"Shrink" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... feebly—sank until he was on his knees, his head craned forward. The man watching touched the miserable, hunched-up figure compassionately, and it shook beneath his hand, endeavoring to shrink away. ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
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... hardly safer than any one else. Many of the ambassadors and ministers had already left the country, and others were even then abandoning their posts, which it seemed impossible to hold at such a time. But the American minister stood his ground. Gouverneur Morris was not a man to shrink from what he knew to be his duty. He had been a leading patriot in our revolution; he had served in the Continental Congress, and with Robert Morris in the difficult work of the Treasury, when all our resources seemed to be at their lowest ebb. In 1788 he had gone ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
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... great measure to his own indolence and facility. The queen and the ladies of the court further stimulated his passion, and represented that, if he exerted the vigor and displayed the majesty of a monarch, the daring usurpations of his subjects would shrink before him. Lord Digby, a man of fine parts but full of levity, and hurried on by precipitate passions, suggested like counsels; and Charles, who, though commonly moderate in his temper, was ever disposed to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
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... I think, greater than it reasonably should be, considering that we had not much either of beauty or elegance to charm our imaginations, or of rude novelty to astonish. Let us, by all means, have another expedition. I shrink a little from our scheme of going up the Baltick[393]. I am sorry you have already been in Wales; for I wish to see it. Shall we go to Ireland, of which I have seen but little? We shall try to strike out a plan when we are at Ashbourne. ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
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... shrink from an extermination that relieves humanity of idlers that it drags about without power to advance or to free itself, finally sinking under the load. Is it not better for the world to be rid of such people, who obstruct the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
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... have avoided it all, but would not. Now that I have sacrificed that chance, I will go to my doom with a smile upon my lips, whatever heaviness may be in my heart; for, having chosen my path, I will not shrink from following it. Thus much for myself. And as for you, who have tossed me one side to the first poor brute who has begged for me, and even at this instant have taunted me with the story of baffled hopes, does it seem becoming in you to appeal longer to me, as you ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
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... hinder our return? Long since repose our precious! Their grave is of our life the bourn; We shrink from times ungracious! By not a hope are we decoyed: The heart is full; the ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
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... gave either Milke or drinke every night &c: The fire shall never make thee shrink ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
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... their turn. And that long grass was a blessing. Better still, there was a sky overhead, in which men cannot set up any gravestones. But if any graveyard be the type of the rest expected by those left behind, it is no wonder they shrink from joining ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
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... maintenance of their characters was not quite so perfect as that of the principal two. Hamilton stretched forward his wooden sceptre to the queen with benignant haste and dignity. Daisy, only too glad to shrink away, closed her eyes and lay back in the arms of her attendants in a manner that was really very satisfactory. But the attendants themselves were ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
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... to her environment, and could no longer adapt herself to the form she had so easily acquired in her youth: it was as much as she could do to occupy fully the narrower limits to which she had been reduced, and to maintain those limits unbroken. The instinct which made her shrink from the intrusion of foreign customs and ideas, or even mere contact with nations of recent growth, was not the mere outcome of vanity. She realised that she maintained her integrity only by relying on the residue of her former solidarity and ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
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... provoked her though, sometimes, and one day she ventured to say, "I wish you would learn to treat me like a grown-up woman!" Royston's eyes darkened strangely; and one glance flashed out of the gloom that made her shrink away from him then, and blush painfully when she thought of it afterward alone. He was frowning, too, as he answered, in a voice unusually harsh and constrained, "It seems to me we go on very well as it ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
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... neglected. The diseases and excesses which it engenders are far more devastating than those which spring from any other vice, and yet no philanthropist is bold enough to look the question in the face. The virtuous shrink from it, the vicious don't care about it, the godly simply condemn, and the ungodly indulge—and so the world rolls on, and hundreds of thousands go down annually to utter ruin. It is useless to attempt the extirpation of a vice which is inherent in the very nature of man, and the alternative ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
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... were all subdued and quenched, as if the spirit within him lay in ashes. He was respectably, though very plainly dressed, in black; but his clothes, moulded to the general character of his figure, seemed to shrink and abase themselves upon him, and to join in the sorrowful solicitation which the whole man from head to foot expressed, to be left unnoticed, and ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
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... Mr. George's gallery and stands huddled together in a bundle, looking all about the floor. He seems to know that they have an inclination to shrink from him, partly for what he is and partly for what he has caused. He, too, shrinks from them. He is not of the same order of things, not of the same place in creation. He is of no order and no place, neither of the beasts nor ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
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... the baby instinctively feared him? Why had she turned from him to the Seer? Why, he asked himself bitterly, had she always feared him? Why did she still shrink from him? For Barbara did shrink from him, unconsciously—unintentionally—but, to Jefferson Worth, none the less plainly now than when he knelt before her that night in the desert. And it hurt him now as it had hurt him ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
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... negroes did. They advanced as grim and stern as death, and when within reach of the enemy struck about them with a pitiless vigor, that was almost fearful.' Another soldier said to me, 'These negroes never shrink, nor hold back, no matter what the order. Through scorching heat and pelting storms, if the order comes, they march with prompt, ready feet.' Such praise is great praise, and it is deserved. The negroes here who have been slaves, are loyal, ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
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... the soil is very wet. Trees will stay in good condition for several days, if the burlap sacks are kept moistened. Wet, soggy soil is certain to shrink away from the roots and leave air pockets which will, in time, kill the trees. If trees are transplanted during a very dry season, they should be thoroughly watered. To do this, remove several shovelfuls of dirt from the ground about a foot from the tree, being careful ...
— Growing Nuts in the North • Carl Weschcke
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... there. He points to the tall cupboardy thing at the back. Then he goes on. You see it's easier to make toys big, but I couldn't carry them that way, for the sleigh wouldn't hold them, and besides they wouldn't go into the stockings. So after they are made, I put them into the machine, and shrink them. Open the doors, Polly, and ...
— Up the Chimney • Shepherd Knapp
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... I have known several of his heroes who were very little men. Dr. Mead had nothing but pretensions; and Philip Carteret Webb was a sorry knave, with still less foundation. To what a slender total do those shrink who are the idols of their own age! How very few are known at all at the end of the next century! But there is a chapter in Voltaire that would cure any body of being a great man even in his own ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
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... a young man," I began, "and do you think that he will shrink from enduring any number of hardships to gain them? Are ...
— Facino Cane • Honore de Balzac
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... caused them to shrink from endearments. Donald was brown, thin, and weary-looking. His pistols were in his pockets, and his rifle slung by his side. He had just come in from ...
— The Hunted Outlaw - Donald Morrison, The Canadian Rob Roy • Anonymous
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... that moves us, because even when they are empty, they appear to be inhabited. Is it not, then, their modesty that appeals to us? For, with their unpretentious steeples, and their low roofs hiding under the trees, they seem to shrink and humiliate themselves in the sight of God. They have not been upreared through a spirit of pride, nor through the pious fancy of some mighty man on his death-bed. On the contrary, we feel that it is the simple impression of a need, the ingenuous cry of an appetite, ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
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... fearful of being himself the dupe. He distrusted the sweet innocence of Viola. He could not venture the hazard of seriously proposing marriage to an Italian actress; but the modest dignity of the girl, and something good and generous in his own nature, had hitherto made him shrink from any more worldly but less honourable designs. Thus the familiarity between them seemed rather that of kindness and regard than passion. He attended the theatre; he stole behind the scenes to converse with her; he filled his portfolio with countless sketches ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
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... she was there she was loved and allowed to go her own way, when she was not there she seemed to fade into outer darkness. A veil came down between her and her belongings. Of course they were both very fond of her, but simple-natured people are apt to shrink from what they cannot understand, and these two were no exception to the rule. For instance, Bessie's affection for her sister was a poor thing compared to the deep and self-sacrificing, though often secret love that her sister showered upon her. She loved her old uncle far more dearly ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
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... the difficulty of acquitting himself with credit: but what hereby does he do more than plainly confess that wisdom is but a rub and impediment to the well management of any affair? How would these heroes crouch, and shrink into nothing, at the sight of drawn swords, that are thus quashed and stunned at the delivery of ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
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... chic," said Monia. The dress added to rather than relieved Harmony's discomfiture. She donned it in one of the fitting-rooms, made by the simple expedient of curtaining off a corner of the large reception room. The slashed skirt embarrassed her; the low cut made her shrink. Monia was frankly entranced. Above the gold tissue of the bodice rose Harmony's exquisite shoulders. Her hair was gold; even her eyes looked golden. The dressmaker, who worshiped beauty, gave a pull here, a pat there. If only ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
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... like the sportsman who sees his game rising in front of him. The lad seemed to have gone off his head—his eyes shining, his face deathly white, and such a grim set about his mouth as made the farmer shrink away from him. I can see him now, leaning forward on his brown horse, with his eager gaze fixed upon ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
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... Auntie Sue, the wretched fellow looked down at the ground. His head drooped forward. His shoulders sagged. His whole body seemed to shrink. Turning sadly away, he again started back ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
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... short period as he intended to stay in Marut, and Lois had made no objection. Her energy and determined striving after everything that was graceful and beautiful was systematically crushed out of sight. She never protested, never laid any difficulties in Travers' path. She seemed to shrink into herself and live an invisible life of her own, leaving him to go his way. She could not help him. She could build up nothing on a character whose foundations ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
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... set our sayles, and we let slip a cable and an anker, and bare with the harborough, for it was then neere a high water: and as alwaies in such iournies varieties do chance, when we came vpon the barre in the entrance of the creeke, the wind did shrink so suddenly vpon vs, that we were not able to lead it in, and before we could haue slatted the shippe before the winde, we should haue bene on ground on the lee shore, so that we were constrained to let fall an anker vnder our sailes, and rode in a very breach, thinking to haue ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
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... slight pressure, the juice of the meat is extracted, and there is left a white tasteless residue, consisting chiefly of muscular fibres. When this residue is heated to between 158 deg. and 177 deg. Fahrenheit, the fibres shrink together, and become hard and horny. The influence of an elevated temperature on the soluble extract of flesh is not less remarkable. When the watery infusion, which contains all the savoury constituents of the ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
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... fortune troll upon the wheels Of yonder dancing cubes of mottled bone; And drown it not, like Egypt's royal harlot, Dissolving her rich pearl in the brimm'd wine-cup. These are the arts, Lothario, which shrink acres Into brief yards—bring sterling pounds to farthings, Credit to infamy; and the poor gull, Who might have lived an honour'd, easy life, To ruin, and an ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
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... sovereignty of the existing states and empires of the world. Most people's ideas of the League fall between these extremes. They want the League to be something more than an ethical court, they want a League that will act, but on the other hand they shrink from any loss of "our independence." There seems to be a conflict here. There is a real need for many people to tidy up their ideas at this point. We cannot have our cake and eat it. If association is worth while, there must be some sacrifice of freedom to association. As a very distinguished ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells
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... mountains we heard more and more distinctly the constant rattling of bullets, interrupted by the roar of the cannon and the bom-bom-bom of our saucy bomb-Maxim, that made our hearts expand and those of the enemy shrink. As we raced on to the foot of the mountains, the bullets that the enemy were sending over the mountains to find the Boers raised the dust ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo
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... he seemed to have just entered into youth with everything before him— everything to look forward to! And yet he seemed to have existed since the morning of time, so thoroughly did he know the world of darkness that he left. Was not man a wonderful being, both in his power to shrink up and become nothing, and in his power to expand and fill everything? He now understood Uncle Kalle's smile on all occasions; he had armed himself with it in order that life should not draw too deep furrows in his gentle nature. The poor man had been obliged to dull himself; he would simply ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
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... of the mind—that when a man fixes his eye on us we are the subject of his thoughts, and that a being gifted with a soul like ourselves is employing its energies and setting its machinery at work about ourselves. It is this conviction that makes us modestly, and almost involuntarily, shrink ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 540, Saturday, March 31, 1832 • Various
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... knew you would all shrink from me when you knew," went on Sydney. He spoke in a voice that was almost hard now. It was as if it had become so from the spurring that was necessary to enable him to make his confession. "I shrank from myself as soon as the last piece of tinder had vanished from the candlestick. ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
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... through it, up to this last moment, His one care was to damp down popular enthusiasm, to put on the drag whenever there came to be the least symptom of it, to discourage any reference to Him as the Messiah-King of Israel, to shrink back from the coarse adulation of the crowd, and to glide quietly through the world, blessing and doing good. But now, at the end, He flings off all disguise. He deliberately sets Himself, at a time when popular enthusiasm ran highest and was most turbid ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
