"Coward" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... coward about them. He dare not go to bed in the dark for fear of their coming to him. He'd rather have five and twenty pages of Virgil to do, than he'd be left ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... 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
... coward without your love, Rose. You cannot imagine how your scorn has weakened me, and the whole affair has been one round of ghastly mistakes. I am here to-night to tell you the truth. You have constantly denied me audience, and so to-night I resolved to see you or die in the attempt. As an excuse I plead ...
— Five Thousand Dollars Reward • Frank Pinkerton
... 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
... "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 ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 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
... a coward and leave this girl, who has loved and trusted me, defenceless in their hands! You yourself have heard her weeping. I tell you I cannot go—I will not go. Let David and you escape! My place is here, and neither snivelling Crichton nor that backstairs lap-dog Livingston shall say that ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... "Coward!" said Germain, when he had him beneath him, "I could break every bone in your body if I chose! But I don't like to harm anybody, and besides, no punishment would mend your conscience. However, you shan't stir from this spot until you have ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... 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
... "Coward!" He tried to shout the insult so that all might hear, but his parched throat refused him service, his trembling hand sought the scattered cards upon the table, he collected them together, quickly, nervously, fingering ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... hand of mine; I grudge thee this quick-beating heart; They never gave me coward sign, Nor played me once a ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... 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 |
