"Fret" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... observant of its effect upon his disagreeable feelings. "I wish I had you to take care of me, Mrs. Gaylord, and keep me from making a fool of myself," he added, when he had drained the cup. "No, no!" he cried, at her offering to take it from him. "I'll set it down. I know it will fret you to have it in here, and I'll carry it out into the kitchen." He did so before she could prevent him, and came back, touching his mustache with his handkerchief. "I declare, Mrs. Gaylord, I should love to live in a kitchen ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... L250—well sold, I think—and is to go forth immediately. The man is a puffing quack; but though I would rather the thing had not gone there, and far rather that it had gone nowhere, yet, hang it! if it makes the poor lad easy, what needs I fret about it? After all, there would be little gain in doing a kind thing, if you did not suffer pain or inconvenience upon ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... a sharp storm a few days previously, and experience had not hardened her to the anxieties of a sailor's wife. She had been down once already to the quay, and learnt all that the old sailors could tell her of chances and conjectures; and when her boy began to fret from hunger and weariness, she had left her serving-man, Gervas, to watch for further tidings. Yet, so does one trouble drive out another, that whereas she had a few days ago dreaded the sorrow of his return, she would now have given ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... tired of working without any heart in his work; and more tired of the constant fret and worry attendant upon a business in which his mind had ceased to feel interest. So he kept to his resolution, and went on with his arrangements ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... set about brewing more; unwilling to face their own incompetence, thwarting authority while professing to serve it. With a compound of arrogance and humility they demand of the people more submission than kings expect, and fret their souls because those above them are not brought down to their level, as if greatness could be little, as ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... and lynes, we see, are soone defaced, Mettles doe waste and fret with cankers rust; The Diamond shall once consume to dust, And freshest colours with foule staines disgraced. Paper and yncke can paynt but naked words, To write with blood of force offends the sight, And if with teares, I find them all too light; And sighes and ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... to write this book. But I am more thankful for the hours of absorbing interest spent in the study of his portraiture as given in the Gospels. I know of nothing that makes so pleasant a respite from the pressure of life's fret and strain, as to bathe mind and spirit in the ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... pestilence,) to scourge mankind, Gathered around, with hosts from every shore, Hating NAPOLEON much, but Freedom more, And, in that coming strife, appalled to see The world yet left one chance for liberty!— No, 'twas not then the time to weave a net Of bondage round your Chief; to curb and fret Your veteran war-horse, pawing for the fight, When every hope was in his speed and might— To waste the hour of action in dispute, And coolly plan how freedom's boughs should shoot, When your Invader's axe was at the root! No sacred Liberty! that God, who throws, Thy light around, like His ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... this be suffered, 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 gate, that they maye ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... 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 envy him? Could ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... when the warm sun says winter is done, He'll gladden us all with his cheery song; And never will fret if the season is wet, Or wail that the winter was ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... told you that it was not right to trouble this man, —as we have no just cause of ill will against him. But it is certainly useless to fret yourself about Hagiwara Sama, because his heart has changed towards you. Now once again, my dear young lady, let me beg you not to ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... when we first came. We planted every one, and used to carry water for them, too—after we'd been working in the fields all day. Anton, he was a city man, and he used to get discouraged. But I could n't feel so tired that I would n't fret about these trees when there was a dry time. They were on my mind like children. Many a night after he was asleep I've got up and come out and carried water to the poor things. And now, you see, we have the good of them. My man worked in the ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... Priscilla, "don't you fret Father doesn't really mind a bit. He only pretends to, has to, you know, on account of Aunt Juliet He knows jolly well that I can sail the Tortoise, any ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... intercourse with one who is grossly like you, but who is absolutely different when the upper ways of character are taken into account, there will be—no matter how inexorable are the ties that bind—much fret and irritation and noisy clashing. It was so with John Norton and his mother; even in the exercise of faculties that had been directly transmitted from one to the other there had been angry collision. For example:—their talents ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... her room, and began a fevered toilet. It was true that she possessed nothing suitable for ballroom wear; but then the dance was to be quite informal, and she was too happy to fret herself over that fact. She put on the white muslin frock which she had worn for dinner ever since she had been with the de Vignes. It gave her a fairylike daintiness that had a charm of its own of which she was utterly unconscious. Perhaps fortunately, she had no time to ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... love which walks the earth: holding the lover ever in the strain of apprehension, it inures him to unwearying worship, and itself moving in regions incorruptible, never loses the glory of its first hour. The years may pass, but one face, like a hallowed thing, abides continually; years may fret and corrode other ideals, but to this they add beauties of ever fresh significance. The auroral glow is always round it, brightening the world, until it becomes an emblem of illumination and the symbol of eternal truths. This visionary presence wakes aspiration to new effort and touches ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... 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 ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)
