"Pusillanimous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... He afterward married my laconic cousin Sarah, whose shrewdness made him the first Duke of Marlborough, and last, I regret to chronicle, was George Hamilton, resting from his labors at self-reform. Soon after dark another congenial spirit, the most pusillanimous of them all, young William Wentworth, Sir William's son and Roger's nephew, entered the taproom dripping with rain. Before going to the fire, he called Crofts and Berkeley to one side. Placing his arms about their necks, he drew their faces close to his and made ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... not have sent them there. (Wherefore it is evident, this Scheme facilitated the Army's becoming Masters of Boccachica, and put an End to the Dispute sooner than was expected, or could possibly have happened, had any Nation but pusillanimous Spaniards had the Defence of it; for had the Place been defended equal to its Strength and excellent Disposition, both of the Ships and Batteries, it would have been a difficult Task for the Fleet and Army both to have rendered themselves ...
— An Account of the expedition to Carthagena, with explanatory notes and observations • Sir Charles Knowles
... grown up in Poland, men not nobles nor serfs, but a race of patriots familiar with the stirring literature of their century. They had seen their land broken into fragments and then ground fine by a proud and infatuated nobility. They had seen their pusillanimous kings one after another yielding to the insolent demands for their territory. Polish territory extended eastward into the Ukraine; now that must be cut off and dropped into the lap of Russia. Another arm extended north, separating Eastern Prussia from Western. That too must ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... merely grazing the remaining half-breed, who, crouching behind his comrades, besought them to turn the boat round, and make for the shore. Alarmed at the fate of his brother, and seemingly distrustful of the impartiality of Samoa's fire, the pusillanimous villain refused to expose ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... see nothing ahead of him but bitterness and cause for alarm, and, seeking consolation, he was forced to admit that only religion could heal, but religion demanded in return so arrant a desertion of common sense, so pusillanimous a willingness to be astonished at nothing, that he threw up ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... Jocasta in [2385]Euripides, reckons up five miseries of a banished man, the least of which alone were enough to deject some pusillanimous creatures. Oftentimes a too great feeling of our own infirmities or imperfections of body or mind, will shrivel us up; as if ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... expression of the highest admiration and respect, and congratulations upon his present position. This was an unanswerable denial; and so he sent the letter to Baltimore. This story, fabricated out of nothing but malice, was meant to injure in two ways, by proving him a gambler, and also pusillanimous. The slanderous officer will probably cease to be one, as I believe falsehood is not considered ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... open my mouth, except for the reception of his Lordship's bountiful hospitality. The reply was gracious and acquiescent; so that I presented myself in the great entrance-hall of the Mansion House, at half past six o'clock, in a state of most enjoyable freedom from the pusillanimous apprehensions that often tormented me at such times. The Mansion House was built in Queen Anne's days, in the very heart of old London, and is a palace worthy of its inhabitant, were he really as great a man as his traditionary state and pomp would seem to indicate. ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... name! when that damnable English spy was actually in his power, the man was a pusillanimous fool to allow the rich prize to slip from his grasp! Chauvelin felt as if he were choking; his slender fingers worked nervily around his cravat; beads of perspiration trickled ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... to pursue. It appeared, that as soon as the current had passed the bank, it took a more southerly direction towards New Guinea. It was then debated between them whether they should or should not land on that island, the natives of which were known to be pusillanimous, yet treacherous. A long debate ensued, which ended, however, in their resolve not to decide as yet, but wait and see what might occur. In the mean time, the boats pulled to the westward, while the current set them fast down in ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... us," said I, with a sigh of pusillanimous relief. "Our hands are tied for this week, at ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... the puma of literature; for, although to those personally acquainted with the habits of this lesser lion of the New World it is known to possess a marvellous courage and daring, it is nevertheless always spoken of in books of natural history as the most pusillanimous of the larger carnivores. It does not attack man, and Azara is perfectly correct when he affirms that it never hurts, or threatens to hurt, man or child, even when it finds them sleeping. This, however, is not a full ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... "But," say the puling, pusillanimous cowards, "we shall be subject to a long and bloody war, if we declare independence." On the contrary, I affirm it the only step that can bring the contest to a speedy and happy issue. By declaring independence we put ourselves on a footing for an equal negotiation. ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... pamphlet will after a while be afraid of every conventicle, and a while after will make a conventicle of every Christian meeting. But I am certain that a State governed by the rules of justice and fortitude, or a Church built and founded upon the rock of faith and true knowledge, cannot be so pusillanimous. While things are yet not constituted in religion, that freedom of writing should be restrained by a discipline imitated from the prelates and learnt by them from the Inquisition, to shut us up all again into the breast of a licenser, must needs give ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... The Galwegians made several unsuccessful attempts upon the English centre. Prince Henry led his horse through the English left wing, but the infantry failed to follow, and the prince lost his advantage by a premature attempt to plunder. The Scottish right made a pusillanimous attempt on the English left, and the reserve began to desert King David, who collected the remnants of his army and retired in safety to a height above Cowton Moor, the scene of the fight. Prince Henry was left surrounded by the enemy, but saved the position by a clever stratagem, and ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... loyalty was quite lost upon them. I strongly suspect that she would not have granted anything but a secret interview. What a petty, weak, ignoble character! I really don't like to think so badly of any fellow-creature as I am forced to think of that politic, time-serving, pusillanimous goose. I believe she laid the egg ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... ancient date. The Kilgris have been driven from all this part of Asben by the Kailouees. The houses we passed in ruins are said to have been once occupied by the Kilgris. If so, they evidently were in former times powerful and opulent, and have since become relaxed and pusillanimous. At any rate, they have been expelled by the fiercer and more ferocious Kailouees. The Oulimad also come here to plunder occasionally. At Gurarek we saw a phenomenon which, after so much desert, gladdened ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... taken all sin upon yourselves. You, Beloved Disciple, will not a race of traitors take their beginning from you, a pusillanimous and lying breed? O blind men, what have ye done with the earth? You have done your best to destroy it, ye will soon be kissing the cross on which ye crucified Jesus! Yes, yes, Judas gives ye his word that ye will kiss ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... since I found pleasure in handling the weapons of strife; may it be longer to the time when they shall be needed in this abode of peace. These are instruments of