"Shirking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... what thy strength is, for he who would risk so great a venture must be high-hearted and dauntless, shirking neither the good nor the evil, so that to which he hath set his hand may come to pass. All unworthy is it to take up great issues and afterwards to lay them down again with dishonour.' Then did Gold Harald answer: 'To such purpose will I take up this claim, that I will not even spare ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... over. Oh, I didn't want to go back to Mrs. Borden. It is so lovely and quiet and beautiful here. But it is right. I am her bound-out girl, and I was glad to go there. You wouldn't like me to be always looking for what was nice and pleasant and shirking ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... it is to be a misunderstood man. So you think, among other bad qualities, I have the habit of shirking work? Let me tell you, Miss Bartlett, that the reason I am here is because I have worked too hard. Now, confess that you are sorry for what you said—trampling on an already ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... be done for the soldier whose presence in the old chateau and whose behavior were equally puzzling, and as there was no one else, Sally had no idea of shirking the immediate task. In her Camp Fire kit she always ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... his decision and energy had filled the alarmed Guardians with respect and this respect had begun to be shared by many other persons. A man as prompt in action, and as faithful to such responsibilities as many men might have found plausible reasons enough for shirking, inevitably assumed a certain dignity of aspect, when all was said and done. Lord Dunholm was most clear in his expressions of opinion concerning him. Lady Alanby of Dole made a practice of speaking of him in public frequently, always ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... says good-bye to her diary—perhaps for aye. She steals from the house—to a very different scene, which (if one were sufficiently daring) would represent a Man's Chambers at Midnight. There is no really valid excuse for shirking this scene, which is so popular that every theatre has it stowed away in readiness; it is capable of 'setting' itself should the stage-hands ...
— Alice Sit-By-The-Fire • J. M. Barrie
... friendly warning about the etiquette of a junior not accosting a senior till the senior accosted him. I wished he had spoken to me, for just then his help would have been particularly patronising. As it was, I was tantalised by seeing him pass by close to me, and yet being unable, without "shirking form" in a reprehensible way, to ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... blaze. Strong and judicious measures, promptly put into action, might even now have allayed the excitement and dissipated the danger. But the imbecile commander-in-chief was enjoying himself and shirking care in the mountains; and Lord Canning and his advisers at Calcutta seem to have preferred to allow to take the initiative in their own way. Generally throughout Northern India the common routine of affairs went on at the different stations, and the ill-feeling ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... along officers' row. Never had Warrener heard of such excitement. Buxton knew not what to do. He paced the floor in agony of mind, for he well understood that there was no shirking the responsibility. From beginning to end he was the cause of the whole catastrophe. He had gone so far as to order his corporal to fire, and he knew it could be proved against him. Thank God, the perplexed corporal had ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... committed with him. Against this they fought, and while they took good care that Urquhart should understand that they wished the publication of the 'Portfolio' to be continued, they kept shifting and shirking in hopes of not committing themselves materially. It is pretty clear that Backhouse really disliked the whole thing, had no mind to meddle with the 'Portfolio,' or mix himself up with Urquhart, ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... said, sir.... Kindly attend to what I say and not to what Mr. Shelley says, sir. You have always some excuse or another for shirking work. Let me tell you that if the contract is not copied before this evening I'll lay the matter before Mr. Crosbie.... Do ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... sort of impatient groan. "Don't talk," she exclaimed brusquely. "You don't know anything about it. He'll go on shirking just the way he's begun if I give him the chance. Isn't that the car ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... that Addison was shirking. I noticed that at nearly every tree he stopped, put down his sap pails, picked up a handful of the auger chips that lay in the snow at the foot of the tree, and stood there turning them over with his fingers. The boys had used an inch and a half auger, for in those days people thought that ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... night when I come home to rest I feel that I must look up there And say: "Old Flag, I've done my best, To-day I've tried to do my share." And sometimes, just to catch the breeze, I stop my work, and o'er the trees Old Glory fairly shouts my way: "You're shirking far too ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... fellow afloat," was the answer. "He's none of your milk-and-water chaps who'll let butter melt in their mouths, of that you may be assured; but he knows what ought to be done, and what man can do; and he makes them do it too. There's no shirking work or being slack in stays when he carries on the duty, and there's not a smarter ship in the service, nor a happier one either, though he won't allow an idler on board. The fact is, my boy, both officers and men know that no one can shirk their work, so it comes easy to all, and we ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... and tell your story. If you don't tell it at once, without any more shirking, I shall have you locked up for the ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... another, and so did every other member of the corps. Poor old Cotter limped pitifully on parade, but he did not say a word about rheumatism. The spirit of the men was splendid, and not one of us showed a sign of shirking, though Haines kept us at ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... "No use shirking facts," the doctor rumbled. "Mr. Paredes has been wounded just as he said, by something sharp ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... have a chance to redeem herself and silence that troublesome conscience which continually reminded her she was shirking her duty. Her relief was not unmixed, for at times ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... undertook he accomplished, often in the face of enormous difficulties. Coleridge never finished anything, and his works are a heap of fragments of the prolegomena to ambitious schemes. Mill worked his hardest from youth to age, never sparing labour or shirking difficulties or turning aside from his path. Coleridge dawdled through life, solacing himself with opium, and could only be coaxed into occasional activity by skilful diplomacy. Mill preserved his independence by rigid self-denial, temperance, and punctuality. Coleridge ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... is one of those few who can challenge the title of "greatest English poet," and the reader may almost of right demand the opinion on this point of any one who writes about him. For my part I have no intention of shirking the difficulty. It seems to me that putting Shakespere aside as hors concours, not merely in degree but in kind, only two English poets can challenge Spenser for the primacy. These are Milton and Shelley. ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... his actions in conformity with the intentions of the saintly Queen who sustained him. These influences are seen to be first and always religious; religious in the prevailing conception of a century, when the interpretation of the command "go ye and teach all nations" admitted of no shirking an obligation laid by the Divine command on each Christian, whether priest, king or subject. An infallible Church provided the one ordained channel of divine grace and salvation for mankind, dissent from which meant damnation, ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... that a considerable portion of them had practically retired from the field. They had climbed to the higher ground, perhaps to join the forces which Jugurtha had already placed near the foot of the mountain, and were resting their weary limbs, probably not with any view of shirking their arduous service but with a resolution of renewing the attack when their vigour had been restored. This withdrawal of a large portion of the infantry was a cause, or a part, of a general slackening of the Numidian attack; and it was the breathing space thus afforded which ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... her, if she is thoroughly convinced that his conviction will spoil his chance of a divorce, she will take the whole thing coolly enough. My idea was that by opening fully, and touching on every point, you would escape the appearance of shirking anything. And at the same time you would be suggesting these motives for violence on Walcott's part which, as you said, it would be ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... there had been of late they had openly called him coward and sneak. The taunts were too true to be forgiven. While he was in the act of thrashing them, they would roar out instances of his funking at football, or shirking some encounter with a lout of half his own size. These things were all well enough known in the house, but to have his own disgrace shouted out by small boys, to feel that they despised him, to be unable to silence them by any amount of torture, and to see the open laugh ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... ferocity—no ferocity! A gentleman knows. What's the good of getting yourself into a state? And no shirking necessity, either. No gentleman ever shirks. What I learn I don't forget. Why! We gambled on the plains, with a damn lot of cattlemen in ranches; played fair, mind—and then had to fight for our winnings afterwards as often as not. We've gambled on the hills and in the ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... be regarded as a mythological symbol (frequent also in dream life) for the libido that introverts itself and enters the perilous interdicted precinct of the incest wish (or even only the life shirking tendency); and especially (though not always valid) is this conception in place, if the snake appears as a terrifying animal (representative of the dreaded mother). So also the dragon is equivalent to the snake, and it can, of course, be replaced by other ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... having no longer absolute control but still anxious to display their technical acquirements, gradually changed into that now almost obsolete abomination, the "Italian opera singer," an artist, who, shirking all responsibility for the music and dramatic action, neglected the composer so far as possible, and introduced vocal pyrotechnics wherever he or she dared—and ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... more credit in the matter than I deserve," she said. "Is that generosity on your part, or—are you shirking your share of ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... object to the hard work. He devoured work, never shirking and always beating the native sailors in jumping to obey a command. But his sufferings during the period of driving the alcohol out of his system were truly heroic. Even when the last shred of the poison was exuded, ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... that first set the problem of the descent of man in its true light, that made the question of the origin of the human race a pressing one. That this was the logical consequence of his book Darwin himself had long felt. He had been reproached with intentionally shirking the application of his theory to Man. Let us hear what he says on this point in his autobiography: "As soon as I had become, in the year 1837 or 1838, convinced that species were mutable productions, I could not avoid the belief that man must come under the same law. Accordingly ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... affection even for his daughter, but had spoken of the matter as one of which the pecuniary aspect alone was important. He had found out that the saving so effected would be material to Lopez, and had resolved that there should be no shirking of the truth in what he was prepared to do. He had been almost asked to take the young married couple in, and feed them,—so that they might live free of expense. He was willing to do it,—but was not willing that there should be any soft-worded, high-toned false pretension. ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... the birds: I mean those lazy beggars that are shirking their work. Look here; look there!" And as Ben Zoof spoke, he pointed to some scythes, and sickles, and other implements of husbandry that had been left upon ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... board of the tapper; but I was astonished at the stories told by my companions. Skulking, shirking, malingering, were all established tactics, it appeared. They could see no dishonesty when a man who is paid for an hour's work gives half an hour's consistent idling in its place. Thus the tapper would refuse to watch for the police during a burglary, and call ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... be large, as I've oft heard you say, But your words show a brain that is working; You'll go to the top of the ladder because, You do what you do without shirking." ...
— Hallowe'en at Merryvale • Alice Hale Burnett
... puts forth no good fruit; instead of blessing, it has brought forth cursing; instead of love, hatred, instead of life, death—bitterness and sorrow, and pain; and infidelity and moral degeneracy follow its labours." There is no shirking of the question here. Slavery is proclaimed to be the GOD-appointed means for the regeneration of the African race, and those who seek to bring about the emancipation of the slaves are branded as apostles of infidelity. Upon these grounds, the confederate clergy appeal ...
— Narrative of the Life of J.D. Green, a Runaway Slave, from Kentucky • Jacob D. Green
... had greater reason for blushing had you persevered in it; for what is so unbecoming—what can appear worse to you, than disgrace, wickedness, immorality? To avoid which, what pain is there which we ought not (I will not say to avoid shirking, but even) of our own accord to encounter, and undergo, ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... are treated as privileged persons by their admirers and the educated public can hardly be disputed. That they consider themselves so there is no doubt whatever. On the whole, I do not know so easy a way of shirking all the civic and social and domestic duties, as to settle it in one's mind that one is a poet. I have, therefore, taken great pains to advise other persons laboring under the impression that they were gifted beings, destined to soar in the atmosphere of song above ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of shirking this question because it was difficult. In fact, he had understood from the beginning that in it lay the essence of the whole problem. Chiefly for that reason he brought the occupations of the Papal States before the ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... the other returned, with conciliatory eagerness; "I knows that—I knows it and I ain't shirking. But, Master Harry, they ain't doing me right 'bout my cabin—I just wants to show you." He got out some dirty papers, and started to hobble forward, wincing with pain. Mary Taylor stirred in her seat under an involuntary impulse ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... bones that cracked, the dogs bent to a heavy pull, while at the least sign of shirking down swished the relentless whip. And the big man, as if proud of his strength, gazed insolently round on the Wild. He was at home in this land, this stark wolf-land, so callous, so cruel. Was he not cruel, too? Surely this land cowered ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... had every reason to avoid so formidable a task as the conquest of the South African Republic. At the best she had nothing to gain, and at the worst she had an immense deal to lose. There was no room for ambition or aggression. It was a case of shirking or fulfilling ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... needed to satisfy Johanna, and even Maurice Guest was made to act as dummy: he had taken her for a walk, or they had been together to see Madeleine Wade; and by these means, and also by occasionally shirking a lesson, she gained a good deal of freedom. Johanna would as soon have thought of herself being untruthful as of doubting Ephie, whom she had never known to tell a lie; and if she did sometimes feel jealous of all the new claims made on her little sister's attention, such a feeling ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... you?" cried Zack. "Have you had any leap-frog since I was here last? Jump up, and let's celebrate my return to the painting-room with a bit of manly exercise in our old way. Come on! I'll give the first back. No shirking! Put down your palette; and ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... knew Leslie well enough yet to understand this shirking of what they anticipated as a delightful task. Herbert had always been used to horses, and to fine ones. He loved his own Bucephalus, "back home," as a dear friend, and looked forward to equal enjoyment in his ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... however, that the hero was shirking. He showed no haste to be off. At length, one night Major Bravida went to Baobab Villa and said very solemnly, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Office today to receive that American fellow, and do the honors of a ridiculous cinema show. That is not the business of the Accountant General: it is the business of the President. It is an outrageous waste of my time, and an unjustifiable shirking of your duty at my expense. I refuse to go. You ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... do nothing, simply lying and watching, shirking a load so huge: but on the fifth morning I languidly began something: and I had not worked an hour, when a fever took me—to finish it, to finish it—and it lasted upon me, with only three brief intervals, nearly seven years; nor would the end have been so long in coming, but for the unexpected ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... words, shouted from the bridge of the Zaire as her stern wheel went threshing ahead, were, "Remember, Bones! No shirking!" ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... trained, and fed, and armed. That is why you and I are in the world at all—not to prepare to go out of it some day, but to serve God actively in it NOW. It is monstrous, and shameful, and cowardly to talk of seeking the Kingdom LAST. It is shirking duty, abandoning one's rightful post, playing into the enemy's hand by doing nothing to turn his flank. Every hour a Kingdom is coming in your heart, in your home, in the world near you, be it a Kingdom of Darkness or a Kingdom of Light. You are placed where ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... house-fielding. If you really want to know, that's why you've got your first instead of him. You sweated away, and improved your fielding twenty per cent.; and I happened to be talking to Firby-Smith and found that young Mike had been shirking his, so out he went. A bad field's bad enough, but a slack field ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... you would be subjected to inconvenience. But an unprejudiced glance about me now shows me that at least half of our young mistresses in the various quarters invariably purchase these things with ready money of their own; so I can't help suspecting that, if it isn't a question of the compradores shirking their duties, it must be that what they buy is ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... you they're a property I don't care for, Mr. Mowry. I suppose it's interest in this recent gold discovery that brings you to Tucson." He had no answer for me but a shrewd shirking glance that flattered my sense of acumen, and adding, pleasantly, "So many of your Arizona citizens have forsaken silver for gold just now," I wrote my name in the hotel book, while he looked to remind himself ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... have shirked helping the Annas to bear Mrs. Bilton, besides having had a severe fright on perceiving how near his shirking had brought the party to disaster, he now had his meals with the others and spent the evenings with them as well. He was immensely grateful to Mrs. Bilton. Her grit had saved them. He esteemed and respected her. Indeed, ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... I'll hold un safe, ma'am," said the windmiller, who had all a man's dislike for shirking at the last moment what had once been decided upon; and, as the nurse afterwards expressed it, before she had time to scream, he had tucked Miss Amabel Adeline Ammaby's finery well round her, and had dipped her into the hopper and ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... There are simple-minded enthusiasts of the breed of Wee Pe'er, for whom the sheer joy of "sojering" still invests dull routine and hard work with a glamour of their own. There are the old hands, versed in every labour-saving (and duty-shirking) device. There are the feckless and muddle-headed, making heavy weather of the simplest tasks. There is another class, which divides its time between rising to the position of sergeant and being reduced to the ranks, for causes which need not be specified. There is yet another, ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... shirking, for the Duke's intention was to be with his men to see that the work was done. So he went to the farm in his long brown cape and high silk hat and an umbrella which might have done duty for Hans William Bentinck in ...
— The Portland Peerage Romance • Charles J. Archard
... Army men were being reviewed but a furlong or two away from that Invisible Man who was wielding a scythe which had no mercy for unripe wheat. Out of those lines of eyes stared the courage of men's souls, not shirking ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... bovine mind goes to sleep under a hedge and makes no bones about it when it's shouted at. We've seen that—in haying-time—all along the meadows. The finer type is wide awake enough to fudge up excuses for shirking, and mean enough to get stuffy when its ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... very streets, as they were quite cut off from their fields by the enemy, who was encamped before the gates. Philopoemen, by his remaining beyond seas at this time acting as general for the Cretans, gave his enemies an opportunity of charging him with dishonourably shirking the war at home. Some, however, said that since the Achaeans had chosen other men generals, Philopoemen, who had no office to fill, had a right to use his leisure in acting as general to the people of Gortyna ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... that, after the dark of the moon, that moon would rise again. Moreover, fate was inexorably pushing him and little Aaron into the same channels that their fathers had followed and putting on each the duty and responsibility of leadership. And Jason, though shirking nothing, turned sick and faint of heart and was glad when the summer ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... we are almost strangers at present, I know I shall find in you some one who will be companionable. You don't seem very thick with the others; you don't join with them in that mean practice of shirking work directly Mr. Sanders's back is turned; and you don't, from what I have heard, approve of the society at the King's Head, in which the others seem to take so much delight. Now, in these points, I think, ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... class on a definite day. A pupil should not be allowed to put off the writing of a composition any more than a lesson in geometry. On Monday of each week a composition should be handed in; irregularity only makes the work displeasing and leads to shirking. Writing out of school gives more time for criticism and study of composition, and during the second year this extra time is ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... it mild. But isn't this what I'm accused of doing—shirking my duty of personal service ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... and noblest man that ever breathed, bound within the flesh of a wretched coward incapable of living for any greater purpose than his own self-gratification? Am I to understand that one who is controlled by the spirit of my everlasting associate, intends betraying nature's trust by shirking the responsibilities of manhood, because he lacks the courage to live? Will there be promulgated among the records of time an account of my immortal partner having deserted his post of duty by sneaking out of the world before his allotted time? Would this being, who ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... him little time, lass. But I'll have a care that I don't go so far that I can't put back again. Now, mother, there's no use holding me. It's got to be done, and there's no sense in shirking it." He detached her fingers from his sleeve, pushed her gently back into an arm-chair, and hurried from ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... life at Laburnum Villa was not altogether hilarious. The environs of London are undeniably pretty, prettier than those of any other capital in Europe, but there is no shirking the fact that the Northern suburbs of our great metropolis are somewhat grim and soul-depressing. Laburnum Villa was in a long street, which resembled the other streets as one tree resembles another; ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... same old story. Restlessness, dissatisfaction, wanderlust, irresponsibility, shirking of duty. Austin's lips curled just a little in scorn before ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... backward; its members did all that the people of a little town in the heart of Warwickshire could have been expected to do, and there would seem to have been no lack of public spirit, no falling away from continuous endeavour, no shirking of onerous duties. Every man had his work to do in the public service, and those who ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... (a very difficult gent to please) is the loudest and noisiest of all, and has made more hideous faces over the refreshment offered to him than any other critic. There is no use shirking this statement! when a man has been abused in the Times, he can't hide it, any more than he could hide the knowledge of his having been committed to prison by Mr. Henry, or publicly caned in Pall Mall. You see it in your friends' eyes when they meet you. They know it. They have chuckled ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the extreme back row at the end nearest the entrance, and therefore I should naturally be the last to go forward. The crisis was near when I should be discovered, for there was no question of my shirking the oath. ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... got to have the courage. Or you have. Do you know what Ellen wants to have done?" Mrs. Kenton put it in these impersonal terms, and as a preliminary to shirking her share ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... his own eyes saw that there was no shirking, no mismanagement here. He seemed to be everywhere at once during those busy days which followed the entrance into the town. But outraged nature would have her revenge at last, and for three days he had lain helpless and suffering ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... crew that ever appeared at Saltonstall," declared a spectator. "Every man seems to be a worker. There's no one shirking." ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... countries the losses by such cessations from labour are little as compared with those due to the spirit which in England is called "ca'-canny" or the shirking of performance of work, and of sabotage, which means the deliberate destruction of machinery in operation. Everywhere the phenomenon has been observed that, with the highest wages known in the history of modern times, there has been an unmistakable lessening of ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... about everything, ain't there?—isn't there,—Mr. Gael? Why, there's books about lovin' an' about sickness an' about cattle an' what-not, an' about women an' children—" She was shirking the knowledge of her "case," but at last she pressed her lips together and opened the book. She fell to reading, growing anxiety possessed her face, she sat down on the nearest chair, she turned page after page. Suddenly she gave him ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... and a contempt for his own kind. Chizzle, Mizzle, and otherwise have lapsed into a habit of vaguely promising themselves that they will look into that outstanding little matter and see what can be done for Drizzle—who was not well used—when Jarndyce and Jarndyce shall be got out of the office. Shirking and sharking in all their many varieties have been sown broadcast by the ill-fated cause; and even those who have contemplated its history from the outermost circle of such evil have been insensibly tempted into ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... at once. It was as if he drew back before the question, alien and disturbed, shirking the discerned, ...
— The Flaw in the Crystal • May Sinclair
... common sense, if I may use the expression. They did the work before them in a quiet, business-like way, in what, during the late war, was considered by some the best feature of Prussian fighting, not shirking risk when it was necessary, but, on the other hand, not needlessly exposing themselves for the sake of swagger, especially of the officers. This morning, the officers not being wanted, had the sense to keep quietly out of harm's way and smoke their cigarettes like unconcerned civilians ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... who had laughed and played his foolish jests, and got into mischief industriously all through his short life, had laid his mirth aside to-day. He had done but indifferently well the few tasks allotted him, shirking them when he could; the business he had now on hand was a very serious one, and there was no slipping out of it. He ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... and will adopt every means to evade motherhood; because she loves her ease, loves to have her will supreme, loves, oh how well, to be free to go and come, to let the days slip idly by, to be absolved from all responsibility, to live without labor, without care? Will you love her selfish, shirking, calculating nature after twenty ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... ancestors. I like the Bheestee and respect him. As a man, he is temperate and contented, eating bajree bread and slacking his thirst with his own element. The author of Hobson Jobson says he never saw a drunken Bheestee. And as a servant he is laborious and faithful, rarely shirking his work, seeking it out rather. For example, we had a bottle-shaped filter of porous stoneware, standing in a bucket of water, which it was his duty to fill daily; but the good man, not content with doing his bare duty, took the plug out of the filter and filled it too! And all ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... has two or three most evil consequences. They pass foolish or unconstitutional laws, relying on the governor to veto them, or the courts to declare them void—which has the effect of shirking their responsibility and imposing unjust and obnoxious duties on the other branches of government, to which they do not fairly belong; increases the growing disrespect for all law, and deteriorates the moral and intellectual fibre of the legislature itself. ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... driven to, he will do what I say must be. As for me, I don't think women can ever be very happy. I expect I shall get used to it—one does, to almost anything, except toothache. And I have Lancelot. She put all this quite frankly to herself, not shirking the drab outlook or the anguish of doing a thing for the last time—always a piercing ordeal for her. As for James, if she thought of him at all, it was with pity. Poor dear, ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... therefore, applied themselves strictly to business and would not be diverted from it by any considerations of duty or of patriotism. Studiously abstaining from politics; positively refusing to accept office; shirking constantly and systematically all jury and other public duty, which, onerous in every community, was doubly so, as they thought, in that new country, they seemed never to reflect that there was a portion, and that the worst, of the population, who ...
— A Sketch of the Causes, Operations and Results of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856 • Stephen Palfrey Webb
... drank better still at the lunch, although we had such a regular tuck-out at breakfast time. Mr. Knightley wouldn't hear of any of us shirking our liquor, and by the time we'd done all hands were pretty well on. Moran himself began to look pleasant, or as good a sample of it as I'd ever seen in him. Mr. Knightley could get round the devil himself, I believe. I never saw his equals at ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... engineer turning me off at a moment's notice, and that with unnecessary vehemence. I saw it all in my mind: he had been worrying himself for days over this dismissal, shirking it all the time, until at last he managed to screw his courage up by drinking hard all night. Was I doing him an injustice? It might be so; and I tried to combat the thought myself. Once more I called to mind that he was young ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... confessed that life on the stage was unhealthy to morals, and said: "I never presented myself before an audience without a shirking feeling of reluctance, or without thinking the excitement I had undergone unhealthy, and ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... came before my mind: two cousins, both of them young men. One started out early in life with the determination of getting along "easy," shirking work, and looking for a soft snap. His motto was, "The world owes me a living, and I am going to get mine." He was employed first by one firm and then by another; if anything that he considered hard came ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... and the result is more mixed than a wet fishing-line next morning. A great deal of trouble can be avoided by scientific use of the whip. Every Inuit boy prides himself as being a master of the long lash; but it is easy to flick at a mark on the ground, and difficult to lean forward and catch a shirking dog just behind the shoulders when the sleigh is going at full speed. If you call one dog's name for "visiting," and accidentally lash another, the two will fight it out at once, and stop all the others. Again, if you travel with a companion and begin to talk, ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... nation is not here upon this earth merely to do what is pleasant and profitable. It is often called upon to carry out what is unpleasant and unprofitable; but if it is obviously right, it is mere shirking not to ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... whose work is muscular means a numbness in the nerve cells which guide those muscles, so that they disobey the will or act unreasonably and without direction. But too much sleep, like over-indulgence in any anaesthetic, is only shirking that duty and avoiding that effort to which the higher life calls us, and the sluggard who sleeps more than the tired nerves need is allowing himself to sink deeper and deeper into a slough of despond. He forgets his toil in sleep, ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... character of [Symbol: alpha] and [Symbol: beta]. In Dr. Hort's Neutral Text, which he maintains to have been the original text of the Gospels, our Lord is represented here as having withdrawn in private ([Greek: kat' idian], which the Revisers shirking the difficulty translate inaccurately 'apart') into the city called Bethsaida. How could there have been privacy of life in a city in those days? In fact, [Greek: kat' idian] necessitates the adoption of [Greek: topon eremon], as to which the Peshitto ([Symbol: beta]^{3}) is in substantial ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... hopelessness, drive right through their work. Such men are the salt of the earth. But must there not be something wrong with a state of society which drives these into that bitter heroism, and the most part into shirking, into the depths often of half-conscious self- contempt and degradation? Be sure that there is, that the blindness and hurry of civilisation, as it now is, have to answer a heavy charge as to that enormous amount of pleasureless work—work ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... difficulties of life like other men? Did he seem to prevail over some of them merely by indifference, or by assuming grand airs? or find it easier to live, because his aunt remembered him in her will? The ways in which most men get their living, that is, live, are mere make-shifts, and a shirking of the real business of life,—chiefly because they do not know, but partly because they do ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... not refer to wrongs committed in your presence against others. Our Lord Himself overthrew the tables of the money-changers. And the moral basis of His resistance to evil here is equally clear if you tolerate evils committed against others: (1) your own morale and courage is lowered: it is shirking; (2) the wronger is merely encouraged. If I take A.'s coat and A. gives me his cloak also, I may be touched. But B.'s acquiescence in the proceeding cannot possibly touch me and only encourages me. Now the Government of a country is nearly always in the position of B. not A., ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... some time after the war—spinning round and round, silly and dazed, without purpose or power. At least the only purpose in evidence was the fierce quest of enjoyment, and the only power that of successfully shirking facts. We were like bankrupts, who cannot summon energy to begin life and work again in earnest. And we were represented by the most comic parliament that ever sat in Westminster, upon which it would be too ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... Matilda was possessed of remarkable vitality and an iron will, and she showed great powers of execution and administration, never shirking the gravest responsibilities. A part of her life was spent in the rough camps of her devoted feudal soldiery, and—weak woman though she was—she led them on to battle more than once, when they seemed to need the inspiration of her presence. Women warriors there have been ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... found the whole camp at the Ice Box. The stream still was high so that it was no easy matter to gain access to the cave, but no scout who had passed the swimming test for "first class" thought of shirking the attempt. Mr. Newton himself led the way and Glen and ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... copying some one else's problems and shirking your own daily work. When the exams come you're not 'in it'; you just have to 'go way back and sit down,'" and the roguish dimples played in her cheeks as the slang phrases slipped glibly from her tongue. "All the same," she ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... Christian community, to sustain the town church; secondly, that it was the duty of every citizen of the town to contribute to this end according to his ability. The breaking up of the town church by schisms and the shirking of individual duty on the ground of dissent were alike discountenanced, sometimes by severely intolerant measures. The ultimate collision of these principles with the sturdy individualism that had been accepted from the Separatists of Plymouth was inevitable. It ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... that further argument would be useless. He rose wondering if his act of emancipation were not an act of cowardice—the shirking of responsibility for the boy's life. His mouth closed firmly. That was just the point about the institution of Slavery. No such responsibility should be placed ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... and the general muddle is given a kind of sacredness, even of beauty, by ceasing. She has done nothing but live and been nothing but alive, both to such passive purpose that the ceasing is pitiful; and it is by pushing on to this end, instead of shirking it, and by marking the last tragical fact which puts a dignity upon even the meanest being, that Miss Mayor raises her story above the plane of social criticism, and keeps it sincere. A lesser writer would have been content with ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... The more one thinks about this curious exception in their favor the more unaccountable it appears. We neglect such wild things as we do not slaughter, and exact toil from domesticated animals in return for their keep. Dogs alone, shirking all cares and labor, live in idle comfort ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... that, it being a transient novelist's business to please the light-winged hosts which live for the hour, and give him his only chance of half of it, let him identify himself with them, in keeping to the quadrille on the surface and shirking ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to work with renewed vigor. He had found a purpose in life and there was something for him to look for beyond dinner, a dance and the end of the day. He had always been a good hand, but now he became a model—no shirking, no shiftlessness—and because he was so earnest his master did what he could to help him. Numerous little plans were formulated whereby the slave could make ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... Precincts. Come Mr. Crisparkle, fresh and bright; and his ministering brethren, not quite so fresh and bright. Come the Choir in a hurry (always in a hurry, and struggling into their nightgowns at the last moment, like children shirking bed), and comes John Jasper leading their line. Last of all comes Mr. Datchery into a stall, one of a choice empty collection very much at his service, and glancing about him for Her Royal ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... private soldier could carry, and early in the war were sent home to be used by the women and children in protecting themselves from insult and violence at the hands of the ruffians who prowled about the country shirking duty. ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... payments. While I was there I did write a few contracts, among them a cash one amounting to $80. But, toward the end, my lack of success was due to my utter disgust with myself for being so blamed poor and for shirking. ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... door; Hush your voice to whispers soothing, Take your hat off, I implore! Mark your number, plainly, rightly, From the catalogue you see; With the card projecting slightly, Then your book bring unto me. Quickly working, With no shirking, Soon another ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... course, either shamming, shirking, parrying, all the while consciously discredited and dishonored,—or else putting forth an effort that is a draft on all his nervous energy, he makes merely a decent scholar, and loses ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... peremptorily engaged before the House of Lords. The common dodge of these gentry,' continued he in a disrespectful tone. 'They never find that it will be impossible to attend so long as the honorarium is unpaid; afterwards—— Bah! Mere robbery, sir—taking the money, and shirking the work. However, as we cannot help ourselves, you must do the best you can alone; for I fear the judge will not postpone the trial any longer. Come, and have a dram of brandy, and keep your nerves ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... proved a veritable friend in need, arranging for a hot breakfast at the station, chartering rickshaw coolies, and—greatest blessing of all—directing the route, with a menacing pantomime concerning any shirking of duty, which saved all further trouble. Taiping is in an early stage of progress, and the open tokos in waringen-shaded streets, show nothing but the necessaries of life, with terrible mementos of Birmingham in petroleum lamps, ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... we did not pay our commutation, and avail ourselves of that provision made expressly for such; of why we had come as far as that place, etc. We realized then the unpleasant results of that practice, that had been employed with us by the successive officers into whose hands we had fallen,—of shirking any responsibility, and of passing us on to the next ...
— The Record of a Quaker Conscience, Cyrus Pringle's Diary - With an Introduction by Rufus M. Jones • Cyrus Pringle
... in her reading she came to a difficult sentence, which, try as she would, she could not render into English to her own satisfaction. She was a very careful student and always disliked shirking difficulties; the pleasure of her reading would be lost if she did not do full justice to the lines which puzzled her. She resolved to read no further until Maggie appeared. Maggie Oliphant, with her superior information, would soon ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... just then be showing its red head in the far east, and already the camp was in commotion; tents were being struck, bedding rolled up, while a certain amount of scrambling would be going on amongst the cunning blacks, each wishing to possess himself of the lightest load. To prevent shirking, one or two of the native police who accompanied us watched the proceeding with lynx-like eyes, and, amid much arguing, chattering, and apparent confusion, a long line of carriers would emerge like a black snake from the camping-ground into an orderly string—quaint figures, some of them wrapped ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... and Stars, Cloaking her shame under legal bars, Not too moral for traffic, but shirking wars, While the Southern cross, floating topmast high. Though torn, perchance, by a thousand scars, Shall ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... got the life of God, in however feeble measure, in him, will flee away from this corruption like Lot out of Sodom. And how will he flee out of it? By subduing his own desires; not by changing position, not by shirking duty, not by withdrawing himself into unwholesome isolation from men and men's ways. The corruption is not only 'in the world,' so that you could get rid of it by getting out of the world, but it is 'in the world in lust,' so that you carry the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... exclaiming, as he dismissed the balance from his fingers by a knock against his thigh, 'Oh, my mon, aw think this tod will gie us a ran!' while Blossomnose might be seen stealing gently forward, on the far side of a thick fence, for the double purpose of shirking Jawleyford ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees |