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... shot from his bow; Remember your chiefs by his hatchet laid low. Why so slow? Do you wait till I shrink from the pain? No! the son of Alknomook ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
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... cramming-machines"; hence, the prolonged mechanical effort to introduce into each intellectual sponge all the scientific fluid it can contain, even to saturation, and maintain it in this extreme state of perfection if only for two hours during an examination, after which it may rapidly subside and shrink. Hence, that mistaken use, that inordinate expenditure, that precocious waste of mental energy, and that entire pernicious system which overburden for a substantial period the young, not for their advantage, but, on reaching ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
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... difficulties, might be overcome now. He would write to Mrs. Atterbury, and through Vincent arrange for an exchange. But a still deeper trouble had been on his mind. Where were Barney and Nick, and, worse than all, young Dick Perley? If any mishap had befallen that boy, he would shrink from returning to Acredale. And his mother, what must her state of mind be? How many days had passed since the battle? He had no means of knowing. Ah, yes! The paper was there on the stand, where Mrs. Raines had thrown it. He raised himself ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
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... that brought him close to her. She did not shrink—only looked up into his face with wide eyes filled with wonder. He seized her roughly in ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
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... to which the generations before us are born. A great inheritance—a great inheritance of opportunity, a great inheritance of power, a great inheritance of responsibility, from which the coming generations are not to shrink. ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
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... you who read; aye, you Who this very line may scan: Think of all you planned to do . . . Have you done the best you can? See! the tavern lights are low; Black's the night, and how you shrink! God! and is it time to go? Ah! the clock is always slow; It is later than you think; Sadly later than you think; Far, far later than ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
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... looking up at his guest, still framed in the sheltering trellis, and his blurred eyes cleared and grew keen as he looked, regarding him indifferently, like some refractory but mildly amusing animal. His guest's defiant eyes avoided his, and the ineffective, swaying figure seemed to shrink and droop and grow smaller, but it was a dignified figure still and a dangerous one. There was the snarling menace of impotent but inevitable rebellion about it, of men who fight on with their backs against the wall; a menace that was not new born to-night, but the gradual ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
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... it came to the train, it was all such fun that I chattered away to mamma as fast as possible about the stations we should pass, and the things we should see, till I saw an old gentleman opposite exchanging smiles with mamma. That made me feel shy, and shrink back into the corner silent enough; and with the silence came a sigh, and five minutes later mamma's question surprised me, in a fit of melancholy thought, about all that I had left behind me. When would Lottie and I meet again? And how should we know which was getting on best ...
— My Young Days • Anonymous
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... Talbot! don't shrink! Oh, Talbot, don't falter! For my sake, don't let me see you falter, Talbot, or I shall break down. Alone I could let myself be tortured to death by Comanches, and I'd sing my death-song as bravely as Mullins Bryan; but mark this, ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
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... was only curiosity, she knew, but her voice sounded oddly far off to herself, the room was hazy, her whole body seemed to shrink together. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
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... verdict of a second jury, completely vindicating your husband, may thus be obtained. Keep this information to yourself for the present. Preserve the position which you have so sensibly adopted toward Eustace until you have read the restored letter. When you have done this, my own idea is that you will shrink, in pity to him, from letting him see it. How he is to be kept in ignorance of what we have discovered is another question, the discussion of which must be deferred until we can consult together. Until that time comes, I can only repeat my advice—wait till the ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
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... ruin; I had insulted, in the most grievous manner, the delicacy of my mistress, and that before her very eyes, and after all this how could I ask a weak woman to do what a man, priding himself on his strength, would shrink from at tempting? I should have stood self-condemned, and have felt that it was my duty to remain the same to her, but flattering myself that I was overcoming mere prejudices, I was in fact that most degraded of slaves, he who uses his strength ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
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... Apostles, and what does Christ Himself, in that passage that I have quoted, mean, by such solemn words as these? Some people shrink from them, and say that it is trenching upon the central doctrine of the Gospel, when we speak about drinking of the cup which Christ drank of. They ask, Can it be? Yes, it can be, if you will think thus:—If a Christian has the Spirit and life of Christ in him, his career will be moulded, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
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... my duty as plainly as she did. "Her Highness's secret is a sacred secret," I said. "I am bound to shrink from no sacrifice ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
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... made their way through the narrow cobbled lanes. Sneering camels, so bulked out by their burdens that a foot-passenger must shrink against the wall to avoid a bad bruising; well-fed horses, carrying some early-rising Moor of rank on the top of seven saddle-cloths; half-starved donkeys, all sores and bruises; one encountered every variety of Moorish traffic here, and the thoroughfare, that had been deserted ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
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... a cold breeze blowing, I'm afraid that I'll change, that I'll grow wrinkled and old in eight footsteps, or shrink down to the witless blob of a baby, or ...
— No Great Magic • Fritz Reuter Leiber
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... is he who, by discipline, exercises a constant control over his thoughts, his speech, and his acts. Nine-tenths of the vicious desires that degrade society, and which, when indulged, swell into the crimes that disgrace it, would shrink into insignificance before the advance of valiant self-discipline, self-respect, and self-control. By the watchful exercise of these virtues, purity of heart and mind become habitual, and the character is built up in chastity, ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
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... We in England rarely shrink from telling our doctor what is the matter with us merely through the fear that he will hurt us. We let him do his worst upon us, and stand it without a murmur, because we are not scouted for being ill, and because we know the doctor is doing his best to cure us, and can judge of our case ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
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... with bells of every Clime; [iv] 30 When knaves and fools combined o'er all prevail, And weigh their Justice in a Golden Scale; [v] E'en then the boldest start from public sneers, Afraid of Shame, unknown to other fears, More darkly sin, by Satire kept in awe, And shrink from Ridicule, ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
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... the heaven's pale wine— Drink then, invisible heroes, drink. Lips to the vessels, never shrink, Throats to the ...
— New Poems • D. H. Lawrence
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... surprise the old man solemnly shook his head. Some inner feeling made him shrink from thoughts of Lablache as a husband for his girl. Besides, he had no intention of retreating from ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
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... Queen; it was herself. She asked me whether there was anybody with me; I was alone; she threw herself into an armchair, and told me she came to weep with me over the foolish conduct of the ultras of the King's party. "We must fall," said she, "attacked as we are by men who possess every talent and shrink from no crime, while we are defended only by those who are no doubt very estimable, but have no adequate idea of our situation. They have exposed me to the animosity of both parties by presenting the widow and son of Favras to me. Were I ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
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... but an abject coward," broke in Baffin, "would shrink from saving his country at such ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
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... steps, and the hundreds of men and Women stood below me, with their upturned faces. Among them were old men crushed by sorrow, and old men ruined by vice; aged women with faces that seemed to plead for pity, women that made you shrink from their unwomanly gaze; lion-like young men, made for heroes but caught in the devil's trap and changed into beasts; and boys whose looks showed that sin had already stamped them with its foul insignia, and burned into their souls the shame which is to ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
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... it fall at random among the rocks. The toothsome morsel was snatched from its crushed shell and a triumphant scream told of success,—a scream which, could it have been interpreted, should have made a myriad, myriad mussels shrink within their shells! ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
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... little cry, and, springing up, searched Kepher's face with her eyes, nor did he shrink from ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
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... snowy night! With what wistful look did he eye every trembling ray of light streaming across the waste fields from some distant window! How often was he appalled by some shrub covered with snow, which like a sheeted spectre beset his very path! How often did he shrink with curdling awe at the sound of his own steps on the frosty crust beneath his feet! and dread to look over his shoulder, lest he should behold some uncouth being tramping close behind him! and how often was he ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
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... consequently have some trials to bear in society, which otherwise would be no trials at all.... I don't think any of my many little stage-friends have any shyness at all about being talked to of their performances. They thoroughly enjoy the publicity that I shrink from. ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
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... diversions of this life, Lambert spent his first winter in the Bad Lands, drinking in the noisy revels at Misery, riding the long, bitter miles back to the ranch, despising himself for being so mean and low. It was a life in which a man's soul would either shrink to nothing or expand until it became too large to find contentment within the horizon of ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
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... such a large, strong man that, when he first set foot in the little parallelogram I called my garden, it seemed to shrink to half its size and become preposterous. But I noticed at the same time that he was holding in the open palm of his huge hand the roots of a violet, with such infinite tenderness and delicacy that I would have engaged him as my gardener on the spot. But ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
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... provoke censures from the fastidious critics of the present time, who are prone to detect evil of which the authors, whose works they analyse, are quite unconscious. Innocence sometimes leads young writers to a freedom of expression from which experienced ones would shrink back in alarm; and the perusal of the old dramatists gives a knowledge of passions, and of sins, known only through their medium, but the skilful developement of which, subjects a female writer, and more particularly a youthful one, to ungenerous animadversion. It is to be hoped, that the friends ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
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... Perkins' Entire my fill, I sigh not for the lymph of Aganippe's rill. A nobler inspiration fires my brain, Caught from Old England's fine time-hallowed drink, I snatch the pot again and yet again, And as the foaming fluids shrink and shrink, Fill me once more, I say, up to the brink! This makes strong hearts—strong heads attest its charm— This nerves the might that sleeps ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
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... misery, where bitter minds dreamed only of vengeance, where the sophistries hatched in such brains were laying up, inevitably, a store of evil thoughts, Max became utterly demoralized. He listened to the opinions of those who longed for fortune at any price, and did not shrink from the results of criminal actions, provided they were done without discovery. When peace was proclaimed, in April, 1814, he left the island, depraved though still innocent. On his return to Issoudun he found his father and mother dead. Like ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
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... testimonial of Mr. Prescott, whose researches for his admirable history of Ferdinand and Isabella took him over the same ground I had trodden. His testimonial is written in the liberal and courteous spirit characteristic of him, but with a degree of eulogium which would make me shrink from quoting it did I not feel the importance of his voucher for the ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
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... of bones; for I have seen men, women, and children, naturally born of so hard and insensible a constitution of body, that a sound cudgelling has been less to them than a flirt with a finger would have been to me, and that would neither cry out, wince, nor shrink, for a good swinging beating; and when wrestlers counterfeit the philosophers in patience, 'tis rather strength of nerves than stoutness of heart. Now to be inured to undergo labour, is to ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
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... would come in as soon after nine as possible; the day up to that time would be stiff in the Cours la Reine, and he begged her in the meantime not to doubt of his perfect tenderness. So far from her having caused it at all to shrink, he had never yet felt her to have, in his affection, such a treasure of indulgence ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
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... distances, is that from every planet of the solar system the aspect of the heavens will be precisely the same. Inhabitants of Mars, or Jupiter, or Saturn, or Uranus, will see exactly the same constellations as we do. The whole dimensions of the solar system shrink up into a speck when so contemplated. And from the stars none of the planetary orbs of our system are visible at all; nothing but the sun is visible, and that merely as a twinkling star, brighter than some, but fainter than ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
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... keep safely. Besides, that I had a care for the Emperor's well-being; since it was as little safe for him to receive as for me to surrender: let him bear with the words of a free-spoken priest, for his own good, and shrink from doing wrong ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
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... hands over his heated face, and, as a man roused suddenly from sleep looks, he looked round the room. The light died out of his eyes—as a light blown out in a room; his form seemed to shrink, even while the others gazed at him, and ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
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... cloud with thunder dread: or wildly burst Upon the sea the water-spout. Shall first She fear thy flame, who feared not these?" "Fit mate Art thou for Eblis," answered he. "His fate Share, great-souled one. Thou wouldst not meanly shrink, Though his strong heart did fail. O Lilith, think! The crown of clustered worlds thou mayest find, If thou with him who loveth thee wilt bind Thy life." "Nay, far happier seems to me Than eagle caged, the wild lark soaring free," She said. And through her rose-pleached alleys ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
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... strength like steel He put the vision by; Let dusky Indians whine and kneel, An English lad must die. And thus, with eyes that would not shrink, With knee to man unbent, Unfaltering on its dreadful brink, To his ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
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... if only to tell him not to come to Hollywell. None came, and he saw nothing for it but to go to Redclyffe; and if he dreaded seeing it in its altered state when his spirits were high and unbroken, how did he shrink from it now! He did, however, make up his mind, for he felt that his reluctance almost wronged his own beloved home. Harry Graham wanted to persuade him to come and spend Christmas at his home, with his lively family, but ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
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... disgust. Just then a powerful yellow cur sprang out of the darkness over the railroad track, and Satan sprang to meet him, and so nearly had the life scared out of him by the snarl and flashing fangs of the new-comer that he hardly had the strength to shrink back behind his ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
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... youths of both sexes. For you well know that the modern enemies of religion and human society, with a most diabolical spirit, direct all their artifices to pervert the minds and hearts of youth from their earliest years. Wherefore, they leave nothing untried; they shrink from no attempt to withdraw schools, and every institution destined for the education of youth, from the authority of the Church and the vigilance of her holy pastors.'—Encycl. Letter of ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
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... president had stated the motion was not satisfactory to most of the members, who preserved a silence of indecision, with the single exception of Ruth, who uttered an enthusiastic affirmative vote, as a matter of course, only to shrink back perplexedly when she found angry eyes focused on her from every side. But Cicily nonchalantly announced the motion as having been carried, without troubling to ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
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... out of her stock. Her ancestors had always faced uncertainty as one of the ingredients of life: they accepted danger in accepting life. The savage accepted fear because he had to. With the English upper class, danger is a fine art, a cult. It is an element in the family honor. One cannot possibly shrink from the test. The English have expressed themselves in sport. People who are good sportsmen are, of course, honorable fighters. The Germans have allowed their craving for adventure to seethe inside themselves, and ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
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... from him as he offered her a huge hunk of hot, raw meat. He was evidently much disturbed by her refusal to eat, and when, a moment later, he scampered away into the forest to return with fruit for her she was once more forced to alter her estimation of him. This time she did not shrink, but acknowledged his gift with a smile that, had she known it, was more than ample payment to the ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
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... preferred stupidity to common sense, when the former was allied with good form, and the latter only with plain kindliness. This was partly instinct and partly the result of cultivation. She would shrink, with uncontrollable disgust, from any of the lower classes with whom she came unavoidably in contact. A slight breach of the conventions earned her distrust of one of her own caste. As this personal idiosyncrasy fell in line with the de Laney pride, it was approved by the head ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
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... dearly for it," exclaimed the old trapper, when Laurence brought him the intelligence of what had happened. "Whether Injuns or wolves wrong him, Michael Moggs is not the man to let them go unpunished;" and his eyes lighted up with a fierce expression which made the young boy instinctively shrink back from him. "We have three strong traps which will catch the biggest wolf on the prairies; and if they fail, I'll lie in wait till I can shoot the savage brutes down with my rifle. We shall have to tramp it on foot, boy, with the furs on our backs. That's bad for you, but we can leave the traps ...
— The Trapper's Son • W.H.G. Kingston
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... true greatness wears an invisible cloak, under cover of which it goes in and out among men without being suspected; if its cloak does not conceal it from itself always, and from all others for many years, its greatness will ere long shrink to very ordinary dimensions. What, then, it may be asked, is the good of being great? The answer is that you may understand greatness better in others, whether alive or dead, and choose better company from these and enjoy and understand that company better when you have chosen it—also ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
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... inconsistent with appalling jobbery, he will be inclined to mitigated jobbery. He will temporise; he will try to give a seemly dress to unseemly matters: to do as much harm as will content the assembly, and yet not so much harm as will offend the nation. He will not shrink from becoming a particeps criminis; he will but endeavour to dilute the crime. The intervention of an extrinsic, impartial, and capable authority—if such can be found—will undoubtedly restrain the covetousness as well as the factiousness ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
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... keep my heart and lips and hands stainless,—hold them high above the dishonorable things that you abhor, and live during your absence as if your clear eyes took cognizance of every detail. Yea,—search me as you will, dear deep-blue eyes,—I shall not shrink; for the rule of my future years shall be to scorn every word, thought, and deed that I would not freely bare to the scrutiny of the man whose respect I would sooner die than forfeit. Oh, my darling, it were easier for me to front the fiercest flames of Tophet than face your ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
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... Guilds, the Temporal power of the Church, all these are put away, and in their stead he announces the new and daring gospel that for organic unity subjects must be treated as equals and not as inferiors. 'Trust the people' is a maxim he repeats and enforces again and again. And he does not shrink from, but rather urges the corollary, 'Arm the people.' Indeed it were no audacious paradox to state the ideal of Machiavelli, though he nominally preferred a Republic, as a Limited Monarchy, ruling over a Nation in Arms. No doubt ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
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... side was wealth, rank, dignity, the weight of authority, the majority of numbers, the prestige of centuries; here too were the phantom legions of superstition and cowardice; and here were all the worthier influences so preeminently English, which lead wise men to shrink from change, and to cling to things established, so long as one stone of them remains upon another. This was the army of conservatism. Opposed to it were a little band of enthusiasts, armed only with truth and fearlessness; ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
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... just this idea that there is no wrong in thought that weakens virtue's fortress and renders it easily demolished. Girls who would shrink from use of mechanical means to arouse sexual desire will permit themselves to revel in imaginary scenes of love-making with real or unreal individuals, or in mental pictures which arouse the spasmodic feelings of sexual pleasure, and yet be unaware ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
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... personal danger. Adversity and he had long been familiar, and it may be doubted whether he would not have preferred to accept those few last years of banishment, rather than have yielded one jot of his own relentless resolution, or given occasion to his enemies to boast that they had made him shrink before them. We may doubt the wisdom of his decision; we cannot refuse our homage ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
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... living and the dead are to receive their everlasting doom; when the princes and the great ones of the earth may be confronted with those whom they have persecuted and oppressed, or whom they have failed to relieve; when the proudest Sons of Learning, Genius, or Wit, may shrink at the superior lustre of those whom they have ridiculed and reviled; HOWARD will shine encircled by thousands, who will gratefully plead for his beatitude in those blessed words of our Redeemer, 'I was in prison, and ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley
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... pleasant home and quiet fireside, an irresistible impulse wrote for me what followed,—an offering of sympathy to the suffering and agonized, whose homes have forever been darkened. Many causes united at once to force on me this vision, from which generally I shrink, but which sometimes will not be ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
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... with strength born of bitter knowledge she begged, demanded, that I do something to make good women understand that worlds like hers will never pass away if men alone are left to rid earth of them. Ceaselessly I keep busy lest I realize too clearly what such a message means. I shrink from it, appalled at what it may imply. I am a coward. As great a coward as the women whose unconcern I have of late ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
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... it from her hands and was turning towards the door of the hut when a low tap on its outer surface caused her to shrink back alarmed. The witch had again been watching her with an ambiguous smile. "Should Moddam wish to avoid observation," she suggested, "the side exit behind yonder curtain—" In an instant she was alone. Flinging the empty wallet into the darkest ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 10th, 1920 • Various
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... street to the City, the tall slight figure seeming to shrink together as he walked. After his passionate effort, indescribable depression ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
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... rise. He would meet it standing. For the honor of the Foote family he would meet it on his feet, looking into its eyes. He would not shrink and cringe from it, but would face it with dignity as a Foote should face it, uttering no cry of pain or fear. It was a dignified moment, the most dignified and awful of his life. ... Five generations were looking on to see how he met it, and he was conscious of their ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
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... and Indian thought. My object is merely to point out that the latter contains many ideas to which British philosophers find themselves led and from which, when they have discovered them in their own way, they do not shrink. It can hardly then be without interest to see how these ideas have been elaborated, often more boldly and ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
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... band ourselves together to listen to the voice that calls, to draw nigh, and find out and know what Holiness is, or rather, find out and know Himself the Holy One. And if the first approach to Him fill us with shame and confusion, make us fear and shrink back, let us still listen to the Voice and the Call, 'Be holy, as I am holy.' 'Faithful is He which calleth, who also will do it.' All our fears and questions will be met by the Holy One who has revealed His Holiness, with this one purpose ...
— Holy in Christ - Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy • Andrew Murray
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... to refuse you anything, Penelope," he said finally, standing in front of her chair. "You have had so little, and you deserve so much. I know you are right about this, and I shrink from hurting her as much as you do. But when I think of Felix and the course he has deliberately followed, it angers me so that I forget everything except the retribution he so richly deserves. But you are right and I give you ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
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... do. You have enshrined other images in your heart, but mine is a lonely temple, into which you come as a divinity to be worshipped, as well as a daughter to be loved. I did not expect such implicit faith, such undoubting confidence. I feared you would shrink from a stranger, and require proofs of the truth of his assertions. I dared not hope for a greeting so ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
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... there was a steadfast kindliness, the vigor of a true and pure manhood, that made a clear atmosphere about him, in which insincerity, weakness, and selfishness seemed to flicker into pale shadows, and shrink away from the intense mental light he ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
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... end is neither ignoble nor painful," he said, in an unchanging voice; "nor will this one in any way shrink from so ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
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... seemed alive under their feet and quivered with eagerness to be off. The passenger boats going in the same direction were passed in a twinkling, and the tugs and sailing vessels seemed to dwindle as houses and trees seem to shrink when viewed from the rear ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
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... not," said Betty. She wanted no chaperonage, even fraternal. But the words made him shrink, and then sent a soft warmth through him. On the whole he was not sorry that he was ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
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... would have found me conspicuous, an annoyance among people who shrink from the extraordinary. I have been ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
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... its more sober honours, and stand the wear and tear of life, and the vicissitudes of seasons. It has been shewn, that these qualities often fail us when most we want their aid; that their possessors can solace themselves with their imaginary exertions in behalf of ideal misery, and yet shrink from the labours of active benevolence, or retire with disgust from the homely forms of real poverty and wretchedness. In fine, the superiority of true Christian charity and of plain practical beneficence has been ably vindicated; and the school ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
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... rope about forty feet long. The ring bolts were screwed into a pair of stout anchor stakes about two feet from their, lower ends. The rope was passed through the rings and the ends were joined by tying them to a galvanized iron link. Then it was soaked for a while to shrink it before it was set in place. After the rope had shrunk sufficiently, the two stakes were driven into the bed of the river, one close to the bank and the other far enough out to hold the rope belt clear of the bottom. Both ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
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... conditions of this portion of the Black Belt, only six per cent of the population have succeeded in emerging into peasant proprietorship; and these are not all firmly fixed, but grow and shrink in number with the wavering of the cotton-market. Fully ninety-four per cent have struggled for land and failed, and half of them sit in hopeless serfdom. For these there is one other avenue of escape toward which they have turned in increasing numbers, namely, migration to town. A glance at ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
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... and they went on a while; then turned sharp out of this thoroughfare into a narrow alley. It was hot and close and dank enough here to make Miss Frere shrink, though she would not betray it. But dead cats and decaying cabbage leaves, in a not very clean alley, where the sun rarely shines, and briefly then, with the thermometer well up, on a summer day, altogether ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
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... on me in wonder, you ask me with your eyes what it is that I mean I who are the traitors? Lend me your ears then, and fix well your minds, lest they shrink in disgust and wonder. Lend me your ears only, and I fear not that you will determine, worthily of yourselves, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
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... whereas other men are courageous from ignorance but hesitate upon reflection. And they are surely to be esteemed the bravest spirits who have the clearest sense both of the pains and pleasures of life, but do not on that account shrink ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
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... plateau, but only to be absorbed, after passing through two mountain chains, in the sands of the Kharesm. Thus by far the greater portion of this region is desert throughout the year, while, as the summer advances, large tracts, which in the spring were green, are burnt up—the rivers shrink back towards their sources—the whole plateau becomes dry and parched—and the traveller wonders that any portion ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
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... the thought at once as too improbable, but it recurred, for I had learnt from experience that even distinguished authors sometimes did not shrink from very daring means of securing the services of a critic. A critic is like the rich heiress, who is always afraid of not being loved for herself alone. Even then, I was very loth to believe that any recognised author, much less a writer whose position was a vexed question, would make advances ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
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... came to that point in the fight betwixt Giovanni and Ramiro del' Orca, when Ramiro, having broken down the Lord Giovanni's visor, was on the point of driving his sword into his adversary's face, I saw her shrink in a repetition of the morning's alarm, and her bosom heaved more swiftly, as though the issue of that combat hung now upon my lines and she were made anxious again for the life of the man whom she had ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
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... into our hands his countless treasures; and if you only seize the opportunity now presented, it may perhaps be the means of your becoming the owners of them, besides saving yourselves from certain death. Do not think that I impose upon you a task from which I shrink myself, or that I try to conceal from you the dangers attending this our expedition. No; you have certainly a great deal to encounter, but know that if you only suffer for a while, you will reap in the end an abundant harvest of pleasures and enjoyments. And do not imagine that while I speak ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
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... demanded from me full expiation. I go to make it. To-morrow I shall be on my way to Genoa to surrender myself to justice. You who have pitied my sufferings; who have poured the balm of sympathy into my wounds, do not shrink from my memory with abhorrence now that you know my story. Recollect, when you read of my crime I shall have atoned for it ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
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... almost alarmed at the gravity of the task which she had chosen to confront. It had been easy to have energy for Claude in London. She feared it would be less easy to have energy for herself in Mustapha. But she resolved not to shrink back now. Rather vaguely she imagined that through theosophy lay the path to serenity and patience. Just now—indeed, for a long time to come, she needed, would need above all things, patience. In calm must be made the long preparations ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
