"Cringing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he had taken away all her courage, together with that nickel-plated symbol, she started back, almost cringing in a ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... pronounced, Essex spoke like a man who expected nothing but death; but he added, that he should be sorry if he were represented to the queen as a person that despised her clemency; though he should not, he believed, make any cringing submissions to obtain it. Southampton's behavior was more mild and submissive; he entreated the good offices of the peers in so modest and becoming a manner, as excited compassion in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... disposition to be submissive and cringing, circumstances occurred which compelled these Phoenicians to adopt a more energetic policy. The stream of Hellenic migration was pouring ceaselessly towards the west: it had already dislodged the Phoenicians from Greece proper and Italy, and it was preparing to supplant them also in Sicily, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... her exasperation. He gave a feeble squeak and she pushed him roughly down. Animals to her were a nuisance. She disliked them if she had any feeling at all. But Fou-Chow was an adjunct to her toilet sometimes, and was a coveted possession, envied by her many female friends. His tiny, cringing body irritated her though extremely when she was not using him for effect, and he was often kicked and ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... your Majesty," said a low cringing voice, approaching, "this man is in the walk against orders. There is some mistake, may it please your Majesty. Quit the walk, blockhead," ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... sorts, and pretty well dwarfed ethically. But no matter what they did, they were usually supported by their various governments, and the result to-day is a well-defined fear of the foreigner, a desire to sidestep him, to stand from under. It seems rather cowardly, this cringing attitude on the part of the Chinese, but it is the result of a century of experience with the ethics of the West. Brave men, unarmed, have been known to throw up their hands in ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... in his leisurely, emotionless way, "you have fight with my frien' Jake for thee packet. Yes? Ver' amusing." He shrugged his indifference, tossed the rifle to his shoulder and, without another glance at the cringing creature on the ground, walked away toward Drowned ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... not, dad would go and hunt them up, and divide his roll with them. Dad is not what you would call a "tight wad," if you let him shed his money normally, when he feels the loosening coming on, but you try to work him by bowing and cringing, and his American spirit gets the better of him, and he looks upon the servant as pretty low down. I have told him that the tipping habit is just as bad in America as in France, but he says in America the servant acts as though he never had such a thought as getting a tip, and when you give ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... every-day aims they encountered, and the teachings of their Eagleswood mentors, was forced upon them. Forgotten lessons of truth and honesty and purity were remembered, and the wavering resolve was stayed and strengthened; worldly expediency gave way before the magnanimous purpose, cringing subserviency before independent manliness. The letters of affection, gratitude, and appreciation of what had been done to make true men and women of them, which were received by the Welds, in many cases, years after they had parted from the writers, were treasured as their ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... excellently arranged; and that there a woman without servants was as quickly attended to as a gentleman, since they find her money not less acceptable than that of the latter. The case is very different, however, at a Russian post station; when an official or officer comes, every one is active enough, cringing round the watering-place for fear of flogging or punishment. Officers and officials belong, in Russia, to the privileged class, and assume all kinds of despotism. If, for example, they do not travel on duty, they should not, according to the regulations, have any greater advantages than private ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... point of view, showing how such indiscriminate almsgiving in perpetual driblets is sure to create the absurd and immoral system which one sees throughout Russia,—hordes of men and women who are able to take care of themselves, and who ought to be far above beggary, cringing and whining to the passers-by for alms; but I had come to know the man well enough to feel sure that a politico-economical argument would slide off him like water from a duck's back, so I attempted to take him upon another side, and said: "In ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... progress and soon found something to do in the office of Intendant Hocquart where Bigot found him and succeeded in having him appointed clerk in the Colonial Office at Quebec. Industrious, but at heart a sycophant, by dint of cringing he won the good graces of Bigot, who soon put unlimited trust in him, to that degree as to do nothing without Deschenaux's aid, but Deschenaux was vain, ambitious, haughty and overbearing and of such inordinate greed, that he was in the ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... was—sprang up and made the bound required to bring him within reach of his friend's hand, which he forthwith seized and carried to his lips, cringing ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... men, with his wits sharpened by his own experiences, he never allowed himself to be fooled by servile cringing and flattery. He listened to people, but how often have I heard him say: "He is no good; he is a toady." Such people never found favour with him, as he always mistrusted them at the outset. He was protected more than others in ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... right side up, or wrong side up, they serve the purpose of those who play them. There's a poor, harmless devil back there," with a nod toward Bleiberg. "He never injured a soul. Perhaps that's it; had he been cruel, avaricious, sly, all of them would be cringing at his feet. Devil take me—but I'm a soldier," he broke off abruptly; ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... of liberty. He who would be respected must respect himself. The best friend of the Negro is he who would rather see, within the borders of this republic one million free citizens of that race, equal before the law, than ten million cringing serfs existing by a contemptuous sufferance. A race that is willing to survive upon any other terms is scarcely ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... pedigree is known as the Matriarchate, an ancient social system only retained in Western Sumatra, and among certain South American tribes. The resolute mien and dignified carriage of the Sumatran woman denote clear consciousness of her supreme importance. The cringing submission so painfully characteristic of Oriental womanhood is wholly unknown, and though nominally of Mohammedan faith, the humble position prescribed by the Koran to the female sex is a forgotten article of Sumatra's hereditary creed. After marriage (forbidden between ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... opened, and a small dark man, of sharp weasel-like aspect, entered the room. He had a skulking shuffling gait, and, notwithstanding his soldier's dress, his sabre and his spurs, the man looked mean. He spoke with a cringing accent, and saluted his officer with a cringing gesture. He was just the sort of person to be employed upon some equivocal service, and by such men as Vizcarra and Roblado; and in that way he had more than once served them. ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... strolled down to the river. He did not know which was more painful to witness: Hempel's unmanly cringing, or the air of fatuous satisfaction that succeeded it. When he returned, the pair was just setting out; he watched Sarah, on Hempel's arm, picking short ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... marvelled. That kind of thing, with him, was evidently a vocation. I discovered suddenly in his cringing attitude a sort of assurance, as though he had been all his life dealing in certitudes. He must have thought I was dispassionately considering his proposal, because he became as sweet as honey. "Every gentleman made a provision ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... in law, a centre of conscience—even geographically—in a world relapsing to Pagan chaos. And its flag shall be a "shield of David," with the Lion of Judah rampant, and twelve stars for the Tribes. No more of the cringing and the whispering in dark corners; no surreptitious invasion of Palestine. The Jew shall demand right, not tolerance. Israel shall walk erect. And he, Israel's spokesman, will not juggle with diplomatic combinations—he will play cards on table. He has nothing to say to the ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... company of Chaldaeans, sacrificers, and interpreters of the Sibyl's books, persuaded Octavius that things would turn out happily, and kept him at Rome. He was, indeed, of all the Romans the most upright and just, and maintained the honor of the consulate, without cringing or compliance, as strictly in accordance with ancient laws and usages, as though they had been immutable mathematical truths; and yet fell, I know not how, into some weaknesses, giving more observance ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... disappointment, or in an abandonment of the path of duty. If they are guilty of robbery and oppression, they must be arraigned as criminals, or they never will reform: for why should honest, benevolent men change their conduct? If, through a false delicacy of feeling or cringing policy, their wickedness be covered up, alas for the slaves, and alas for the regeneration of the south! all hope ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... gown, whose awkward, spruce, prim, sneering, and smirking countenances, the very tone of their voices, and an ungainly strut in their walk, without one single talent for any one office, have contrived to get good preferment by the mere force of flattery and cringing: for which two virtues (the only two virtues they pretend to) they were, however, utterly unqualified. And whom, if I were in power, although they were my nephews or had married my nieces, I could never in point of good conscience or honour, have recommended ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... closed, sandbags, mattresses, or little heaps of earth piled over cellar windows; streets in which the only sound was that of one's own feet, where the loneliness was made more lonely by some forgotten dog cringing against the closed door and barking nervously ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... the pessimist sees purse-pride, pompous and outrageous arrogance, a cringing of the pregnant hinges of the knee, false standards, and a thousand faults in this admission. And yet the optimist finds the "very rich," with but few exceptions, amiable, generous, and kindly, ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... carry it off with an indifferent gesture and a quick movement toward her room. I admired her self-control, for it was self-control, and was contrasting the stateliness of her present bearing with the cringing attitude of a few minutes before—when, without warning or any premonitory sound, all that beauty and pride and splendor collapsed before my eyes, and she fell at ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... burst above the crackling fire and the tumult of man and dog in a weird and savage beauty that hushed all sound; and life about him became like life struck suddenly dead. With his head bowed Jan saw nothing—saw nothing of the wonder in the faces of the half- cringing little black men who were squatted in a group a dozen feet away, nothing of the staring amazement in the eyes that were looking upon this miracle he was performing. He knew only that about him there was a deep hush, and after a while his violin sang a lower song, ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... Caesar, when Egypt's cringing traitor brought The gory gift of Pompey's honour'd head, Check'd the full gladness of his instant thought, And specious tears of well-feign'd pity shed: And Hannibal, when adverse Fortune wrought On his afflicted empire evils dread, 'Mid shamed and sorrowing friends, ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... contents, and only to produce it under certain given conditions. Now Bas stood glaring at Sim Squires with eyes that burned like madness out of a face white and passion distorted, and Sim gave back a step, cringing before the man whose ungoverned ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... yet such a year as this, I am almost persuaded, is worth a score of years of peace. It certainly has achieved more for truth and humanity and God than the score of years which preceded it. As a nation, we had become almost despicable. Such supple, yielding slaves of 'Democratic' demagogues; such cringing, fawning, knee-bending, hand-kissing agents of the diabolical, traitorous Slave-Power; such apologists and supporters of Wrong; such pusillanimous, weak-hearted advocates of the unpopular Right; such slaves to Cotton and its threats, that we had almost lost the God-given independence of American ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... little just to help me on my way, sir," said he cringing mendicant. "You won't see an old comrade go to the bad for the sake of a few rupees? I was with Sale's brigade in the Passes, sir, and I was at the second taking ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... nights ago even she had greeted the crack of the whips with the furious thought, "Strike again!"—and now there stole into her brain, together with the light hallucinations of fever, a hatred of these cringing black men who for a moment had dared to stand before her as antagonists. The evening breeze brought to her, from the porters' fires, the odor of savage bodies that had labored and been beaten for the cause of love; and her disgust ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... these haughty Mohammedans, from the bare-legged, barefooted, cringing, crouching creatures you see farther south. It would seem impossible for these men to stoop for any purpose, but the Bengalese, the Hindustani and the rest of the population of the southern provinces, do everything ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... too lamentable a face for a man, Some abject louse asking leave to be, cringing for it, Some milk-nosed maggot blessing what lets it wrig to ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... for any spirit of independence among the Christian members; and this not more in consequence of the domineering spirit of the Turks, than from the natural disposition of the Christians, which is cringing and corrupt. Time and education can alone effect a change for the better. The government may, by the promulgation of useful edicts, and by the establishment of schools common to all religions, materially hasten this desirable ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... tramplers upon the poor, there is none so fierce and reckless as the upstart that sprang from their ranks. The offensive pride of Jacques Coeur to his inferiors was the theme of indignant reproach in his own city, and his cringing humility to those above him was as much an object of contempt to the aristocrats into whose society he thrust himself. But Jacques did not care for the former, and to the latter he was blind. He continued his career till he became ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... discomfited. The landlord forsook him instantly for me, then stole a glance at his guest to test his seriousness, and looked at my face to see how greatly it were at variance with my clothes. The temptation to lay hands on the cringing little toadeater grew too strong for me, and I picked him up by the scruff of the collar,—he was all skin and bones,—and spun him round like a corpse upon a gibbet, while he cried mercy in a voice to wake the dead. The slim gentleman under the sign laughed until he held his sides, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... minute he stood thus and then there broke from his lips the long, weird cry of ape calling to ape and he was away through the jungle toward the sound of the booming drum of the anthropoids leaving behind him an awakened and terrified village of cringing blacks, who would forever after connect that eerie cry with the disappearance of their white prisoner and the death ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... veranda, awaiting this same judge, annoyed as two boats came in without the expected guest. And never for one instant did he dream that his creature sat closeted with Plank, tremulous, sallow, nearing the edge of cringing avowal—only held back from utter collapse by the agonising necessity of completing a bargain that might save himself from the degradation of the punishment that had seemed inevitable. All day long ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... David's loyalty, and be true to our duty, true to our masters, true to our country and true to our queen, through whatever trials and temptations. Above all, let us learn from David to obey; and remember that to obey we need not become cringing and slavish, or give up independence and high spirit. David did neither. Unless you learn to obey, as David did, you will never learn to rule. Imitate David—and so you will imitate David's greater son, even our Lord Jesus Christ. For herein ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... weapons only loaded with ball cartridge, that their sense of decency may not be offended by the distasteful recollection of killing a man in cold blood. For this assures that no man knows whether his was the rifle that sped the living soul from that pitiful cringing body. ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... not dry," said the other excitedly; "he drules. One sees the fly-blown old fop drule and look wise. His vile wisdom is made the viler by his vile rheuminess. The bowing and cringing, time-serving old sinner—is such an one to give manly precepts to youth? The discreet, decorous, old dotard-of-state; senile prudence; fatuous soullessness! The ribanded old dog is paralytic all down one side, and that the side of nobleness. ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... to cringing before my father did not give me hope that I should escape his direst revenge; and the expression of Lorraine's face showed me, by its sympathy, what he expected. But we were both wrong, and for reasons which ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... note of consciousness in her rapture, something like a patronizing approval of the sky by one who looked at it with a professional eye. Nevertheless, I felt that my poor soul was cringing before her ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... conceive such a spectacle as these gorgeous men of scarlet and purple cringing before this poor pretender, and openly avowing before Europe that there is no peace for them till he consents ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... his way close, keeping his form out of range of the Negro's eyes. The brute was looking neither to the right or left now, his whole being absorbed in the cruel joy of the torture he was about to inflict on the helpless, cringing thing that clung to his arm ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... by his discoveries. By living a plain but honest life, declining magnificent offers of positions from royal patrons, at the same time refusing to grovel before nobility, he set a worthy example to other philosophers whose cringing and pusillanimous attitude towards persons of wealth or position had hitherto earned them the contempt of the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... Uncovering her fountain, she looked at it again. It was good work; she knew it was good; she could be certain it was good. It should justify her yet, and some day the stupid people who were sheering away from her now would come cringing to ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... experience and ignore all history has never been made in any relation whatever; and the wonder is, that, few as they are, so many Americans have been led astray by it. To any individual, of even the most ordinary penetration, it must be obvious, that the present cringing and treacherous attitude assumed by England towards the American people, is but the mask of a foul and dangerous spirit, snatched up in a moment of mortal fear to be worn only until some opportune moment arrives when it can ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... this new anguish of pain, and fear, and humiliation, compared with which the kicks and stranglings of the early part of the night were as nothing at all. In a few seconds of time the proudest of princes in the dog world was reduced to a shuddering, cringing object, cowering in one corner ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... believe she cares a straw for me personally," Belle would say sometimes, "but I must confess I like her better than the cringing, fawning variety. She's outspoken ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... our experiences, instead of hiding it. That would be a real service to humanity, for this composite truth, assembled and studied, must lead to wisdom; but men and women are such pitiful cowards, such cringing toadies to convention. It ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... do," protested the Chinaman cringing away. "Allatime keep mouth shut my. No ask my. No tell my. Allatime buy, sell ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... servile souls this mill we fed, That ground the grain for Slavery's bread; With cringing men, and grovelling deeds, We dwarfed our land to Slavery's needs; Till all the scornful nations hissed, To see ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... begun. What school-mistress could fail to be proud of the distinction of obtaining his three daughters as pupils at any hour of the twenty-four when he saw fit to proffer them? He expected to find a cringing, deferential young person, who would, in the interest of her own bread and butter, accede without a murmur to any stipulations which so important a patroness as Mrs. Horace Barker might see fit to impose. He became conscious, in the first place, that ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... and when death is faced. She had passed beyond tears and pleading and crying out. It was given Kendric then to learn that when the crisis had come it found in the girl's heart a courage to sustain her. Her face was set, her attitude was no longer cringing. In such tender breasts as Betty's have beat the ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... very suggestive of a dog in the cringing attitude of the creature. It retreated a little way, very like a dog being sent home, and stopped, looking at me imploringly ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... He fell against Yellow Handkerchief's knees, who stumbled over him, and the pair wallowed in the bailing hole where the cockpit floor was torn open. The next instant I was covering them with my revolver, and the wild shrimp-catchers were cowering and cringing away. ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... embarrassment upon their vis-a-vis' face had begun to swell into the cringing leer familiarly precedent to an appeal for leniency, when the fellow leaned forward, stared fearfully at the Judge, and, dropping the pullet with a screech, ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... scorn, ill-report, and hatred; nay, he had even diligently gone to work, and lost his own self-love and self-respect in the service of his darling idol. He was at once, for lucre's sake, the mean, cringing fawner, and the pitiless, iron despot; to the rich he could play supple parasite, while the poor man only knew him as an unrelenting persecutor; with the good, and they were chiefly of the fairer, softer sex, he walked in meekness, the ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... pocket, without reference to the morals, happiness, or education of the pupils committed to his care. All I care to remember of this false priest (and there were many such of old, whatever may be the case now) are his cruel punishments, which passed for discipline, his careful cringing to parents, and his careless indifference towards their children, and in brief his total unfitness for the twin duties of pastor and teacher. A large private school of mixed ages and classes is perilously liable to infection ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... woman of her,' said Hollyhock. 'She is naught in life but a cringing kitchen cat at present, but it is our bounden duty to turn her into something better. How shall we set to ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... heavy flowered brocade was festooned with strings of gold and silver coins that rattled as she walked; the skirt, made short in front, as she stamped her foot, showed the leg above the yellow riding boots, in bright red trousers. This was her appearance when she cried: "Now let that cringing ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... air. Sir John Beckett is just gone to stand for Leeds, and certainly the catechism to which he was there forced to submit is very ominous. A seat in the House of Commons will cease to be an object of ambition to honourable and independent men, if it can only be obtained by cringing and servility to the rabble of great towns, and when it shall be established that the member is to be a slave, bound hand and foot by pledges, and responsible for every vote he gives to masters who are equally tyrannical and unreasonable. I know nothing more difficult than to form a ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... harmed them not. Yet the submission of the small to the great planter was a convenience rather than a necessity. The wilderness, with the Indian as a part of it, developed a crude and a ruthless spirit, but never a cringing or a submissive one. The gentleman and the magistrate were deferred to, but neither was regarded as sacrosanct; and when, in the regime of Berkeley, special privilege in alliance with official corruption seemed to be narrowing the chances ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... chariot, and came off with a hatful of gold, but the victims, impatient of disaster, raised the county, and Gentleman Harry was laid by the heels. Never at a loss, he condescended to a cringing hypocrisy: he whined, he whimpered, he babbled of reform, he plied his prosecutors with letters so packed with penitence, that they abandoned their case, and in a couple of days Simms had eased a collector at ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... bowed, without any cringing servility, but with an open, decent freedom in his manner, which expressed that he had been obliged, but that he knew his young benefactor was not thinking of the obligation. He made as little distinction as possible between his bows ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... my friend: d-n it, gentlemen, don't be rude. That's coming the thing a little too familiar. There is a medium: please direct your moist appropriations and your improper remarks in their proper places." The girl, cringing beneath the ruffian's hand, places the necessary receptacle ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... and more than once had sat down with her pencil to transcribe her thoughts. She thought that it was not exactly fear, but an overpowering realization of her own atomity; a sort of cringing of the soul away from the utter vastness of the world; a growing consciousness of the unlimited bigness of things; an insight of the infinite power of God—the yearning of the soul for understanding of the mysteries of ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... to free those who had been forced by misfortune or poverty into slavery. He had also entertained lavishly rich and poor alike, and thus given to all an example of practical charity. His authority as Persian governor doubtless carried great weight with the cringing, greedy leaders at Jerusalem. Above all, the force of his personality was irresistible. It is easy to imagine the powerful impression which his words made upon them. The restoration of their lands and the freeing of their children were undoubtedly mighty factors in ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... as I foretold! The wretches will forswear the sacred'st ties, Cringing for life. Serpents, ye all shall die. So wills the Landgrave; so the court affirms. Your daughter shall be first, whose wanton arts Have brought destruction ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... a Month, a Little Month—the Dudish Roderick Dhu was a cringing devotee at the Vestal Shrine of the Maiden Priestess, Praying that she should receive all his Suppliant Love, and "right smart" of his devotion. He would never leave Her Side. He would Never, never Smile on other Maidens. He would Sacrifice each Trusted and Trusting Friend and Creditor. She MUST ...
— Love Instigated - The Story of a Carved Ivory Umbrella Handle • Douglass Sherley
... at Birdalone and moved not a while; and she stood with her hands before her face cringing before him. Then he raised his arm and cast the weapon far into the bushes of the bank- side, and then came forward and stood before Birdalone, and drew down her hands from her face and stared in the eyes of her, holding her by the two arms; ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... and buff, in compliment to Fox and his principles, forth came the young Duchess of Devonshire and her sister, now Lady Duncannon, and solicited votes for their candidate. The mob were gratified by the aspect of so much rank, so great beauty, cringing for their support. Never, it was said, had two "such lovely portraits ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... his body seemed to rush into his face. "D—n the purse," said he, as he snatched it up. He dashed a handful of money on the ground before the pale, cringing waiter. "There—be off," cried he; "John, order the postilions ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... mystery of iniquity. The witnesses made oath that they had heard some of the liverymen* frequently railing at their mistress. They said she was a troublesome fiddle-faddle old woman, and so ceremonious that there was no bearing of her. They were so plagued with bowing and cringing as they went in and out of the room that their backs ached. She used to scold at one for his dirty shoes, at another for his greasy hair and not combing his head. Then she was so passionate and fiery in her temper that there was no living with her. She wanted something to sweeten her blood. ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... died on the scaffold, Rudge, the murderer, was hanged, cursing all men to the last; Maypole Hugh died glorying in his evil life and with a jest on his lips, and Dennis, the hangman, was dragged to the gallows cringing and ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... of not more than nine miles, which had taken them five hours to travel, they were agreeably accommodated for the night in a neat cottage; and the Albanian landlord, in whose demeanour they could discern none of that cringing, downcast, sinister look which marked the degraded Greek, received them with a ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... It never broke. Alvina felt that the very force of the sullen, silent fearlessness and fury in the Tawaras had prevented its bursting. Once there had been a weakening, a cringing, they would all have been lost. But their hearts hardened with black, indomitable anger. And the cloud melted, it passed away. There ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... is denied the average American abroad. The European traveller from the States, who is not a Croesus, speedily finds himself reduced to a chronic state of self-conscious sordidness by the hordes of cringing robbers who clutter his steps from dawn till dark, and deplete his pocket-book in a way that puts ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... Mouchy stepped forward to meet his visitors with a cringing air, the cat, less of a hypocrite than its master, retreated to the far end of the table, and began to hiss like a ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... she was cringing before the spectre of destitution. He asked what she would do about it, and saw the shadow of terror cross her face again. There was one recourse from starvation, it seemed—to have her children taken from her, and put in some institution! At the mention of this, ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... shrinking back into his corner like a scared child, and Rachel's eyes began to dance. Something in the situation pleased her wonderfully. That Dan, who had scarcely spoken to her since the tragedy of his brother's death, should be cringing and pleading before her, all his prideful gloom quivering into a girlish terror of being seen in old clothes, was very satisfying to her. She would have liked to prolong the situation, but could not bring herself to ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... three times his fare," Arnold said austerely, "and he deserved nothing—but a fine, perhaps." The man was suppliant before them, cringing, salaaming, holding joined palms open. Hilda lifted her head and looked over the shoulders of the little rabble, where the sun stood golden upon the roadside and two naked children played with a torn pink kite. Something seemed ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... looking up at him rather impatiently, "how goes it?" He was looking to-day more miserable, more cringing and haggard and downtrodden than I had ever seen him. He was at that stage of misery where he drew your pity so fully that you longed to ...
— Options • O. Henry
... truth, absolute truth, as he was while he listened to Chichester. There was something, though, that was almost deadly about it. It pierced like a lancet. It seared like a red-hot iron. It humbled almost too much. Here was no exaggerated humility, no pleading to be borne with, no cringing, and no doubt. A man who knew was standing up, and, with a sort of indifference to outside opinion that was almost frightening, was saying some of the things he knew about men, ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... in the editorial seat. What, expect to make a newspaper pay and not beg for patronage? Why the very idea was enough to make newspaperdom go to pieces with laughter. Begging for patronage, howling for subscribers, cringing, crawling, changing color like the chameleon, howling for Barabbas or bellowing against Jesus, all these things must your newspaper do to prosper. On them verily hang the whole law and all the profits of modern journalism. This is what the devil of competition ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... she cried. "You coward! It is like you to find pleasure in inflicting pain upon a helpless man, and a defenseless woman! What is it you wish me to tell you? Come, speak up. Don't sit cringing ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... cringing and terrified goods to the guardian of the barracoon, the Arab returned to his tent beside the beautiful lake, and there, while enjoying the aroma of flowers and the cool breeze, and the genial sunshine, ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... all the whisperings of the women, the frowns of his enemies, the cringing attitudes of dandified hangers-on, were making Vaudrey feel very uncomfortable, when to his great relief he suddenly observed coming towards him, peering hither and thither through his monocle, evidently in search of some one, Guy de ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... placed there for that purpose; for, after a silent dinner, they swallow a hasty glass of wine, and retire to plan some mischievous trick, or to ridicule the person or manners of the very people they have just been cringing to, and whom they ought to consider as the representatives ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... self, can there be anything so inclusive as being true to your manhood? Stand upright and do not be either cringing or vulgarly self-assertive. Be righteous. Let your words and deeds correspond. Lead no double life. ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... you cringing Judas!" interrupted the stern command of the count; "open the door and set me as free as your villainy found me. I hold no parley ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... the fact of the gray hairs assumed, the purpose of deceit, the cringing attitude, and adds a vague effect of power. The same vagueness is habitually studied by Milton in such phrases as "the vast abrupt," "the palpable obscure," "the void immense," "the wasteful deep," where, by ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... change in him, from what he was before the operation, is shocking. Imagine a young dare-devil of twenty-two, who had no greater fear of danger or death than of a cold, now a cringing, cowering fellow; apparently an old man, nursing his life with pitiful tenderness, fearful that at any moment something may happen to break the hold of his aorta-walls on the stiletto-blade; a confirmed hypochondriac, peevish, melancholic, unhappy ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... at the bridge. "Come in," said Norman to his follower, as he crossed the entrance of the little shop, the first time he had ever been there. A little cringing shrivelled old ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... suffer more sorely, he did not wince more tenderly under the lash of his own terrors, than Flavia suffered; than she winced, seeing him thus, seeing at last her idol as he was—the braggadocio stripped from him, and the poor, cringing creature displayed. If her pride of race—and the fabled Wicklow kings, of whom she came, were often in her mind—if that pride needed correction, she had it here. If she had thought too much of her descent—and the more in proportion as fortune had straitened ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... prejudice. They neither shield nor explain, but thrust them forth grimly into school or street and let them learn as they may from brutal fact. Out of this may come strength, poise, self-dependence, and out of it, too, may come bewilderment, cringing deception, and self-distrust. It is, all said, a brutal, unfair method, and in its way it is as bad as shielding and indulgence. Why not, rather, face the facts and tell the truth? Your child is wiser ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... Argyle; and the Bishop's summoner, that they called the Deil's Rattle-bag; and the wicked guardsmen, in their laced coats; and the savage Highland Amorites, that shed blood like water; and many a proud serving-man, haughty of heart and bloody of hand, cringing to the rich, and making them wickeder than they would be; grinding the poor to powder, when the rich had broken them to fragments. And mony, mony mair were coming and ganging, a' as busy in their vocation as if they had ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... if I were to occupy the Creator's position as supreme judge in a case of that kind? Would I not think far more of the man who would come forward courageously and take the punishment he deserved than the creeping, cringing and whining being who begged for mercy? Would God the Creator be more unreasonable about the matter than I, whom He ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... himself facile princeps in a circle of the highest nobility in the land. Thus it is that in the clubs of the day we find title and wealth mingling with wit and genius; and the writer who had begun life by a cringing dedication, was now rewarded by the devotion and assiduity of the men he had once flattered. When Steele, Swift, Addison, Pope, and Congreve were the kings of their sets, it was time for authors to look and talk big. Eheu! those happy ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... black figure inquiringly. It was not often that poor, cringing Jocko ventured to question him. "Yes, sloop," he said with an emphasis born of his ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... never meet in bloody fray, Nor cut each others' throats, for pay. 40 Of beasts, it is confess'd, the ape Comes nearest us in human shape; Like man he imitates each fashion, And malice is his ruling passion; But both in malice and grimaces 45 A courtier any ape surpasses. Behold him humbly cringing wait Upon a minister of state; View him soon after to inferiors, Aping the conduct of superiors; 50 He promises with equal air, And to perform takes equal care. He in his turn finds imitators; At court, the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... contingency was always uppermost in his mind. Not from any feeling of personal pride, for of a truth vanity is a mortal sin, but because Mistress Charity had of late cast uncommonly kind eyes on that cringing worm, Master Courage Toogood, and the latter, emboldened by the minx's favors, had been more than ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... Pedro, roughly jerking the lariat in the direction of the steps, as a hint to the prisoner that he was to descend them; and in this ignominious fashion the once arrogant but now cowering and cringing Spaniard was led away under Jack's supervision, while Carlos, selecting a heavy riding-whip from the rack, followed the procession. The prisoner was conducted to the negro quarters, which were situated about ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... suddenly white and haggard. His voice was a cringing whine; his eyes groveled. "Marr was at Lisner's house. We all went over there after the fight. Lisner waked Marr up—he'd been tryin' to egg Marr on to kill Foy all day, but Marr was too drunk. He was sobering up when we waked him. ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... stopped for a pedestrian light, and a sports model bounced jauntily to a stop beside it. The driver cocked an eyebrow at Marlowe and chuckled. "Say, Fatso, which one of you's the Buick?" Then the light changed, the car spurted away, and left Marlowe cringing. ...
— Citadel • Algirdas Jonas Budrys
... sharp ears, and the action with sharp eyes, and a certain cringing air was infusing itself into his bullying air, when his attention was ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... All the cringing Peons in the big Stockade hated him because he had a Drag. It was up to him to deliver the Merchandise and demonstrate that he was a Human Being rather ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... he said tensely. "Is it for want of something better that you give so much affection to that cringing beast"—he pointed to the poodle who was crawling abjectly on his stomach toward her from the bureau where he had taken refuge—"is it a child that your arms are wanting—not a dog?" His face was drawn, and he stared at her with fierce hunger smouldering in his eyes. He was hurting ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... was, in every respect, such an inferior creature to the Indian—he was so vulgar, so ugly, so cringing, and so prosy—that he is quite unworthy of being reported, at any length, in these pages. The substance of what he had to tell me may be ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... not likely to die," sternly replied Frank, looking full into the Frenchman's cringing face, "do you know who ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... always sleeps with me when my husband is absent Napoleon invasion of States of the American Commonwealth Not only portable guillotines, but portable Jacobin clubs Procure him after a useless life, a glorious death Should our system of cringing continue progressively Sold cats' meat and tripe in the streets of Rome Sufferings of individuals, he said, are nothing Suspicion is evidence United States will be exposed to Napoleon's outrages Who complains is shot as ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Court Memoirs of France • David Widger
... through the crowd, to our hotel-breakfast. And, it seemed, he must have filled up his time at Dover with trumpetings of our importance: for the landlord welcomed us on the perron, obsequiously cringing; we entered in a respectful hush that might have flattered his Grace of Wellington himself; and the waiters, I believe, would have gone on all-fours, but for the difficulty of reconciling that posture with efficient service. I knew myself at last for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... bubbled up from a deep, passionate insight into the well-springs of human nature. In 1601, as in 'The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg,' and in 'The Mysterious Stranger,' he tore the masks off human beings and left them cringing before the public view. With the deftness of a master surgeon Clemens dealt with human emotions and delighted in exposing ...
— 1601 - Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors • Mark Twain
... apprehension that underlies all maturity, a sense of the proximity of blind accident, evil chance, disaster. At last he was opposed to life itself, with an immense stake to gain, to hold; in the midst of a seething, treacherous conflict arbitrarily ended by death. There was no cringing, absolutely no cowardice, in him. He was glad that it was all immediately about him; he was arrogant in pressing forward to take what he wanted from existence. He forgot all premonitions, doubt was behind him; he no longer gauged the value of his ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... the idea of thousands of dollars. When people talked about his work they always said, "He's making such and such a sum of money," and to keep up this wealth, the indispensable companion of his glory, he had to paint by the job, cringing before the vulgar ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... cold bath and refused to budge. No sooner were lightning-like instructions rapped out upstairs than down flew the irate captain, rapped at the door, demanded admission, and—in the absence of steam upon the wall—sentenced the cringing truant to a month's suspension ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... with his back rounded into a circle, scraping and cringing, an obsequious smile upon ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... asked Masirewa what he said. "Oh," he said airily, "I told him to keep his pig of a child away from the white chief." Masirewa, was a character, and evidently had no respect for chiefs and princes, etc., as he treated all the "Bulis" as his equals, which was very different from the generally cringing attitude of the Fijians to their chiefs. Even the high and mighty "Buli" of Nabukaluku [10] seemed to like his cheek. Masirewa liked to show off his English, though no one understood a word, and his favourite way of addressing them ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... could give it. He could put himself forward, and could keep himself in the background. He could shoot well without wanting to shoot best. He could fetch and carry, but still do it always with an air of manly independence. He could subserve without an air of cringing. And then he looked like ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... however remote, to the dwellers in Judah. Manasseh had mixed so much with Christians, and had been treated by the Protector so completely as an equal, that he retained but little of the servility of tone or manner, and less of the cringing and submissive demeanour, that characterised his tribe; he therefore spoke boldly to Sir Willmott Burrell, after a burst of strong and bitter feeling. He knew himself protected by the ruler of England, and felt undaunted in the presence of one he could easily destroy; but then he ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... all ready to stand on the defensive, sent back his hongo; but, instead of using threats, said he would oblige us with donkeys or anything else if we would only give him a few more pretty cloths. With this cringing, perfidious appeal I refused to comply, until the sheikh, still more cringing, implored me to give way else not a single man would remain with me. I then told him to settle with the chief himself, and give me the account, which amounted to three barsati, two sahari, and three yards merikani; ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... not very numerous; the persons who attend on a customer are all children of various ages, and exceedingly intelligent and courteous, but without the least touch of importunity or cringing. The shopkeeper himself might or might not be visible; when visible, he seemed rarely employed on any matter connected with his professional business; and yet he had taken to that business from special liking for it, and quite independently of his ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... they all arrived, and Sumunter with them, riding on a pony. I felt much incensed as the Abban came cringing up to me, and proclaimed him in presence of the sultan and all my men a traitor and robber, mentioning all his villanies in detail, and begging he would leave my camp at once, for I could not travel with him. ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... ye do. Think it over. Old Jabe will put his foot right down an' he'll stop Ruth havin' anything ter do with ye— ye know it! Wal, now; think it over. I got a conscience, I have," pursued Parloe, cringing and rubbing his hands together, his sly little eyes sparkling. "I r'ally feel as though I'd oughter tell yer dad who it was almost run ye down that night and made ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... heiress. I tell you, Spring Bank, Kentucky—crazy old rat trap as it is, has done wonders for me in the way of getting me noticed. If I had any soul, big enough to find with a microscope, I believe I should hate the North for cringing so to anything from Dixie. Let the veriest vagabond in all the South, so ignorant that he can scarcely spell baker correctly, to say nothing of biscuit, let him, I say, come to any one of the New York hotels, and with something of a swell write himself ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... sense of equality with his companion, though it was only an equality in crime, had suddenly brought about a change for the better in Spurling. He carried himself freely, in the old defiant manner, and had lost his attitude of cringing subservience. At first Granger had it in his heart to hate him for the change, knowing, as he did, that it arose from an unhesitating acceptance of this chance-heard, unproved assertion of his own kindred degradation. But soon the hatred gave way to another emotion, ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson |
