"Fret" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... do! But last of all, On Kamakura's lea, I'd seek Daibutsu's face of calm And still the final sea Of all the West within me—from Its fret and fever free My spirit—into ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice
... of the lotos Shall heal earth's too-much fret. The rose, in blinding glory, Shall waken Asia yet. Hail to their loves, ye peoples! Behold, a world-wind blows, That aids the ivory lotos To ...
— General William Booth enters into Heaven and other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... "Don't fret about me, dear; the way will open. Thy father has thought and planned for us; have patience while I tell thee. Thee knows Walter Evesham's pond is small and his mill ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... blest, twice blest moreover! Twice over win the world in one girl's eyes, Twice over lift her name up to the skies; Twice to hope all things, so to be twice born— For he lives not who cannot front the morn Saying, "This day I live as never yet Lived striving man on earth!" What if the fret Of loss and ten years' agonizing snow Thy hairs or leave their tracery on thy brow, Each line beslotted by the demon hounds Hunting thee down o' nights? Laugh at thy wounds, Laugh at thy eld, strong lover, whose blood flows Clear ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... "You fret against the common law," I said. "You rebel against the voice of God, which He has made so winning to convince, so imperious to command. Hear it, and how it speaks between us! Your hand clings to mine, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... you see the end of double-minded men, who vainly attempt to temper the love of money with the love of Christ. They go on with their art for a season, but the end makes it manifest what they were. Take David's advice, "Fret not thyself because of evil-doers" (Psa. 37:1) "Be not thou afraid when one is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased" (Psa. 49:16). But go thou into the sanctuary of thy God, read His Word, and understand the end of these ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... that Martha was wrong or unreasonable in thinking that Mary should have helped her. Jesus did not say she was wrong; he only reminded Martha that she ought not to let things fret and vex her. "Martha, Martha, thou art anxious and troubled about many things." It was not her serving that he reproved, but the fret that she allowed to creep ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... there falls across the silence and the sweetness of the moonlit Hill a strange and sudden sound. It is louder than theology. It is more solemn than the professor's system. Insistent, urging everything before it—the toil of strenuous study, the fret of little trouble, and the dreams of dawning love—the call stirs on. It is ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... that she was quite well again. Then he sat in a chair by the table and she took a seat opposite him. She did not reply to his wish for her good health, but waited for him to speak. She was not sulky, but apparently indifferent. Her fret and fume were smothered of late. Now that the supreme injury was inflicted and she had borne a child out of wedlock, Sabina's frenzies were over. The battle was lost. Life held no further promises, and the denial of the great promise that ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... of such waiting, how it calms the heart, brings into constant touch with God, detaches from the fever and the fret which kill, opens our eyes to mark the meanings of our life's history, and makes the divine gifts infinitely more ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... and settled on myself. And then somehow we emerged. We reached a stretch of ground where the snow was just high enough to cover the hocks of the horses. It was a hollow scooped out by some freak of the wind. I pulled in, and the horses stood panting. Peter no longer showed any desire to fret and to jump. Both horses apparently felt the wisdom of sparing their strength. They were all white with the frost of their sweat and the spray of ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... minute. We kep him in the Bridewell for the night; and he's just been brought over here for the court martial. Don't fret, mum: he slep like a child, and has made a ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... I guess. Rubbed his fur the wrong way this morning pretty hard. But don't you fret, girlie. It'll be all right. Only we mustn't blame him. Think of what it means to him. You're all he has, and if he thinks you're—if he thinks he's ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... meadows, hills, and groves, Forebode not any severing of our loves! Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might; I only have relinquished one delight To live beneath your more habitual sway. I love the brooks which down their channels fret, Even more than when I tripped lightly as they; The innocent brightness of a new-born day Is lovely yet; The clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober coloring from an eye That hath kept watch ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... after a manner of speaking, and yet it was not dead. In the Gunsight Hotel where the officials of the Company left their women-folks to idle and fret and gossip, there was a restless flash of white from the upper veranda; and in the office below Andrew McBain, the aggressive President of the Gunsight Mining and Developing Company, paced nervously to and fro ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... than any other plants, they thrive in the shade, they withstand the uncongenial conditions usually found in the house, and are among the hardiest of plants suitable for house culture. And yet how many women will fret and fume over a Lorraine begonia or some other refractory plant, not adapted at all to growing indoors, when half the amount of care spent on a few ivys would grace their windows with frames of living green, giving a setting to all their ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell
... unmistakably as did the Phrygian reeds that babbled of the personal beauties of Midas. Of course, it does not concern me—it is not my business—and you certainly have as good a right as any other child of Adam, to fret and cry and pout over your girlish griefs, to sit up all night, ruin your eyes, and grow rapidly and prematurely old and ugly. But whenever I chance to stumble over a wounded creature trying to drag itself out of sight, I generally either ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... for all reasonable persons. It may be said that one day the tree itself must die, and the leaves no longer live therein; and so, also, that the very God or Life of the World will one day perish, as all that is born must surely in the end die. But they who fret upon such grounds as this must be in so much want of a grievance that it were a cruelty to rob them of one: if a man who is fond of music tortures himself on the ground that one day all possible combinations and permutations ...
— God the Known and God the Unknown • Samuel Butler
... "Don't fret," she said, while tears rolled down her own face; "there's three on 'em yet, as wants their mother ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... Tree will forget And let us stay until the spring, If we all beg and coax and fret." But the great Tree did no such thing; He ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... wish to say to high officers of State and members of Government is this, as far as you can trust the man on the spot. Do not weary or fret or nag him with your superior wisdom. They claim no immunity from errors of opinion or judgment, but their errors ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... one rule: Don't fret. Don't wear a look of trouble and worry. Above everything else, remember those delicious lines ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... geologist. There is nothing decrepit in their appearance, nothing broken, or angular, or gaunt, or rawboned. Their long, easy, flowing lines, their broad, smooth backs, their deep, wide, gently sloping valleys, all help to give them a look of repose and serenity, as if the fret and fever of life were long since passed with them. Compared with the newer mountains of uplift in the West, they are like cattle lying down and ruminating in the field beside alert wild steers with rigid limbs and tossing horns. They sleep and dream with bowed ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... as the frontiersmen pressed into the West, they continued to fret and strain against the Spanish boundaries. There was no temptation to them to take possession of Canada. The lands south of the Lakes were more fertile than those north of the Lakes, and the climate was better. ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... "Probably it's the only chance he's ever had to meditate on his misdoings. Don't you fret about him. He's just as husky as I be, and twice as hefty. It was all I could do to ketch ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... fill the Cup:—what boots it to repeat How Time is slipping underneath our Feet: Unborn To-morrow and dead Yesterday, Why fret about them if To-day ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... sincerely religious persons. But there is no help for it, if we are to combat the adversaries on their own ground; and because it is thus only that, while we startle a few, we can prove to all that the torrent of negations is but a passing rush of waters, which, fret as they may in their channel, shall be found to have left not so much as a trace of their passage upon ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... Constantine has gone to Switzerland. Switzerland is now, I think, the theatre of important diplomatic intrigues. I think King Constantine's abdication is only temporary; I think King Alexander only reigns for the period of the war. Do not fret—King Constantine ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... significance even in their day. We read on with a good-natured pity, akin to the feeling which the gods of Epicurus might be supposed to experience when they looked down upon foolish mortals,—and when we shut the book, go out into our own world to fret, fume, and wrangle over things equally ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... saieth that man? And so muttrynge and chydyng, they came to the gate to goe oute; but they coulde not. For it was faste lockt, and Qualitees had the key away with him. Now begynne they a freshe to fret and fume: nowe they swere and stare: now they stampe and threaten: for the locking in greeued them more than all the losse and mockery before: but all auayle not. For there muste they abide, till wayes may be founde to open the ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... says, 'To London, miss.' Says she, smiling kind-like, 'Could you post a letter for me, certain sure?' Says I, 'You can depend upon me.' An' then she give me the arf-sovering, an' says, says she, 'Mind, it's VERY par-tickler; if the gentleman don't get it, 'e'll fret 'is 'eart out.' An' through 'aving a young man o' my own, as is a groom at Andover, o' course I understood 'er, sir. An' then, feeling all full of it, as yu may say, what with the arf-sovering, and what with one thing and what with another, an' all of a fluster with not being used ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... so lovely her face, That never a hall such a galliard did grace; While her mother did fret and her father did fume, And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume, And the bride-maidens whispered, "'Twere better by far To have matched our fair cousin ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... Why fret yourself to a skeleton about an absence of eight days?—How could you suppose she would let you go into Oxfordshire?—Proper decorums must be observed by that sex.—Are not those despicable who neglect ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning
... up, and not fret a bit, if you'll only help me look. Please come now to dress me, and see if you can find ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... by the wrist and dragging her up the steps to the Emperor) Caesar this woman is the sister of Ferrovius. If she is thrown to the lions he will fret. He will lose ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... the fret of the hot morning ends in a delicious grove of trees that might be limes, plane and ash, and in the middle of this bosky knoll there is a pool and a little temple, picturesque to a degree at fifty yards, hideous close. ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... which it draws From the Latest Information about Scholarships Combined Or the contemplated changes in a clause: Place me somewhere that is far from the Standard and the Star, From the fever and the literary fret,— And the harassed spirit's balm be the academic calm Of ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... guineas out of my own pocket to see Godolphin's face when he reads my dispatch, and finds that he's got to honor bills for a hundred thousand pounds; it will be better than any comedy that ever was acted. How the pompous old owl will fret and fume! But he will have to find the money for all that. He can't begin the campaign by dishonoring bills of her majesty's general, or no one would trust us hereafter. You haven't seen my lord treasurer, ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... the following number of 'Proserpina' I have been tempted to follow, with more minute notice than usual, the 'conditions of adversity' which, as they fret the thistle tribe into jagged malice, have humbled the beauty of the great domestic group of the Vestals into confused likenesses of the Dragonweed and Nettle: but I feel every hour more and more the necessity of separating the treatment of subjects in 'Proserpina' ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... To woman love is a cloyless thing. Man distinctly does tire. No matter how much he may love a woman, too much lovemaking becomes cloying to him, and he wants to get away. Even mere proximity, if too prolonged, becomes irksome to him, and he begins to fret and fidget, and pull at his chains, even if the chains are but of gossamer. Woman should know these facts ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... hearty affection for him and admiration for him, had roused into intense activity that part of his nature which had always loved, which he supposed always must love, the straight life; the life with morning face and clear, unfaltering eyes; the life which the Hermes suggested, immune from the fret and fever of secret vices and passions, lifted by winged sandals into a region where soul and body were in perfect accord, and where, because of that, there was peace; not a peace of stagnation, but a peace living and intense. But that part ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... richly rewarded. Ah, the blood, the staring, his grey old fingers! There was a something, if you like, to talk about at the house door; and a something to dream of, per Bacco! I believe the Jew engulfed all her annoyances of the past and all her fret ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... had never been able to get the girl; for he hath loved her and had a mind to take her this long while, but he was hindered of that talisman; and had it remained as it was, he could never have found access to her. However, fret not thyself for that; we will bring thee to her and kill the Marid; for thy kindness is not lost upon us.' Then he cried out with a terrible outcry"—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... consciences of men in their hate of the sum of all villainies, as John Wesley called slavery. They not only met their foes half way, they carried the war into the hearts and homes of the enemy. From time to time wicked and sorrowful things happened to fret their fanaticism and keep it at a white heat. Peaceable negroes were attacked in their homes by ruffianly whites, their cattle killed, their fields wasted; and sometimes they made a bloody resistance. They were not always ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... citizen would resent with heat the regulations regarded as a matter of course in France. He would fume and fret and all but rebel, if asked to live as the French people are forced to live ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... his heart. After he had found the column and had got into the Lilliputian forest with its stunted, bushy trees and its sandy soil, he was brought face to face with the greatest enemy that can harass, fret, and wear down nerves of steel—absence of water. A commander whose mind is racked by the difficulty, perhaps the impossibility, of finding water for his troops is like the man haunted day and night, waking and sleeping, by debt. "This was our menu," says Baden-Powell: "weak tea (can't ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... fret. He's a little more than a yearlin', and of course he'll snuffle." And young James took a kiss ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... he, "they can't take you if I've got anything to say about it, and I rather think I have. Get into one of the wagons—keep quiet and lay low. I'll manage this little job. Don't you fret a bit ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... (how long it seems) at last All the way is overpast. Heart that beats your muffled drum, Lo, your venturer is come! Wide the door! Leap high, O fire! Home at length is heart's desire! Gone is weariness and fret, At the sill warm lips are met. Once again may be ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... William. "You couldn't get sick there if you tried. Can't hardly die." He chuckled a little. "Sam'l Gruchy's been tryin' for six year now. He was ninety-seven last month. We don't think nuthin' o' roundin' out a hunderd up there—not the cheerful ones. 'Course if you fret, you can ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... that is another trouble, for I don't know Uncle Alec at all. He hardly ever came to see us, though he sent me pretty things very often. Now I belong to him, and shall have to mind him, till I am eighteen. I may not like him a bit, and I fret about it ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... "Don't fret. What do we care?" was Van's easy answer. "We're not really after the view. I don't give a hurrah for what we see when we get to the top; what I want is ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... their depraved imaginations," as [2598]Hercules de Saxonia observes, "but conceal them wholly to themselves, and are very wise men, as I have often seen; some fear, some do not fear at all, as such as think themselves kings or dead, some have more signs, some fewer, some great, some less," some vex, fret, still fear, grieve, lament, suspect, laugh, sing, weep, chafe, &c. by fits (as I have said) or more during and permanent. Some dote in one thing, are most childish, and ridiculous, and to be wondered at in that, and yet for all other ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... billows fret and foam no more, But softly rush towards the pebbled shore, On which the lindens stand, in many a group, With leafy boughs that o'er the waters droop. There floats one single cloudlet in the blue, Close where the pale moon shows her face anew: ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... scorned by one that I scorn: Is that a matter to make me fret? Is that a matter to cause regret? Stop! let's ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... "mark with interlacing lines like fretwork."—Clar. There are two distinct verbs spelled 'fret,' one meaning 'to eat away,' the other 'to ornament.' See Skeat. In Hamlet, II, ii, 313, we have "this majestical roof fretted ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... sire and King, art thou thus grave Of choice, or does our good Lysimachus, Bringing unwonted loads of carking care, O'ercloud thy brow? I prithee, father, fret not; There is no cloud of care I yet have known— And I am now a man, and have my cares— Which the fresh breath of morn, the hungry chase, The echoing horn, the jocund choir of tongues, Or joy of some bold enterprise ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... the dumps and fret and fume and wish you were dead, just stop right there and tell yourself that you are a liar. You do not wish anything of the kind. I heard of a man once who was always threatening to commit suicide. He had a good friend who was a pious man and who was grieved by such threats. ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... of the fret and fume of Kingship, of the brave men and gracious women who had occupied an unstable throne and were now crumbling to dust in the vaults of that gloomy cathedral. He smiled tenderly at his wife, and his hand ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... and a strength of character and purpose unusual in a woman. Had she remained in the world and married, her husband would have found it somewhat difficult wholly to mould her to his will. Yet to possess such a woman would have been worth adventuring much. But I must not fret you, dear lad, by talking of the Prioress, when your mind is intent upon arriving at the ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... scratch and scold, And boys will fight and wrangle, And big, grown men, just now and then, Fret o'er some fingle-fangle, Vexing the earth with grief or mirth, Longing, rejoicing, rueing— But by the sliprails ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... say 'Be brave,' for you 're the bravest girl in the world; but please, please don't fret and worry. ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... Nelly fret and moan over the invalid condition for which there was neither palliation nor remedy? Nay, a blessing upon her at last; she began to witness a good testimony to the original mettle and bravery of her nature. She accepted the tangible evil ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... of the two courses which were open to him,—but, I thought, more in one than the other. If he remained in his lodgings, he would break his heart about being a burden (as he would say) to his friends; and he would fret after work so as to give himself no chance of such recovery as might be hoped for: whereas, if he could once cheerfully agree to enter a hospital, he would have every chance of rallying, and all the sooner for being ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... One poor endeavor Shall nerve me while we sever: I will not fret my hero's heart With piteous sobs and tears. I send thee forth, my dearest, My truest and my rarest, And yield thee to the keep of Him ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... and I shall tell him so. There, don't fret, darling. It isn't worth it. I could wish it hadn't happened for your sake, but I don't care a rap for ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... woo'st a World unworthy, learn * 'Tis house of evils, 'tis Perdition's net: A house where whoso laughs this day shall weep * The next; then perish house of fume and fret. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... ever thought, in the early spring, that for a whole year she was to have her house full of children! For a long time we fancied every week that we should hear of aunt and uncle coming home. Every now and then Lottie and I would fret a little bit at the idea of parting, but ...
— My Young Days • Anonymous
... colonel if he wasn't. There, dear lad, don't you fret yourself about that. I've heered the men here say you did wonders for such a boy, and a big sergeant who fetched you off your ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... dear, so precious, he would return to this very cottage, henceforth to be a palace to him, since Ellenor, his queen, would be his wife. He would deal so tenderly with her, for she had suffered much, his poor Ellenor! He would never reproach her if she seemed to fret after Dominic. She could not uproot, all at once, such a deep love. He would lead her gently back to the ways of religion which she had deserted. He would remind her, one quiet evening, that she was of those who were admitted to The Holy Supper ...
— Where Deep Seas Moan • E. Gallienne-Robin
... wild winds, and ever-changing waves, Sad rains that fret the sea and drown the day, We hail,—well pleased that stricken Autumn raves, Though not with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... than any money, I am sure. Besides, when I married you, and took you away to Cornwall, I always promised you a trip to London to see your friends again; and now that promise is performed. So, once again, don't fret about the money that's been spent: I shall ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... had the healing of him, and said to him, 'My friend, tell me, I pray you, if there be any danger in setting me on the march; me-seems that I am well, or all but so; and I give you my faith that, in my judgment, the biding will henceforth harm me more than mend me, for I do marvellously fret.' The good knight's servitors had already told the surgeon the great desire he had to be at the battle, for every day he had news from the camp of the French, how that they were getting nigh the Spaniards, and there were hopes from day to day of the battle, which ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... in fact its predominant character. His visages have an air of rapt suavity, devotional fervency and beaming esoteric consciousness, which is intensely attractive to some minds and realizes beyond rivalry a particular ideal—that of ecclesiastical saintliness and detachment from secular fret and turmoil. It should not be denied that he did not always escape the pitfalls of such a method of treatment, the faces becoming sleek and prim, with a smirk of sexless religiosity which hardly eludes the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... that it would accept nothing less than perfection, nor miserably make itself contented with an earthlier nature than he had dreamed of." Call you this "pure and lofty love," when a woman is admired much as a connoisseur admires a picture, who might indeed be supposed to fume and fret if there was one little blot or blemish in it. Yet, even a connoisseur, who had an exquisite picture by all old master, with only one trifling blemish on it, would hardly trust himself or another to repair and retouch, in order to render it perfect. Can any one recognise in this elaborate ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... gave, in pity of my parents, to the man who is now my husband, to become his wife, I would not take back to my dying day, unless he first denied his word. I believe there is such a thing as honor yet. Mother, you fret ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... knows that, commercially, they have been failures. But it is probable that neither of these eminent engineers gave himself anything like the anxious concern that Telford did about the financial issue of his undertaking. Were railway engineers to fret and vex themselves about the commercial value of the schemes in which they have been engaged, there are few of them but would be so haunted by the ghosts of wrecked speculations that they could scarcely lay their heads upon their ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... "Never mind, dear," she said in her pleasant, cheery tone, patting Elsie's cheek and smoothing her hair "I've got some excellent glue, and I think I can stick it on again and make it almost as good as ever. So come, sit down and eat your lunch, and don't fret any more." ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... will forget, And let us stay until the spring, If we all beg, and coax, and fret." But the great Tree did no such thing; He smiled to hear ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... and the distance was "round the course for all horses." Shackles' owner said:—"You can arrange the race with regard to Shackles only. So long as you don't bury him under weight-cloths, I don't mind. Regula Baddun's owner said:—"I throw in my mare to fret Ousel. Six furlongs is Regula's distance, and she will then lie down and die. So also will Ousel, for his jockey doesn't understand a waiting race." Now, this was a lie, for Regula had been in work for two months at Dehra, and her chances were good, always supposing that ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... who go a-fishing and enjoy it. The arranging and selecting of flies, the jointing of rods, the prospective comfort in high water-boots, the creel with the leather strap, every crease in it a reminder of some day without care or fret—all this may bring the flush to the cheek and the eager kindling of the eye, and a certain sort of rest and happiness may come with it; but—they have never gone a-sketching! Hauled up on the wet bank in the long grass is your boat, with the frayed end of the painter tied around ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith
... got him a bit of fish, and he didn't like that, or else it was too dear, and you know fish is dearer than ever; and then I got him a bit of German, and he said it rose on him; then I tried sausages, and he said they hit him in the eye worse even than German; oh! how I used to wander my room and fret about it inwardly and cry for hours, and all about them paltry breakfasts—and it wasn't Mr Pontifex; he'd like anything that anyone chose to ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... like him to have it when he comes, for he may need it, and then you will tell the folk you put in to be kind to him, for he will be grieved, poor lad, and to tell him that I was cheerful and happy up to the end. Don't let him know that I ever fretted, or he may fret too." ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... from her eyes, Sometimes she pierced the air with cries, For hours together she would fret Because their toys she could not get. Ah, then! how changed this pretty child, No longer amiable and mild. That fairy form and smiling face Lost all their sprightliness and grace. Her tender mother often sighed, And to reform her daughter tried. "Oh! Minnie, Minnie," she would say, ...
— Slovenly Betsy • Heinrich Hoffman
... autem diis, nimis enim remota est eorum natura a nostra, quapropter daemonibus: and so belike that we have so many battles fought in all ages, countries, is to make them a feast, and their sole delight: but to return to that I said before, if displeased they fret and chafe, (for they feed belike on the souls of beasts, as we do on their bodies) and send many plagues amongst us; but if pleased, then they do much good; is as vain as the rest and confuted by Austin, l. 9. c. 8. ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... devour them, filling her mouth and cramming them in in handfuls, until it seemed as if she would choke herself. Then, licking the plate clean of every crumb, she undressed and slipped quietly into bed, to lie and fret and toss, as she thought of the insult which Black Jock had offered her, and pondered over the unhappy lot of her ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... but now she looked feverish, and was shaking all over, and I knew that she was going to have one of her ill turns,—possibly lung-fever,—for her lungs were but weak, and she rarely got over the winter without a fever. The thought made me half wild, but I dared not wait to cry or fret. I knew there was no time to be lost, and I hurried around, and gave her a warm foot-bath, and kept hot flannels on her chest, and made her drink a nice bowl of herb tea as soon as she was in bed; for I thought when the perspiration started she would be relieved. I was glad enough when the great ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... cannot tell you, my dear Joyce, what a haven of peace this place is to me after the racket and fret of town. I am almost quite recovered already, and am growing stronger every day; and, joy of joys, my brain has come back to me, fresher and more vigorous, I think, for its holiday. In this silence and solitude my thoughts ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... was set on making us fret For lack of food to eat, When up there ran a City man In gaiters trim and neat— Oh, just tell me if a farm there be Where I can get employ, To plough and sow for PROTH-ER-O, And he a farmer's boy, And ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 7, 1917. • Various
... to bed, little person," he returned. "Scold not, nor fret. William will be himself again ere yet the morrow's sun shall clear the horizon. Let us avoid recrimination. The tongue is, or would seem to be, the most vital weapon of modern society. Therefore let us ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... dear lad," he finished, "that runs the scale a bit. Faith, I'm that impecunious at times I'm beside myself with fret and worry." ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... away to his breakfast, and then away with his play. He would rather have stayed and begun turning it into a story at once. But she would not let him; she said it would be a loss of time, and she should fret a good deal more to have him there with her, than to have him away, for she should know he was just staying to ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... sheer compulsion philosopher about the vagaries of fat, did not fret over possible future dangers. She dismissed them and put all her intelligence and energy to the business in hand—to learning and to helping Palmer learn the ways of that world which includes ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... eye, he sinks into an object of sordid economy, or of merciless caprice. His personal feelings are recklessly neglected. He sleeps where there is neither light nor air; he is driven when he is already exhausted; he begins the work of midnight, and is confined for hours with men like himself, who fret, repine, and curse. They have their tales to compare together; their unhallowed secrets to disclose. The masters and the mistresses pass by them in review, and little deem they how oft the malignant ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... of wet grasses sway Where ran the sea but yesterday, And white-winged boats at sunset drew To anchor in the crimsoning blue. The boats lie on the grassy plain, Nor tug nor fret at anchor chain; Their errand done, their impulse spent, Chained by an alien element, With sails unset they idly lie, Though morning beckons brave and nigh; Like wounded birds, their flight denied, They lie, and long ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... took the paper from her hand. He smiled inwardly to himself, subduing his fret of impatience. "You will not object to let me talk it over," he ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... fret here,' interrupted she. 'I'm my own mistress, I suppose. However, I'll tell you this much, that I don't care a bit about him, and that's the truth of it—but I did not like your coming inside the bar so quietly, as if you had a right ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... be afraid; and don't fret. If only your penitence fail not, God will forgive all. There is no sin, and there can be no sin on all the earth, which the Lord will not forgive to the truly repentant! Man cannot commit a sin so great as to exhaust the infinite love of God. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... keep anything from mamma when she wishes to know it; and she will be sure to ask everything about you. But you need not be afraid. Mamma will not fret. She will know that it will all be ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... the bottle eagerly and cries when it is taken away. He often forms the habit of sucking his fingers immediately after. He begins to fret half an hour or an hour before ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt
... the judge, still holding the girl's hand. "You'll make a great Hoosier, some day; don't fret. You're already a very beautiful one." Then he bent his white head and kissed her, gallantly. John said: "Good afternoon, judge"; the whip cracked like a pistol-shot, and the buckboard dashed off ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... more dreadful to see than the sight of a happy family, sitting round a table, having tea. I am an old man now and am no good for the struggle. I commenced late. I can only grieve within my soul, and fret and sulk. At night my head buzzes with the rush of my thoughts and I cannot sleep.... Ah! If I ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... things, can I stoop to fret And lie and haggle in the market-place, Give dross for dross, or everything for nought? No! let me sit above the crowd, and sing, Waiting with hope for that miraculous change Which seems like sleep; and though I waiting starve, I cannot kiss the idols that are set By every gate, in every ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... Was modest and fair; She never fell into a pout or a fret; And Mr. McNair Was her only care And indeed her only pet. The few short hours he spent at his store She spent sewing or reading the romancers' lore; And whoever came It was always the same With the modest lady that opened ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... Charlie, "you can imagine the fright I was in when I found the cars going, and you gone. We had just passed Aix-la-Chapelle when I made the dreadful discovery, or I might have driven back here from there with a carriage, for it is only twenty miles off; but as it was, I could do nothing but fret till we arrived at Cologne, from which city I at once telegraphed to the station-master here, and ascertained that you were safe and sound, and ...
— Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... the countess, taking her hand. "I could go all around the world with you and never be dull. You are one of those delightful women in whose company it's sweet to be silent as well as to talk. Now please don't fret over your son; you can't expect ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... You have, indeed, winged ministers of vengeance, who carry your bolts to the remotest verges of the sea. But there a power stops, that limits the arrogance of raging passions, and says, 'Hitherto shalt thou go, and no further.' Who are you, that should fret, and rage, and bite the chains of nature? Nothing worse happens to you than to all nations possessing extensive empire; and it happens in all the forms into which empire can be thrown. In large bodies the circulation of power must be less vigorous at the extremities. Nature has said it. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... are never to wait for him: we will have supper, now you have come home, dear," said Dorothea, who, however she might fret her soul in secret as she knitted their hose and mended their shirts, never let her anxieties cast a gloom on the children; only to August she did speak a little sometimes, because he was so thoughtful and so tender of her always, and knew as well as she did that there were ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)
... were affected and astonished; yea, which is yet more singular, such convictions were left in their bosoms that, as my informations bear, not one of them would shoot him or obey Claverhouse's commands, so that he was forced to turn executioner himself, and in a fret shot him with his own hand, before his own door, his wife with a young infant standing by, and she very near the time of her delivery of another child. When tears and entreaties could not prevail, ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... error, he does not fret over it, but rising up with a humble spirit, he goes on his way anew rejoicing. Were he to fall a hundred times in the day, he would not despair,—he would rather cry out lovingly to God, appealing to His tender pity. The really devout ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... stand for the lightning wielded by the omnipotent deity, Manu, Thor, or Zeus. The Christians saw in it a cross concealed from the eyes of their heathen enemies. The fylfot is frequently found in the Greek Church on the vestments of the clergy. The Greek fret or key pattern, with which all are familiar, is a decorative development ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester
... High on a tree they saw an armor new, That glistered bright gainst Cynthia's silver ray, Therein, like stars in skies, the diamonds show Fret in the gilden helm and hauberk gay, The mighty shield all scored full they view Of pictures fair, ranged in meet array; To keep them sate an aged man beside, Who to salute them rose, ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... was kind enough to give us a good push on our way here," he told Jack, when the latter continued to fret and hint about "cutting off corners" in order to hasten their getting away. "We're bound to do our part of the job right up to the handle. Besides, what do ten ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... divine. It is easy for women to be heroic in action, but when it comes to interrogating God, the universe, the soul, and, above all, trying to live above their own hearts, they dart down to their nests like so many larks, and, if they cannot find them, fret like the French Corinne. Goethe's Makaria was born of the stars. Mr. Flint's Platonic old lady a lusus naturae, and the Dudevant ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... for a while, in silence. The spare, bony form of the woman, her deep-set gray eyes, and the long, thin nose, which seemed to be merely a scabbard for her sharp-edged voice, gave me her character at the first glance. As for the man, he was worn by some constant fret or worry, rather than naturally spare. His complexion was sallow, his face honest, every line of it, though the expression was dejected, and there was a helpless patience in his voice and movements, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... made known to me sooner, you would have had a different day's work; not getting it until late this afternoon, we have perhaps wasted some valuable hours. But we won't fret about that. Mrs. Taylor being no better, we are likely to have all the time we want for substantiating my idea. It cannot take long if we succeed either in tracing the Duclos woman or in drawing the net I am quietly manufacturing, ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... and evil; she felt her cares falling from her, her soul absorbing itself in the sense of a Divine Love, awful, profound, immeasurable, underlying and transcending all things, incomprehensibly satisfying the soul and justifying and explaining the universe. The infinite fret and fume of life seemed like the petulance of an infant in the presence of this restful tenderness diffused through the great spaces. How holy the stars seemed up there in the quiet sky, like so many Sabbath lights shedding visible ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Do not go fret after her, McDonough. She could not go through the world forever, and travelling the world. It might be ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... crying, with one breath, "My flesh;" and, with another, saying with tears: "My son, if you had died sooner, instead of Chu Erh, and left Chu Erh behind you, you would have saved your father these fits of anger, and even I would not have had to fruitlessly worry and fret for half of my existence! Were anything to happen now to make you forsake me, upon whom will you have me depend?" And then after heaping reproaches upon herself for a time, break out afresh in lamentations ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... old and wise, And you are neither wise nor old, When I look far into your eyes, I know things I was never told: I know how flame must strain and fret Prisoned in a mortal net; How joy with over-eager wings, Bruises the small heart where he sings; How too much life, like too much gold, Is sometimes very hard to hold. . . . All that is talking—I know This much is true, six years ago An angel living near the moon ...
— Rivers to the Sea • Sara Teasdale
... the harvest in England was over, the parliament was dissolved, but no candidate started on my lord's interest, as was expected by Mr M'Lucre, and he began to fret and be dissatisfied that he had ever consented to allow himself to be hoodwinked out of the guildry. However, just three days before the election, and at the dead hour of the night, the sound of chariot wheels and of horsemen was heard in our streets; and this was ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... that nine-tenths of my yearly expenditures are for your pleasure and benefit! I enjoy our home, too, but it would not be the elaborate, luxurious establishment that it is, but that it suits your taste to have it so! And then, you whine and fret for what you yourself call ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... never meant us to be contented, and that we should always have something to look forward to and fret about—"It is thy vocation, Hal,"—or we sink into apathy, and become averse to the prospect of the last great change. "Well, Mr. Graham," said a once contented, but now expiring Nimrod to me, "after all you have said, give me a thousand a-year, and ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... I confess that a pang of jealousy shot through me. It has been observed by La Rochefoucauld that it is astonishing how cheerfully we bear the ills of others; he might well have added that, on the other hand, it is remarkable how we fret over the happiness of our neighbours. I envied Daker when I saw him drive away to the station with the gentle girl at his side; I knew that she was nestling against him, and half her illness was only an excuse to get nearer to his heart. Why should I ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... went heavily on, Constans, in spite of his philosophy, began to fret and chafe. He could put in a part of each day in the library poring over his books and digging out the ancient wisdom from the printed page by sheer force of will. But there always came a time when only physical exertion would have any effect in dispelling the mental ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... to me in every line, "I talk about God's goodness and loving-kindness, but I worry over the dust in the spare room, I fret about our expenses, I am troubled about my lungs, and I fear my husband has an unregenerate heart. I never know an hour's peace, for even in my sleep, I worry, worry, worry, but of course I know I will be saved by the blood ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the firelight, with the summer morning coming through the Venetian blinds? Somehow there was a sense of sculpture, even without the beautiful body. Seven years have passed. She has enjoyed seven years of peace and rest; we have endured seven years of fret and worry. Life of course was never worth living, but the common stupidity of the nineteenth century renders existence for those who may see into the heart of things almost unbearable. I confess that every day man's ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... Jim's Belezebub ain't hitched no longer. Ha, ha, ha! If either them kids tries to ride Beelzy—Hmm. But Chiquita, now, she's little but she's great. Pa and Matt claim she's worth her weight in gold. She's likely, anyway. An' don't fret, lady. They'll all be home to breakfast, an' seein's I've got that to cook, I'll hump myself to bed and advisin' you to do the same. If not, make yourselves comfortable's you can, and ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... severest I have suffered since I went to the West Indies. The Book will, after all, be a botched business in many respects; and I much doubt whether it will pay its expenses: but I try to consider it as out of my hands, and not to fret myself about it. I shall be very curious to see Carlyle's Tractate on Chartism; which"—But we need not ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle |
