"Shrink" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the jury-courts and kept it in a perpetual state of disturbance; we must allow that this rendered it easy for the regents to justify their exceptional measures. But, as may well be conceived, even the servile majority shrank from granting what the future dictator himself seemed to shrink from openly asking. When the unparalleled agitation regarding the elections for the consulship of 701 led to the most scandalous scenes, so that the elections were postponed a full year beyond the fixed time and only took place after a seven months' interregnum in July 701, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... bladder-like bodies, I believe, are reservoirs of water like a camel's stomach. As soon as I have made a few more observations, I mean to be so cruel as to give your plant no water, and observe whether the great bladders shrink and contain air instead of water; I shall then also wash all earth from all roots, and see whether there are true bladders for capturing subterranean insects down to the very bottom of the pot. Now shall you think ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... declining to give us any assistance in finding the will, soothing their consciences by the reflection that by such refusal they are committing no offense of which the law takes cognizance; but while doing this they might shrink from the absolutely criminal offense of destroying the will. I do not say that now they have entered upon the path they have that they would not destroy the will if they thought there was a chance of its being discovered. I ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... child-like imagination conjured up a gory spectacle. She was afraid that if she tried to act as nurse she would faint or run away when most needed. But she was determined to go to him and to assist in any way she could. It was not consistent with her ideas of loyalty to shrink from the sight of suffering even though she could do nothing ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... all kinds of visions round the grave of this young man, who, if he has now any feeling of the earth, must shrink with shame and disgust from the touch of the hand that could have written that impious sentence. These he classifies under names, the greater number as new we believe to poetry as strange to common ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... few establishments large enough to indulge in the luxury of a servants'-hall, and sculleries and pantries are much smaller than in England. Even the ordinary entrance-hall of an English house has to shrink into a mere enlargement of the passage. All over the house, in fact, the accommodation is on a much more limited scale, unless it be with regard to stables, which, owing to the low price of horses, are more numerous, if ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... not now shrink from another voyage. Her experience on the Nile had made her forget her sufferings in crossing the Atlantic, and she no longer dreaded entering another steamboat. Their delight in river navigation, indeed, had been so great ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... worshipful in the human nature made so divine that the one fearless man, the Lord Jesus Christ, shared it with us. This, I thought I might make them understand, was the only terrible sea, the only hopeless ocean from whose awful shore we must shrink and flee, the end of every voyage upon whose bosom was the bottom of its filthy waters, beyond the reach of all that is thought or spoken in the light, beyond life itself, but for the hand that reaches down from the upper ocean of truth, the hand of ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... thundered over the canyon walls; that mad river, gathering their united flow into one embrace, scurrying away with an irresistible energy that almost sweeps you off your feet as you look at it, all things human seem to shrink into the infinitesimal. You do not ask yourself, "How did all this get here?" You accept the situation as you find it. You leave it to the scientists to dispute whether the valley was formed wholly ...
— Out of Doors—California and Oregon • J. A. Graves
... not shrink from an extermination that relieves humanity of idlers that it drags about without power to advance or to free itself, finally sinking under the load. Is it not better for the world to be rid of such people, who obstruct the advancement ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... benefit from it. I was aware that such a journey would be attended with considerable danger, and very possibly the fate of St. Stephen might overtake me; but does the man deserve the name of a follower of Christ who would shrink from danger of any kind in the cause of Him whom he calls his Master? "He who loses his life for my sake, shall find it," are words which the Lord himself uttered. These words were fraught with ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... fifty yards away, level with another seat, on which a solitary man had been sitting in a slouching attitude. As she drew near him the two who were watching with fascinated eyes saw him draw himself upright and then shrink suddenly back. But he was too late. Joan's eyes had lighted upon him. She stopped short, the man's attempt at evasion was obvious. In a moment she ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... Woofer seemed to shrink in the saddle, like a wet rag, and the Indian girl was slipping from his arms to the ground when Ted seized her and transferred her to ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... venture to say, if ever there was an accuser that appeared well and with weight before any court, it was this man. He does not shrink from his charge; he offered to meet the person he charged face to face, and to make good his charge by his own evidence, and further evidence that he should produce. Your Lordships have also seen the conduct of Mr. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... seventeen! And still, to follow the thought honestly, even at seven and sixty years my Lord had greater grace and charm than many a man not half his age. And with that new youth and tenderness in his eyes no woman could shrink from him, at least. And still it could not be true, for Fate herself had driven him ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... power. The events of June had dispelled any attraction that he had hitherto felt towards Socialistic theories. He saw that France required an upholder of order and of property. In his address to the nation announcing his candidature for the Presidency he declared that he would shrink from no sacrifice in defending society, so audaciously attacked; that he would devote himself without reserve to the maintenance of the Republic, and make it his pride to leave to his successor at the end of four years authority ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... crown high plumed: of the beautiful turban, of the tall white crown: the gods love thy presence: when the double crown is set upon thy head: thy love pervades the earth: thy beams arise ... men are cheered by thy rising: the beasts shrink from thy beams: thy love is over the southern heaven: thy heart is not (unmindful of) the northern heaven: thy goodness ... (all) hearts: love subdues (all) hands: thy creations are fair overcoming (all) the earth: (all) hearts are softened at ...
— Egyptian Literature
... verity. The ordinary paganism shocked him, both by its obscene and undignified myths, and by many features of its ritual. He devised non-natural interpretations of its sacred legends, he looked for a visible or tangible 'sign,' and he did not shrink from investigating the thaumaturgy of his age. His letter of inquiry is preserved in fragments by Eusebius, and St. Augustine: Gale edited it, and, as he says, offers us an Absyrtus (the brother of Medea, who scattered his mutilated remains) ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... "you, whom I have heard say so many things which no one else could say, or dared to say—you, who have gone on with your laughing assurance in your own powers of pleasing, shrink from trying that power when a noble and generous heart might be saved by it. You have been willing to venture a great deal for the sake of amusing yourself and winning admiration; but you dare not say a word for any high or noble purpose. Do you not see how you confirm what I said of the selfishness ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... dupe. He distrusted the sweet innocence of Viola. He could not venture the hazard of seriously proposing marriage to an Italian actress; but the modest dignity of the girl, and something good and generous in his own nature, had hitherto made him shrink from any more worldly but less honourable designs. Thus the familiarity between them seemed rather that of kindness and regard than passion. He attended the theatre; he stole behind the scenes to converse with her; he ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... life, any more than can Spenser give life to his allegoric knights and ladies, because the life would have to be fetched by Tasso out of the flesh of Ariosto, and by Spenser out of the blood of Marlowe; and both Tasso and Spenser shrink at the thought of what might with it be inoculated or transfused; and they rest satisfied with phantoms. The phantoms of Spenser are more shadowy much more utterly devoid of human character; they are ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... attribute the general approval of the decision of Jesus to remain unmarried as an endorsement of his views. We are simply in a state of confusion on the subject; but it is part of the confusion that we should conclude that Jesus was a celibate, and shrink even from the idea that his birth was a natural one, yet cling with ferocity to the sacredness of the institution which ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... reputation for giving good weight! But I'm coming home on the run to heft him myself, because I never knew a fellow who wouldn't lie a little about the weight of number one, and then, when you led him up to the hay scales, claim that it's a well-known scientific principle that children shrink during the first week like a ham in smoke. Allowing for tare, though, if he still nets ten I'll feel that he's a ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... when—I could have avoided it all, but would not. Now that I have sacrificed that chance, I will go to my doom with a smile upon my lips, whatever heaviness may be in my heart; for, having chosen my path, I will not shrink from following it. Thus much for myself. And as for you, who have tossed me one side to the first poor brute who has begged for me, and even at this instant have taunted me with the story of baffled hopes, does it seem becoming in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... in gloom, illuminated only by the lights of Paradise and the furnaces of hell. My thoughts, excited by this vision of the day of Doom, whisper: 'If we quake in terror before the handiwork of Buonarroti, how shall we shake and shrink affrighted when He who shall judge passes sentence on ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... or line them with greased paper. Make sure that the oven is at the proper temperature. For a small cake, the oven should be hot enough to brown a piece of unglazed paper or a tablespoonful of flour in three minutes. Bake a small cake from twenty to thirty minutes. When done, the cake will shrink from the sides of the pan; the crust will spring back when touched with the finger; the loud ticking sound will cease; a fine knitting-needle will come out clean if the cake is pierced; and the crust will be nicely browned. When the cake ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario
... and exasperated the French General. It was the goal towards which they had moved steadily and methodically, step tracing step, through so many weary months—the crown of their joint adventure. Why, then, did he not seize it? Why did he shrink from possession? What did he mean by it? The General did not know. But he felt that it would not do. "M. le President," he said to him, incisively, "Here you are in power; it is up to you to assume the responsibility. I have the force ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... "I shrink from it in actual pain," she confessed, in instant frankness. "My whole nature revolts. Believe me, I am not blind, not insensible; I recognize the truth—all you would tell me—of the inalienable rights of womanhood. Neglect, distrust, brutality, ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... the weeds to over-run its green and yellow walks. He surrounded her with images of sorrow and desolation. He caused her to be filled with fears of the place and of the stories that were told of it, and then on pretext of correcting them, to be left in it in solitude, or made to shrink about it in the dark. When her mind was most depressed and fullest of terrors, then, he would come out of one of the hiding-places from which he overlooked her, and present himself as her ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... longer adapt herself to the form she had so easily acquired in her youth: it was as much as she could do to occupy fully the narrower limits to which she had been reduced, and to maintain those limits unbroken. The instinct which made her shrink from the intrusion of foreign customs and ideas, or even mere contact with nations of recent growth, was not the mere outcome of vanity. She realised that she maintained her integrity only by relying on the residue of her former solidarity and on the force of custom. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... power—have much difficulty in adapting themselves to the technical drudgery of preparatory criticism: they are far from despising it; on the contrary, they hold it in honour, if they are clear-sighted; but they shrink from devoting themselves to it, for fear of using a razor, as is said, to cut stones. "I have no mind," wrote Leibnitz to Basnage, who had exhorted him to compile an immense Corpus of unpublished ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... halted in front of that terrible silent line, while his men seemed to shrink somewhat as they, too, pulled up. Then he faced Thorleif as boldly as if he had the army of Wessex behind him, and spoke ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... object as being to bring our law into conformity with "The Hague Conventions" at large. An ordinary member of Parliament would surely be grateful to be referred specifically to Convention No. xiii., Arts. 8, 17, and 25. He might well shrink from the labour of exploring the hundreds of articles contained in "The Hague Conventions" in order to ascertain which of the articles suggest some modification ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... and foul, By the smoky town in its murky cowl; Foul and dank, foul and dank, By wharf and sewer and slimy bank; Darker and darker the farther I go, Baser and baser the richer I grow; Who dare sport with the sin-defiled? Shrink from me, turn from me, mother ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... age. It confined their numbers to the true and the sincere. It was the antidote to hypocrisy. It gave to the brave the most daring heroism, and inspired the fainthearted with the courage of despair. They lived in a time when to be a Christian was to risk one's life. They did not shrink, but boldly proclaimed their faith and accepted the consequences. They drew a broad line between themselves and the heathen, and stood manfully on their own side. To utter a few words, to perform a simple act, could ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous
... her, Levis, that she need not shrink from us as if we were not sinners, as well as herself. Shall I go in to-morrow morning, and have a talk ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... of no use to shrink then, even if he had felt disposed to do so. He was prepared to be rebuffed, to be insulted, to be turned away from the doors at which he should seek admission; but he ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... "we must all of us do our duty, and I shall not shrink from mine—but I have arrested this man on a charge of poaching, and must give my reasons; the case cannot be dropped, and it must be heard in public. Am I, or am I not, to have the sworn depositions of both you gentlemen to the fact that the ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... on the scales nervously. The balance rod hits the top smartly. He has gained. His face lights up and he heaves a great sigh of relief. Eileen seems to sense this outcome and her head sinks, her body sags weakly and seems to shrink to a smaller size. Murray gets off the scales, his face beaming with a triumphant smile. Doctor Stanton smiles and murmurs something to him in a low voice. Murray nods brightly; then turns back ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... reckon we've all grown some," agreed Chunky. "But if this kind of going continues we'll all shrink ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... with others were overshadowed by the great doubt, which was perhaps the heaviest burden he had to carry, as to whether one's individuality endured. The thought that it might not survive death, made him shrink back from establishing a closeness of emotional dependence on another, the loss of which would be intolerable. The natural flame of the heart seemed quenched and baffled by that cold thought. It was the same instinct that made him, as ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... allowed to dry before complete removal of foreign matter is effected. They are likely to shrink and crack, and subsequent additions of wash-water pass through these ...
— An Introductory Course of Quantitative Chemical Analysis - With Explanatory Notes • Henry P. Talbot
... neighbors and serve them, but rather exalt themselves above them! Indeed, the example of Christ may well terrify the exalted, and those high in authority; and still more the self-exalted. Who would not shrink from occupying the uppermost seat and from lording it over others when he sees the Son of God ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... elephants of great strength belonging to the son of Subala. Scorching thy army, the son of Pandu then destroyed a century of foremost cars and several hundreds of foot-soldiers in that battle. Scorched by the Sun as also by the high-souled Bhima, thy army began to shrink like a piece of leather spread over a fire. Those troops of thine, O bull of Bharata's race, filled with anxiety through fear of Bhimasena, avoided Bhima in that battle and fled away in all directions. Then five hundred car-warriors, cased in excellent mail, rushed towards Bhima with ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... enjoy a bit of rough sport there with the wounded fox. Choose your men well, friend Desgas . . . of the sort who would enjoy that type of sport—eh? We must see that Scarlet Pimpernel wither a bit—what?—shrink and tremble, eh? . . . before we finally . . ." He made an expressive gesture, whilst he laughed a low, evil laugh, which filled Marguerite's soul with ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... (cf. H. 499. 11), are some of the peculiarly Persian metaphors that occur. Allusions to the loves of Yusuf and Zalicha, of Laila and Majnun and of other Oriental couples are repeatedly brought in. Moreover, a whole book is devoted to the saqi so familiar to students of Hafid, and Goethe does not shrink from alluding to the subject of ...
— The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany • Arthur F. J. Remy
... were crossed by suspension bridges, used here ages before their introduction into Europe. Says Baldwin, "The builders of our Pacific Railroad, with their superior engineering skill and mechanical appliances, might reasonably shrink from the cost and the difficulties of such a work as this. Extending from one degree north of Quito to Cuzco, and from Cuzco to Chili, it was quite as long as the two Pacific railroads, and its wild route among the mountains was far more difficult." Sarmiento, describing it, said, ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... clergyman with approval. Then, looking straight into the secretary's blue eyes, he added with increased gravity: "And therefore it would not be immoral of me to expose you to an experiment in which the penalty of a slip would be—death? Or you would not shrink from it yourself, provided the knowledge to be obtained seemed ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... hard work, but we did not shrink, and at last, after congratulating ourselves upon having got so far without being interfered with by the savages, we had shouldered our guns and were walking back to the hut one evening when we caught sight of a black figure ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... dearest!" exclaimed he. "Do not shrink from me! Believe me, Georgiana, I even rejoice in this single imperfection, since it will be such a rapture to ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Greek antiquity has not yet been fully valued . I am convinced that if it had not been surrounded by its traditional glorification, the men of the present day would shrink from it horror stricken. This glorification, then, ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... this most sacred subject of the Virgin-Birth of our Lord has been forced upon us at the present time. It is impossible to ignore it or set it aside. We must be prepared, each of us, however much we may shrink from treading on such sacred ground, to give a reason for the hope that is in us with reverence ...
— The Virgin-Birth of Our Lord - A paper read (in substance) before the confraternity of the Holy - Trinity at Cambridge • B. W. Randolph
... without a feeling of almost unconquerable repugnance that Mr. Dinneford took his way to the mission-house, in Briar street. His tastes, his habits and his naturally kind and sensitive feelings all made him shrink from personal contact with suffering and degradation. He gave much time and care to the good work of helping the poor and the wretched, but did his work in boards and on committees, rather than in the presence of the needy and suffering. He was not one of those who ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... time, however, it was not long before he was awakened by a feeling of hunger, and this satisfied, he slept again, almost unintermittently, for several days and nights. When at last he awoke he was quite calm, but oppressed by a gloomy reserve and desire to shrink more and more within himself. This was exactly what ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... misshapen bundles. Having set down the candle, the highwayman drew a dingy blanket before the cave mouth and turned to scowl at me, eyeing my shrinking person over from dripping hat to sodden boots; and well might I shrink, for surely few waking eyes have beheld such a wild and terrifying vision as he presented, his battered face, his garments mired and torn, his hands hidden in the pockets of ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... imprinting in her thoughts his rare qualities, she began to surfeit with the contemplation of his virtuous conditions; but when she called to remembrance her present estate, and the hardness of her fortunes, desire began to shrink, and fancy to vail bonnet, that between a Chaos of confused thoughts she began to debate with ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... not only an Ornament, but also a Guard to Virtue. It is a kind of quick and delicate Feeling in the Soul, which makes her shrink and withdraw her self from every thing that has Danger in it. It is such an exquisite Sensibility, as warns her to shun the first Appearance of every thing which ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... he is the protector of himself. It is not degrading to a slave—neither is it to a priest or woman. And is it a misfortune that it should be so? The freeman of other countries is compelled to submit to indignities hardly more endurable than blows—indignities to make the sensitive feelings shrink, and the proud heart swell; and this very name of freeman gives them double rancor. If when a man is born in Europe, it were certainly foreseen that he was destined to a life of painful labor—to obscurity, contempt, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... reading; be not content with the best book; seek sidelights from the others; have no favourites; keep men and things apart; guard against the prestige of great names;[86] see that your judgments are your own, and do not shrink from disagreement; no trusting without testing; be more severe to ideas than to actions;[87] do not overlook the strength of the bad cause or the weakness of the good;[88] never be surprised by the crumbling of an idol or the disclosure of a skeleton; ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... blind their perceptions, there was still the ever-present consciousness of now standing in another and far different relation to each other. Though AEnone musingly gazed upon his face and listened to his voice, until the realities of the present seemed to shrink away, and the fancies of other years stole softly back, and, with involuntary action, her hand gently toyed with his curls and parted them one side, as she had once been accustomed to do, it was with ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... what we do not know that our hope and our religion lies. Thrice blessed are we in the certainty that here our range is infinite. This infinite that makes our brains reel, that begets the feeling that makes us 'shrink,' is perhaps the most portentous argument in the logic of the sceptic. Since the days of Laplace, we have been haunted in some form or other with the ghost of the MECANIQUE CELESTE. Take one or two commonplaces from the text-books ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... the broad principle of absolute religious toleration proclaimed in our fundamental law, and rejoicing in the benign influence which it has exerted upon our social and political condition, I should shrink from a clear duty did I fail to express my deepest conviction that we can place no secure reliance upon any apparent progress if it be not sustained by national integrity, resting upon the great truths affirmed and illustrated ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin Pierce • Franklin Pierce
... must be done? Wilt thou devise some scheme whereby they may seize the golden fleece of Aeetes and bear it to Hellas, or can they deceive the king with soft words and so work persuasion? Of a truth he is terribly overweening. Still it is right to shrink ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... deeply. "Then—— you are right. There is no help for it. But remember, Donald Ward, that you and I must answer for our actions before the judgment seat of God. Remember, also, that our names and our deeds will be judged by posterity. We must not shrink from stern necessities laid upon us. But let us not give the enemy an excuse to brand us as assassins ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... thy blue course in heaven, golden-haired son of the sky? The west hath opened its gates; the bed of thy repose is there. The waves gather to behold thy beauty; they lift their trembling heads; they see thee lovely in thy sleep; but they shrink away with fear. Rest in thy shadowy cave, O Sun! and let thy ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... I saved her, must not leave Her life to chance; but point me out some nook Of safety, where she less may shrink and grieve. ... This child, who parentless, is ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the first place, it comes when your patience is exhausted; and, in the second, it lasts so long, that you begin to wonder whether it will ever end. The slavery to conventional rules in England, which causes one to shrink from the charge of not caring about music as zealously as one could, and from pleading guilty to personal cowardice, makes Englishmen, and still more Englishwomen, profess to be delighted with the Miserere; but, in their heart of hearts, their feeling ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... phantom Prince vanished suddenly from before him, and his own Veil that Blinds rose in darkening folds across his eyes. The Veil that Chokes swept across his mouth, and his turbulent voice was stilled. He began to shrink upward, to waver and fade, and presently he drifted helplessly into the great smoke dome and was ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... pearls and spices, brocades and precious-stones, on its way to Europe, and suggested an attack. It is true that the roving Hollander merely commanded a couple of the smallest galleots, with about a hundred and thirty men in the two. But when was Jacob Heemskerk ever known to shrink from an encounter—whether from single-handed combat with a polar bear, or from leading a forlorn hope against a Spanish fort, or from assailing a Portuguese armada. The carrack, more than one thousand tons burthen, carried seventeen guns, and at least eight times as many men as he commanded. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... course, the great object of the court; and they would shrink from nothing which would enable them to extort confessions. The prisoners knew what was before them, and prepared themselves according to ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... does not shrink from encountering a man, and often kills him, unless he is fearless and adroit in his defence. All the companions of young Boone fled from the vicinity, as fast as possible. Not so the subject of our narrative. He coolly surveyed the animal, that in turn eyed him, as the cat does a mouse, ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... best to emulate the historic example held up to her, Letty lengthened her neck and stiffened it. A haughty spirit seemed to rise in her by the mere process of the elongation. She was so nervous that the paper shook in her hand, but she knew that if the Celestial City was to be won, she could shrink from no tests which might lead her ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... governed. That he should take the deepest interest in the goings-on of his time is part of his greatness; to suppose that he stopped at them, or that he subordinated to political objects or feelings all the other elements of his poem, is to shrink up that greatness into very narrow limits. Yet this has been done by men of mark and ability, by Italians, by men who read the Commedia in their own mother tongue. It has been maintained as a satisfactory account of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... any doubt, How soon I may ride the whole world about. And at the third question thou must not shrink, But tell me here truly what ...
— The Book of Brave Old Ballads • Unknown
... conceived how great a trial it is to me to write the following history of myself; but I must not shrink from the task. The words, "Secretum meum mihi," keep ringing in my ears; but as men draw towards their end, they care less for disclosures. Nor is it the least part of my trial, to anticipate that my friends may, upon first reading what I have written, consider much in it irrelevant to ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... the tea depends upon the manner of cultivation, the character of the soil, the amount of moisture and sunshine and the age of the leaf at the time of picking. Young, tender leaves have the finest flavor, and bring the highest prices, but shrink enormously in curing, and many growers consider it more profitable to leave them until they are well matured. It requires about four pounds of fresh leaves to make one pound of dry leaves, and black tea and green tea are grown from the same bush. If the leaf ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... with shoeless Seraphinas, To shrink at every ruffian's shako; Without a pair of shirts between us, Morn, noon, and night to smell tobacco; To live my days in Gallic hovels, Untouched by water since the flood; To wade through streets, where famine grovels ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various
... be an admirer of old John Brown, any farther than sympathy with Whittier's excellent ballad about him may go; nor did I expect ever to shrink so unutterably from any apothegm of a sage, whose happy lips have uttered a hundred golden sentences, as from that saying (perhaps falsely attributed to so honored a source), that the death of this blood-stained fanatic has ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... impression is that old ladies shrink," he said, "but Aunt Mary could never have shrunk to that size. Where did you get her ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... of convoy-duty. To feel that you have a smart ship underfoot and a crew who will shrink from nothing their skipper may put them alongside, and to be doomed to drag along, day after day, under close-reefed topsails, in order to avoid running away from the sluggish, deep-laden merchantmen; with signalling and gun-firing going on day and night, restraining ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... veil. Some of the women present condemned her for that. The matron of the prison had besought her to use one. Her answer was decisive. She had never put a veil on since childhood, and she would not wear one now. She would not shrink beneath a false charge. She would show her face ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... tapers wink, the chieftains shrink, The stranger's gone—amidst the crew A form was seen in tartan green, And tall the ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... find the gates open far, So that close together we both come in; I shrink from the thoughts of the gates ajar, When only the ...
— Harry • Fanny Wheeler Hart
... and war—thought he had never seen a more martial looking, or more completely equipped and accomplished man at arms than now saluted him in the person of his mother's brother, called Ludovic with the Scar, or Le Balafre; yet he could not but shrink a little from the grim expression of his countenance, while, with its rough moustaches, he brushed first the one and then the other cheek of his kinsman, welcomed his nephew to France, and, in the same breath, asked what ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... shrink from the task? Do you shirk the chop now that you know what is at stake? An army marches on its stomach; the nation's well-being hangs on yours. Henceforth, until the 'Cease Fire' sounds, you must fall upon the domestic ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 17, 1920 • Various
... from the end only sufficient for one crust at a time. Lay this, the flat side upon the board, and roll evenly in every direction, until scarcely more than an eighth of an inch in thickness, and somewhat larger than the baking plate, as it will shrink when lifted from ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... awoke the room was full of a chill daylight. As he moved he felt himself stiff all over. The sensation brought back memory, and the boy's whole being seemed to shrink together. He burrowed first under his coverings out of the light, then suddenly he sat up in bed, in the shadow of the little staircase—or rather ladder—which led to the upper story, and ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... stage of familiarity so promptly. She had known, of course, that girls were to look for endearments from those whom they promised to marry, but her person had hitherto been so sacred to man and to herself that it was difficult not to shrink a little from what was taking place. This then was love, and love was, of course, the sweetest thing in the world. That was one of the truths which she had accepted as she had accepted the beauty of Shakespeare, as something not to be ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... Amelius started to his feet, and opening the cabinet, took from it Mrs. Farnaby's letter. He read the letter, keeping his back towards Phoebe—waited a moment thinking—and suddenly turned on the woman with a look that made her shrink in her chair. "You wretch!" he said; "you ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... anywhere, the aristocracy of intellect and character are almost solely recognised, and those patents of nobility honoured which come direct from God. "After a single term, Julian, depend upon it you will smile at the sensitiveness which now makes you shrink from entering on this position. At least, I assume that even by that time your name will be honourably known, as it will be if you work hard. You must never forget that 'Virtus vera nobilitas' is the noble motto of your ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... with a match held about three inches from it. Finally, I lit it for her, and she seemed to see me for the first time. She looked at me, at once shiftily and sharply. Her eyes narrowed. Suspicion leaped into her face, and she seemed to shrink into herself like a tortoise into its shell. "Oo's 'e?" she demanded ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... there in life that we should cling to it so? It is not the pleasures, for those whose hours are one long pain shrink away screaming when they see merciful Death holding his soothing arms out for them. It is not the associations, for we will change all of them before we walk of our own free wills down that broad road which every son and daughter of man must tread. Is it the fear of losing ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... one's neighbors is a career by itself seems to prevail just at present; but Phyllis had no taste in this direction. Writing a book and riding a bicycle were alike outside her calculations of a scheme of life. Hospital nursing was nothing that she would shrink from; at the same time, it did not attract her; she felt that she could dress quite as becomingly as a hospital nurse ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... to attach private character, but justice demands that men who boldly claim to be the rulers of the free and happy state of Connecticut, should be known. The men who are to stand in the places of our Trumbulls and our Ellsworths should not shrink from public investigation. To those who respect the authority of God it is a matter of no small moment that those who rule over men should be just, ruling in the fear of God nor will men, accustomed to revere this solemn declaration, lend their aid ...
— Count The Cost • Jonathan Steadfast
... cut out for him in considerate dealings with his own digestion. So soon as prudence has begun to grow up in the brain, like a dismal fungus, it finds its first expression in a paralysis of generous acts. The victim begins to shrink spiritually; he develops a fancy for parlours with a regulated temperature, and takes his morality on the principle of tin shoes and tepid milk. The care of one important body or soul becomes so engrossing, that all the noises of the outer ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... have taken the alarm, and I should have relinquished a task become too difficult and too laborious. Events are now too numerous and too complicated to be described by occasional remarks; and a narrator of no more pretensions than myself may be allowed to shrink from an abundance of matter which will hereafter perplex the choice and excite the wonder of the historian.—Removed from the great scene of intrigues, we are little acquainted with them—we begin to suffer ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... In the admiration only of weak minds Led captive; cease to admire, and all her plumes Fall flat, and shrink into a trivial toy, At every ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... I to fly to him, my sensibility could not support the scene. To behold him stretched on the bed of disease—perhaps of death—would be agony past endurance. Let firmer nerves than Olivia's, and hearts more callous, assume the offices from which they shrink not. 'Tis the fate, the hard fate of all endued with exquisite sensibility, to be palsied by the excess of their feelings, and to become imbecile at the moment their ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... advantage of the phase-out of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing, which eliminated quotas on textiles and clothing for WTO partners on 1 January 2005. Agriculture's share of economic output has continued to shrink, from about 25% in 2000 to less than 20% in 2007. Deep poverty, defined as a percent of the population living under $1 per day, has declined significantly and is now smaller than that of China, India, and the Philippines. Vietnam is working to create jobs to meet the ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... countries of the East or sail about the lovely islands of the South Seas without constantly seeing before him men and women dying of the most terrible of all diseases—leprosy. The poor victims are cast out from their homes, and those who have loved them most, shrink from them with the greatest horror, for one touch of their bodies or their clothes might cause the wife or child to share their doom. Special laws are made for them, special villages are set apart for them, and in old times as they walked ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... Cynthia did shrink from the cold, though there were good fires kept in the house. This winter Chilian had a stove put up in the hall, very much against Elizabeth's desires. Quite large logs could be slipped in and they would lie ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... shrink, the spirit fail, But Spaniards must be free; And pride and duty shall prevail O'er all my ...
— Vignettes in Verse • Matilda Betham
... in his own room, though he was requested to take it in the public apartment. He seemed to shrink from meeting any one, or talking to any one; and still brooded over his own black thoughts: as he had brooded at the railway station, in the parlour of the Basingstoke inn, in the carriage with his ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... this in the Colloquies, adds that he hates fishes not otherwise than he does a serpent. Now, there are some so affected that fish is poison to them, just as there are found those who in like manner shrink from wine. If one who is thus affected with regard to fishes, should be forbidden to feed on flesh and milk-food, will he not be hardly treated? Is it possible that any man can desire him to be exposed to the pains of hell, if for the necessity of his body he should live ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... use it, which was not nearly always, there was a steadfast kindliness, the vigor of a true and pure manhood, that made a clear atmosphere about him, in which insincerity, weakness, and selfishness seemed to flicker into pale shadows, and shrink away from the intense mental light ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... glad that you understand. But, again ... have I been wrong to shrink from personal relations with Mr. Trebell? Hatred is as sacred a responsibility as love. And you will not agree with me when I say that punishment can be the ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... France. From France we passed into Italy. We lived here; we lived there. It was useless. Death had got met and Death followed me, go where I might. I bore it, for I had an alleviation to turn to which I had not deserved. You may shrink in horror from the very memory of me now. In those days, you comforted me. The only warmth I still felt at my heart was the warmth you brought to it. My last glimpses of happiness in this world were the glimpses given me by ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... allowed themselves in the profession of their faith at home, cautious as they might be in public places; as freely as now in England, where we do not scruple to raise crucifixes within our churches and houses, though we shrink from doing so within sight of the hundred cabs and omnibuses which rattle past them. Under the cross were two or three pictures, or rather sketches. In the centre stood the Blessed Virgin with hands spread out in prayer, attended by the holy Apostles ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... with the glorious tale? Ah! such, alas, the hero's amplest fate! When granite moulders and when records fail, A peasant's plaint prolongs his dubious date. Pride! bend thine eye from heaven to thine estate, See how the mighty shrink into a song! Can volume, pillar, pile, preserve thee great? Or must thou trust Tradition's simple tongue, When Flattery sleeps with thee, and History does ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... cast out of consecration, Corpse and coffin, yea the very graves, Scoffed at, scattered, shaken from their station, Spurned and scourged of wind and sea like slaves, Desolate beyond man's desolation, Shrink and sink into the ...
— Studies in Song • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... itself in its toils. No burning language of prophecy would be too solemn and too stinging for the premeditated wretchedness, and incurable calamity, of such a bond. No; if we must violate the simplicity of our national interests by such degrading, and such desperate involvements—if we should not shrink from this conspiracy against mankind, let it, at least, not be consummated in the face of day; let us at once abandon the hollow pretences of human honesty; let us pledge ourselves to a perpetual league of rapine and revolution; let it be transacted in some lower region of existence, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... What promise of future reward have you made me for all the submission and obedience I have evinced?—none whatever. What granted me?—scarcely more. You tell me of M. Franz d'Epinay, your betrothed lover, and you shrink from the idea of being his wife; but tell me, Valentine, is there no other sorrow in your heart? You see me devoted to you, body and soul, my life and each warm drop that circles round my heart are consecrated to your service; you know full well that my existence is bound up ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... may repel. They tend to reveal the nakedness of his soul rather than its warmth. It is not a matter of the relative value of the aspiration, or a difference between subconsciousness and consciousness but a difference in the arts themselves; for example, a composer may not shrink from having the public hear his "love letter in tones," while a poet may feel sensitive about having everyone read his "letter in words." When the object of the love is mankind the sensitiveness is changed ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... and trying to shrink away. The circle of girls whirled around to see her clasping her slender hands tightly together, while she kept ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... attributed this distance of manner to a feeling of shyness which Reddy might entertain at being seen in such a place, and therefore had too much good breeding to thrust his civility on a man who seemed to shrink from it; but when he left the house he expressed his regret to his companions at the poor ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... evolution out of a long line of ancestry, and one's responsibility of this or that trait is often very slight; but the book is an actual transcript of his mind, and is wise or foolish according as he made it so. Hence I trust my reader will pardon me if I shrink from any discussion of the merits or demerits of these intellectual children of mine, or indulge in any very confidential remarks with ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... felt that he would like, with his first words, to put his hand reassuringly on the crumpled shoulder. But the night had left his nerves still raw—in his sensitivity he could not bear the thought that the trembling figure would shrink from his touch, and he kept his ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... soon as they were out of his mouth. After all, Ephie was such a child. He could not see her face, which was hidden by the brim of the big hat, but there was something pathetic in the line of her chin, and the droop of her arms and shoulders. She seemed to shrink under his words—to grow smaller. As he stood aside to let her pass before him, through the house-door in the BRUDERSTRASSE, he had a quick revulsion of feeling. Instead of being rough and cruel to her, he should have tried to win her confidence with brotherly kindness. But he had had room in ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... look with more care at some maiden whose bosom had begun to shrink in the flames, or at the face of a child distorted by convulsions; and again he drove on, leading behind him a wild, excited retinue. At times he bowed to the people, then again he bent backward, drew in the golden ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... after us for its continuance. We must aim at nothing less than the complete effacement of the financial evils that necessarily followed a state of civil war. We must endeavor to apply the earliest remedy to the deranged state of the currency, and not shrink from devising a policy which, with-out being oppressive to the people, shall immediately begin to effect a reduction of the debt, and, if persisted in, discharge it fully within a ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... sufficient to make the water hot, without causing it to boil; for if the water boils immediately, it will not penetrate the meat, and cleanse it from the clotted blood and other matters, which ought to go off in scum. The meat will be hardened all over by violent heat, will shrink up as if it were scorched, and afford very little gravy. On the contrary, by keeping the water heating about half an hour without boiling, the meat swells, becomes tender, and its fibres are dilated. By this process, it ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... was she to bare that timid little heart for the inspection of those young ladies with their bold black eyes? It was best that it should shrink and hide itself. I know the Misses Osborne were excellent critics of a Cashmere shawl, or a pink satin slip; and when Miss Turner had hers dyed purple, and made into a spencer; and when Miss Pickford had her ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray |
