid up in them. Migravi in animam meam, I have sought refuge in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... can he think to gain by shewing himself to the world in a vizor, and by concealing his true being from the people? Praise a humpback for his stature, he has reason to take it for an affront: if you are a coward, and men commend you for your valour, is it of you they speak? They take you for another. I should like him as well who glorifies himself in the compliments and congees that are made him as if he were ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... iniurious: your selfe being alreadie, of any that I know in our time, the most excellent Poet. Forsooth by your Princely pursefauours and countenance, making in maner what ye list, the poore man rich, the lewd well learned, the coward couragious, and vile both noble and valiant. Then for imitation no lesse, your person as a most cunning counterfaitor liuely representing Venus in countenance, in life Diana, Pallas for gouernement, and Iuno in ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... lived too sparing, nor too largely spent; But overlook'd his hinds; their pay was just, 920 And ready, for he scorn'd to go on trust: Slow to resolve, but in performance quick; So true, that he was awkward at a trick. For little souls on little shifts rely, And coward arts of mean expedients try; The noble mind will dare do anything but lie. False friends, his deadliest foes, could find no way But shows of honest bluntness, to betray: That unsuspected plainness he believed; He looked into himself, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... went up to him and made a profound obeisance, saying: "Pray do not leave us, sir. Will you not take a seat?" She looked like a drowning person clutching at him for support—the little coward! ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... offer us in its stead? The principle of intelligent purpose and design. This, he says, is not open to the objections which apply to the Aristotelian principles and methods. It is as if one said the coward is a better man than the brave warrior, because the latter is open to the danger of being captured, wounded or killed, whereas the former is not so liable. The answer obviously would be that the only way the coward ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... from her father, and he from his, and so on until the time of that Thorolf Erlandsson who sailed with Bjarni Grimulfsson and went down into the sea by his side singing, for he feared nothing but to be a coward." ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... send?" Jim asked again. "There's nobody there to bring her, and nobody here to go after her. It's an awfully long way from here to Ohio. A little six-year-old girl can't come alone. I couldn't go back myself. I may be a coward, but the Almighty made me as I am. I can't go back to Cloverdale and see only a grave—I can stay here and remember, and maybe do a kind of a man's part, but I can't go back." He bowed his ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... to him. As I said before, a word from him and the slaughter would have ceased. But he refused to give that word. He insisted that the integrity of society was assailed; that he was not sufficiently a coward to desert his post; and that it was manifestly just that a few should be martyred for the ultimate welfare of the many. Nevertheless this blood was upon his head, and he sank into deeper and deeper gloom. I was likewise whelmed with the ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... is implored to moderate the martial eagerness of the poet. The original collector here showed lack of discrimination. At no time, however, was Ares a popular God in Greece; in Homer he is a braggart and coward. ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... persists that he is a well-wisher to Pope!!! He has, then, edited an "assassin" and a "coward" wittingly, as well as lovingly. In my former letter I have remarked upon the editor's forgetfulness of Pope's benevolence. But where he mentions his faults it is "with sorrow"—his tears drop, but they do not blot them out. The "recording angel" differs from ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... Napoleon, and the bibliopolist is in a great funk. I lack some part of his instinct. I have done Gourgaud no wrong: every word imputed to him exists in the papers submitted to me as historical documents[28], and I should have been a shameful coward if I had shunned using them. At my years it is somewhat late for an affair of honour, and as a reasonable man I would avoid such an arbitrament, but will not plead privilege of literature. The country shall not be disgraced in my person, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... for honest poverty, That hangs his head, and a' that? The coward-slave, we pass him by; We dare be poor for a' that! For a' that, and a' that, Our toils obscure, and a' that; The rank is but the guinea stamp, The man's the ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... Brigade, leaving the terrified Hicks to wait in the lane, where, because of his alarm, he had no time to wonder at the bravado of his behemoth comrades. However, finding that Bildad had disappeared, and believing he had taken Caesar Napoleon into the house, the sunny Hicks, who was far from a coward otherwise, but who had an unreasonable dread of dogs, little or big, was about to wax courageous, and join his team-mates, when a wild shout ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... care and worry: Never mind the 'if' and 'but' (words for coward lips). Put them out with 'fear' and 'doubt,' in the pack with 'hurry,' While we stroll like vagabonds forth to trails, ...
— Poems of Purpose • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... That is exactly what I am going to do, until I show up the villainy of this man you are talking to. He was the concocter of it, and he knows it. She never had brains enough to think of it. He was too much of a coward to carry it through himself, and so he set her to do ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... he die like a craven, Begging those torturing fiends for his life? Was there a soldier who carried the Seven Flinched like a coward or fled from the strife? No, by the blood of our Custer, no quailing! There in the midst of the devils they close, Hemmed in by thousands, but ever assailing, Fighting like tigers, all bayed ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... not what you came into this room to announce to me, Alice. So please say whatever it is you wish and be through. I am going out for a little walk before lunch." In any event Sally was no coward! ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... arise in favour of drunkenness, as that it would enable you to face a degree of cold, or contagion, else menacing to life, a duty would arise, pro hac vice, of getting drunk. We had an amiable friend who suffered under the infirmity of cowardice; an awful coward he was when sober; but, when very drunk, he had courage enough for the Seven Champions of Christendom. Therefore, in an emergency, where he knew himself suddenly loaded with the responsibility of defending a family, we approved highly of his getting drunk. But to violate ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... room she gave him to me with an apology for doing so, since I shrank from witnessing the operation. What must Dr. E. think I am made of if I can't bear to see a child's gums lanced? However, it is my own fault that he thinks me such a coward, for I made mother think me one. It was very embarrassing to hold baby and have the doctor's face so close to mine. I really wonder mother should not see how ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... his life; but when the confessor went to her and beseeched her, in the name of Our Blessed Lord, to have mercy on the unhappy man, she replied with petulance, "that she could not, and that many had been condemned to the wheel who did not deserve it so much as this coward." ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... sister!" interjected Le Gardeur. "I am a coward when I think of her, and I shame to come into ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... long discussion. Wayne called the sulking scout a damned coward, which consoled him somewhat, but didn't help matters. Ray had been around the rifle-pits taking observations. Presently he returned, leading Dandy up near the fire,—the one sheltered light ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... however, reassured him. He instantly knew himself to be the better man. His captive's obvious terror of his pop-gun almost persuaded him that he held in his hand some formidable death-dealing instrument. As a matter of fact Mr. Percival Jones was temperamentally an abject coward. ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... first shall rise to gang awa, [go] A cuckold, coward loun is he! [rascal] Wha first beside his chair shall fa', He is ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... Jim's face to see how the shorter guide took it. He realized that Jim was at least no coward, even though he might fear the wrath of such a forest bully as the ex-logger, and present lawless poacher Cale Martin; for he had shut his teeth hard together, and there was a grim expression on his face, as if he did not ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... thought. "Bang! And it's all over. Is it a wise or a stupid thing to shoot oneself? Is suicide a cowardly act? Then I suppose that I am a coward!" ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... frozen but dissolves with tempering, And yields at last to every light impression? Things out of hope are compass'd oft with venturing, Chiefly in love, whose leave exceeds commission: 568 Affection faints not like a pale-fac'd coward, But then woos best when most ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... Wood-Sun thou wottest our battle and the way wherein we fare: That oft at the battle's beginning the helm and the hauberk we bear; Lest the shaft of the fleeing coward or the bow at adventure bent Should slay us ere the need be, ere our might be given and spent. Yet oft ere the fight is over, and Doom hath scattered the foe, No leader of the people by his war-gear shall ye know, But by his ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... too, it was very chivalrous and orderly perhaps, for him to hate De Wilton, and to seek to supplant him in his lady's love; but, to slip a bundle of forged letters into his bureau, was cowardly as well as malignant. Now, Marmion is not represented as a coward, nor as at all afraid of De Wilton; on the contrary, and it is certainly the most absurd part of the story, he fights him fairly and valiantly after all, and overcomes him by mere force of arms, as he might have done at the beginning, without having ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... blessing of God upon our opportunity, intending to have preached the Word of the Lord unto them there present;[1] but the constable coming in prevented us; so that I was taken and forced to depart the room. But had I been minded to have played the coward, I could have escaped, and kept out of his hands. For when I was come to my friend's house, there was whispering that that day I should be taken, for there was a warrant out to take me; which when my friend heard, he being somewhat timorous, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... delicate, feeble boy; not good at work; womanish in his ways; inclined to go in for petty bullying, until a boy showed fight, when he discovered himself to be an arrant coward. Four or five years later I met him at the university. His greeting was cool. My next affair was with a boy who was about my age (13), strong, full-blooded, coarse, always in 'hot water.' He was the son of the headmaster of one of the best-known public schools. It was reported that two brothers ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... had left that room a moment before, with every appearance of being frightened. She had told the old one there was a robber in the house, and the venerable invalid was a howling coward—I tell you this because ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... death." Her wistful tone rang out into the room. "But that would be murder," she continued. "We should have to call it murder, shouldn't we? And that is a fearful word. I could never quite forget it. I should always ask myself if I were right, if I had the right to judge. I am a coward. The work ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... to do this himself, but he told them that they must on no account go to war with the Sioux. He warned them that their Great Father, the king of France, would be very angry with them if they disobeyed his commands. Had they not known him so well, the Indians would have despised La Verendrye as a coward for refusing to revenge himself upon the Sioux for the death of his son; but they knew that, whatever his reason might be, it was not due to any fear of the Sioux. As time went on, they thought that ...
— Pathfinders of the Great Plains - A Chronicle of La Verendrye and his Sons • Lawrence J. Burpee
... when I think o't, Its pride, and a' the lave o't, Fie, fie on silly coward man, That he should be the ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... can you be such a coward?" he cried, seizing the outstretched arm of the bully so fiercely ...
— Dick Lionheart • Mary Rowles Jarvis
... your face, the length of your moustache and the pattern of your cane—all these are very properly regulated for you by laws of fashion, which you could never dream of breaking. You may break every moral law there is—or rather, was—and still remain a man. You may be a bully, a cad, a coward and a fool, in the poor heart and brains of you; but so long as you wear the mock regimentals of contemporary manhood, and are above all things plain and undistinguished enough, your reputation for manhood will be secure. There is nothing so dangerous to ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... complaining grief Cast off all care; be mindful only of pleasure Creed which views life as a short pilgrimage to the grave Does happiness consist then in possession Happiness has nothing to do with our outward circumstances In our country it needs more courage to be a coward Observe a due proportion in all things One must enjoy the time while it is here Pilgrimage to the grave, and death as the only true life Robes cut as to leave the right breast uncovered The priests are my opponents, my masters Time is clever in the healing art ...
— Quotations From Georg Ebers • David Widger
... hate the very name he bore, and frightened them by making use of it. Miserable pictures, one upon the other, rose before him—dark judgments, which he had never dreamed of or anticipated; and he stood like a stricken coward, and he yearned for the silence and concealment of the grave. Ay—the grave! Delightful haven to pigeon-hearted malefactors—inconsistent criminals, who fear the puny look of mortal man, and, unabashed, stalk beneath the eternal and the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... But thou hast made a clever discovery, so that thou mayst never die, if thou wilt persuade the wife that is thine from time to time to die for thee: and then reproachest thou thy friends who are not willing to do this, thyself being a coward? Hold thy peace, and consider, if thou lovest thy life, that all love theirs; but if thou shalt speak evil against us, thou shalt hear many ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... when the ice was breaking up. Besides, he had once or twice been involved in savage fights about disputed mining claims, and knew how men looked when they bore a heavy strain. He thought the stranger was afraid but was not a coward. ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... of the night, of the inanimate and imponderable black walls, and of herself, were exquisitely and abnormally keen. She saw him there, bowed under his burden, gloomy and wroth and sick with himself because the man in him despised the coward. Men of his stamp were seldom or never cowards. Their lives did not breed cowardice or baseness. Joan knew the burning in her breast—that thing which inflamed and swept through her like a wind of ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... nauseous elf, Who judging only from its wretched self, Feebly attempted, petulant and vain, The "Origin of Evil" to explain. A mighty Genius at this elf displeas'd, With a strong critick grasp the urchin squeez'd. For thirty years its coward spleen it kept, Till in the duat the mighty Genius slept; Then stunk and fretted in expiring snuff, And blink'd at JOHNSON ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... latter added, fiercely; "and before these men I denounce you as a coward—a coward who fears to raise ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... with a view of strengthening her position, made her cousin Theodahad partner of her throne (not, as sometimes stated, her husband, for his wife was still living). The choice was unfortunate. Theodahad, notwithstanding a varnish of literary culture, was a coward and a scoundrel. He fostered the disaffection of the Goths, and either by his orders or with his permission, Amalasuntha was imprisoned on an island in the Tuscan lake of Bolsena, where in the spring of 535 she was murdered ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... blood. He had been struck by the white man, and blood alone must atone for the aggression. Unless that should wipe out the disgrace he could never again hold up his head among his people—they would call him a coward, and say a white man struck the Big Eagle and he dared not ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... look, such as is to be seen only in pale blue eyes;—a look of unyielding hatred and obstinacy; a look which, combined with the evident weakness of character displayed in his features, suggested rather the subtle treachery of a coward than the fierce ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... of course; else you wouldn't be afraid. You think that I'd go straight off and murder him. Perhaps he told you that it would come quite natural to a man like me—a ruffian like me—to smash him up. That comes of being a coward. People run my profession down; not because there is a bad one or two in it—there's plenty of bad bishops, if you come to that—but because they're afraid of us. You may make yourself easy about your friend. I am ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... is set, The field to be won; What foes have you met, What work have you done? To courage alone Does victory come; To coward and ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... the brute!" she cried; "he will come in. He dared to lay his hands upon me. See, he is here! Oh, that Marco had been in the house! He should have beaten him, the dog, the coward, to oppose a woman's ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... father and mother... of the good times we had at home... of the sweet influences of a happy childhood, and the inestimable joy of belonging to a country that stands for fair play and fair dealing, where the coward and the bully are despised, and the honest and brave and ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... established many and memorable bonds of sympathy. He took the allegiance of his followers and the penalties of his masters in equal good part. He was not the boy to glory in his scrapes, but he was the boy to get into them, and once in, no fear of punishment could make a tell-tale, a cheat, or a coward of him. ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... business, to whom I did on purpose tell him my mind freely, and let him see that it must be a wiser man than Holmes (in these very words) that shall do me any hurt while I do my duty. I to remember him of Holmes's words against Sir J. Minnes, that he was a knave, rogue, coward, and that he will kick him and pull him by the ears, which he remembered all of them and may have occasion to do it hereafter to his owne shame to suffer them to be spoke in his presence without any reply but what I did ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... it was time for him to do something. He was not a bit afraid of a coward, but he realized that he and the boy in the tree together were no match for the big, vicious fellow just beyond him. The boy in the tree looked honest and decent; the man after him looked just what he was—a tramp and perhaps worse. Frank ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... seemed to be shaken by these words. But I instantly thought of Marie. I said to myself, 'She is alone—perhaps in despair. How can I save myself, wretched tempter and coward that I am, and leave her in remorse and grief?' And then it seemed to me as though a Voice came from the altar itself, so sweet and penetrating that it overpowered the voice of the preacher and the movements of my companions. I heard nothing in the chapel but It alone. 'She is saved!' It ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the fact that it would be the act of a coward," exclaimed Tom at last, his teeth chattering with cold, "I would let go of your arm and give up the job of supporting you in this ice water for talking about Grace like that. Of course she has ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... separation, yet unwilling to disobey Bimba, he used to come stealthily and lie lurking in the bushes, watching, to catch sight of Aranyani. And sometimes, seizing his opportunity, when he knew that her father was away, he would creep out, trembling like a coward, and speak to her. And Aranyani, displeased at him for coming to see her without her father's knowledge or permission, and not reciprocating his passion in the least, yet partly out of pity, and partly out of kindness arising from recollection of his playing with ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... her two children. Her humble or servile spirit, confronted with this wild, independent nature, made Salome adore her man, and she deceived herself into considering him a tremendous, energetic fellow, though he was in all truth a coward and a tramp. The bully had seen just how matters stood, and whenever it pleased him he would stamp into the house and demand the pay that Salome earned by sewing at the machine, at five centimos per two yards. Unresistingly she handed him the product ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... to turn her capital to account, after investing a part of it in the Funds, which were then selling at eighty francs. A passion often changes the whole character in a moment; an indiscreet person becomes a diplomatist, a coward is suddenly brave. Hate made this prodigal woman a miser. Chance and luck might serve the project of vengeance, still undefined and confused, which she would now mature in her mind. She fell asleep, muttering to herself, "To-morrow!" By an unexplained phenomenon, the effects of ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... say that I can do all these things, chief," Tom said; "but I can do my best. And, anyhow, I think I can promise that if we should be attacked you shall see no signs of my being afraid, whatever I may feel. I am only a boy yet, but I hope I am not a coward." ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... declare that he must have been a fool and a coward. Yet he could read and understand Shakespeare. He knew much,—by far too much,—of Byron's poetry by heart. He was a deep critic, often writing down his criticisms in a lengthy journal which he kept. He could write quickly, and with understanding; and I may declare that men at ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... me," said Helen, recovering a measure of her courage. She believed that this strange man was a coward. But why should he be ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... patiently for one of you to give me some explanation, though I see plainly enough that I have been disobeyed by you, my son, as well as by my old servant, in whom I thought I could place confidence. Marcus, my son, do not disgrace yourself further by behaving like a coward. Speak ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... every fresh delicious draught of knowledge.... Death, beautiful, wise, kind death; when will you come and tell me what I want to know? I courted you once and many a time, brave old Death, only to give rest to the weary. That was a coward's wish, and so you would not come. I ran you close in Afghanistan, old Death, and at Sobraon too, I was not far behind you; and I thought I had you safe among that jungle grass at Aliwal; but you slipped through my hand—I was not ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... without kirk or blessing. I am the man that clasped a dead woman's hand whom I never owned as wife, and watched afar off the babe that I never dared to call mine own. I am the father of Winifred Oharteris, coward before man, castaway before God. Of my sin two know besides my Maker—the father that begot you, whose false friend I was in the days that were, and Walter Skirving, the father of the first Winifred whose eyes this hand closed under the ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... which the Queen of France may not become visible to the hate of the people, and behind which she may be secure against the attacks of her enemies!" cried Marie Antoinette. "No, sir, I cannot accept this! It shall at least be seen that I am no coward, and that I will not hide myself from those who come ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... in criminating this retirement from every-day political conflicts which is, to say the least, very short-sighted. Extreme radicalism spurns the comparative inactivity, and says, "Lo, a sluggard!" Extreme conservatism spurns it, and says, "Lo, a coward!" It is only too true that cowards and sluggards both may take shelter under a shield of indifference; but it is equally true that any reasonably acute mind, if only charitably disposed, can readily distinguish between an inactivity which springs ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... poor devil who had been in the same position as himself. That was why these rifle shots were so full of a significance for him, quite different from that caused yesterday by the rattle and the crash of the raging battle. Truly, one need not be a coward to feel an icy shudder at the thought of ten or twenty rifle barrels directed ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... several glasses of beer. "In vino-veritas," is a true saying. Blackall when sober might pass for a very brave fellow: his true character came out when he was drunk, and he showed himself an arrant coward, as he had done on this occasion. The boys who remained with him looked very foolish, and some of them felt heartily ashamed of their leader. Some resolved to break from him altogether, but he had thrown ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... no respect for his years; compared with her average American past as he understood it, his social place was much higher, but, she was not in the least awed by it; in spite of his war record she was making him behave like a coward. He was in a false position, and if he had any one but himself to blame he had not her. He read her equal knowledge of these facts in the clear eyes that made him flush ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... man, who is the counterfeit's example, his original, and that which he employs his industry and pains to imitate and copy. Is it therefore my fault if the cheat, by his wit and endeavours, makes himself so like me, that consequently I cannot avoid resembling him? Consider, pray, the valiant and the coward, the wealthy merchant and the bankrupt; the politician and the fool; they are the same in many things, and differ but in one alone. The valiant man holds up his hand, looks confidently round about him, wears a sword, courts ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... as damn'd as Thou, 'Twas Death to plead it. Artless Absolon The Bloody Banner to display so soon: Such killing Beams from thy young Day-break shot; What will the Noon be, if the Morn's so hot? Yes, dreadful Heir, the Coward Hebron awe. So the young Lion tries his tender Paw. At a poor Herd of feeble Heifers flies, Ere the rough Bear, tusk'd Boar, or spotted Leopard dies. Thus flusht, great Sir, thy strength in Israel try: When their Cow'd Sanedrims shall prostrate lye, And to thy feet their slavish Necks ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... stared at the hill-side opposite, with its zigzag path through the vines marked by the figures of zealous pedestrians, and then he said suddenly: "If I asked you not to come and see our show you would set me down as a fantastical coward." ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... success.' Every student of biography knows how frequently men have been restrained from doing evil, or inspired to lofty achievement, by the honour in which a cherished memory has compelled them to hold the names they are allowed to bear. Every schoolboy knows the story of the Grecian coward whose name was Alexander. His cowardice seemed the more contemptible because of his distinguished name; and his commander, Alexander the Great, ordered him either to change his name or ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... me in to the C.O. here. He told me. Oh, the Army's a nice thing, I can tell you. I was expecting to get my stripe over that raid when I got hit with a bullet in my leg, and here I am charged with a coward's trick. I suppose they'll prove it I suppose they've got what they call evidence. I only hope they'll shoot me quick and have done with it I don't ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... then be strong through coward fearsomeness. Yet call I others what I was myself. For when their coming roused me from my sleep, And I went hurrying to my sister's aid, Into the last, remote, and inmost room, One of them seizes me with powerful hand, And hurls me to the ground. And coward, I, I fall a-swooning, when I should have ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... words," answered Duncan with measureless contempt in his tone, "you are a miserable coward, a white-livered wretch, whose life wouldn't be worth saving if it were in danger. Go back to your bed! Go to sleep! or go to hell, damn you, for the ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
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