death, resembling those used in my youth, by cavaliers that rode in the levies of the first Charles, and of his pusillanimous father. There were worldly pride and great vanity, with much and damning ungodliness, in the wars that I have seen, my children; and yet the carnal man found pleasure in the stirrings of those graceless days! Come hither, younker; thou hast often sought to know the manner in which ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... and dubious tradition asserts that the family name became so discredited owing to the pusillanimous conduct of John and Edward Baliol that it was abandoned by its owners in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... the Kine speaks, lamenting still that no adequate lord has been assigned her. Zarathustra is a feeble and pusillanimous man, not one of royal state who is able to bring his purpose to effect. The Ameshospends join in the cry for the ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... as he mostly did, forwards and upwards at another. There was no sense of support afforded by the touch of comrades, and the being an item of a serried mass, as in the case of the majority of the battles of the Soudan, fought in square formation. Then there might be unsteady or pusillanimous soldiers, whose faults were hidden by their firmer comrades, from whose presence and example they gained confidence; but at Kirbekan every soldier fought on his own account, as it were, and failure in courage or dash in any individual would have been at once perceptible. ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... strength. And it will seem to her, so long as her sufferings endure, that he deceived her just expectations, and was a vain pretender to the superhuman:—for it was only a superhuman Jew and democrat whom she could have thought of espousing. The pusillanimous are under a necessity to be self-consoled when they are not self-justified: it is their instinctive manner of putting themselves in the right to themselves. The love she bore him, because it was the love his high conceit exacted, hung on success she was ready to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... should have buried myself with Angela in the fathomless sea. I owed him my life a second time—such as it was—more, for he taught me the duty and grace of resignation, showed me that, though to cherish the memory of a great sorrow ennobles a man, he who abandons himself to unmeasured grief is as pusillanimous as he who shirks his duty on the ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... remonstrances were disregarded, and courses were pursued to which she strongly objected. The surrender after Majuba was in her opinion a pusillanimous abandonment of the English flag, and it was with extreme reluctance that she acquiesced in it. Still more vehement were her feelings about the long abandonment of General Gordon in the Soudan. She had been indefatigable in urging on the ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... tree" before finding something much worse than a working woman. It is said that "three generations make a gentleman"; and if that be true there is some hope of Halliwell's great-grandsons—granting, of course, that the pusillanimous prig is not too epicene to provide himself with posterity. Day by day it becomes more evident that the purse-proud snobocracy of New York's old rat- catchers and sprat peddlers is fast getting a foothold in the West, that the social gulf between the House of Have and ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... confirmed by the emperor, and was generally received in the East. Vigilius was soon coerced into submission, but the West repudiated his pusillanimous surrender, and rejected the council. A schism ensued which lasted half a century and was not fully healed until the synod of Aquileia, about 700. But the ecumenicity of the council was ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... in their opinions. Men of fortitude applauded its wisdom, but the pusillanimous murmured that it ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... to give their adherence to Hiram's almost unlimited sway. And as parties generally proceed to extremes, the girls who formed the opposition generally declared him to be a pusillanimous, mean-spirited fellow; they detested the very sight of his smooth, hypocritical face; he had better not come fooling around them—no, indeed! Let him attempt it once, they would soon teach him manners. It is to be observed that these remarks ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... liberty, though foiled And forced to abandon what she bravely sought, Deserves at least applause for her attempt, And pity for her loss. But that's a cause Not often unsuccessful; power usurped Is weakness when opposed; conscious of wrong, 'Tis pusillanimous and prone to flight. But slaves that once conceive the glowing thought Of freedom, in that hope itself possess All that the contest calls for; spirit, strength, The scorn of danger, and united hearts, The surest presage of ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... "The pusillanimous cuss," the latter muttered, "he 's worse than a cur dog. Blamed if he was n't actually afraid of me. A gun-fighter—pugh!" He lifted his voice, as "Reb" paused in the light of the hall beyond and glanced back, a fist doubled and uplifted. "Oh, go on! Sure, you 'll get me? ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... not convince his pusillanimous father that he did not owe an apology to the Archbishop for being kicked. But he was so deeply offended that he never returned to Salzburg. So much for those who cherish the pathetic belief that the days of patrons were of benefit to the artist and ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... in vain. The very room, in its light and silence, and the lurking sentiment of something watching him, became terrible. He could not endure it. The devils in his heart, grown pusillanimous, cowered beneath the flashing strokes of his aroused and terrible conscience. He could not endure it. He must go out. He will walk the streets. It is not late—it is but ten ...
— The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor
... species of confederation has been the cause which has brought all unions to civil war, to subjection, or to a stagnant apathy; and the peoples which formed these leagues have been either too dull to discern, or too pusillanimous to apply this great remedy. The American confederation ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... thereof. An argument fit for great and mighty princes to have in their hand; to the end that neither by over-measuring their forces, they leese themselves in vain enterprises; nor on the other side, by undervaluing them, they descend to fearful and pusillanimous counsels. ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... war that would certainly expose their motives to obloquy, and entail so much unavoidable misery, the admiral's younger brother, D'Andelot, combated with his accustomed vehemence a caution which he regarded as pusillanimous, and pointedly asked its advocates what all their innocence would avail them when once they found themselves in prison and at their enemy's mercy, when they were banished to foreign countries, or were roaming without shelter ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... is to hinder this Samson from governing? There is in him what far transcends all apprenticeships; in the man himself there exists a model of governing, something to govern by! There exists in him a heart-abhorrence of whatever is incoherent, pusillanimous, unveracious,—that is to say, chaotic, ungoverned; of the Devil, not of God. A man of this kind cannot help governing! He has the living ideal of a governor in him; and the incessant necessity of struggling to unfold the same out of him. ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... several authors, especially Cicero and Paterculus, have formed such elogiums; this very Pompey left the battle of Pharsalia before he had lost it, and retreated to his tent, where he sat like the most pusillanimous rascal in a fit of despair, and yielded a victory, which was to determine the empire of the world, to Caesar. I am not much travelled in the history of modern times, that is to say, these last thousand years; but those who are can, I make no question, furnish you with parallel instances." ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... Richard made free talk of the undertaking to Diana and to Ruth, loving, as does the pusillanimous, to show himself engaged in daring enterprises. Emulating his friend Sir Rowland, he held forth with prolixity upon the great service he was to do the State, and Ruth, listening to him, was proud of his zeal, the sincerity of which it never entered ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... point, counsel for Captain Lennox (who, in pusillanimous fashion, had loved and sailed away, rather than stop and help the woman he had compromised) cut short his learned friend's tearful eloquence by admitting that he was prepared to accept a verdict, with L1000 damages. As the judge agreed, ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... never to have entertained. He preferred to watch developments, and at the proper moment resign his charge to the party that should make the highest bid. The truth is, Mehlen had fallen into disrepute. His pusillanimous conduct in the siege of Visby had gradually dawned upon the king, and ere the close of 1524 report was spread that Mehlen had incurred his monarch's wrath. Though summoned to Stockholm in January to the marriage of the monarch's sister, he did not venture ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... its own, as Demeter, in the days of her desolation, took the child Demophoon to nurture him as her own on the food of gods, and to plunge him through the flames of a fire that would give him immortal life. As the pusillanimous and sordid fears of the mortal mother lost to the child for evermore the possession of Olympian joys and of perpetual youth, so did the craven and earthly cares of bodily needs hold the artist back from the ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... under this horrible stress of apprehension. Apparently there was no hope. The old New England spite and prejudice against General Schuyler had stirred up now a fierce chorus of calumny and attack. He was blamed for St. Clair's pusillanimous retreat, for Congressional languor, for the failure of the militia to come forward—for everything, in fact. His hands were tied by suspicion, by treason, by popular lethargy, by lack of money, men, and means. Against these ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... says Magoon, "are usually the product of obtuse sensibilities and a pusillanimous will. Plutarch tells us of an idle and effeminate Etrurian, who found fault with the manner in which Themistocles had conducted a recent campaign. 'What,' said the hero, in reply, 'have you, too, something to say about war, who are like the fish that has a sword, but ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... "I must give up my playthings, in the meanwhile, since I am not in a position to secure myself against idle jeers. At the same time, I am sure that playthings are the very pick of life; all people give them up out of the same pusillanimous respect for those who are a little older; and if they do not return to them as soon as they can, it is only because they grow stupid and forget. I shall be wiser; I shall conform for a little to the ways of their foolish world; but so soon as ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... by a black man who once lived among them. It was merely a smooth stone which this David took up, yet it terrified a host of Goliaths. When the fame of this book reached the South, the poor, cowardly, pusillanimous tyrants, grew pale behind their cotton bags, and armed themselves to the teeth. They set watches to look after their happy and contented slaves. The Governor of GEORGIA wrote to the Hon. Harrison Grey Otis, the Mayor of Boston, requesting ...
— 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
... become pious"—so do those apostates confess; and some of them are still too pusillanimous thus ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... they'd just as lief have war with us as not—perhaps had rather—because they don't want any large nation left fresh when the war ends. They'd like to have the whole world bankrupt. There is a fast growing feeling here, therefore, that the American Government is pusillanimous—dallies with 'em, is affected by the German propaganda, etc., etc. Of course, such a judgment is not fair. It is formed without knowing the conditions in the United States. But I think you ought to realize ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... and other nations had, up to this time, been in the habit of fishing in English waters, but, though the pusillanimous king would not, of his own accord, have interfered for fear of giving offence, so great an outcry was raised by the people, that he was compelled to issue a proclamation prohibiting any foreigners from fishing on the British coast. Though in ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... gestures of this man left me drained of all courage. Surely, on no other occasion should I have been thus pusillanimous. My state I regarded as a hopeless one. I was wholly at the mercy of this being. Whichever way I turned my eyes, I saw no avenue by which I might escape. The resources of my personal strength, my ingenuity, and my eloquence, I estimated ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... only proposing a committee of inquiry. 'It has been represented to me,' he said, 'by the colonies and by persons in this country who are interested in them, that the course which I am proposing is not consistent with the necessities of the case; that there is something pusillanimous in the motion which I am going to make; that in point of fact the interests connected with sugar and coffee planting are in extremis; and that while the question of their redress is being discussed in a committee above-stairs, these great interests will perish. They ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... understand him when he talks," he laughed, too loyal to his friend to throw doubt on the old trapper's veracity, "and yet it's kind o' cur'ous how a dog as old as him and that's had as much experience as him kin git twisted julluk some pusillanimous idjit that ain't never been off the ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... these statements were real facts—and we shall presently see that they are not—they would prove no more than that the modern Hottentots, like their neighbors, the Bushmen, are hen-pecked. Barrow (I., 286) speaks of the "timid and pusillanimous mind which characterizes the Hottentots," and elsewhere (144) he ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... been extremely sore at the absence from the bill of any provision for their admission to the remodelled university. Bright, the most illustrious of them, told the House of Commons that he did not care whether so pusillanimous and tinkering an affair as this was passed or not. Dissenters, he said with scorn, are expected always to manifest too much of those inestimable qualities which are spoken of in the Epistle to the Corinthians: 'To hope all things, ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... see the Republic so much fallen off from what it was." "In my opinion," replied Socrates, "she has behaved herself like those persons who, for having too great advantage over their rivals, begin to neglect themselves, and grow in the end pusillanimous, for after the Athenians saw themselves raised above the other Greeks they indulged themselves in indolence, and became at ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... her where her father was, and she said he was at home, when he was really listening behind a curtain.' Poor Ophelia! It is considered angelic in Desdemona to say untruly that she killed herself, but most immoral or pusillanimous in Ophelia to tell her lie. I will not discuss these casuistical problems; but, if ever an angry lunatic asks me a question which I cannot answer truly without great danger to him and to one of my ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... men instead of one, each buried up to the ears in folios, she would give vent to an irritable cough and retire discomfited. In reality Elsmere was thinking of nothing in the world but what Catherine Leyburn might be doing that morning. Judging a North countrywoman by the pusillanimous Southern standard, he found himself glorying in the weather. She could not wander far ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... utility use, utilize rival, competitor male, masculine female, feminine beauty, esthetics beauty, pulchritude beautify, embellish poison, venom vote, franchise vote, suffrage taste, gust tasteful, gustatory tasteless, insipid flower, floral count, compute cowardly, pusillanimous tent, pavilion money, finance monetary, pecuniary trace, vestige face, countenance turn, revolve bottle, vial grease, lubricant oily, unctuous revive, resuscitate faultless, impeccable scourge, flagellate power, puissance barber, tonsorial bishop, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... was hardly on its way to Reno, with instructions to forward, when he began to experience a deep and growing sense of shame; it was a pusillanimous trick he was playing on his poor old woman-hating uncle. Contemplating a resumption of the conjugal state almost before the old gentleman was cold in his grave! It was contemptible. In no little dread he wondered if his uncle would come back to haunt him. There was, at any rate, no getting ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... of Cyprus, at that time ruled by Henry II a pusillanimous prince. Vertot. Hist. des Chev. de Malte, 1. iii. iv. The meaning appears to be, that the complaints made by those cities of their weak and worthless governor, may be regarded as an earnest of his condemnation at ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... A pusillanimous peace, always possible at any period At length the twig was becoming the tree Being the true religion, proved by so many testimonies Certainly it was worth an eighty years' war Chief seafaring nations of the world were already protestant Conceding it subsequently, ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... of its prerogative of originality, Hume further takes away from it its fame as in every respect the best religion. It is disadvantageously distinguished from polytheism by the fact that it is more intolerant, makes its followers pusillanimous, and, by its incomprehensible dogmas, puts their faith to severer tests; while it is on a level with polytheism in that most of its adherents exalt belief in foolish mysteries, fanaticism, and the observance of useless customs above the ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... heard the people talking of an expedition some of them had made into the territory of a distant tribe, when they had cut down some cocoa-nut and palm-trees, and committed other mischief; but they spoke of their enemies as a weak and pusillanimous race, who were unable or unwilling to retaliate, and I thought no more of the matter. When sent into the woods to gather bark or gums, or the heads of the cabbage-palm, or to catch fish on the river or neighbouring ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... their shields, advanced, trembling, to meet the cavalry of the Goths and the arrows of the barbarians, who easily overwhelmed the naked soldiers, no longer deserving the name of Romans. The enervated legionaries abandoned their own and the public defence, and their pusillanimous indolence may be considered the immediate cause of the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... flag—the Union Jack of England, sir, that had never previously been insulted with impunity—they actually blamed me for returning the fire, and recalled me for it! I tell you what it is, Vernon, they were all a pack of pusillanimous time-servers, frightened at their own shadows; and, between you and me and the bedpost, that chap, Jimmy Graham, our precious late First Lord of the Admiralty, knew as much about a ship as a Tom cat does of logarithms, ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... spent in petty squabbles, both of a personal and official nature; for he was still continued in office, though in one of less consideration than that which he had hitherto filled. He survived but a few years, leaving behind him a reputation not to be envied, of one who united a pusillanimous spirit with uncontrollable passions; who displayed, notwithstanding, a certain energy of character, or, to speak more correctly, an impetuosity of purpose, which might have led to good results had ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... arrived from Mexico with rich presents and a message vindicating the pusillanimous Emperor from any share in the conspiracy against Cortes. Continuing their march, the allied army of Spaniards and Tlascalans proceeded till they reached the mountains which separate the table-land of Puebla from that of Mexico. To cross this range they followed the route which passes between ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... seriousness thereby dissipated into an affair not serious at all. Yes, that was the point of it and the reason it epitomised him. There was none of life's dilemmas—little dilemmas that irritate ordinary people or in which ordinary people display themselves pusillanimous; or tragic dilemmas that find ordinary people wanting and leave them in vacillation and despair—there was none of any sort that Harry, receiving with his comic, "Mice and Mumps! Mice and Mumps, old girl!" did not receive ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... character to that of a craven submission to manifest wrong, the postponement of moral to material interests. There is no prosperity so great as courage. We do not believe that any amount of forbearance would have conciliated the South so long as they thought us pusillanimous. The only way to retain the Border States was by showing that we had the will and the power to do without them. The little Bopeep ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... hitherto, by great tact, adroitly managed to shift the conversation to some other subject, in a quiet and playful manner. He was therefore not prepared for this vehement outburst; she had not only refused to comply with his demand, but taunted him with stinging words for his pusillanimous conduct. He knew her great ambition, and that the sole object of her life was to become mistress of Vellenaux, and to gain this she would risk everything. It was her weak point, the only vulnerable part he ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... suppose if I'd cared less I should have been more confident. I cared so much that I couldn't risk another failure. For you'd made me feel that I'd miserably failed. So I shut my eyes and set my teeth and turned my back. There's the whole pusillanimous truth of it!" ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... dogmatically given. The arbitrary rejection of any theory that may be offered, without a fair and candid examination, will leave our minds in uncertainty and doubt as to the validity of our own position. A blind faith is only one remove from a pusillanimous skepticism. We can not render our own position secure except by comprehending, assaulting, and capturing the position of our foe. It is, therefore, due to ourselves and to the cause of truth, that we shall examine the evidence upon which each separate theory is based, and the ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... become most offensive to the American Congress, and the possible appointment of Colonel Ternant to his office. This officer had won a great European reputation as Generalissimo of one of the United Provinces, and it was even hinted that, had he been put at the head of affairs instead of the pusillanimous Rhinegrave of Salm, the cause might have been saved. All this and other details had to be communicated to Mr. Jay, and so delicate was the business that Calvert was instructed to put the letter in cipher lest it be opened and the French Government prematurely informed ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... at this moment, he would have had a united people behind him. But Thomas Jefferson was not a martial character. His proclamation ordering all armed British vessels out of American waters and suspending intercourse with them if they remained, was so moderate in tone as to seem almost pusillanimous. John Randolph called it an apology. Instead of demanding unconditional reparation for this outrage, Madison instructed Monroe to insist upon an entire abolition of impressments as "an indispensable ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... at the head of forty or fifty men then commenced the attack, and kept up a brisk fire. But the militia no sooner beheld the enemy advance impetuously, than they threw down their arms without firing and fled instantly. This was followed by others, acting in the same pusillanimous style, and at least two-thirds of the army never fired ...
— A sketch of the life and services of Otho Holland Williams • Osmond Tiffany
... was to succeed him upon the throne, was then in Poland. Catharine was glad to have the pusillanimous Charles out of the way. He was sufficiently depraved to commit any crime, without being sufficiently resolute to brave its penalty. Henry III. had, in early life, displayed great vigor of character. At the age of fifteen he had been placed in the command of armies, and in several combats ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... and under colour of not tempting God, left Siena and came to Rome, supposing that he had escaped his prison and was safe; and he was thrown into prison, with the punishment that you know. So are pusillanimous hearts cured. Be, then, be all a man: that ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... Bartholomew, and leading the other himself; and when the brothers made an attack upon the Indians at the same time from different quarters, this numerous host was at once and utterly put to flight. In speaking of such a defeat, the modern reader must not be lavish of the words "cowardly," "pusillanimous," and the like, until, at least, he has well considered what it is to expose naked bodies to firearms, to the charge of steel-clad men on horseback, and to the clinging ferocity ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... only too clear that hopes based on his intervention were not likely to be fulfilled. We find Sidonius writing for information.... He began to fear that something was going on behind his back, and that the real danger to Auvergne came no longer from determined enemies but from pusillanimous friends. His suspicions were only too well founded. On receipt of the quaestor's report a Council was held to determine the policy of the Empire towards the Visigothic king.... The empire did not feel strong enough to support Auvergne and it was decided ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... usual, descending to the plain, and when we had got half-way across it, I scoured the hills all round with my telescope to see if I could discern traces of our pusillanimous foes. ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... that, the Government was trying to sit on the whole story, and the Opposition was hinting darkly at corrupt deals and sinister plots. Prince Bentrik arrived in the midst of an impassioned tirade against pusillanimous traitors surrounding his Majesty who were betraying Marduk to the ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... watched the little operation of "sticking up" without a word, but with revived interest in life. He noted the pusillanimous pallor of the driver and his friend, and felt personally indebted to the desperado who had put a stop to their unpleasant conversation. The inside passenger made a yet more obsequious surrender. Not that ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... doubting-castle! 'His great business,' he would profess, 'was to escape from himself.' Yet towards all this he has taken his position and resolution; can dismiss it all 'with frigid indifference, having little to hope or to fear.' Friends are stupid, and pusillanimous, and parsimonious; 'wearied of his stay, yet offended at his departure;' it is the manner of the world. 'By popular delusion,' remarks he, with a gigantic calmness, 'illiterate writers will rise into renown:' it is a portion of the history of English literature; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... Juhan-shah in September 1735.) But to this measure the concurrence of the other chiefs was wanting. At daybreak the guns of the castle began to play upon the mosque, and, some of the shot penetrating its walls, the pusillanimous Jemal al-alum, being alarmed at the danger, judged it advisable to retreat from thence and to set up his standard in another quarter, called kampong Jawa, his people at the same time retaining possession of the mosque. A regular warfare now ensued between the two parties and continued for no ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... wisdom was the sacred altar and temple to which they fled for refuge, and his counsels, more than anything, preserved them from dispersing and deserting their city, as in the time when the Gauls took possession of Rome. He, whom they esteemed fearful and pusillanimous when they were, as they thought, in a prosperous condition, was now the only man, in this general and unbounded dejection and confusion, who showed no fear, but walked the streets with an assured and serene countenance, addressed his fellow-citizens, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... these words, every one of which I remember: "There are some who declare that Canada's trade is declining; there are some who maintain that the rich glow of health which at present mantles o'er Canada's virgin cheek will soon be replaced by the pallid hues of the corpse. To such pusillanimous propagandists of a preposterous pessimism, I answer, Mr. Speaker with all confidence, never! never!" As a rhetorical effort this is striking, though there seems a ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... repenting what she had done, she at the same time rejoiced in the recollection of her passage of arms with Miss Shale, and was inclined to despise her family for their pusillanimous attitude. It seemed to her very improbable that the expulsion would really be carried out. Lady Shale and Hilda meant, no doubt, to give the Rocketts a good fright, and then contemptuously pardon them. She, in ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... walked forward, playing with my intention, always telling myself that I could relinquish it and turn back to Falmouth, cheating—yes, I fear deliberately cheating—myself with the assurance until more than half the journey lay behind me, and to turn back would be worse than pusillanimous. At St. Austell a carrier offered me a lift, and brought me to Liskeard. Thence I walked forward again, and in the late afternoon came in ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... whenever he felt harassed and discouraged in public business. But here this great man was interested by the subject he discusses, and by the whole course of his experience and conduct, to refute the dogmas of that pusillanimous sophistry and selfish indulgence by bringing forward the most glorious examples and achievements of patriotism. In this strain he had doubtless commenced his exordium, and in this strain we find him continuing it at the point in which the palimpsest becomes legible. He ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... France, subversive of the whole ancient order of the world. No disaster of war, no calamity of season, could ever strike me with half the horror which I felt from what is introduced to us by this junction of parties, under the soothing name of peace. We are apt to speak of a low and pusillanimous spirit as the ordinary cause by which dubious wars terminated in humiliating treaties. It is here the direct contrary. I am perfectly astonished at the boldness of character, at the intrepidity of mind, the firmness of nerve, in those who are able with deliberation to face ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... but remain content with the territory you have already acquired. What are we to do, if we are crippled by injudicious and false humanity? Must we relinquish our claims? Shall we content ourselves with having made threats which we are too pusillanimous to execute?" ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... fierce old hag began to get angry and show a glimpse of her diabolic nature (like a snake's head, peeping with a hiss out of her bosom), at this pusillanimous behavior of the thing which she had taken the trouble to ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... me now, Mrs. Willoughby. I don't believe you women like timid, pusillanimous men. How could I appear otherwise to Miss Bodine if I should withdraw, like a growling bear into winter quarters, there to hibernate indefinitely? The period wouldn't be life to me, scarcely tolerable existence. ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... imaginative and shadowy terror with which different minds recoil from death—not considered as an agony or torment, but considered as a mystery, and, next after God, as the most infinite of mysteries. In a brave man this terror may happen to be strong; in a pusillanimous man, simply through inertness and original feebleness of imagination, may happen to be scarcely developed. This oscillation of horror, alternating between death as an agony and death as a mystery, not only exists with a corresponding set of consequences accordingly as one or other prevails, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... the guilty and the innocent without distinction. He wouldn't have missed the excitement for anything in the world. He didn't mind missing the breakfast he was to have had with Barnes, but he did feel outraged over the pusillanimous trick played upon him by the remaining members of his troupe. Nothing was to have been expected of Putnam Jones and his damnation crew; they wouldn't have called him if the house was afire; they would let him roast to death; but certainly something was due him ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... it is to triumph over pantheism, must absorb it. To our pusillanimous eyes Jesus would have borne the marks of a hateful pantheism, for he confirmed the Biblical phrase "ye are gods," and so would St. Paul, who tells us that we are of "the race of God." Our century wants a new theology—that ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Kralahome's half-brother; for it was he, and no other, who had committed this most cowardly act of revenge. The expression of Mr. Hunter's face, as the truth slowly dawned upon him, was rich in its blending of indignation, disgust, and contempt. "The pusillanimous rascal!" he exclaimed, as he hurried off in the ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... scurril scribe, dip your pen in rose-pink, Or the Censor's black blurr shall your slander efface A CAESAR turn sophist, an Autocrat shrink? Pusillanimous spite mark the ROMANOFF race? Too wholly absurd! What is this we have heard Which on courtier spirits must painfully jar? Who is he, this mal a propos "little bird" Who twitters such ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, 13 June 1891 • Various
... as a traitor, or drummed out of the army as a dastardly coward. Without mentioning the numerous military faults committed by General von Mack during this campaign, it is impossible to deny that, with respect to his own troops, he conducted himself in the most pusillanimous manner. It has often been repeated that martial valour does not always combine with it that courage and that necessary presence of mind which knows how to direct or repress multitudes, how to command ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... under all the circumstances such a course would only have still more embittered the situation and made the end inevitable. Another thing, among frontiersmen the man who goes to law for protection of that kind, makes of himself a pusillanimous object for every vagabond to spit upon and kick. I was not ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... He had no pusillanimous notion of the unworthiness of revenge. He believed retaliation, when complete and inflicted without cost or injury to the giver, to be a most logical and fitting thing. But he knew that revenge is a two-edged weapon, ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... again the pusillanimous "End of Time," and at Wilensi they were rejoined by Shahrazad, Dunyazad and the one-eyed Kalandar. Persons who met Burton and his friends enquired Irish-like if they were the party who had been put to death by the Amir of Harar. Everyone, indeed, was amazed to ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... Colonel Montgomery. This braggart asserted, in the House of Commons, "amidst the loudest cheering, that he knew the Americans very well, and was certain they would not fight; 'that they were not soldiers and never could be made so, being naturally pusillanimous and incapable of discipline; that a very slight force would be more than sufficient for their complete reduction'; and he fortified his statement by repeating their peculiar expressions, and ridiculing their religious enthusiasm, manners and ways of living, greatly ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... Admiral Drury, submitting to their insult, hastily beat a retreat. On several subsequent occasions he renewed his threats, and even sailed up the Bogue, but always retreated without firing a shot. It is not surprising that the Chinese were inflated with pride and confidence by the pusillanimous conduct of the English officer, or that they should erect a pagoda at Canton in honor of the defeat of the English fleet. After these inglorious incidents Admiral Drury evacuated Macao and sailed for India, leaving the English ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... inefficiency and the cowardice of the Persians. The whole army now moved rapidly forward, confident of an easy victory, many even supposing that Artaxerxes would make no stand at all, but abandon his capital to them. The Great King, however, was not so hopelessly pusillanimous as that; for, when Cyrus reached Kunaxa, scouts brought word that the enemy's hosts were not far behind. This time the intelligence was correct. That very afternoon a great cloud of white dust rolled up from the plain, and as it kept advancing ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... even though I took no aim and scurried back into my bedroom immediately after. That would have satisfied her, she subsequently admitted to me; but to drop a pair of Indian clubs on the floor in order to make a clatter could be regarded as little less than pusillanimous, philosophy or no philosophy. ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... she questioned a third time, and there was a fire in her eyes which seemed to leap out and scathe the pusillanimous monarch as he sat ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... foundation of success was the separate negotiation with England, and here there had stood in the way a more formidable obstacle than the mere reluctance of Franklin. The chevalier Luzerne and his secretary Marbois had been busy with Congress, and that body had sent well-meant but silly and pusillanimous instructions to its commissioners at Paris to be guided in all things by the wishes of the French court. To disregard such instructions required all the lofty courage for which Jay and Adams were noted, and for the moment it brought upon them ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... affection makes such an impelling appeal to all vain people, that the superior animal is discarded for the inferior? The dog is grossly and offensively obscene; he is dirty, he pollutes our streets; he is a coward, and has the pusillanimous spirit of a rather faint-hearted lackey. The cat, on the other hand, is decent, clean, consistently sanitary, brave, and possessed of the great-hearted self-reliant spirit of a born warrior. The cat, however, does not fawn, ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... father that he could speak well, and it may be said of him that he could write well, the only thing he could do which was worth doing, always supposing that there is any merit in being able to write. He was of a mean appearance, and, like his father, pusillanimous to a degree. The meanness of his appearance disgusted, and his pusillanimity discouraged the Scotch when he made his appearance amongst them in the year 1715, some time after the standard of rebellion had been hoisted by Mar. He only stayed a short time in Scotland, ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... constitutions, and when once the body has lost its powers, those of the soul are not easily preserved. Application wears out the machine, exhausts the spirits, destroys the strength, enervates the mind, makes us pusillanimous, unable either to bear fatigue, or to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various
... have I congratulated thy Happiness, where Virtue is rewarded, Vice discountenanc'd and punish'd; where the Man of Merit is provided for, and not oblig'd to pay a Levee to the kept Mistress of a Statesman; and where the Ignorant, Pusillanimous, and Vicious, however distinguish'd by Birth and Fortune, are held in Contempt, and never admitted ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... suffer things to reach this ultimate pass without stubborn resistance, and this is one reason why shyness is often so conspicuous, seeming deliberately to court an avoidable confusion. Over and over again it forces the recalcitrant body back into the arena, preferring repeated humiliation to a pusillanimous surrender. People often wonder at the recklessness with which the shy expose themselves to disaster, forgetting that in this insistence of a soul under discomfiture, there is evidence of a moral strength which is its own reward. What discipline is harder ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... pusillanimous Highland chiefs and other misters! how long will you tamely submit to such offhanded treatment? Will the day never come when, with whirling sporrans and flashing pibrochs you will rise against the alien oppressor, and demand Home Rule, together with the total abolition of ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... of different tribes being intoxicated with liquor, a vice which they learned from the English settlers, quarrelled at Charlestown, and the one murdered the other. Among these barbarians, not to avenge the death of a friend is considered as pusillanimous, and whenever death ensues, drunkenness, accident, or even self-defence, are in their eyes no extenuation of the crime. The relations of the deceased, hearing of his death, immediately came to Charlestown, and demanded satisfaction. Governor Archdale, who had confined the murderer, being desirous ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... these as yet unknown impressions of his infinity, his power, and his love, should give a higher character to this eremitical enthusiasm, and attract men of loftier and more vigorous minds within its sphere. It was not merely the pusillanimous dread of encountering the trials of life which urged the humbler spirits to seek a safe retirement; or the natural love of peace, and the weariness and satiety of life, which commended this seclusion to those who were too gentle to mingle ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... superciliously answered: "Pusillanimous companion, I am the blossom of the city and the luminary of the people; my presence gives life to the plains, and my harmony cultivates the desert. If, when in vulgar prose I express the unpremeditated idea, every ear is filled with delight, and ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... ill and proved an incompetent emperor, entirely unequal to the serious task of governing and protecting his vast territories. His weakness was especially shown in his pusillanimous treaties with the Northmen. When Paris was making an heroic defense against them under its count, Odo, Charles, instead of marching at the head of an army to relieve it, agreed to pay the invaders seven hundred ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... impossible to do so satisfactorily. And yet no one will ever know more than we about what is going on now. Some secrets may be revealed to coming generations, but plenty of our circumstances will be obscure to them. And it certainly seems pusillanimous, if not hazardous, to depute to those yet unborn the task of comprehending the conditions under which we must live and strive. I have long believed that the only unmistakable contribution that the historical student ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... burgomaster himself came forward, and in a sublime harangue made short work of those pusillanimous people who disguise their fear under a veil of prudence, which veil he tore off with a ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... there any here so young, but she is of years to understand how women are minded towards one another, when they are alone together, and how ill they are able to rule themselves without the guidance of some man. We are sensitive, perverse, suspicious, pusillanimous and timid; wherefore I much misdoubt, that, if we find no other guidance than our own, this company is like to break up sooner, and with less credit to us, than it should. Against which it were well to provide at the outset." Said then Elisa:—"Without doubt man is woman's head, ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... miracles? Why is Mr. Wells so sternly opposed to the bare idea of Providence? "Fear and feebleness," he says, "go straight to the Heresies that God is Magic or that God is Providence" (p. 27)—as though it were disgracefully pusillanimous to prefer a well-governed to an ungoverned world. God, in the ordinary sense of the word, the sense we all understand, is unquestionably magic, whether we like it or not. He is none the less magic because he works through one great spell, and not through a host of minor, petti-fogging ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... conduct of their captor. He thought his companion had been tame and mean-spirited, he had submitted so quietly to his punishment; and when they had got out of the hearing of Mr. Batterman, he roundly reproached him for his pusillanimous demeanor. ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... Sumter, yet no public notice was taken thereof; and when, months afterward, I came North, I found not one single sign of preparation. It was for this reason, somewhat, that the people of the South became convinced that those of the North were pusillanimous and cowardly, and the Southern leaders were thereby enabled to commit their people to the war, nominally in defense of their slave property. Up to the hour of the firing on Fort Sumter, in April, 1861, it does seem to me that our public ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... stranger? That is all Charles is to me. He has fought battles here which he has lost, he is therefore a bad captain; he has succeeded in no negotiation, he is therefore a bad diplomatist; he has paraded his wants and his miseries in all the courts of Europe, he has therefore a weak and pusillanimous heart. Nothing noble, nothing great, nothing strong has hitherto emanated from that genius which aspires to govern one of the greatest kingdoms of the earth. I know this Charles, then, under none but bad aspects, and ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... treachery, the truckling and pusillanimous reptile, Crippled-Speech Trollop, has gone over to the enemy. It is contended, now, that he has been a friend to the bill, in secret, since the day it was introduced, and has had bankable reasons ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... communism,—as has been the case with others. We have been laborious, contented, and prosperous; and if we have been reabsorbed by the mother country, in accordance with what I cannot but call the pusillanimous conduct of certain of our elder Britannulists, it has not been from any failure on the part of the island, but from the opposition with which the Fixed Period ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... one of La Renaudie's friends had revealed the conspiracy to the Cardinal of Lorraine's secretary; and from Spain, Germany, and Italy they received information as to the conspiracy hatched against them. The cardinal, impetuous and pusillanimous too, was for calling out the troops at once; but his brother the duke, "who was not easily startled," was opposed to anything demonstrative. They removed the king to the castle of Amboise, a safer place than the town of Blois; and they concerted measures with the queen-mother, to whom ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... have been better to fight ten battles than to give up one of them, still a set of flatterers harassed our pusillanimous emperor with harping on the dreaded name of Procopius, and affirmed that unless we quickly recrossed the river, that chieftain, as soon as he heard of the death of Julian, would easily bring about a revolution which no one could resist, by means of the fresh ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... principles we may account for a phaenomenon in the passions, which at first sight seems very extraordinary, viz, that surprize is apt to change into fear, and every thing that is unexpected affrights us. The most obvious conclusion from this is, that human nature is in general pusillanimous; since upon the sudden appearance of any object. we immediately conclude it to be an evil, and without waiting till we can examine its nature, whether it be good or bad, are at first affected with fear. This I say is the most obvious ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... slaveholding States, and be admitted as such into the Southern confederacy. I had supposed that crime had achieved its climax when the Southern rebellion was inaugurated; but something more base, more vile, more cowardly, debasing, and pusillanimous, it seems, is now contemplated. It is that New England shall be expelled, and that the rest of the Free States shall come under the dominion of the Southern confederacy. But the leaders of this scheme seem to have forgotten the fact, that New England, to a ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... cannot understand the inactivity of the French: it would seem that the authorities had lost their heads. We cannot otherwise explain the lack of foresight of the officers absent from their posts, the pusillanimous orders of the governor to M. de Vaudreuil, his imprudence in sending too weak a troop through the dangerous places, the lack of initiative on the part of M. de Saint-Jean, finally, the absolute lack of energy and audacity, the complete absence of that ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... destitution that cannot be self-supplied. He who hungers and thirsts after righteousness is conscious of an inward void, in respect to righteousness, that must be filled from abroad. He who is meek is sensible that he is dependent for his moral excellence. He who is poor in spirit is, not pusillanimous as Thomas Paine charged upon Christianity but, as John of Damascus said of himself, a man ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... streets of our capital; detaining the enemy at least for a day, my army will arrive, and we shall be strong enough to give battle. I must go to Paris; when I am not there, they do nothing but blunder! My brother Joseph is a pusillanimous and easily-disheartened man, and Minister Clarke is a blockhead. Marmont and Mortier are traitors deserving death, for they violated my express instructions. I asked them to hold out only two days, and the traitors capitulated ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... is so heartily despised as a pusillanimous, lazy, good-for-nothing land-lubber; a sailor has no bowels of compassion for him. Yet, useless as such a character may be in many respects, a ship's company is by no means disposed to let him reap any benefit from his deficiencies. Regarded ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... Withers, what a weak, pusillanimous wretch you must be, having known me so long, and tried my temper so well, to hope to find me such a fool, after all,—that kind of fool, I mean! My deepest shame, in this unutterably shameful hour, is that I chose ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... prevented; and those martial spirits which were so fierce and formidable abroad could not be habituated to any considerable moderation at home. Those who expect in a free state to see the people undaunted in war and pusillanimous in peace, are certainly desirous of impossibilities; and it may be advanced as a general rule that whenever a perfect calm is visible, in a state that calls itself a republic, the spirit of liberty ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... Where it is a question of useful work done at the expense of our fatigue, there may be more question; normally such sacrifices are undesirable; but what seems over fatigue may not really be so, and the earnest man will err on this side rather than run risk of pusillanimous shirking. Moreover, some work practically requires an over effort for its accomplishment; and no man of mettle will begrudge his very life-blood when necessary. Overwork is "the last infirmity of noble minds." Yet when ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... diversity at different periods may perhaps be accounted for on the ground of the nervousness which continued dissipation produces, and perhaps from his poetical temperament. A poet, we are persuaded, is often the bravest, and often the most pusillanimous of men. Byron was unquestionably in general a brave, almost a pugnacious man; and yet he confesses that at certain times, had one proceeded to horsewhip him, he would not have had the hardihood to resist. Shelley, who, in a tremendous ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... the scenes and philosophy of Greek and Italian history before I have justified myself to my benefactors? How dare I read Washington's campaigns when I have not answered the letters of my own correspondents? Is not that a just objection to much of our reading? It is a pusillanimous desertion of our work to gaze after our neighbors. It is peeping. ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... be done to him by H. Fielding and his man. Mr A. Tucker feared that the man would beat, maim, or kill him." No words could more aptly sum up this delightful story than those of Mr Austin Dobson: "a charming girl, who is also an heiress; a pusillanimous guardian, with ulterior views of his own; a handsome and high-spirited young suitor; a faithful attendant ready to 'beat, maim or kill' on his master's behalf; a frustrated elopement and a compulsory visit to the mayor—all these with the picturesque old town ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... Menelaus? Then shouldst thou have known of how brave a man thou dost possess the blooming spouse. Nor will thy harp, and the gifts of Venus, and thy hair, and thy figure avail thee, when thou shalt be mingled with the dust.[147] But the Trojans are very pusillanimous; else wouldst thou have been arrayed in a garment of stone, on account of the evils which thou ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... brave as Robespierre was pusillanimous, repressed the smile of disdain that quivered on his lips a moment, and left ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... church. They are impious in their necessities with the father, but liberal and charitable to their guests, even when they do not know them; and through that they are greatly disappointed. At the same time they are humble and proud; bold and atrocious, but cowardly and pusillanimous; compassionate and cruel; slothful and lazy, and diligent; careful and negligent in their own affairs; very dull and foolish for good things, but very clever and intelligent in rogueries. He who has most to do with ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... reported by travellers, have seemed to readers as inconsistencies in their reports; Thornton accepts the inconsistency. "The national character of the Turks," he says, "is a composition of contradictory qualities. We find them brave and pusillanimous; gentle and ferocious; resolute and inconstant; active and indolent; fastidiously abstemious, and indiscriminately indulgent. The great are alternately haughty and humble, arrogant and cringing, liberal ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... that had flowed along under the willows past Eynsham, past Oxford, under the church at Clifton, past Moulsford, past Sonning. And he thought: 'My God! To have her to myself one day on the river—one whole long day!' Why had he been so pusillanimous all this time? He passed his hand over his face. Broad faces do not easily grow thin, but his felt thin to him, and this gave him a kind of morbid satisfaction. If she knew how he was longing, how he suffered! He turned away, toward ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of it. "We ought not," says he, "to despise our afflictions, nor to faint under them. We must not suffer ourselves to be exasperated against the instruments of our troubles, nor by fraudulent, nor pusillanimous compliances, bring guilt upon ourselves; faint hearts are ordinarily false hearts, choosing sin rather than suffering." He offers his prayers to God for the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and that an end may be put to their present trials. Having then asked pardon for his ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... upon myself a responsibility which I decline not, and having encouraged and blessed the departure of several of those youthful volunteers, I would be ashamed of myself if now, restrained by the fears arising from a pusillanimous prudence, I did not offer them the homage of my admiration together with that of my prayers. Your sympathies are already with my words. If they gave offence to any hearers, I would, indeed, be afflicted. But, by the grace of God, the country which we inhabit is ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... treated the story of the gallows' rope as a mere vision of some terrified mind; at least, if he had any doubts on that subject—and reports of the fiery temper of the king might have roused his suspicions—he conceived that a bold bearing would do him more good than a pusillanimous demeanour; and, as for flight, he despised it, as well as disapproved of it, on grounds of fancied prudence, seeing that he would thereby admit his guilt, and prove his pusillanimity, while it might ultimately turn out that the king's intentions ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... himself grand prince, and Vassali in vain endeavored to move the compassion of his captor by tears. The uncle, however, so far had pity for his vanquished nephew as to appoint him to the governorship of the city of Kolomna. This seemed perfectly to satisfy the pusillanimous young man, and, after partaking of a splendid feast with his uncle, he departed, rejoicing, from the capital where he had been enthroned, to the provincial city ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... that he can make a book, but that, whereof they may be in doubt, he cannot make one. A president, where I was, boasted that he had amassed together two hundred and odd commonplaces in one of his judgments; in telling which, he deprived himself of the glory he had got by it: in my opinion, a pusillanimous and absurd vanity for such a subject and such a person. I do the contrary; and amongst so many borrowed things, am glad if I can steal one, disguising and altering it for some new service; at the hazard of having it said that 'tis for want ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... should go on any expedition he would, to the best of his power, as his liege subject, promote it, by assisting him with troops, arms, horses, and money." Llywelyn the Great refused to dispute the suzerainty of England. This may appear pusillanimous to the enthusiastic patriot, but subsequent events proved the old statesman's wisdom and clearsightedness. His successors were less cautious, were carried away by the patriotism round them and the syren ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little |