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... that one meets men in England with every sympathy for Irish claims who shrink nevertheless from the advocacy of the principle of self-government through fear lest the Protestant minority should suffer. This fear for the rights of minorities serves always as the last ditch in which ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
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... Indignation, Despair itself, all these like helldogs lie beleaguering the soul of the poor dayworker, as of every man: but he bends himself with free valour against his task, and all these are stilled, all these shrink murmuring far off into their caves. The man is now a man. The blessed glow of Labour in him, is it not as purifying fire, wherein all poison is burnt up, and of sour smoke itself there is ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
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... which he had obtained from William Roper, saw her and came out to her. He thought that she shrank a little at the sight of him, but assured himself that it must be fancy; surely there could be no reason why she should shrink from him. ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
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... upstairs. It was part of her plan that she should be left alone in the villa chloroformed. Thus only could suspicion be averted from herself. She did not shrink from the completion of the plan now. She went, the strange woman, without a tremor to her ordeal. Wethermill took the length of rope which had ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
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... men of the most daring character (and I make no claim to it) often do shrink from the logical processes of thought. It is only the devil, they say, that loves logic. But I was not a devil. I was not even a victim of the devil. It was only that I had given up the direction of my intelligence before ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
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... let the star of Massachusetts be the last which shall be seen to fall from heaven, and to plunge into the utter darkness of disunion. Let her shrink back, let her hold others back if she can, at any rate, let her keep herself back, from this gulf, full at once of fire and of blackness; yes, Sir, as far as human foresight can scan, or human imagination fathom, full of the fire and the blood of civil war, and of the thick ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
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... it was her concession to the fate which made her a governess. Courtesy and kindliness might lead those whose bread she ate to endeavour occasionally to remove all show of social distinction; neither her temperament nor her sense of comeliness in behaviour would allow her to shrink from such advances, but she could not lose sight of the unreality of the situations to which they led. Self-respect is conditioned by the influence of circumstance on character; in Emily it expressed itself as a subtle sensitiveness ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
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... particularly celebrated in Cordova, where they mingled in disputation, and frequently carried away the prizes of poetry and eloquence. Their riper years exhibited such fruits as were to be expected from their early education. The race of the Omeyades need not shrink from a comparison with any other dynasty of equal length in modern Europe. Many of them amused their leisure with poetical composition, of which numerous examples are preserved in Conde's History; and some left elaborate works of learning, which have maintained ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
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... been—ah, what, I dare not think! We all are changed. God judges for us best. God help us do our duty, and not shrink, And trust in heaven ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
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... challenge popular applause, or to attach private character, but justice demands that men who boldly claim to be the rulers of the free and happy state of Connecticut, should be known. The men who are to stand in the places of our Trumbulls and our Ellsworths should not shrink from public investigation. To those who respect the authority of God it is a matter of no small moment that those who rule over men should be just, ruling in the fear of God nor will men, accustomed to revere this ...
— Count The Cost • Jonathan Steadfast
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... was not quite unhappy while at this noble mansion, but neither was she quite happy. The Duke had a piercing eye, and when it flashed on her she seemed to shrink ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
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... and foul, dank and foul, By the smoky town in its murky cowl; Foul and dank, foul and dank, By wharf and sewer and slimy bank; Darker and darker the further I go, Baser and baser the richer I grow; Who dare sport with the sin defiled? Shrink from me, turn from me, mother ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
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... studded with flower-jewels and girdled with the mottled belts of velvet-green that are the glory of Devonion shrub-land, beyond which Tobray shimmers broad and blue under the breezy summer weather—I shrink from it with a strange reluctance that I cannot, shake ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
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... shalt thou Henceforth be king: the nation in thy name May issue edicts, champions may command The vassal multitudes of marshalled war, And the fierce charger shrink before the shouts, Lowered as if earth had opened at his feet, While thy mailed semblance rises toward the ranks, But God ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
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... How to Bake.—Bake empty pie crusts on the outside of the tin, instead of the inside, and they won't shrink. ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
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... countries, are districted and farmed for the collection of this papal revenue. Much of the money thus raised, remains in the hands of the vile collectors. Sincere Catholics, who love and honor the ancient religion, shrink with horror at the spectacle offered on every side. Criminals buying Paradise for money, monks spending the money thus paid in gaming houses, taverns, and brothels; this seems, to those who have studied their Testaments, a different scheme ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
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... you, Sir. What you have read is an imbecile embryo?'—'Your importunity, Mr. Trevor, and my desire to do you service have extorted an opinion from me. I must not shrink from the truth: in confirmation of what I have already said, I must add, that your composition is strong in language, but weak in argument.'—'Ha! ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
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... the grave, my dear boy, but I do not shrink from that prospect, because the bitterness of death is taken away by my Saviour, who died for my sins, and rose again for my justification; and though this body returns to dust, I shall live again, and enter into the presence of ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
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... appeared like the unextinguished snuff of a farthing candle, gleaming through the horn of a dark lanthorn. His nostrils were elevated in scorn, as if his sense of smelling had been perpetually offended by some unsavoury odour; and he looked as if he wanted to shrink within himself from the impertinence of society. He wore a black periwig as straight as the pinions of a raven, and this was covered with a hat flapped, and fastened to his head by a speckled handkerchief tied under his chin. He was wrapped ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
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... This time, however, it was not long before he was awakened by a feeling of hunger, and this satisfied, he slept again, almost unintermittently, for several days and nights. When at last he awoke he was quite calm, but oppressed by a gloomy reserve and desire to shrink more and more within himself. This was exactly what his mother ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
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... I replied, that, being a mortal like himself, I likewise found it a difficult task; but it did not become a person to shrink from a glorious but practicable undertaking, on account of the difficulties attending it, because in proportion to these difficulties, is the honour he acquires by it in the eye of man, and the merit in the sight of God. Our beneficent Creator is desirous, that, as he originally favoured human ...
— Discourses on a Sober and Temperate Life • Lewis Cornaro
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... Rosny. He did not like Levinge, and thought in the present instance he had behaved infamously, but it was the fashion hereditary in his gallant house to back the losing side; so, when he saw every one else shrink from the appeal, he bowed ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
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... call me a communist if you please," replied Sir Charles Sterling; "I do not shrink from shadows. Perhaps I am in favor of something nearer to communism than our present form of society. One thing I am clear about: no state of society is healthy wherein every man does not own himself to be the guardian of the interests of the community as well as his own—does ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
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... the doom of the hypocrite is so fearful! When his cloak is removed and the wolf appears in the presence of the angels, will they not shrink from him as one of us would shrink from a viper coiled about ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
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... not shrink from the stern tone, nor blush at the imputation. "I want you not to take away ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
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... The rich, the refined, the educated, whose time is their own, do not educate their own children. They systematically send them to schools and colleges, or pay for tutors or governesses under their own roof. They wisely shrink from a work for which, if they have the time, they seldom have the acquirements or the gift, or the method of the perseverance or the patience. And if this be, as it is, universally true of those who are the most competent, and the most provided with all ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
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... Marcionite church through the activity of one man, who was animated by a faith so strong that he was able to oppose his conception of Christianity to all others as the only right one, and who did not shrink from making selections from tradition instead of explaining it away. He was the first who laid the firm foundation for establishing what is Christian, because, in view of the absoluteness of his faith,[402] he had no desire to appeal either to a secret evangelic tradition, or to prophecy, ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
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... human love wakes it crushes fame like a dead leaf, and all the spirits and ministers of the mind shrink away before it, and can no more allure, no more console, but, sighing, pass into silence ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
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... succeeds—and I reckon it can be done in two or three months—we must then, before America takes any further military action to our disadvantage, make a more comprehensive and detailed peace proposal and not shrink from the probably great and heavy sacrifices we may ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
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... advantage in defending himself against so rash an assailant. "He did not shrink," he said, "from avowing himself the friend of the King's just prerogative," and in doing so he maintained that he had a title to be regarded as the champion of the people not less than of the crown. "Prerogative had been justly called a part of the rights of the people, and he was sure it was a ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
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... thou mightest inherit the word of that apostle whose episcopal seat thou hast acquired, of him who said, 'Thy gold perish with thee.' Oh that all the enemies of Zion might tremble before this dreadful word, and shrink back abashed! This, thy mother indeed expects and requires of thee, for this long and sigh the sons of thy mother, small and great, that every plant which our Father in heaven has not planted may be rooted up by thy hands." He then ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
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... called "wife." She, so late a shy woodland nymph, stealing to his embrace,—now an angered goddess, blazing before him, calling down upon him the lightnings of Olympus, with all the world to see him shrink and shrivel into nothingness! And all this power and passion, overtopping his utmost reach of art, outsoaring his wildest aspirations, he had wooed, fondled, and protected! At first he was overwhelmed with amazement; he could hardly have been more so, had a volcano broken out through his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
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... when Love's hand held a scourge, I craved rather the stress of the moorland with its bleaker mind imperative of sacrifice. To rest again under the lee of Rippon Tor swept by the strong peat-smelling breeze; to stare untired at the long cloud- shadowed reaches, and watch the mist-wraiths huddle and shrink round the stones of blood; until my sacrifice too was accomplished, and my soul had fled. A wild waste moor; a vast void sky; and naught between heaven and earth but man, his sin-glazed eyes seeking afar the distant light ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
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... lament, and it may be sincerely, that they cannot afford to face the practical logic of their social, political, and religious beliefs. They shrink from the consequences of the good fight of faith. "Had I only myself to consider," says one, "how gladly would I sacrifice myself to attack this wrong or that iniquity." We need offer no opinion about the moral quality of such a position; enough ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
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... and the passage of a camel through a needle's eye. Possibly it had come home to Mrs. Errington upon her death-bed. Possibly, as her end drew near she had perceived herself tower to camel size, the entrance to Paradise shrink to the circumference which refuses to receive a thread manipulated by an unsteady hand. Yes, yes; they began to expand in unctuous conjecture that merged into deliberate assertion, when some one remarked that Mrs. Errington had died in exactly ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
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... throws off her hat. Denise brings some water in a small, old silver basin, and rummages for the linen. Grandon turns up the sleeve of his daughter's dress, and now Cecil begins to cry and shrink away ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
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... modesty always accompany female love, which involuntarily shrink from close masculine contact until its mental phase is sufficiently developed to overrule the antagonistic ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
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... I had been wearing, and put on the Glengarry. When I arrived at the Maryborough junction, the train on the main line from Cork was late, and I walked up and down on the platform, well knowing that the detectives would scrutinize more closely those who appeared to shrink from observation; therefore, I affected the bearing of a Russian prince as nearly ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
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... has many avengers, and it well might befall—— See, I have shown thee the danger; thou must e'en take what follows. Come, Gunnar, we must gird ourselves for the fight. A famous deed didst thou achieve in Iceland, but greater deeds must here be done, if thou wouldst not have thy— thy leman shrink with shame from ...
— The Vikings of Helgeland - The Prose Dramas Of Henrik Ibsen, Vol. III. • Henrik Ibsen
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... the Rose blows along the River Brink, With old Khayyam the Ruby Vintage drink: And when the Angel with his darker Draught Draws up to thee—take that, and do not shrink. ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam • Omar Khayyam
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... so many questions of importance are in agitation.' I expressed as well as I could, and indeed it was but ill, my unfeigned and deep sense of his kindness, my hesitation to form any opinion of my own competency for the office, and at the same time my general desire not to shrink from any responsibility which he might think proper to lay upon me. He said that was the right and manly view to take.... He adverted to my connection with the West Indies as likely to give satisfaction to persons dependent on those colonies, and thought that others would not be displeased. ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
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... told of one individual that he wants the organ of colour; and all the culture in the world can never supply that defect, and enable him to see colour at all, or to see it as it is seen by the rest of mankind. Another wants the organ of benevolence; and his case is equally hopeless. I shrink from considering the condition of the wretch, to whom nature has supplied the organs of theft and murder in full and ample proportions. The case is ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
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... escape from a conflagration, I have not deemed it prudent to put clover in so green as to cause intense heating, or to fill a mow too rapidly. If we haul six loads per day to one mow, weighing thirty hundred each, which will shrink during the sweating process to one ton each, we have three tons of water to be thrown off ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
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... as on the top of Virtue's hill, Discountenance her despised, and put to rout All her array, her female pride deject, Or turn to reverent awe! For Beauty stands 220 In the admiration only of weak minds Led captive; cease to admire, and all her plumes Fall flat, and shrink into a trivial toy, At every sudden slighting quite abashed. Therefore with manlier objects we must try His constancy—with such as have more shew Of worth, of honour, glory, and popular praise (Rocks whereon ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
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... been dastard enough to say a syllable against her; neither had she, in the warmest faith of love, forgotten truth; but her own dejection drove her, not to revile the world (as sour natures do consistently), but to shrink from sight, and fancy that ...
— Frida, or, The Lover's Leap, A Legend Of The West Country - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
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... is, unfortunately. There is no institution so villainous but she will defend it; no tyranny so oppressive but she will make a virtue of submitting to it; no social cancer so venomous but she will shrink from cutting it out, and plead that it is a comfortable thing, and much better as it is. She knows that she disobeyed her father, and that he deserved to be disobeyed; yet she condemns other women who are disobedient, and stands out ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
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... the boy Thorolf before their eyes, we have a stage-dilemma presented to us-either the actress must treat the scene inadequately, or else intolerably. Ne pueros coram populo Medea trucidet, and we shrink from Hioerdis with a physical disgust. Her great hands and shrieking mouth are like Bellona's, and they ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
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