"Cringe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... contrary, had been as carefully brought up in the opposite conviction. To him it was the Gentile who was the refuse of humanity, and it was a perpetual humiliation to be forced to cringe to, and wait upon, such contemptible creatures. Moreover, the day was coming when their positions should be reversed; and who could say how near it was at hand? Then the proud Christian noble would be the slave of the despised Jew pedlar, and—thought Delecresse, grinding his teeth—he at least ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... crossroads may not exist anywhere, but its bare mention had a curious effect on the prying Don Anastasio. In the instant he seemed to cringe before ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... serves, and who are so arrogant in their regality. He must not forecast the falling of such, but pity them—and speak, if they would listen—for their need is often greater than that of the menials who cringe before their empty greatness, blinded by their kingly trappings. The world so often betrays them at the end, strips them to nakedness and leaves them to die—for they are the cripples, the sick, the blind in spirit.... Delicately he must attend the brutal and arrogant; not hate them, ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... cringe and whine, And cower in the weeping air— But, oh, she was no kin of mine, And so I did ...
— Nets to Catch the Wind • Elinor Wylie
... honor'd and blest By former ages, who else— Such, so soulless, so poor, Is the race of men whom I see— Seem'd but a dream of the heart, Seem'd but a cry of desire. Yes! I believe that there liv'd Others like thee in the past, Not like the men of the crowd Who all round me to-day Bluster or cringe, and make life Hideous, and arid, and vile; But souls temper'd with fire, Fervent, heroic, and good, ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... be a slave, when Freedom smiling stands, To strike the gyves from of his fettered hands? Who'd be a slave, and cringe, and bow the knee, And kiss the hand that steals his liberty? Behold the bird that flits from bough to bough; What though at times the wintry blasts may blow,— Happier it feels, half frozen in its nest, Than caged, though fed and fondled and caressed. 'Tis said, ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... answered the boy, with trepidation. It was part of the law that the lion of the ante-room should cringe like a cold monkey, more or less, as soon as he was out of his private jungle. "Oh, Tallerman," cried the Sunday editor, "here's this Arctic man come to arrange about his illustration. I wish you'd go and talk it over with him." By chance he picked up the scrap of paper with its cryptic ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... man's motion, and must move just so In spight of their creation: one that weighs His breath between his teeth, and dares not smile Beyond a point, for fear t'unstarch his look; Hath travell'd to make legs, and seen the cringe Of several courts, and courtiers; knows the time Of giving titles, and of taking walls; Hath read court common-places; made them his: Studied the grammar of state, and all the rules Each formal usher in that politic school Can teach ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... canyons of dismal unrest; I cringe — I'm so weak and so small. I can't get my bearings, I'm crushed and oppressed With the haste and the waste of it all. The slaves and the madman, the lust and the sweat, The fear in the faces I see; The getting, ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... hand in his broad, white-swathed palm and pressed it fervently, regardless of the pain which would have caused him to cringe if engaged in ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... What, cringe to Europe! Band it all in one, Stilt its decrepit strength, renew its age, Wipe out its debts, contract a loan to wage Its venal battles,—and, by yon bright sun, Our God is false, and liberty undone, If slaves have power to win your heritage! Look on ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... renown in arms, Pant after fame, and rush to war's alarms; To shining palaces let fools resort, And dunces cringe to be esteem'd at court: Mine be the pleasure of a rural life, From noise remote, and ignorant of strife; Far from the painted belle, and white-glov'd beau, The lawless masquerade and midnight show; From ladies, ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... editor who wills to please, Must humbly crawl upon his knees, And kiss the hand that beats him; Or, if he dare attempt to walk, Must toe the mark that others chalk, And cringe ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... "one rascal leading another! Trust a man to find his mate! A plague on you, swineherd, where are you taking that pitiful wretch? Another beggar, I suppose, to hang about the doors and cringe for the scraps and spoil our feasts? Now if you would only let me have him to watch my farm and sweep out my stalls and fetch fodder for my kids, he could drink as much whey as he liked and get some flesh on his bones. But no! His tricks have spoilt him for ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... England into France, Nor yet to learn to cringe nor dance, Nor yet to ride nor fence; Nor did I go like one of those That do return with half a nose, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... too, I will give him shelter, a kindness never to be despised. A moment ago, before I whistled, this dog was tranquil and happy in the rain. Now he has changed. He turns fully around and approaches me, a slight cringe in his walk. The tranquillity has left him. At the sound of my whistle he has grown suddenly tired and lonely and the night and rain no longer lure him. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... I'd hit you down for that," he said, clenching his fists. "What do you know about things to talk to me like that? Who are you to take his side and cringe to him? If you can't judge him, there's plenty that can, and it's you who are pig-headed, not me, because you don't see I'm fighting your battle for you. It may seem too late to fight for you; but it's never too late ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... like the cringe of a nervous woman suddenly frightened, Commines, the man of iron nerves, turned to the door, the colour rushing in a flood to his face. Neither had heard its latch click nor seen it open, but the broad figure of a burly man was massed in the gloom ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... and hard usage. Perhaps her husband might have had mercy on her, but they were both cowed by the pitiless brute of a step-son, whose only view was to goad her into driving their profitable traffic to her last gasp. But there was no outbreak between them and Harold. The father's nature was to cringe and fawn, and the son estimated those thews and muscles too well to gratify his hatred by open provocation, and was only surly and dogged, keeping himself almost entirely out of the way. Alice wanted nothing but to look at her son—"her beautiful ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to me close under my wing. And never once, since Pee-Wee went, have I actually punished either of my children. It may be wrong, but I can't help it. I don't want memories of violence to be left corroding and rankling in my mind. And I'd hate to see any child of mine cringe, like an ill-treated dog, at every lift of the hand. There are better ways of controlling them, I begin to feel, than through fear. Their father, I know, will never agree with me on this matter. He will always insist on mastery, open ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... when night comes round me, And the soft chain of thought has bound me, I whisper, "Sir, your eyes are killing— You owe no mortal man a shilling— You never cringe for star or garter, You're much too wise to be a martyr— And since you must, be food for vermin, You don't feel much desire for ermine!" Wisdom is a mine, no doubt, If one can but find it out— But whate'er I think or say, I'm an ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various
... ready to promise everything and do nothing, vindictive and highly suspicious of a stranger's intentions. Their bearing towards the Christian, whom they call the infidel, is full of contempt. They know no gratitude, and they would not cringe to the greatest Christian potentate. They are very long-suffering in adversity, hesitating in attack, and the bravest of the brave in defence. They disdain work as degrading and only a fit occupation for slaves, whilst warfare is, ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... scraggy man—very lightly clad—and a violent squint handicapped him seriously in the matter of first impressions. When he saw Jocelyn he dropped his burden of wood and ran towards her. The African negro does not cringe. He is a proud man in his way. If he is properly handled, he is not only trustworthy—he is something stronger. Nala grinned ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... should complaint be made of him at Rome, his corruption and cruelties, his extortions and the unjustifiable slaughter he had caused would all be brought against him. He was the Roman ruler, but the people over whom he exercized official dominion delighted in seeing him cringe, when they cracked, with vicious snap above his head, the whip of a threatened report about him to his imperial ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... sort of a man father is," replied Rufe. "Peakslow would have found out, if he had drawn a bead on you. How quick he stopped, and changed countenance! He can govern his temper when he finds he must; and he can cringe and crawl when he sees it's for his interest. Think of his asking you at last,—after you had got your horse in spite of him, and at the risk of your life,—think of his begging you to give ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... such things as I am telling leaves marks upon the flesh and spirit. I remember little children in Polotzk with old, old faces and eyes glazed with secrets. I knew how to dodge and cringe and dissemble before I knew the names of the seasons. And I had plenty of time to ponder on these things, because I was so idle. If they had let me go to school, now—But ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... be, woman. No bastard shall reign here as Mother of the Trees while the nations round cringe before her feet. I have spells; I have poisons; I have slaves who can shoot ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... back upon that action, sorrowfully considering it. "I thought it very affable of him to shake hands," he said, "but he had a very final way of doing it. And, besides, I didn't care to make a tale of my private affairs, and seem to cringe. I didn't want ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... man cringe in abasement and contrition. But the heavy jaw thrust forth in truculent defiance; hate blazed forth from the deep-set eyes; the florid features were empurpled with rage. He made as if to reply, but turned away from the withering scorn ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... beguile with lies and flattery? O'er plains they ramble unconfin'd, No politics disturb their mind; They eat their meals, and take their sport, 25 Nor know who's in or out at court; They never to the levee go To treat as dearest friend, a foe; They never importune his grace, Nor ever cringe to men in place; 30 Nor undertake a dirty job, Nor draw the quill to write for B—b. Fraught with invective they ne'er go To folks at Pater-Noster-Row; No judges, fiddlers, dancing-masters, 35 No pick-pockets, or poetasters, Are known to honest quadrupeds; ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... on the brown, rolling fields; Shuddered with fearful ecstasy in bed Over a book of knights and bloody shields... The ship slowed, jarred and stopped. There, straight ahead, Were dock and fellows. Stumbling, he was whirled Out and away to meet them — and his back Slumped to the old half-cringe, his hands fell slack; A big boy's arm went round him — and a twist Sent shattering pain along his tortured wrist, As a voice cried, a bloated voice and fat, "Why it's Miss Nancy! Come along, ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet
... piece became a flaming torch, and he waved it before him and laughed to see the warriors cringe. A cloud of smoke was billowing about him—he leaped to safety through a rising wall ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... melting apostrophies. Marius was not mouthing by the ruins of Carthage, nor even Rachel weeping for her Hebrew children. But there were on every hand manifestations of adherence to the Southern cause, except among a few males who feared unutterable things, and were disposed to cringe and prevaricate. The women were not generally handsome; their face was indolent, their dress slovenly, and their manner embarrassed. They lopped off the beginnings and the ends of their sentences, generally commencing with a verb, as thus: "Told soldiers not to carr' ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... Croix," and every sentence stung like the lash of a whip, "those are cowardly words, unworthy a French gentleman and soldier. Did you leave all your courtesy behind in Montreal, or dream that in this wilderness I should cringe to any words you might speak? You wish the truth; you shall have it. Three days ago, through an accident, I drifted, in an oarless boat, out from the river-mouth at Fort Dearborn to the open lake. None knew of my predicament. A storm blew me ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... to your Majesty my person, my sword, my castle, and my lands. I will, at your word, prostrate myself at your feet, and humbly beg pardon for any offence I have committed against you, but to tell the Archbishop I am sorry when I am not, and to cringe before him and supplicate his grace, well, your Majesty, as between man and man, I'll ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... open to him. The leaders of upper New York were, a few years ago, porters, stable boys, coal-heavers, pickers of rags, scrubbers of floors, and laundry women. Coarse, rude, uncivil, and immoral many of them still are. Lovers of pleasure and men of fashion bow and cringe to such, and approach hat in hand. One of our new-fledged millionaires gave a ball in his stable. The invited came with tokens of delight. The host, a few years ago, was a ticket-taker at one of our ferries, ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... Business, and I to mine. [Speaks as the rest go out. Let the dull trading Fool by Business live, Statesmen by Plots; the Courtier cringe to thrive; The Fop of Noise and Wealth be cullied on, And purchase no one Joy by being undone, Whilst I by nobler careless ways advance, Since Love and ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... if I seem crotchety, dear. Indeed, it is no pretense on my part. You cannot imagine how that man Ventana persecuted me. The mere suggestion of any one's paying me compliments and trying to be fascinating is so repellent that I cringe at the thought. And even our sailor-like captain will think it necessary to play the society clown, I suppose, seeing that we are young and ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... what is and what is not disreputable in this conventional world. It is not considered disreputable to cringe to the vices of a court, or to accept a pension wrung from the industry of the nation, in return for base servility. It is not considered disreputable to take tithes, intended for the service of God, and lavish them away at watering-places or elsewhere, seeking pleasure instead ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... your monkeys and goats and cats," answered Juba; "they're not to my taste, old dame. Master! my master! I won't have a master! I'll be nobody's servant. I'll never stand to be hired, nor cringe to a bully, nor quake before a rod. Please yourself, Gurta; I am a free man. You're ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... usually known as Love. As Avarice makes but a sorry theme for the romantic writer, Love is the subject that must principally claim your attention. All the world loves a lover, while the miser is despised even by those who cringe beneath the power of his gold. Study the women, my lad, and when you know them thoroughly begin your great ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... a roll of gray stocking from the hall table and flung it into Ursula's room. Ursula knew she would have to follow it, or be picked up and carried in like a naughty child. So she gave the miserable Ramsay a look that made him cringe, and swept into her room with her head in the air. The next moment she heard the door locked behind her. Her first proceeding was to have a cry of anger and shame and disappointment. That did no good, and then she took to marching up and ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... made me cringe all over, but I couldn't deny it, for so far as I knew Florence Lloyd, ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... the heart," said father, in precisely the same voice he always said, "This is a fine day we are having." "Now why are you coming here in such a shape?" This was a little cross. "I'm not the man to cringe before you!" This was quite boastful. "You'll get bullet for bullet, if you attempt to invade my house with a gun." This pinged as if father ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... cultur'd lands, Take back this name of splendid sound! I hate the touch of servile hands, I hate the slaves that cringe around: Place me among the rocks I love, Which sound to Ocean's wildest roar; I ask but this—again to rove Through scenes my youth ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... which, for more than seven years has sought our destruction, should now cringe to solicit our protection, is adding the wretchedness of disgrace to the misery of disappointment; and if England has the least spark of supposed honor left, that spark must be darkened by asking, and extinguished by receiving, the smallest favor from America; for the criminal who owes his life to ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... each other, and their suspicion of all above them, whether by rank or by nature, is a sense of the utmost keenness. Mrs. Butterfield varied somewhat from the type, inasmuch as she did not care to cringe before her superiors; but that was an accident; in essentials of feeling she ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... and masters; that I shall have no other God but this congregation; that I shall deny my own conscience for theirs; that I shall go about the trivial, nonsensical things they call my pastoral duties, in fear and trembling; that my ministry is to cringe when they speak, and do their will regardless of what I feel to be the will of Christ! Faugh!" Big Dan drew himself erect. "If this is what the call to the ministry means, I am beginning to understand some things that have always puzzled ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... said Heinzelmann, "while others around you grow rich by fraud and disloyalty; be without place or power while others beg their way upwards; bear the pain of disappointed hopes, while others gain the accomplishment of theirs by flattery; forego the gracious pressure of the hand, for which others cringe and crawl. Wrap yourself in your own virtue, and seek a friend and your daily bread. If you have in your own cause grown gray with unbleached honour, bless ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... holding a globe in the other, attended with the four evangelists, and saints on each side, with crowns in their hands, intended, I suppose, for a representation of Our Saviour's coming to judgment. Some of the company espying this, cry out and say, 'Lo, this is the God these people bow and cringe unto; this is the idol they worship and adore.' Hereupon several souldiers charged their muskets, (amongst whom one Daniel Wood, of Captain Roper's company was the chief) and discharge them at it: and by the many shots they made, at length do quite deface and ...
— The New Guide to Peterborough Cathedral • George S. Phillips
... utterances, their blasphemy made him cringe. He wrapped the little broken body tighter in his arms. Was she, then, what she was by a loving God's decree? He kissed her hair and groaned in righteous anger. Did that Outcast Emperor dare call himself the representative of God on earth, and thereupon ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... sword; some The flange and the rail; flame, Fang, or flood' goes Death on drum, And storms bugle his fame. But we dream we are rooted in earth—Dust! Flesh falls within sight of us, we, though our flower the same, Wave with the meadow, forget that there must The sour scythe cringe, and the ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... why wasn't I a thief, swindler, housebreaker, area sneak, robber of pence out of the trays of blind men's dogs, rather than your drudge and packhorse? If my every word was a lie, why wasn't I a pet and favourite of yours? Lie! When did I ever cringe and fawn to you. Tell me that! I served you faithfully. I did more work, because I was poor, and took more hard words from you because I despised you and them, than any man you could have got from the parish workhouse. I did. I served you because I was proud; because ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... Plainly enough the events of the night had overcome all his boasted self-control, his gambler's coolness, and the real underlying brutality of his nature demanded expression. He yearned to crush, and hurt something—something that would cringe before him. I ventured to raise my head cautiously, so as to gain a glimpse of the man, and was surprised to note the change in his face. It was as though he had removed a mask. Heretofore, always holding the winning hand, and able to sneer at opposition, he had always in my presence assumed ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... bargain. I think I know just the sort of people mamma and sisters are. He told me she read him a lecture every time he danced twice with a poor girl, and now I am expected to walk into the same trap, and cringe to her ladyship, for the sin of being poor. I guess not! I'll teach school till I die first, and he can think of me as having a 'slab of granite so gray' to ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... wear about them gold, jewels, purple, and those other marks of virtue and wisdom; but for the study of the things themselves, they remit it to others, thinking it happiness enough for them that they can call the king master, have learned the cringe a la mode, know when and where to use those titles of Your Grace, My Lord, Your Magnificence; in a word that they are past all shame and can flatter pleasantly. For these are the arts that speak a man truly noble and an exact ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... by admirers, and whose vanity is hourly feasted with all the luxuries of studied praise, is easily persuaded that his influence will be extended beyond his life; that they who cringe in his presence will reverence his memory, and that those who are proud to be numbered among his friends, will endeavour to vindicate his choice ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... fitted the first arrow to the string, and Stern was about to apply the torch, a rattling crash from above caused all to cringe and leap aside. ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... Mayor, nor the rest of the grave and elderly gentlemen were not blinded by the light of a royal Presence. You saw in him only an amiable and lovable young man, who was to succeed the most virtuous and lovable of sovereigns, Victoria. You, Colonel Carvel, were not one to cringe to royalty. Out of respect for the just and lenient Sovereign, his mother, you did honor to the Prince. But you did not remind him, as you might have, that your ancestors fought for the King at Marston Moor, and that your grandfather was once an intimate ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... gigantic ruins? How can they affect to sweat and stagger and groan under their burdens, to whom the mines of Newfoundland, richer than those of Mexico and Peru, are now thrown in as a make-weight in the scale of their exorbitant opulence? What excuse can they have to faint, and creep, and cringe, and prostrate themselves at the footstool of ambition and crime, who, during a short, though violent struggle, which they have never supported with the energy of men, have amassed more to their annual accumulation than ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... interrupted him. Stephen felt him cringe. Directly he felt something else. It was a cold hand groping to find his own. The whole thing was queer, uncanny, and he was glad when the man ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... the decisive note in the affairs of that great department store known as "The Colossus," may not by design have carried an air that would indicate the man to whom small tradesman regarded it as a mark of good breeding to cringe, but even in a place where his name was not known his appearance would strongly have appealed to commercial confidence. That instinct which in earlier life had prompted fearless speculation, now crystalized into conscious force, gave unconscious authority to ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... feet. We are dogs and sons of dogs, and a hireling will turn our Princes from the gate lest the soles of our shoes should defile their sacred places. And are they not right, Huzoor?" he asked cunningly. "Since we submit to it, since we cringe at their indignities and fawn upon them for their insults, are ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... intention; he was keenly alive to his opportunity to show her that he was answerable to no one for his conduct. He enjoyed her chagrin; he was moved to internal mirth over her impotent wrath; he took a savage delight in seeing her cringe from the evidence of his apparent brutality. ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... hyar "—he waved his hand with the pistol in it around at the circle of uncowering men, although the mere movement made Nehemiah cringe with the thought that an accidental discharge might as effectually settle his case as premeditated and deliberate murder. "Ye dun'no' none o' us. What air ye ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... over, but when her cousin appealed to her to leave the scene she seemed not to hear him. She only stood and stared at the exhausted man until he could bear it no longer and, hiding his face in his hands, he began to shiver and cringe ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... that might have sanctified the gold is of no account. This worship of mere wealth has, it is true, this advantage over the old adoration of birth, that something may possibly be got out of it; to cringe and fawn upon the people that have blue blood is manifestly futile, since the peculiarity is not communicable, but it is hoped that, by being shaken up in the same social bag with millionaires, something may be attained by what is technically called the 'sweating' ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... prowls under heaven Stab one for getting it? Had he wished power, The thing was in the market-place for sale At stated rates—so much for a man's soul! His was a haughty spirit that bent not, And one to rise had need to cringe and creep. So had his brother into favor crawled, Like slug into the bosom of a rose, And battened in the sun. At thought of him, Forgotten for a moment, Wyndham winced, And felt his wound. "Why bides he not in Town With his blond lovelock and wench-luring ways— There ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... What a futile, irritating man!—and what dull creatures were the wife and daughter!—mere echoes of their lord and master. She had behaved badly, of course; in a few days she supposed the report of her outburst would be all over the place. She did not care. Even for Roger's sake she was not going to cringe to these ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and if she loved him, would doubtless answer it as soon as circumstances would permit; and he 'would let that haughty old aristocrat, her father, see that Philip Hayforth, the merchant, had more of the spirit of a man in him than to cringe to the proudest blood in England. And as for Emily, she was his betrothed bride—the same as his wife; and if he was not more to her than any father on earth, she was unworthy of the love he had given her. Let her only be true to him, and he was ready to devote his life to her—to ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... infancy Doth heaven with all its splendors lie; Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, We Sinais climb and know ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... his breath. "A woman! I know nothing of women. In all my life I have seen but two—my mother and a nautch-girl—who cringed to me. I should not like my wife to cringe to me. Are there not such as could be my companion, my comrade? Or are ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... on his career of international madness and prosecute it with the rage of a demon is not entirely clear. A vision of himself as the Napoleon of southern South America, who might cause Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay to cringe before his footstool, while he disposed at will of their territory and fortunes, doubtless stirred his imagination. So, too, the thought of his country, wedged in between two huge neighbors and threatened ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... compared to the few basking in idleness, dying from rich living; and with all of them, whether fat or lean, the soul is more spoiled than the body. A superstitious respect keeps them cowed under their burden, or makes them cringe before their master. Servile, slothful, gluttonous, feeble, incapable of resisting adversity, if they have acquired the miserable skills of slavery, they have also contracted its needs, weaknesses and vices. A crust of absurd habits ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... crouched at the far side of the rope-ladder doorway. Carmena had bent her head to pass under the massive lintel. Lennon followed Elsie to the side of the doorway opposite Farley. The lawyer-ranchman appeared to cringe, yet he held to his position and even attempted an ingratiating smile as he ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... so utterly vile," said the boy, "and I cringe to none. But I would as lief adore your image, as that in my heart, for both mean the same; but more, how can I? I love great Oro, though I comprehend him not. I marvel at his works, and feel as nothing in his sight; but because he is thus omnipotent, and ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... been made responsible for all the blunders of his subordinates. A rich man, and the scion of an historic house, he has led the life of a galley-slave; an honest man, he has been doomed to perpetual prevarication; a humane man, he has had to condone every atrocity; an independent man, he must cringe before his master; a peaceful man, he must submit to the continuation of insensate slaughter; a highly gifted intellectual, he has had to pursue a policy of insane stupidity. Twenty-five years ago a professor ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... houses, windows, male servants, horses, carriages, etc. The trebling of these imposts took the House by surprise, and drew from Tierney, now, in the absence of Fox, the leader of Opposition, the taunt that Pitt had to cringe to the Bank for help. A few days later Pitt explained that the triple duty would fall only upon those who already paid L3 or more on that score. If the sum paid were less than L1 it would be halved. Those who paid L3 or ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... asks for, does not at all represent their idea of charity. They expect any fairly well-to-do person, such as a shopkeeper, to give sufficient food for the whole community for one day, and they sit in his house till they get it. They do not stand at the door and salaam and cringe, like the ordinary mendicant. They boldly enter in uninvited and demand alms. They are much disliked on account of the largeness of their wants. But they are also feared on account of the terrible nature of their denunciations if they do not get what they ask for. They profess to be celibates, but ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... can cringe, and fawn, eh? back with you!—the girl, I say." For poor Emily, wild with fear, was clinging to that weak ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... the band Of feeble spirits cringe and plead To the gigantic strength of Greed, And fawn upon ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... unresisting hinge Threw wide her hospitable door, To one whose spirit did not cringe Though he was weak, and knew he bore No right her ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... a real Dane—not an English-bred one like myself. That is good. You and I will have many a talk together. Odin, how good it is to meet a housecarl who speaks as man to man and does not cringe to me! Who ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... have been killed, but the rapidity of his action saved him, for the spear passed his shoulder so close that it tore away a shred of his coat, and stuck in the wall behind him. In another instant Doltaire had his sword-point at Voban's throat. The man did not cringe, did not speak a word, but his hands clinched, and the muscles of his face worked painfully. There was at first a fury in Doltaire's face and a metallic hardness in his eyes, and I was sure he meant to pass his sword through ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... meets only censure and coldness, despite her attempts to fulfil her duty, all come under the same law. If they consent to drift away into the limbo of failures, they have only to resign themselves, and their existence will soon end in futility and disaster; but, if they refuse to cringe under the lash of circumstances, if they toil on as though a bright goal were immediately before them, the result is almost assured; and, even if they do succumb, they have the blessed knowledge that they have failed gallantly. Half the misfortunes ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... the thin but impenetrable curtain which separates him from eternity, the salient characteristic of his being is unmasked and stands forth, naked. If he be at heart a coward, even though he may honestly never have suspected himself of cowardice, he will try to flee, or cringe and grovel for mercy; if his soul is stayed upon the immortal and everlasting truths, he will face what Fate may hold with the resigned fortitude which was the martyrs'; but, if he is merely a man, ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... especially in our cities, where such a large floating population is to be found, and in our country places where there is no resident priest, a compromising Catholicism, apologetic Catholics. How many Catholics in the West are always ready to cringe in presence of those who are not of our belief and to apologize for their faith. To react against this abiding danger we need all through the country well instructed and thoroughly educated Catholic leaders who will be ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... easy of acquirement. The most powerful of them by far (but the most dangerous) is to fly into a passion and marvel how anyone can be such a fool as to pay attention to wretched trifles. "Powerful," because it appeals to that strongest of all passions in men by which they are predisposed to cringe before what they think to be a superior station in society. "Dangerous," because if it fail in its objects this method does not save you from pain, and secures you in addition a bad quarrel, and perhaps a heavy beating. Still it has many votaries, and ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... seizure. I have always been on good terms with him, and must try and induce him not to detain us. It will not do, however, to approach him on horseback. We must show him some respect, though we need not bow and cringe ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... misfortune of mankind is this: Calm and serene and unconcerned to court Fate's heaviest blows, and then, when these have fallen, To whine and cringe, bewailing one's sad lot.— Such folly we will none of, thou and I. For now I seek King Creon, to proclaim My right as guest-friend, and to clear away These clouds of dark distrust that threaten storm.— Meanwhile, take thou the babes ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... appreciably changed the complexion of her mind toward the Lyttleton episode. She was not yet able to recall that chapter of infatuation without a cringe of shame; but that would pass with time, and the experience had not been without a value already apparent. For even as she had said to him, she was cured—and more than cured, she was instructed; she was not only better acquainted with herself, but had learned to ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... they could no longer bring down the mechanism and continue the movement, they were suspended by their arms, and at each revolution of the wheel received new wounds on their members, until, in the language of that law so grossly outraged in their persons, they "languished and died." Ask you if a cringe of this murderous nature went unvisited, and if no inquiry was made respecting its circumstances? The forms of justice were observed; the handmaid was present, but the sacred mistress was far away. A coroner's ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... bred is monstrous," he suddenly cried. "And always they work for evil. If I were ever to write a melodrama, Margaret, I could wish for no more thorough-paced villain than a large fortune." Kennaston paused and laughed grimly. "We cringe to the Eagle!" said he. "Eh, well, why not? The Eagle is very powerful and very cruel. In the South yonder, the Eagle has penned over a million children in his factories, where day by day he drains the youth and health and very life out of their tired bodies; ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... with mingled anger and fascination. Here was certainly a new species of woman! Never before had any teacher at William Penn failed to cringe to his authority ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... around a corner and barked, but he spoke, and the dog's tail became eloquent. He was patting the dog, when the door opened and a man stood looking at him. Immediately the taint of the prison became evident. He had not cringed before the dog, but he did cringe before the man who lived in that fine white house, and who had never known what it was to be deprived of liberty. He hung his head, he mumbled. The house-owner, who was older than he, was slightly deaf. He looked him over curtly. The end of it was he was ordered off the premises, and ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... convicts, doubly lost amongst the damned, they banish him to the sternest of the penal settlements; they send him forth with the vilest to break stones upon the roads. Shrivelled and bowed and old prematurely, see that sharp face peering forth amongst that gang, scarcely human, see him cringe to the lash of the scornful overseer, see the pairs chained together, night and day! Ho, ho! his comrade hath found him again,—the Artist and the Gravestealer leashed together! Conceive that fancy so nurtured by habit, those tastes, ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... opposition served as a tonic, "and move that flat-iron on to the front o' the stove. Rebecca, set down in that low chair beside the board, and Jane, you spread out her hair on it and cover it up with brown paper. Don't cringe, Rebecca; the worst's over, and you've borne up real good! I'll be careful not to pull your hair nor scorch you, and oh, HOW I'd like to have Alice Robinson acrost my knee and a good strip o' shingle in my right hand! There, you're all ironed out and your Aunt Jane can put on your white ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... The preparation to receive the boat drew the attention of the crowd, and they stared at its occupants with an intentness which implied some deeper interest than mere curiosity; low words were exchanged, and some of the poor frightened creatures seemed to take on a greater cringe. ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... offering to undertake a special business mission for my employer at Paris. It is drudgery, at my time of life, after all I have gone through—but my hard work is innocent work. I am not obliged to cringe for every crown-piece I put in my pocket—not bound to denounce, deceive, and dog to death other men, before I can earn my bread, and scrape together money enough to bury me. I am ending a bad, base life harmlessly at last. ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... no joke at all," Lind said, gloomily. "Those Swiss people are craven. What can you expect from a nation of hotel-waiters? They cringe before every bully in Europe; you will find that, if Bismarck insists, the Federal Council will expel Armfeldt from Switzerland directly. No; the only safe refuge nowadays for the reformers, the Protestants the pioneers of Europe, is England; and the English do not know it; they ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... composers of his country, if only his life had been of a different nature. But he was not born under a lucky star. He had written much in his time, and yet he had never been fortunate enough to see any of his compositions published. He did not know how to set to work, how to cringe at the right moment, how to proffer a request at the fitting time. Once, it is true, a very long time ago, one of his friends and admirers, also a German, and also poor, published at his own expense two of Lemm's ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... Cringe, if thou wilt, sue, bend the knee to power. Little reck I of Zeus. Then let him work His tyrant will for his allotted span. Not long shall he be monarch of the gods. But lo! the Almighty's henchman I behold, That errands bears for this new dynasty; ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... made her cringe in the deep chair. She was losing her clear, sweet vision of that blessed night when Gaston and she had stood transfigured! If only she could have held to that, all would have been so simple—but with that fading glory gone she would be ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... this recondite learning adapted to feed the mind, not the body, you have recourse, at need, to your hands and your handiwork, there is no call for deceit, your trade is ready when required. Honour and honesty will not stand in the way of your living. You need no longer cringe and lie to the great, nor creep and crawl before rogues, a despicable flatterer of both, a borrower or a thief, for there is little to choose between them when you are penniless. Other people's opinions are no concern of yours, ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... that brought it tumbling to the ground, he sprung back and held his rifle prepared for any foe, were he a four-footed or a two-footed one. Instead of either, what was his amazement to see a negro, as black as midnight, emerge from the ruins, and cringe at ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... Pixley took him from the train, the dog was led through crowds of people and bustling, noisy streets that made Jan cringe and cower. At last they reached a place where water stretched so far that it touched the sky, and the water kept moving all the time. This frightened him, for he had never seen any water excepting in the little lake at the Hospice, and that water did not move, ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker
... disports His monstrous bulk? His bones like brazen bars, His iron sinews cased in fearful strength Resist attack! Lo! when he slakes his thirst The rivers dwindle, and he thinks to draw The depths of Jordan dry. Wilt cast thy hook And take Leviathan? Wilt bind thy yoke Upon him, as a vassal? Will he cringe Unto thy maidens? See the barbed spear The dart and the habergeon, are his scorn. Sling-stones are stubble, keenest arrows foil'd, And from the plaited armor of his scales The glittering sword recoils. Where he reclines, ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... generally, The rascal born will like a rascal die. His Prince's favours follow'd him in vain; They chang'd the circumstance, but not the man. While out of pocket, and his spirits low, He'd beg, write panegyrics, cringe, and bow; But when good pensions had his labours crown'd, His panegyrics into satires turn'd; O what assiduous pains does Prior take To let great Dorset see he could mistake! Dissembling nature false description gave, Show'd him the poet, ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... of it gave him a qualm. The man was so contemptible; so unutterably low and vile and cowardly. To kill him would be like crushing vermin. He would not fight; he would cower and cringe and shriek. There might be a battle when they took De Launay for the "murder," of course, but even his passing, desperate as he might make it, would not entirely wipe out the disgrace of such a butchery. He was a soldier; a commander with a glorious ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... you, Dorothy. Don't you see I'm in deadly earnest? Must my former frivolity dog my steps through life? When I call to mind that I made fun to you of his serious purpose in life, the thought makes me cringe ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... the slave suddenly raised to his lips, and a shrill whistle would have consigned him over to certain and immediate destruction; but he struck down the uplifted hand with a blow which made his treacherous conductor crouch and cringe almost to the ground. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... when I see of what poor stuff those men are made who contrive to uphold their rule and what sort of antagonists we are likely to find in them, then I can only feel how disgraceful it would be to cringe before them and not to face them myself and try conclusions with them on the field. All of them, I perceive," he added, "beginning with our own friends here, hold to it that the ruler should only differ from his subjects by the splendour of his banquets, ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... usage:—Fortune has enabled me to act independent either of his frown or his favour;—I have taken such measures, in consequence of his base usage, as will guard us against the effects of the one, without obliging us to cringe for ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low
... do anything in this town," replied Mrs. Belloc. "But usually rich men are timid and stingy. If they weren't, they'd make us all cringe. As it is, I've heard some awful stories of how men and women who've got some powerful person down on ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... who knew perfectly how to cringe low, yet preserve his ascendency; "first of all, it is very necessary that the murderers of the amiable Drusus should receive a meet reward for their crime—that justice should be ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... gurgling throat. He has valets now enough: they stood aloof then, Shaking their dripping ears upon the shore, All roaring "Help!" but offering none; and as For duty (as you call it)—I did mine then, 440 Now do yours. Hence, and bow and cringe him here! ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... drift upward nearer the surface, the wide round eyes turning and twisting in their sockets, ever watchful for food and danger. Without warning a terrific splash scatters them, and when the ripples and bubbles cease, five frightened sunfish cringe in terror among the water plants of the bottom mud. Off to her nest goes the kingfisher, bearing to ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... would have been no light to a human being. To me it was intense and fearsome, seemed to reach centres of me that were sensitive beyond expression. Though I was a mere blob, boneless and quivering, the ray was foreign and I knew what it was to cringe. ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... who is worth $ 100,000 says to himself, 'There is Jones; he is worth $500,000; he lives with a display and extravagance I cannot equal. I must increase my fortune to half a million.' Jones, on the other hand, is measuring himself against Brown, who has a million. He knows that men cringe lower to Brown than they do to him. He must have a million—half a million is nothing. And Brown feels that he is overshadowed by Smith, with his ten millions; and so the childish emulation continues. Men are valued, not for themselves, but for their bank account. In the meantime these ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... makes the mob cringe before Coriolanus. When he appears, the stage directions show that the "citizens steal away." (Act 1, ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... heed of my looks," he was saying. "I desire them up yonder to think that I abuse you. Look as a man would who were being abused. Cringe or snarl, but listen. Do you remember once when as lads we swam together from ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... she shouted. "You can lie in the dock when you stand there and tell them you never murdered Douglas Romilly! That makes you cringe, doesn't it? I don't want to make a scene, but the woman you're in love with had better hear what I have to say. Are you going to give me back my ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a ghost of a laugh, Rod thought, and that very thought made him hunch closer to the fire. The young hunter was not superstitious, or at least he was not unnaturally so; but what man or boy is there in this whole wide world of ours who does not, at some time, inwardly cringe from something in the air—something that does not exist and never did exist, but which holds a peculiar and nameless fear for the soul of ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... combination—imprisonment, though your sunlight has only been dimmed. If so, your will, patient labor and strong desire can yet win for you. The flag of victory is now so limp. This fear of kindly death or hell is the enemy of mankind. Do not again thus cringe to this fair angel of life to all men eventually. You can live to old age and follow streams, fishing as pastime. This old man symbolizes your dear self now calmed in mind—not so dead as in youth. So, hold your true texts for ready action, and become a brave man to enjoy ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara
... saw him stoop and take something from his prostrate enemy. A sharp doubt assailed her. She saw the wretched Tawny cringe lower and cover his face. She saw the moonlight glint upon the ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... tramping back and forth, the ball of pink worsted dragging behind her in a grimy tangle, thought these things with a sledge-hammer directness that spared herself nothing. She wanted the truth, no matter how it made her cringe to find it! She would hammer out her very heart to find the truth. And the truth she found was that she had never allowed Blair to meet the negations of life—to meet those No's, which teach the eternal affirmations of character. He had had everything; ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... days after his arrival, Harry, laughing, told this story to Lady Esmond, remarking how strange it was that men famous for learning and renowned over Europe, should, nevertheless, so bow down to a title, and cringe to a nobleman ever so poor. At this Mistress Beatrix flung up her head, and said it became those of low origin to respect their betters; that the parsons made themselves a great deal too proud, she thought; and that she liked the way at Lady Sark's best, ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... a distance unknown to him, although it seemed long, they commenced to beat their drum, and raise the scalp halloo. The next village was near; they were calling for the gauntlet, and the stake. This made his flesh cringe, and pricked him to action. Now, or never! With a great spring and a wild whoop he bolted into ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... a surprise to us, her husband was a still greater one; and I had difficulty in recognizing the Adolf Scherer who came to our dinner party as the personage of the business world before whom lesser men were wont to cringe. He seemed rather mysteriously to have shed that personality; become an awkward, ingratiating, rather too exuberant, ordinary man with a marked German accent. From time to time I found myself speculating ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... insignificant, cowered below him—oh, so far below him in his easychair—I felt it in every nerve of my heart, in every fiber of my brain, that he and he alone is ruling lord here, the commander and Sovereign; and that he who will not bow and cringe before him, will by him be hurled into the dust and trodden upon! They all bow before him—all! He is like a magician, who by the magnetic glances of his eyes subjects to his will all who approach him, and makes the stoutest hearts soft and pliant, so that like wax they allow themselves ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... in making brushes, like the prisoners of the Alondiga, and two I saw whiling away the time making lace! Several of them tagged my footsteps, eager for some errand. One feels no great sense of security in a country whose boyish, uneducated, and ragged guardians of order cringe around like beggar boys hoping ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... trouble. Totally dissatisfied with any answer I could make, he kept roaring louder and louder. There was no doubt that he was venting his spleen upon an unprotected and humble civilian, and that he was thoroughly enjoying seeing me cringe under his bulldozing. It flashed upon me that he might be a self-appointed guardian of the way. So when he began to wax still more arrogant, I simply said, "Take me ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... The modern state has broken everything that resists its power; it has made around itself a void, an abyss wherein it will perish. Militarism is the modern state's instrument of oppression, just as dogma was the instrument of the church.—What is this state, before which all cringe? How absurd to speak of it as an impersonal authority, to invest it with a quasi-sacred character! The state consists of a few elderly gentlemen, for the most part of less than average ability, for they are cut off from the new life ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... poor, high and low, Church and State. Let any one make a move to tear that idol down from its altar, made of dead men's bones, and see what a flutter there is in the camp, how new laws are made and old laws shoved aside, and new laws fixed over, and the highest and the lowest will lie and cringe and drag themselves on their knees in front of it to protect it and worship it. Don't talk to me about your wood idols; they hain't nothin' to be compared to it. They stay where they're put, they don't rare round and kill ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... trunk road that ran to Indore, and branching to the left, that crossed the Nerbudda River at Mandhatta, they were constantly passing pilgrims on their way to the Temple of Omkar. In the affrighted eyes of the Hindus Barlow could read their dread of the Pindaris; they would cringe at the roadside and salaam, as fearful were they as if a wolf-pack swept down ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... the dignity of an American citizen, which he contends is the highest distinction a man can have in Europe, and there is not a doubt but he commands the respect of the exclusives here in a tenfold degree more than those who truckle and cringe to European opinions and customs. They love an independent man and know enough of their own heartless system to respect a real freeman. I admire exceedingly his proud assertion of the rank of an American (I ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... triumph over him on the tossing ocean, and teach him that America, not Britannia, rules the waves. Would that we all stood on some staunch ship, to do battle with our young right-arms. Then should Englishmen cringe before us; then would we doom to sudden destruction their boasted admirals and flimsy fleets. Down with the English! down ...
— The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... too-familiar wayfarers and startled them into silence by the level blackness of his low brows. Wealth, beauty, age nor rank won servility or superciliousness from him. The Egyptian soldier was not obliged to cringe, and this ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... law-shielded ruffians slay The men who fain would win their own! the heroes of to-day! Are we pledged to craven silence? O, fling it to the wind, The parchment wall that bars us from the least of human kind! That makes us cringe, and temporize, and dumbly stand at rest, While Pity's burning flood of words is ...
— The Duty of Disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 9, An Appeal To The Legislators Of Massachusetts • Lydia Maria Child
... Yabolo and MYalu stiffened as they observed the cringe of the shoulders as he fumbled hastily within his loin-cloth and presented a piece of hard substance, the colour of blue clay with magic marks upon it. The demon grunted at them to proceed as if talking to a slave. Followed in file the rest of the caravan. As Bakuma passed the uniformed demon ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... had the knack of saying unexpected things. It was nothing new that Theydon should find his own name in print, but on this occasion he could not choose but associate the distinction with the cringe in No. 17; that he should be mentioned in connection with it was neither anticipated nor pleasing. At the same time he realized the astounding fact that he had not even glanced at a newspaper during ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... I knew he'd been using threats because my father, himself, was almost paralyzed with fear. And then I lost my head—in blind rage, I suppose. I must have talked like a common fish woman, but my one desire was to see them cringe. So I told about leaving the message for you, pretending to 've written a great deal more—twisting the knife all I knew how, and being thoroughly catty. It must have been a disgusting exhibition," she gave a sigh of despair, ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... Kogmollock's breast and hold it there until he had made him a prisoner. She was wonderful. She was panting in her excitement. From the floor Blake had noticed that her little white finger was pressing gently against the trigger of the rifle. It had made him shudder. It made the Eskimo cringe a bit now as Philip tied his hands behind him. And Philip saw it, and his heart thumped. Celie ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... told her you were drunk." Kent nodded gravely, and his lips curled as he watched the other cringe. "She called me a liar," he added, with a ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... vain. To beg, than work, he better understands, Or we perhaps might take him off thy hands. For any office could the slave be good, To cleanse the fold, or help the kids to food. If any labour those big joints could learn, Some whey, to wash his bowels, he might earn. To cringe, to whine, his idle hands to spread, Is all, by which that graceless maw is fed. Yet hear me! if thy impudence but dare Approach yon wall, I prophesy thy fare: Dearly, full dearly, shalt thou buy thy bread With many a footstool thundering at ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... in this new attitude her face was in complete shadow, Perris felt her eyes burning out at him. His dismissal was at hand, he knew, and then the carelessly defiant speech which was forming in his throat died away. Sick at heart, he realized that he must cringe under the hand which was about to strike and be humble under the very eye of Hervey. He was no longer free and the chain which held him was the conviction that he could never be happy until he had met and conquered wild ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... I dare you; you can try me, Seek to make me cringe and moan, Still my unbound soul defies ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... his cringe, and shrink back, and looking down saw the look upon her sweet frightened face; following her glance his own face hardened into what might have been termed righteous wrath. But not a word did he say, and neither did he apparently notice ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... vanished from the farmer by now. He seemed to fairly cringe before the girl. Afterwards the boys learned that there was good reason for this, since her father was Mayor Stephens, the richest man in Hazenhurst, and the farmer a tenant who was forever behind in his rents, and heavily in the debt of the ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... and emperors would have to cringe and crawl to me, like my hordes of serfs all over this broad land. Statesmen and diplomats, president and judges, lawmakers and captains of industry, all would fall into bondage; and for the first time in history one man would rule the earth, completely ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... church with iron rods, organizes, denounces, intrigues, executes, keeps an unarmed soldiery to do his behests, and hurls ecclesiastic thunders at kings and emperors with the grand audacity of a commission presumedly divine, while Greeks cringe, and Jews blaspheme, and heathen flee into, or away from, conversion; and the Church itself canonizes this spiritual father, this Sphinx-son of an instinct and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... persons, beginning with the Metropolitan and ending with riding-masters and midwives! Then began the visits to acquaintances and strangers! And here is one point which must be noted: in making his calls he did not cringe and did not importune; but, on the contrary, he behaved himself in decorous fashion, and even wore a cheery and pleasant aspect, although an ingrained odour of liquor accompanied him everywhere—and his Oriental costume was gradually reduced ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... offender against every law of propriety; and thus it happens that seats are slipped out of sight, and exhausted women smile and ask, as the purchase is made, "And what is the next pleasure?" in a tone that makes the American hearer cringe for the abject humility that is the first condition ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... the house Amos smiled and stroked his beard. "Truly," he thought, "these Christians hate us, but we have them in our power. It is pleasant to be hated and yet to know that it is to us they must cringe when they are in need; and it is very pleasant to refuse. My friend Gregorio is not happy now that he is ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... old story of deception and rebellion. Before my face Abou Saood would cringe to the earth, but he became an open rebel in my absence. It was absolutely necessary to place this man under arrest. When the Baris were at open war with the government, he had not only associated with their chief, but he had armed parties of ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... love the Power which behaves so? What child could love a father who might at any time strike him? I cannot believe that God wants an unquestioning and fatuous trust, and still less the sort of deference we pay to one who may do us a mischief if we do not cringe before him. All that is utterly unworthy ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... bolder efforts of these nobler spirits, then settles back upon the ease and comfort of that position, and turns her small artillery on her own sisters? I feel a sense of shame for American literature, when I think how our literary women shrink, and cringe, and apologize, and dodge to avoid being taken for "strong-minded women." Oh, there's no danger. I don't wonder that their literary efforts are stricken with the palsy of weakness from the beginning. I don't wonder ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Huntington, a son of somebody at the financial head of things. While sacrificing none of his steady self-reliance or self-respect, Ben Tillson decided to treat his new fireman, assistant to the old, with all due civility. He would cringe or kowtow to no one, but, like the sturdy citizen he was, Ben deemed it wise to keep on the good side of the powers. It was necessary, however, that the new-comer should understand who was boss on that engine, and even as they stood waiting ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... they say in a wonderful way, To toys, for his Christmas cheer. The big dolls stare with a goblin air, The small ones cringe with fear. ...
— The Goblins' Christmas • Elizabeth Anderson
... Cringe, scrape no more, ye city-fops, Leave off your feasting and fine speeches; Beat up your drums, shut up your shops, The courtiers then will kiss your breeches. Arm'd, tell the Popish Duke that rules, You're free-born ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... of contentment assured her that this trial of her courage and self-control was not without one blessed result. He would rest for several days in the pleasure of what he had done or thought he had done. She need not cringe before that image of Dread for two, three days at least. Meanwhile, he would grow strong in body, and she, perhaps, in spirit. Only one precaution she must take. No hint of Mr. Challoner's presence in town must reach him. He must be ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... courage is cooperative, as is every other phase of the mental life of men. We gather courage as we watch a fellow worker face his danger with a brave spirit, for we will not be outdone. Amour propre will not permit us to cringe or give in, though we are weary to death of a struggle. But also we thrill with a common feeling at the sight of the hero holding his own, we are enthused by it, we wish to be with him; and his shining ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... cringe, sir saint," she sneered. "Having cast me off and taken up holiness, you have the right, of course." And with that she moved past me, and down the terrace-steps without ever turning her head to look at me again. And that was the last I ever ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... mingling of crime and corruption, aestheticism and immorality, yet the Church was never abandoned for an hour. When enlightenment came, people began to doubt the spiritual power of the Papacy. They did not cringe to it so servilely as before. Religion was not violently embraced as in the Middle Ages, but there was no revolt. The Church held the power and was still the patron of art. The painter's subjects extended over nature, ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... And the wail of the South wings forth; Will ye cringe to the hot tornado's rack, And the vampires of the North? Strike! ye can win a martyr's goal, Strike! with a ruthless hand— Strike! with the vengeance of the soul, For your bright, beleaguered land! To arms! to arms! for the South needs help, And a craven ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various |