... of his lost wife, whom he had loved devotedly while living, it never entered his mind to marry a second time, even with the hope of begetting an heir by whom to perpetuate the honors and principles of his house; although he was continually on the fret—miserable himself, and making others miserable, in consequence of the certainty that he should be the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... revenged the other's hated touch, his gray eyes held a pleased, proud look. Once more in the soiled big shirt and trousers, with the strap coiled about his middle, he could put Barber aside for the day—not brood about him, harboring ill-will, nor sulk and fret. ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... sat down in the big rocker and drew Mary Rose close to her heart. "Don't you fret yourself, Mary Rose," she said with her lips against Mary Rose's tear-stained face. "We'll find Jenny Lind. Sure, we'll find her. Just you pretend she's gone for a visit. You've loaned her to 'most everyone in the buildin', just ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... four, but the weather entirely forbade work for to-day, so some went to bed and most lay down, making up our leeway, as we nautically term our loss of sleep. I must say Liddell is a fine fellow and keeps his patience and temper wonderfully; and yet how he does fret and fume about trifles at home! This wind has blown now for thirty-six hours, and yet we have telegrams from Bona to say the sea there is as calm as a mirror. It makes one laugh to remember one is still tied to the shore. Click, click, click, the pecker is at work; I wonder what Herr ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... your army, would be ruined. I think Lee's army, and not Richmond, is your true objective point. If he comes towards the upper Potomac, follow on his flank, and on the inside track, shortening your lines while he lengthens his. Fight him, too, when opportunity offers. If he stay where he is, fret him and ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... 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 with ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... order and beauty of it, the signs of loving care. It gave him a key, he fancied, to the lives the cultured English led, for there was no sign of strain and fret and stress and hurry here. Everything, it seemed, went smoothly with rhythmic regularity, and though it is possible that a good many Englishmen would have regarded Garside Scar as a very second-rate country house, and seen in Major Radcliffe and his ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... The baby began to fret again, to squawk with vicious explosions of ugly rage; it puled and yowled. It was a nuisance. It caught a fistful of her hair and wrenched till the tears of pain rushed to her eyes. She unclasped the little talons, ran to the wash-stand, took up ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... 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 what ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... better word I wish to add. If the unprotected young beginner finds herself the victim of some odious creature's persistent advances, letters, etc., let her not fret and weep and worry, but let her go quietly to her manager and lay her trouble before him, and, my word for it, he will find a way of freeing her from her tormentor. Yes, the manager is, generally speaking, a kindly, cheery, sharp business man, and ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... moment put the record of months aside. This bramble leaf was marked with a grey streak, which coiled and turned and ran along beside the midrib, forming a sort of thoughtless design, a design without an idea. The Greek fret seems to our eyes in its regularity and its repetition to have a human thought in it. The coils and turns upon this leaf, like many other markings of nature, form a designless design, the idea of which is not traceable back to a mind. They are the work of a leaf-boring larva which has eaten ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... ministers of vengeance, who carry your bolts in their pounces to the remotest verge of the sea: but there a power steps in, that limits the arrogance of raging passions and furious elements, and says, "So far shalt thou go, and no farther." Who are you, that should fret and rage, and bite the chains of Nature? Nothing worse happens to you than does to all nations who have 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. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... unconsciously. So again the action of the brain, which goes on prior to our realising the idea in which it results, is not perceived by the individual. So also all the deeper springs of action and conviction. The residuum with which we fret and worry ourselves is a mere matter of detail, as the higgling and haggling of the market, which is not over the bulk of the price, ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... woven to and fro, across and across, with the lacing of a million threads, as Fate weaves round the limbs and covers the eyes of mortals as they stumble blindly from their birthplace to their grave. All things, the damp and the dust, the frost and the scorch, the newts and the rats, the fret of the flooded waters, and the stealing sure inroad of the mosses that everywhere grew from the dews and the fogs, had taken and eaten, in hunger or sport, or had touched, and thieved from, then left, ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... and almost the carriage of a suddenly checked horse, looking half startled, half angry, his cheeks puffed, his nostrils expanded, his head thrown back, the port vent still in his mouth, the blown bag under his arm, and his fingers on the chanter, on the fret to dash forward again with redoubled energy. But slowly the strained muscles relaxed, he let the tube fall from his lips, and the bag descended ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... impertinence that should have made hideous with hate the insulted features, but instead turned them for a thrilling instant of suspense into marble. Indeed, none of our petty vulgarities could jar or even fret the majestic calm of the desert and the stone Mystery among its billows. The Sphinx gazed above and past us all. She was like some royal captive surrounded by a rabble mob, yet as undisturbed in soul as though her ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... You wall be fretting yourself to death to economize in each one of one hundred and seven different articles,—for so many are you and Leander to assimilate and make your own special phosphate and carbon, as this sweet honey-year of yours goes on. Of that fret and wear of your sweet temper, child, there is no use at all. Listen, and you shall learn what are to be the great constants of your expense,—what Stephen Sewall would have called the regular verbs transitive of your being, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... reassuringly, "I know all that, and a lot more. I've brought letters of introduction for the government to some of Conrad's useful pacifist friends along the border. Don't you fret, Billie boy; the spoke we put in their wheel will overturn their applecart! The only thing worrying me just now,—beautifullest!—is whether you'll wait for me till I enlist, get to France, do my stunt to help clean out the brown rats ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... table. He was ashamed of himself—you will not understand him if you fail to recognise that—but the shame only served to make him fret under his bondage. Was he going to be tied to Pennyloaf all his life, with a family constantly increasing? Practically he had already made a resolve to be free before very long; the way was not quite clear to him as yet. But he went to work ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... eyes perceived it; and noiselessly she set her house in order. She executed her last will in terms which show that she died a Gospeller, as distinctly as if she had written it at the outset; she left bequests to her friends—"a fret of pearls to her dear daughter, Constance Le Despenser;" she named two of the most eminent Lollards living (Sir Lewis Clifford and Sir Richard Stury) as her executors; she showed that she retained, like the majority of the Lollards, a belief in Purgatory, ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... they think the chief of Evils) Poverty, and insure to them Riches, with every Evil besides. These good People live in a constant Constraint before Company, and too great Familiarity alone; when they are within Observation they fret at each other's Carriage and Behaviour; when alone they revile each other's Person and Conduct: In Company they are in a Purgatory, when ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... soothe. The train goes swiftly, but not half swiftly enough. We pass town and hamlet. Advertisement hoardings, grotesque flat images of cows, outrageous commendations of whisky or pills, appear in the fields. We are getting near London. Pipes are laid by. We fidget and fret. The houses we pass are closer together, get closer still, merge into a sea of grey-slated roofs. The air is thick, smoke-laden. The train slows down, stops, starts again, draws up finally ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... workmanship so rare, She stood astonied long, ne aught gainsaid; And with fast-fixed eyes on her did stare, And by her silence, sign of one dismayed, The victory did yield her as her share; Yet did she inly fret and felly burn, And all her blood to poisonous ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... which hills so closely bind, Scarce can the Tweed his passage find, Though much he fret, and chafe, and toil, Till ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... when falsely dight In misery and ugliness. What's that which Heaven to man endears, And that which eyes no sooner see Than the heart says, with floods of tears, 'Ah, that's the thing which I would be!' Not childhood, full of frown and fret; Not youth, impatient to disown Those visions high, which to forget Were worse than never to have known; Not worldlings, in whose fair outside Nor courtesy nor justice fails, Thanks to cross-pulling vices tied, Like Samson's ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... reached the fruit-sellers, tailors, shoe-makers, bar owners," and others of that class.[3388]—Towards the end, "butchers of both classes, high and low, are aristocratized."—In the same way, "the women in the markets, except a few who are paid and whose husbands are Jacobins, curse and swear, fume, fret and storm." "This morning," says a merchant, "four or five of them were here; they no longer insist on being called citoyennes; they declare that they "spit on the republic."[3389]—The only remaining patriot females are from the lowest of the low class, the harpies who pillage shops as much through ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... go when she Departs this life is not for me, Or you, or liftmen, to decree. And, any way, we needn't fret; She shows no ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 8th, 1920 • Various
... and an answer came back faintly through the fret of the river: "Plenty saw logs coming down. All of them handy sizes and ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... awkward hand upon Elisabeth's dark hair, and began stroking it the wrong way. "I say, I wish you wouldn't fret so; it's more than I can stand to see you so wretched. Isn't there anything that I can do to make it ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... in the glamourie They have stolen my wee brother, Housed a changeling in his swaddlings For to fret my own poor mother. Pules it in the candle light Wi' a cheek so lean and white, Chinkling up its eyne so wee Wailing shrill at her an' me. It we'll neither rock nor tend Till the Silent Silent send, Lapping in their awesome arms Him they stole with ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... my fate to fret away my years in this country. Not for a second do I regret being American—indeed, I think that a regret typical of very vulgar people, and I feel sure we are the great coming nation—yet"—and she sighed—"I feel my life should have drowsed away close to an older, mellower civilization, ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... he'd as much pluck about him as he has. He'll do all right if he doesn't fret himself into a fever about ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... lie, who love the truth, (And honour bids me lie), I'll tell a lordly lie forsooth To be remembered by. If I must cheat, whose fame is fair, And fret my fame away, I'll do worse than the devil dare That men may ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... impulsiveness of the modern girl had undone him. How was he to pay Hargate the money? Hargate must be paid. That was certain. No other course was possible. Lord Dreever's was not one of those natures that fret restlessly under debt. During his early career at college, he had endeared himself to the local tradesmen by the magnitude of the liabilities he had contracted with them. It was not the being in debt that he minded. It was the ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... myself, "My Mary weeps For the dead to-day; Haply her blind old grandsire sleeps The fret and the pain ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... I don't know all about interest, and compound interest too, by this time? I tell ye I want ye to spend it. It's your own. It's not mine. It always was yours. Now you're not going to fret me by saying you ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... exhausted ourselves on the sonnets. We seem to have settled ourselves quietly into a tone of resignation in regard to the weather; we know that we cannot 'get out,' any more than Sterne's Starling, and we know that it is best not to fret. ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... cannot 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
... and even Horace Walpole and his "Gothic" ruin on Strawberry Hill; and we are of the twentieth century, and have discovered the beauty of docks and harbours and tall factory chimneys and railway stations, under the guidance of Whistler and Brangwyn and such folk, and we do not fret at laying a railway through Perthshire or the Lake District, because railways are fast becoming almost as romantic and old-fashioned to us as stage-coaches (in these days of aeroplanes and automobiles); but at least let us remember that it is to the ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... Fleming, who came over at the instance of Baldwin, Earl of Flanders, to assist King William in his conquest of England. I may add that the Rydal family, honoured with a baronetcy, Oct. 4, 1704, bear for their arms—"Gules, a fret argent." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 190, June 18, 1853 • Various
... could prevail on the mistress to go to bed, ma'am,' said Gladys when she opened the door to her, 'I would be for ever thankful to you; she is much too ill to be about, and she has done nothing but mope and fret all day.' ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... you think because we said all this that we didn't go to the Ervengs'; well, we did, the whole four of us, and that very afternoon. Though we fret and fume over things beforehand, we generally end by doing just as papa says about them. One reason for this is that, when it comes to the point, none of us are willing to tell him that we won't obey. Papa's very gentle, ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... out of Bideford Church, when they were restoring it (Ruskin says that any man who'll restore a church is an unmitigated sweep), and stuck it up here with glue? Well, King came in and wanted to know whether we'd done it with a fret-saw! Yah! He is the King ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... fret, Rose Ellen! You won't have to get a fog-horn yet awhile. I don't know but it would be a good plan for you to mix up a mess o' biscuit, if you felt to: Mr. Lindsay likes your biscuit real well, ...
— "Some Say" - Neighbours in Cyrus • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... pleasant last days; both were disposed to take the goods their gods provided, and not fret for to-morrow. It would not last—life's fairy gifts never do, for to-day they would eat, drink, and be merry together, and forget ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... heart so kindly and so nice; But rather fewer clients would suffice. Their helping hands begin to gall and fret me; I'll get a moment's respite, if they'll let me. ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... form, and 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 with ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... never otherwise. If the heart is set on them, their acquirement will surely end in disappointment. Possession will create satiety; and the mind too quickly turns from the good it has toiled for in hope so long, to fret itself because there is an imagined higher good beyond. Believe me, Edward, if we are not satisfied with what God gives us as the reward of useful toil to-day, we will not be satisfied with what ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... been four days confined to my chamber by a cold, which has already kept me from three plays, nine sales, five shows, and six card-tables, and put me seventeen visits behind-hand; and the doctor tells my mamma, that, if I fret and cry, it will settle in my head, and I shall not be fit to be seen these six weeks. But, dear Mr. Rambler, how can I help it? At this very time Melissa is dancing with the prettiest gentleman;—she will breakfast with him to-morrow, and then run ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... unappreciative husbands. On the other hand, let the woman remember that the good general does not waste words on hindrances, or leave his weak spots open to observation, but, learning from every failure or defeat, goes on steadily to victory. To fret will never mend a matter; and "Study to be quiet" in thought, word, and action, is the first law of successful housekeeping. Never under-estimate the difficulties to be met, for this is as much an evil as over-apprehension. The best-arranged plans may be overturned at a moment's ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... thy Amoret, in sight, Her very figure, and the Robe she wears, With tawny Buskins, and the hook she bears Of thine own Carving, where your names are set, Wrought underneath with many a curious fret, The Prim-Rose Chaplet, taudry-lace and Ring, Thou gavest her for her singing, with each thing Else that she wears about her, let me feel The first fell stroke of that ...
— The Faithful Shepherdess - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10). • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... so. But we must be patient and not fret, else we shall not get a pleasant picture; and that would ...
— Dreamland • Julie M. Lippmann
... Dame Hartley's cheery voice, "your papa's gone, and you must not stand here and fret after him. Here is old Nancy shaking her head, and wondering why she does not get home to her dinner. Do you get into the cart, and I will get the station-master to put your trunk in ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... it,' he replied; 'therefore fret not thyself, good friend,—my worldly name is James Westrop. And I will tell thee what thou askest not, that my errand hither is to this young man, Andrew Golding. I have now told him my message, so I am free to depart; and ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... 'all I can dare to recommend, is patience and self-control. Don't fret and agitate yourself about what you can't do, but do your best to do calmly what you can. It will be made up, depend ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... who profess to follow him he is already a hesitating and too cautious leader, and they fret under his coldness towards the millinery of the altar, and writhe under his refusal to accept the strange miracle of Transubstantiation—a miracle which, he has explained, I understand, demands a reversal ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... he went along to the Universities that evening, he found he had missed his man—by only a minute or two. He was surprised and troubled; he knew how Lionel would fret. The hall-porter did not know whither Lord Rockminster had gone; that is to say, he almost certainly did know, but it was not his business to tell. Luckily, at this same moment, there was a young fellow leaving the club, and, as he was lighting his cigar, he heard Maurice's inquiries—and ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... young thing is meant to go, there's no need for me to fret about it all day long, and wake up sudden in the night with cold water standing out upon my forehead at the thought of it. I haven't known her six months; and if she is pretty and sweet-spoken, it's not my place to give way at the thoughts of losing her. She's not my own flesh and blood; and I've ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... comes towards the upper Potomac, follow him on his flank and on his inside track, shortening your lines while he lengthens him. Fight him, too, when opportunity offers. If he stays where he is, fret him and fret him."( 2) ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... you fret; I'm not goin' to run the wrong way with you in charge. Didn't you hear me promise Mr. Thornton? Well, you see, I've got a sort o' bad memory, that kind o' won't let me forgit when I make a promise;—bothers ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... returned. "It's nothing to fret for. That sort laugh at everything that isn't in their own ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares; To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires; To fawne, to crowche, to waite, to ride, to ronne, To spend, to give, to want, ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... go on Without the friction caused by fret, What greater loads were lightly drawn, More easily were trials met; Then might existence be with blessings rife, And lengthened ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... finish? 'Instead of a gray head waiting to go down into the pit of perdition.' Yes, it was a terrible blunder that I was not allowed to die in my infancy; but it can't be helped now, and I wish you would not fret yourself into a fever over the irremediable. Why will you persist in tormenting yourself and me about my want of resignation and faith, when you know that exhortation and persuasion have no more ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... cares of the day fret you, and begin to wear upon you, and you chafe under the friction,—be calm. Stop, rest for a moment, and let calmness and peace assert themselves. If you let these irritating outside influences get the better of you, you are confessing your inferiority to them, by permitting ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... much of a 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
... Army and not Richmond is your true objective point. If he comes towards the upper Potomac, follow on his flank on the inside track, shortening your lines while he lengthens his. Fight him when opportunity offers. If he stays where he is fret him and fret him."* Lee was, by the date of this note, well on his way towards the North, and the military situation grew ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... remember the time," enquired Minnie, "when I invited all the girls in the singing-class to tea? How I did fret about the cake-basket being old-fashioned, and moaned about the pattern of the tea cups." And she laughed ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden
... is how I always feel when I'm on my way home again. The ranch is home to me, you know. I was born there. I do not know what would happen to me if I was unable to return home at least once every week. It takes me away from all the fret and bother ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... accept your Excellency's counsel; but on this exceptional occasion I venture to advise you. Let none know I am here. In the present disturbed condition of affairs there must be almost as many hidden forces existing in Delgratz as there are men in the Cabinet. Why permit them to fret and fume when you alone have power to control them? I promise faithfully to abide by the decision of the Assembly. Should it favor me, your position is consolidated; should it prove adverse to my cause, you still ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... help, Achilles? 'tis Nature's decree that by all means all die. We must abide by her law, and not fret at her commands. Consider too how many of us are with you here; Odysseus comes ere long; how else? Is there not comfort in the common fate? 'tis something not to suffer alone. See Heracles, Meleager, and many another great one; they, methinks, would not choose ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... 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
... blot on the horizon's verge, No black smoke hid the star, no surge Came up to fret the silent sea, No answer came to ...
— Daisy Dare, and Baby Power - Poems • Rosa Vertner Jeffrey
... wives?" quoth another, resignedly, "Dwell they on our deeds?" "Deeds of home; that live yet Fresh as new—deeds of fondness or fret, Ancient words that were kindly expressed or unkindly, These, these ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... trail, the close companying with virile, open minds, and the strict insistence upon individual rights—yes, and the irritation of the same faces, the same figures, the same fare, the same labor, the same scant recreations, all worked as poison, to depress and fret and stimulate like ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... at times; they worry and fret us a lot, But I'd rather be crossed by a glad little boy and frequently worried than not. There are hours when they get on my nerves and set my poor brain all awhirl, But I'd rather be troubled that way than to be the man who ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... Floyd, I will have no nonsense of independence and pride from you. You are to me as my own son. I may talk much of Helen, because our love for women is of the kind that gives us the impulse to proclaim it, but she is scarcely more dear to me than you are. You are part of my life now: don't fret me and make me miserable by deserting me. Be as free as air and follow out every wish of your heart, yet, all the same, feel that your home is where my home is, your ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... your house, not in your family, not in your street, not in your parish, not in your country, and least of all in yourself, can you have things as you would wish. And you have your choice of two alternatives. You must either fret yourself into a nervous fever, or you must cultivate the habit of Resignation. And very often Resignation does not mean that you are at all reconciled to a thing, but just that you feel you can do nothing to mend it. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... from her hand. He smiled inwardly to himself, subduing his fret of impatience. "You will not object to let me talk it over," he said, "first with ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... going up to Philip and putting a kind hand on his shoulder. 'What's amiss? What's wrong to-day may prove right on the morrow, so never fret, lad.' ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... Creator 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 the old bald-faced mare again, and I don't ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... you fret. He's a little more than a yearlin', and of course he'll snuffle." And young James took ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... Why, you don't think him such a fool, that he should go and care for a homeless baggage like that? Nikita is a sensible fellow, you see. He knows whom to love. So don't you go and fret, my jewel. We'll not take him away, and we won't marry him. No, we'll let him stay on, if you'll only oblige us with a ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... furniture and a vast number of worthless knick-knacks in poker-work, fret-work, leathern applique-work, gummed shell-work, wool-work, tambour-work, with crystoleum paintings and drawings in chalk and water-colour. On a table in front of the window stood a cage with five canaries singing in it. Corona herself ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... we must hope for the best. By the way, gentlemen," he added, taking up his hat, "I hope you won't think of staying in town. Mr. Payne seems most anxious that you should go back, and I think his wish should be paramount. You can do nothing here, and I think your remaining would fret him. I won't attempt to dictate, but I feel that you would ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... didn't get much of a sweep on that, did I now? But don't you fret, I've got the lay of it now, and I'll just polish her off red-hot to-morrer, ...
— The Story of Patsy • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... beginning to fret. They were crying out once more for free trade with America: European facilities were not enough, and it was Oliver's business to keep them quiet. It was useless, he proposed to tell them, to agitate until the Eastern business was settled: they must not bother the Government with ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... I want to have a good house—by golly, I'll have as good a house as anybody in THIS town!—and if we want to travel and see your Tormina or whatever it is, why we can do it, with enough money in our jeans so we won't have to take anything off anybody, or fret about our old age. You never worry about what might happen if we got sick and didn't have a good fat ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... susceptible of noises. A carpenter's hammer, in a warm summer's noon, will fret me into more than midsummer madness. But those unconnected, unset sounds are nothing to the ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... I ought to be grateful for that," Herne said. He still looked grim, but there was no anger about him. He had taken his hand from her shoulder, but he still held her trembling fingers in his quiet grasp. "Don't fret!" he said. "Where's the use? I shall get over it somehow. If you are quite sure you know your own mind, there is no more to be said." He spoke with no shadow of emotion. His eyes looked into hers with absolute steadiness. ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... "Don't thee fret about me, dear; the way will open. Thy father has thought and planned for us. Have patience while I tell thee. Thee knows that Walter Evesham's pond is small and his mill ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... a despotism," said Mr. Henderson, "and gets into a perfect fret about it. Why, sir, the Southern States have presented nothing but a despotism for the last six years. During the rebel rule it was a despotism, the veriest despotism ever established upon earth; and since the rebel rule ceased, the President of the United ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... is easy enough to see the real explanation of such cases as those mentioned near the beginning of this discussion. The mothers who fret and rebel over their maternity, she found, are likely to bear neurotic children. It is obvious (1) that mothers who fret and rebel are quite likely themselves to be neurotic in constitution, and the child naturally gets its heredity from them: (2) that constant fretting and rebellion would so ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... Hel-ya Water Fret around a rugged isle, Where the bones of Yarl Magnus Lie below a lichened pile, There the raven found a refuge, There he reared his savage brood; And the young lambs from the scattald Were ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... eyes just like Juliet, the little sister who died when she was about your age," declared Dan Gowdy gently. "Don't you fret, Sister, she'll be glad to have you. Now here's your ticket, and I'll talk to Steve as soon as you're on board the train. ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... seizing Lavinia 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 weight; get out ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... to crawl so slowly along, and the boys began to fret in their eagerness to find out whether their comrades were on the island or not, but they were not yet close enough to make out any object upon its surface. Then from the West there came a breeze ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt
... well may happen that God Himself will free you, by the sword of His servant Death. This lord of yours, if indeed he be your lord, is a foul traitor. The King of England seeks his life, and there is another who will seek it also ere very long," and he glanced at the senseless form of Hugh. "Fret not yourself overmuch, daughter. Be grateful rather that matters are no worse, and that you remain as you always were. Another hour and you might have been snatched away beyond our finding. What is not ended can still be mended. Now go, seek the rest you need, for I would not have two sick ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs; Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Or new Love ...
— A Day with Keats • May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron
... adventure, I shipped of a sudden for Spanish ports. 'Twas a matter o' four years afore I clapped eyes on the hills o' Tinkle Tickle again. An' I mind well that when the schooner hauled down ol' Fo'c's'le Head, that day, I was in a fret t' see the godson that Tim Mull had promised me. But there wasn't no godson t' see. There wasn't ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... what a Discouragement it is to me to have my Perquisites divided between Fawners and Jobbers, which others enjoy intire to themselves. I have spoke to my Mistress, but to little Purpose; I have desired to be discharged (for indeed I fret my self to nothing) but that she answers with Silence. I beg, Sir, your Direction what to do, for I am fully resolved to follow your Counsel; who am Your Admirer ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... vision of the brotherhood of man. This story was preferred, for the reasons implied, by Frances Gilchrist Wood, who sees in Wu Fong's garden the subtle urge of acres of flowers, asleep under the stars, pitted against the greed of profiteers; who sees in answer to Western fume and fret the wisdom of Confucius, "Come out and see my poppies." The story was rejected by other members who, while applauding the author's motivation of character, his theme, and his general treatment, yet felt a lack of emotion and a ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... surely understand a temperamental woman!" exclaimed Penelope, surprised at his keen perception of the details which can fret a woman so sorely in proportion to ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... A sea-fret, cool and wetting, fell. A few big rain-drops splashed heavily down. The wind rose with a leap and roared past them up the rocky track. And the water-gates ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... thy confidence in thy Lord! Have patience, fret not, despair not, and a day shall come to thee like that which came at last to the mourners in Bethany—it may be here, it may not be until we meet Him beyond the bounds of time, yet come it must—when all this earthly history, and all His doings towards ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
... To be rid of all this statecraft and protocolling, and never to issue another declaration in this world, but just to be for once a Gentleman of France, with all to win and nothing to lose save the love of my lady! Ah! Mornay, would it not be sweet to leave all this fret and fume, and ride away to the green woods ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... Best, to forget! Living, we fret; Dying, we live. Fretless and free, Soul, clap thy pinion! Earth have ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... not fret yourself," interposed Fritz. "The old lady has done some good by starting this hospital here, even if she did it in imitation of the Princess; and, although she may now give it up, it will be carried on all right by others, you see if it won't! As I am getting well, too, and ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... is understood, the nightmare of the bureaucracy of Socialism vanishes. It is no longer necessary to fret ourselves asking how a government is to own and manage everything without making slaves of its citizens. The question propounded by that venerable and distinguished Canadian scholar, Professor Goldwin Smith,[182] whether a government can be devised which shall hold all the instruments of production, ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... little home at Walham Green, and made Marion come with me to Putney Common. Marion wasn't at home when I got there and I had to fret for a time and talk to her father, who was just back from his office, he explained, and enjoying himself in his ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... smoky Indian that we know, To a couch of new-pulled hemlock with the starlight on our faces, For the Red Gods call us out and we must go! He must go—go—go away from here! On the other side the world he's overdue. 'Send your road is clear before you when the old spring-fret comes o'er you And the Red Gods ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... ungodly fret. Go, place him in the stocks. I charge ye harm him not— But give him ale, Wine, and a scurvy song-book—Such as he Do make us triumph. Fie, fie, Cornet Dean! Well, stop his mouth, an't please ye; come, away! [Trumpets ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... despondency, and when the fatal hour sounded, he was assailed by the irresolutions of the previous day. When Mother Michel, before going out, said to him, "I leave Moumouth in your charge; you must take care of him, and make him play, so that he will not fret too much during my absence," the poor lad felt his heart fail, ...
— The Story of a Cat • mile Gigault de La Bdollire
... 'I know all about it quite well, though you won't tell me; you weep because the Queen is bad to you, and because she is ready to starve you to death. But food you've no need to fret about, for in my left ear lies a cloth, and when you take and spread it out, you may have as many dishes ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... He was a married man, he said, and his travelling days were over. It is probable, however, that never was a suggestion more welcome. The past years, in spite of his deep love for his wife, had been full of fret and shadowed by disappointment, and he longed, with a traveller's intensity of longing, for the wild untroubled places of the world, the primitive life, and if possible some dangers on the road. An exploring party ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... forward: standing on the pyramid of the Dagda, he began measuring and reconnoitering the army. His spirit, or his mind, or his thoughts did not fret over them at all. He brought their description with him to the place in ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... learned that good moods are very fleeting.... The cause of my happiness is, of course, that I have at last met Terry and we have had a long, delightful talk together, and I hope our misunderstanding is all cleared up. Only, now I am afraid I shall begin to pine and fret because we cannot be together always, though reason and philosophy and logic all tell me that the new relation between us two is the very best, noblest, most ideal—or at least they try to tell me so. It very nearly approaches ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... said Lincoln, at last, "we will not wrangle on whose was the slip, or if it does not trouble you it will not trouble me. Anyway, what is a basin of pap?—nothing to fret about!" ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... his offered arm. Pale and resolute, she lifted her noble head—called back the courage which had faltered for a moment—and took his arm. He led her to the door. "Don't let Blanche fret about me," she said, simply, to Arnold as they went by. They passed Sir Patrick next. Once more his sympathy for her set every other consideration at defiance. He started up to bar the way to Geoffrey. Geoffrey paused, and looked at Sir Patrick ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... young poet fell into bad company. He came home late one night. His father scolded: 'tis a porter's infirmity to fret at late-comers. Another night he came home later. The scolding became a philippic. Again he did not come home at all. His father ordered him never more to darken his doors. Murger took him at his word, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... self-preservation, I care not what you call it, which so often makes the American farmer a far better politician than nine tenths of the best read European political philosophers—works under all this tumult and confusion of tongues. The newspapers and politicians fret and fume and shout and denounce; but the great mass, the nineteen or twenty millions, work away in the fields and workshops, saying little, thinking much, hardy, earnest, self-reliant, very tolerant, very indulgent, very shrewd, but ready whenever the government needs it, with musket, or purse, ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... apparently at peace in the deep bed that they have made for themselves, where they seem to sleep, though all the while they never cease to fret and eat away ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... am not so bad to look at, I am well dressed, and never untidy. I am disgustingly well, which is fortunate, for most men hate a sick woman. If I have a headache I don't speak of it. I neither nag nor fret nor scold, and I even have a few parlour tricks which other people consider attractive. For six years, I have given generously and from a full heart everything he has seemed to ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... bowed head and frowning brow. Suddenly he looked up and cast his eyes about upon the company. "Before I goes, I wants to say a word to Madge," said he, and turned to her with an impressive earnestness. "Little one, don't you never fret about me, no more." He took her hand and she gave it to him gladly. "I see, now, as you was never made for me." He took a step toward Frank and led her to him. "I see whar your heart is, an' I puts your hand in his." With bowed head he relinquished the brown hand of the mountain-girl whom ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... down on the Indian rug before the fire, and read the evening psalm. It happened to be the thirty-seventh. Nothing could have calmed her so effectually as its tender exhortation, its wonderful sympathy with human nature. "Fret not thyself, else shalt thou be moved to do evil. Put thou thy trust in the Lord, and be doing good. Put thy trust in Him, and He will bring it ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... and the second parting with the devoted Virginia, we pass over in silence. James F. Reed, Jr., only five years old, declared that he would go with his father, and assist him in obtaining food during the long journey. Even the baby, only two and a half years old, would fret and worry every time the family sat down to their meals, lest father should find nothing to eat on his difficult way. Every day the mother and daughters would eagerly search for the letter Mr. Reed was sure to leave in the top of some bush, ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... "Don't fret so, mother," said Mattie, again putting her arms around her mother's neck, and kissing her. "I will be a real good, obedient girl, and do anything you bid me. But then—" Here Mattie paused for a moment, and looked roguishly up ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... he said to his surgeon; "and I assure thee that biding here will harm me more than mend me, for I do most grievously fret." ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... to be contented. Miss Olga has a kinder heart than her mother, and though she has a bitter tongue and rough ways she will befriend you. Don't fret about your dog, we folks belowstairs will see that he does not suffer. We will help you take care ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... great 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 smiled ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... the beldame, with a look of dark and devilish malignity:—"the word of a prince! Shall Goody Dickisson, the miller's wife, hold it in distrust? Go, poor fool, and chew thy bitterness, and bake thy bannocks, and fret thy old husband until thy writhen flesh rot from thy bones, and thou gnawest them for malice and vexation. Is it not glorious to ride on the wind—to mount the stars—to kiss the moon through the dark rolling ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... 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 few American settlers who ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... see all changed without, Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt. Yet why at others' wanings should'st thou fret? Then only might'st thou feel a just regret, Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light 5 In selfish forethought of neglect and slight. O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed, While, and on whom, thou may'st—shine ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... quite as remorselessly as ever slave-owner drove negro into a rice-ground. The whip that is made of golden wire hurts quite as much, I opine, as the cowhide. And when, at last, the fortunate man cries out, "I am rich, I have enough, Sat me lusistis, ludite nunc alios, I will work and fret myself no more, I will retire on my dividends, and sit me down under my own fig-tree,"—Fortune dismisses him with a sneer: "Retire, if you like!" cries the implacable, "but take hypochondria and ennui, take gout ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... people's own tempers and dispositions: a person who is fretful and cross will never be happy, though he should be made king of all England; and a person who is contented and good-humoured will never be wretched, though he should be as poor as a beggar. So never fret yourself, love, because Betty Flood is poor; for though I am poor, I am honest; and whilst my husband and I are happy enough to be blessed with health, and the use of our limbs, we can work for our living; and though we have ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... down, but when I am afflicted because of the wickedness of the people, I call to remembrance these words: "Fret not thyself because of evil-doers. Trust in the Lord and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed."—Psalm ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... had loved him; and it was the cares of that early marriage which had consumed him to the bone. But extreme want, if long continued, eats up love when it has nothing else to eat. And when people are very long dying, the people they fret and trouble begin to think of that too often hypocritical prettiness of phrase called "a happy release." So the worn-out and half-famished wife did not care three straws for the dying husband, whom a year ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... trifle confessed—the loss of some little article, say—spurring my memory, and hunting the house, not from immediate need, but from dislike of loss; when a book has been borrowed of me and not returned, and I have forgotten the borrower, and fret over the missing volume, while there are thousands on my shelves from which the moments thus lost might gather treasure holding relation with neither moth, nor rust, nor thief; am I not like the disciples? Am I not a fool whenever loss troubles me more than ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... the risk of startling 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
... have thought it?" said Mrs. Garth, putting her apron to her eye as she looked up at the vacant gaze in the eyes of the sufferer. "I care not now how soon my awn glass may run out. I've so fret myself ower this mischance that the ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine |
