"Fret" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... problem as the complication of her relation to John Kendal and to Elfrida Bell. She had shrunk from that for months, had put it away habitually in the furthest corner of her consciousness, and had done her best to make it stay there. She discovered how sore its fret had been only with the relief she felt when she simplified it at a stroke that afternoon on which everything came to an end between her and Elfrida. Since the burden of obligation their relation imposed ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... convenience, and secretly determined she shouldn't wed if he could help it. Little by little he poisoned her mind against matrimony, praised the independent women and showed how such were better off every way, with no husband and family to fret their lives ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... Nuns fret not at their Convent's narrow room; And Hermits are contented with their Cells; And Students with their pensive Citadels: Maids at the Wheel, the Weaver at his Loom, Sit blithe and happy; Bees that soar for bloom, High as the highest Peak of Furness Fells, Will ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... must go!" cried Tony, starting up, but falling back again with a groan. "There's Dolly and Mr. Oliver,—they'll think I've run away again, and I were trying all I could to get back to 'em. She'll be watching for me, and she'll fret ...
— Alone In London • Hesba Stretton
... Aman. That all! is jealousy, then, nothing? Ber. It should be nothing, if I were in your case. Aman. Why, what would you do? Ber. I'd cure myself. Aman. How? Ber. Care as little for my husband as he did for me. Look you, Amanda, you may build castles in the air, and fume, and fret, and grow thin, and lean, and pale, and ugly, if you please; but I tell you, no man worth having is true to his wife, or ever was, or ever will be so. Aman. Do you then really think he's false to me? for I did not suspect him. Ber. Think so? I am sure of it. Aman. You are sure on't? ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan
... "You needn't fret for yourself at all. You'll be ever so happy when you've done a noble thing. Now listen. This is our little plot—only first of all promise, promise most faithfully, that you won't say a word ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... scolded the monkey gently. "Don't you fret about this particular namesake. If you only knew all the others you have had! Every single pet that two lonely old men could get to stay around the house with them we have ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... fret as I might, it was not possible to mend matters, and I stretched myself out at full length under the bushes, with the idea in mind that it would be better if we were captured at once, for then we would be spared just so much suspense, yet when Sergeant Corney suggested ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... for the rebels' use, he helped to murder a loyal man at Donegore last night, he was in arms to-day. There's not half a dozen deserve hanging more richly than he does, and hanged he'll be. Never you fret yourself about him, Lord Dunseveric; sit down here and drink a glass with us. We're going to make a night ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... you at once," said Rose, as she hastily caught up and drew a shawl about her head and shoulders. "Grandpap," she called softly through the door to the old man's bedroom, "I'm ergoin' out fer er leetle time. One of ther neighbors air sick. Don't fret, fer I'll be ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... his form, and so lively 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 bridemaidens whispered, "'T were better, by far, To have matched our fair ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... and honest labour, then they may increase the delights of life; but 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 ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... said Hansel, "and do not fret; I will manage something." And when the parents had gone to sleep he got up, put on his little coat, opened the back door, and slipped out. The moon was shining brightly, and the white flints that lay in front of the house glistened like pieces of silver. Hansel stooped and filled the little pocket ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... touched her poor forehead, wrinkled with the cares and troubles of so many years, and felt all the pity in me uppermost. "'Tis near midnight, and you have not slept, madam," I said. "I pray you not to fret any longer about that which we can none of us mend, and which is but to be borne as the ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... 'fret' you beyond measure. Besides, now that you Czars of the 'Athenaeum' have set your Faradays on us, ukase and knout, what Pole, in the deepest of the brain, would dare to have a thought on the subject? Now that Professor Faraday has 'condescended,' ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... fields about this city faire Were all with roses set; Gillyflowers, and carnations faire, Which canker could not fret. RITSON'S Ancient Songs, ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... "Don't fret yourself, my son. We've bought the gun all right; an' the next time we meet, you can hand it over. I wish our pile had been bigger so's we could have given twenty, 'cause a kid ...
— Dick in the Desert • James Otis
... not a 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 ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... to be wrong, or when I caught him neglecting his duties, conniving at injustice, shirking inquiry, or evading the truth, I in no way spared him. The incident just related is an illustration of the treatment he often received at my hands. Fret, fume, stamp, storm, as he might, I cared nothing for him. His anger to me was as indifferent as his friendship. I despised both equally. Occasionally he would imagine, after there had been no storm between us for some time, that I had become reconciled to him, and ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... animalia, erunt et homines aliis, non 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, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... and Nevilles, and now of Earl Brooke. He has sash'd the great apartment that's to be sure (I can't help these things), and being since told, that square sash-windows were not Gothic, he has put certain whim-whams within side the glass, which appearing through are to look like fret-work. Then he has scooped out a little burrow in the massy walls of the place for his little self and his children, which is hung with paper and printed linen, and carved chimney-pieces, in the exact manner of Berkley Square or Argyle buildings. What in short can a lord do ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... can you do? The autumn sun and the damp are both very bad for the little fellow—for the scriptures have it: /* "In wheezing, swoon or in nervous fret, In ...
— The Post Office • Rabindranath Tagore
... which came to me in Berlin may be called an intimate relationship compared with intercourse here, which is, in fact, nothing more than mutual mistrust and espionage, if there only were anything to spy out or to conceal! The people toil and fret over nothing but mere trifles, and these diplomats, with their consequential hair-splitting, already seem to me more ridiculous than the Member of the Second Chamber in the consciousness of his dignity. If foreign events do not take place, and those we over-smart Diet ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... "Don't fret yourself, old fellow," replied my husband. "That's my wife's little flutter. Dare say the poor fool has had to promise her priest to make me ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... fretted, it fumed, it protested. But fret, fume, and protest availed nothing, it had to defray the cost of the funeral, and receive and lap the child in its ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... woodland bred, good sir, and shrink from the prisonment of streets and walls. Half a day in Gloucester makes me fret ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... brain savers is elimination. Every man should try to operate along lines of the least resistance, eliminate the deterrent influences and all things that fret him. ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... Gartley. The mother was troubled: it is the girl that suffers evil judgment in such a case, and she knew how the tongue of the world would wag. But those who despise the ways of the world need not fret that low minds attribute to them the things of which low minds are capable. The world and its judgments will pass: the poisonous tongue will one day become pure, and make ample apology for its evil speaking. The tongue is a fire, but there is a stronger ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... their designs and general decorative work. The Japanese joiner is unsurpassed, and much of the lattice work, admirable in design and workmanship, is so quaint and intricate that only by close examination can it be distinguished from finely cut fret work. ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... Makes Loyalist turn Whig. Montgomery, Richard Montgomery, was honor's darling; And when his body fell, scaling Quebec, Down the sheer rock it left a track of light Which sped in opposition towards the stars Bearing his fame. He was an officer In the King's army ere he found our own. Did conscience fret the gallant Irishman To think what uniform was on his back When he so died? What if in that assault I had died too, my name had ranked with his In song and monument; unfading laurels Had shed their brazen lustre o'er our brows, And we, like demigods, had lived forever. Was it enough for him, to ...
— The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold - A Play for a Greek Theatre • John Jay Chapman
... possible expense, and making the most she could while the baby was "getting out of her arms." That process has its pleasures, which every mother feels in spite of burdens, and the mind is happily dulled by nature's merciful provision. With a little child tugging at the breast, care and fret vanish, not because of the happiness so much as because of a certain mammal complacency, which is not at all intellectual, but serves its purpose better than the ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... he had expected it, and this gave him time to lie and fret and listen again for the striking of the clock in the room downstairs. The waiting became too long, and as his fever increased he became insanely impatient and could not restrain himself. To lie and ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... MSS. or new work of the correspondent. Some letters of that kind he probably never did answer. Few had any idea of the fagging task they imposed on the distinguished victim. He would worry and fret over it trebly in anticipation, and the actual task itself was to him probably ten times as irksome as it would be to most others. Yet it would be curious to know how many letters of suggestion and encouragement he actually did write in reply to ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... have to chloroform the Countess to get him into the house. You must try to sleep, while I'm gone—and don't fret— will you? You'll get well all the quicker ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... human being, at other human beings. There they sit or stand or hang. Some chatter, others scowl, fret, fume, complain, brag, grin or otherwise express the strange emotions that move ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... Constantinople. As one cannot always be out shooting, it is very important to our happiness to have something to fall back upon in the social way. I was told once by a very great friend of mine, who saw that I was inclined to fret, 'to take everything as a joke.' If one's liver is in good order it is very easy to do so, but sometimes the contrary is the case, and it makes one at times quite savage to see the airs that are ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... by statesmen, not by parliaments, not by the people, but by God; that we, England, the world, are going God's way, and not our own; then we should look hopefully, peacefully, contentedly, on the matters which are too apt now to fret us; for we should say more often than we do, 'It is the Lord: let him do what seemeth ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... the 'calico's' out of the corral and Long 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
... come out of the fret and the fever of life; away from the scorching heat of self, and enter the inward resting-place where the cooling airs of peace will calm, renew, and ...
— The Way of Peace • James Allen
... lustily, the two-handed skinker! Mary must squeeze out a line propria manu; but indeed her fingers have been incorrigibly nervous to letter-writing for a long interval. 'T will please you all to hear that, though I fret like a lion in a net, her present health and spirits are better than they have been for some time past; she is absolutely three years and a half younger, as I tell her, since we have adopted this ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... up her prayer book, checked her longing to walk rapidly to and fro, sat 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 ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... "Don't fret yourself about that," said Mr. Enderby, buttoning up his coat. "We are not going to let you be lost. You just stay patiently with Mrs. Benson till ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... you've doubtless guessed That vengeance is our work; For we seek the nest with terrible zest Where the puddin'-snatchers lurk. With rage, with gloom, With fret and fume, We seek ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... too intolerable, he could endure it no longer. Let it make or break, certainty, at all risks, was at least preferable to this sickening suspense. That he loved her, he could no longer doubt; let his parents foam and fret as much as they pleased; for once he was going to stand on his own legs. And in the end, he thought, they would have to yield, for they had ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... it must have pervaded him and possessed him. He was in love with it, he was as entirely fascinated by it as if it were the girl's whole presence, her looks, her qualities. The remnant of the summer passed in the fret of business, which was doubly irksome through his feeling of injury in being kept from the girl whose personality he constructed from the sound of her voice, and set over his fancy in an absolute sovereignty. The image he had created of her ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... a little of that liniment onto my 'and myself. It do burn so; to think that jest a little thing of this sort should make me mis'rible. Talk of breed! I don't suppose I'm much, after all, or I'd not fret about a trifle ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... breathless to 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 ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... work, and had given Orders to my Men to begin some Paces back, to make the Descent more gradual, and thereby render the Task a little more feasible, Major Collier, who commanded the Train, came to me; and perceiving the Difficulties of the Undertaking, in a Fret told me, I was impos'd upon; and vow'd he would go and find out Brigadier Petit, and let him know the Impossibility, as well as the Unreasonableness of the Task I was put upon. He had scarce utter'd those Words, and turn'd himself round ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... 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
... purity, victory and joy, of physical life and healing, and all power for service. Filled with the Spirit there is no room for self or sin, for fret or care. Filled with the Spirit we repel the elements of disease that are in the air as the red-hot iron repels the water that touches it. Filled with the Spirit we are always ready for service, ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... you—don't you," Clint comforted. "He cayn't do us any harm. Ellison's hot on his trail. I'll give him six months, an' then he's through. Don't you fret, sweetheart. Daddy will look ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... they can make sail in their canoes, and come here easily, instead of pulling between thirty and forty miles, which is hard work against wind and current. Still, we must not be careless and we must keep a good look-out even now. I don't want to fret your father and Mrs Seagrave with my fears on the subject, but I tell you what I really think, and what we ought ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat
... "Don't fret about the law," advised Tom; "I've heard tell the law can be turned any way a clever chap has a mind. I'll see what I can do with it when I'm to Mr. Tonkin, and then perhaps we'll all snap our fingers at ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... said. "I couldn't bear to lose any of my illusions, my dear." She kissed May and added, "You might tell him to come and see me, though. I should like to hear what he's got in his head now. Good-bye, Lord Richard. Don't you fret about your Crusade. Sandro'll take it up again when it's convenient." She chuckled again at the puzzled stare which accompanied Dick's ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... your sense, Robin, should fret at such trifles. Remember, beauty is as summer fruits, easy to ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... work, and gifted with force to mould the future, be sure that He will bless the exercise of the prerogative by which He exalts us above inferior creatures, and makes us capable of toil. You can influence to-morrow. What you can influence by work, fret not about, for you can work. What you cannot influence by work, fret not about, for it is vain. 'They toil not, neither do they spin.' You are lifted above them because God has given you hands that can grasp the tool or the pen. Man's crown of glory, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... on her; Go to the feast, revel and domineer, Carouse full measure to her maidenhead, Be mad and merry, or go hang yourselves: But for my bonny Kate, she must with me. Nay, look not big, nor stamp, nor stare, nor fret; I will be master of what is mine own. She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house, My household stuff, my field, my barn, My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything; And here she stands, touch her whoever dare; I'll bring mine action on the proudest he ...
— The Taming of the Shrew • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... potent than his breathless middle-age. The tide was on the ebb, and the gale was driving the Atlantic breakers shoreward, and in the jaws of the entrance the two waters met in an unearthly turmoil. Above the noise of the wind came the roar of the flooded Garple and the fret of the harbour, and far beyond all the crashing thunder of the conflict at the harbour mouth. Even in the darkness, against the still faintly grey western sky, the spume could be seen rising like waterspouts. But it was the ear rather than the eye which made ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... high room, panelled with fresh oak, and hung with a little old tapestry here and there, and a few portraits. A staircase rose out of it to the upper story. It had a fret-ceiling, with flower-de-luce and rose pendants, and on the walls between the tapestries hung a few antlers and pieces of armour, morions and breast-plates, with a pair of pikes or halberds here and there. A fire had been lighted in the great hearth as the evenings ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... been to marry him so! But it was too late for that. She must face the situation now, and fret over the ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... dame Trot with a basket of eggs, He used his pipes and she used her legs; She danced about till the eggs were all broke, She began for to fret, but he laughed ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... guides of public opinion, ever so many ministers of public affairs, and ever so many lawgivers of the United States, who are infidels and profligates; who see only themselves in all they do, who desire only to fret out their little hour on the political stage with a sharp eye to their own interests, without the smallest desire to secure the Republic against future disasters—who cannot, or will not, see the disastrous storms the ship of the Republic will soon have to encounter. What good, then, could be ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... 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 precious when ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... 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 ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... his desk, and as unsophisticated as any student in practical life. As Hamlet of yore, I might have handed him a pipe and said, "Do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you cannot play ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... true for all things, little and great. There is a time and a way in which they can be done: none shorter—none smoother. For all noble things, the time is long and the way rude. You may fret and fume as you will; for every start and struggle of impatience there shall be so much attendant failure; if impatience become a habit, nothing but failure: until on the path you have chosen for your better swiftness, rather than the honest flinty one, there shall follow ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... until within a week, touching with his lips those rosy cheeks which he had never dared to approach. But that was all; it was a sudden impulse; and the master turned away from the young girl, laughing, and telling her not to fret herself about him,—he would take ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... do?" He grasped my hand—"Well, thanks: the same to you." Then, as he still kept walking by my side, To cut things short, "You've no commands?" I cried. "Nay, you should know me: I'm a man of lore." "Sir, I'm your humble servant all the more." All in a fret to make him let me go, I now walk fast, now loiter and walk slow, Now whisper to my servant, while the sweat Ran down so fast, my very feet were wet. "O had I but a temper worth the name, Like yours, Bolanus!" inly I exclaim, While he keeps running on at a hand-trot, About ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... 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
... Frank and Lawrence and Guy brought out their treasured missives. When "Lika Joko" gets a pen or pencil in his hand he can't help caricaturing. These juvenile missives were decorated with sketches in every corner. Here is a particularly merry one. Frank writes from Cheltenham for some fret-work patterns. Patterns are sent by return of post—the whole family is sent in fret-work. Mr. Furniss goes away to Hastings, suffering from overwork. He has to diet himself. Then comes a letter illustrated at the top with a certain gentleman ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the example apparently taken from the portico of the octagon tower of Andronicus Cyrrhestes, or tower of the winds, from the summit of which rises a conical dome, surmounted by the Vane. The more minute detail may be seen by the annexed drawing. The prevailing ornament is the Grecian fret. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... brings us home,— From our wanderings afar, From our multifarious labours, From the things that fret and jar; From the highways and the byways, From the hill-tops and the vales; From the dust and heat of city street, And the joys of lonesome trails,— Evening brings us home at ...
— 'All's Well!' • John Oxenham
... difference in the aspect of things as they appear to the spectators and the partakers; it needs but an average experience to discover that real life is full of just such passages: what troubled and worried us yesterday made others laugh then, and makes us laugh to-day: what we fret or grieve at in the progress, we still smile and make ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... deliberately courted dangers, only to succumb to the ills and privations of camp life. Cuban equipment was of the scantiest. Cuban dews are heavy; Cuban nights are cool—these were perils indeed for a weak-lunged invalid. Branch began to fret. Rain filled him with more terror than fixed bayonets, a chill caused him keener consternation than did a thousand Spaniards; he began to have agonizing visions of himself lying in some leaky hovel of a hospital. It was typical ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... 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 makes ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... spend, and he had formulated an intention to build a great house, to add another to the palaces of the country-bred millionaires who have come to adorn the great city. In the mean time he made little account of the things that occupied his children, except to fret at the ungrateful indifference of his son to the interests that could alone make a man of him. He did not know whether his daughters were in society or not; with people coming and going in the house he would have supposed they must be so, no matter who ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... be those who go a-fishing and enjoy it. The arranging and selecting of flies, the joining 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 ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... "And fret I will," came a voice from the bed, "till I've done with this feather-bed coddling and am allowed to take my share of the ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... in patience," he thought, looking out one morning at sunrise, and watching Dilama playing with the white doves on the basin edge of the fountain. "I will wait till Buldoula is well and strong again. She would fret now, and think I was forgetting her in a new love if I call Dilama to me yet. I will wait till her second son is born, and then in her joy and pride she will not be jealous of ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... is cast 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 ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... I have rank and honour in reality, if I am to live an obscure prisoner, without either society or observance, and suffering in my character, as one of dubious or disgraced reputation? I care not for all those strings of pearl, which you fret me by warping into my tresses, Janet. I tell you that at Lidcote Hall, if I put but a fresh rosebud among my hair, my good father would call me to him, that he might see it more closely; and the kind old curate would smile, and Master Mumblazen ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... telling you not to fret about me is the proper thing to do. That is my business in this world very largely, and if I can only comfort your dear heart—well, I shall do ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... chiselling of life. And here in the uplands, in the great spaces of earth and sky, the elemental desire of her soul seemed at last wholly appeased, the longing for space and height and light, the longing for deeds and beauty and Peace. At last, after the false roads, the fret and rebellion, she had emerged ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... stayed for a month, and all that time he never saw his friend. At last he began to fret for him, and was very unhappy. "What makes you so sad?" said Panwpatti Rani. "I am sad because I have not seen my friend for a whole month," answered her husband. "I must go and see him." "Yes, go and ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... last lines Hodgson likes. It is not often he does, and when he don't he tells me with great energy, and I fret and alter. I have thrown them in to soften the ferocity of our Infidel, and, for a dying man, have given him a good deal to ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... House. For the doctor came every day, ordered me all sorts of good things, and insisted on a fire being kept in my room, and no lessons. And if I wished to see any of my friends I might do so, and on no account was I to be allowed to fret or be disturbed in mind. I couldn't help feeling half sorry for Miss Henniker being charged with all these uncongenial tasks; but Stonebridge House depended a great deal on what the doctor said of it, and so she ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... her? It is a terrible thing to remain chained and helpless at such a time, to realize that cruel wrong, possibly torture, is being visited upon another, upon one you know and love, and yet be unable to uplift hand or voice in warning. I am by nature cool in action, yet there are few who fret more grievously when held in leash, compelled to await in uncertainty the coming of ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... his tasks in his usual fashion, not brilliantly or quickly, but pretty accurately. Elsie was in trouble more than once during the afternoon for inattention, and earned several bad marks, over which she did not fret. ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... "Don't you fret yourself so, Monsieur le Baron," said Madame Olivier. "Madame cares for you, and for no one but you; her maid knows that for true, and we say, between her and me, that you are the luckiest man in this world—for you know what madame ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... 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 ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... she is mad, and heareth but her own Folly! A slave, her city all o'erthrown, She needs must chafe her bridle, till this fret Be foamed away in blood and bitter sweat. I waste no more speech, ...
— Agamemnon • Aeschylus
... 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 Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... spared thee all the spring, Thy sole delight is, sitting still, With that gold dagger of thy bill To fret the summer jenneting. ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... he looked down over one of the great views of the world. Below him was the splendid vista of a splendid city; the mass of tall offices, factories and the high fret of derricks and elevators along the quays that covered the site of the Indian lodges of Hochelaga that Jacques Cartier first found; the mass of spires from a thousand churches, the swelling domes and hipped roofs of basilica and college that had grown up from the old religious outpost, ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... alone, I love thee, hear thy moan, But winds that fret thee only causeth thee To more securely stand, More firmly clasp my hand, And soaring upward, closer cling ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... right," said Mrs. Savor. "I see you'd be'n putting up some kind of job on her the minute she mentioned the cars. Don't you fret any, Miss Kilburn. Rebecca and me'll get along with her, you ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... sure, ma'am. But don't you fret no more about the child, ma'am. I've been a mother myself, ma'am, and I'll be as good to your little angel as if she was my own ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... lions in the center of the Court of Lions uphold a large alabaster basin in which were caught, in times gone by, the falling waters of the fountain above it. Many graceful pillars support the surrounding arcades of this court and the exquisite fret-work looks ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... it to say that every day in the year I meet children, and grown people too, for that matter, who are "wearing straw hats in the winter," and suffering various dreadful things in consequence thereof. The very next time you get into trouble, before you grumble and fret, see if it is not because you are wearing a straw hat ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... in milk and honey-dew, In rain from roses shook, that ne'er touched earth, And ointed me with nard of amber hue; Never had spot me spotted from my birth, Or mole, or scar of hurt, or fret of dearth; Never one ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... not comprehend To die of old age is a death rare, extraordinary, and singular To do well where there was danger was the proper office To forbear doing is often as generous as to do To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind to't To fret and vex at folly, as I do, is folly itself To give a currency to his little pittance of learning To go a mile out of their way to hook in a fine word To keep me from dying is not in your power To kill men, a clear and strong light ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne
... had my purpose to serve, and we sat down to our game. The stakes were five guineas a side. According to custom, I won the three or four first games; and he pretended to curse, and fret, and again ran over his bead-roll of being pigeoned, plucked bare, bubbled, done up, and the whole catalogue of like ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... my husband not still living it would be the same. I should never under any circumstances marry again. I have passed the period of a woman's life when as a woman she is loved; but I have not outlived the power of loving. I shall fret about you, Phineas, like an old hen after her one chick; and though you turn out to be a duck, and get away into waters where I cannot follow you, I shall go cackling round the pond, and always have my ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... help seemed to be coming at the utmost speed, and tears of relief rushed into Rachel's eyes, tears that Lovedy must have perceived, for she spoke the first articulate words she had uttered since the night-watch had begun, "Please, ma'am, don't fret, ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and coat of ermine, Robe thy trees in finest fibers, Deck thy groves in richest fabrics, Give the fir-trees shining silver, Deck with gold the slender balsams, Give the spruces copper belting, And the pine-trees silver girdles, Give the birches golden flowers, Deck their stems with silver fret-work, This their garb in former ages, When the days and nights were brighter, When the fir-trees shone like sunlight, And the birches like the moonbeams; Honey breathed throughout the forest, Settled in the ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... of Baal, They dare not sit or lean, But fume and fret and posture And foam and curse between; For being bound to Baal, Whose sacrifice is vain, Their rest is scant with Baal, They glare and pant for Baal, They mouth and rant for Baal, For ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... can do more good to all by being away. And my wages have been raised. I couldna leave just now. Oh, I dare say we shall do very well. But, Christie, you must not fret and be discontented, and think what you do is not worth while. It is the motive that makes the work of any one's life great or small. It is little matter, in one sense, whether it be teaching children, or ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... to make it so; but the pestilence has shown him that there are grim realities in life. Don't fret, dearest. We will go to town as soon as it is prudent to make the move. Kings must brave great hazards; and there is no reason that little people like us should risk our lives because the necessities of State compel his Majesty to ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... they shall pass through it hardly bestead and hungry; and it shall come to pass that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... day had been spent by Mr. Edmonstone in a fret to get away from Recoara, and his wife was hardly less desirous to leave it than himself, for she could have no peace or comfort about Amabel, till she had her safely at home. Still she dreaded proposing ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fret yourself, Olive. I trow there's no witch-mark on you. It's Goody Bishop in her fine silk hood that's at the bottom on't. I know, I know. Perchance Paul could loose the stopple in the cider-barrel. I am needful of somewhat to warm my old bones. ...
— Giles Corey, Yeoman - A Play • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... How explain it all to her? "Listen to me, Madelon," he said at last; "I think you were a dear little girl to have such a kind thought for me, and I don't know how to thank you enough for it; but it was all a mistake, and you must not fret about it now. I don't think I care so very much about having a fortune; and anyhow, I like working hard and getting money that ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... a windy hill, lie a little gray church and a quiet churchyard. At all seasons high winds from the North Sea blow over the graves and fret and eat away the soft gray sandstone of which the plain headstones are made. So great is the wear and tear of these winds that comparatively recent monuments look like those which have stood for centuries. On one of these stones lies a recumbent figure, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... 'Don't fret your eyelids on that score,' said the young gentleman. 'I've got to be in London to-night; and I know a 'spectable old gentleman as lives there, wot'll give you lodgings for nothink, and never ask for ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... at length became intolerable, and I spent hour after hour in reflecting upon the most convenient method of putting an end to my life. Duns, in the meantime, left me little leisure for contemplation. My house was literally besieged from morning till night, so that I began to rave, and foam, and fret like a caged tiger against the bars of his enclosure. There were three fellows in particular who worried me beyond endurance, keeping watch continually about my door, and threatening me with the law. Upon these three I internally vowed the bitterest revenge, if ever I should ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... said to myself, "My Mary weeps For the dead to-day: Haply her blind old grandsire sleeps The fret and the pain ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... the perpetual clang of sea-fowl and roar of billows, and the famous Bullers of Buchan, where the sea has forced its way through the solid rock, leaving an arch of triumph to commemorate the passage, and formed a huge round pot where its waters, in the time of storm, rage and fret and foam like a newly imprisoned maniac—a pot which Dr Johnson proposes to substitute for the Red Sea, in the ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... he was forbidden that, he knocked under presently, and a single glass dozed him. Some think these almonds have a penetrating, abstersive quality, are able to cleanse the face, and clear it from the common freckles; and therefore, when they are eaten, by their bitterness vellicate and fret the pores, and by that means draw down the ascending vapors from the head. But, in my opinion, a bitter quality is a drier, and consumes moisture; and therefore a bitter taste is the most unpleasant. For, as Plato says, ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... It'll be all right! You'll only fret yourself into a spell! The minister's just a good man; he won't say anything to frighten you. Father's talking with him real pleasant, and pointing the way ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Can I help being blind? You fret because you want to be gadding about—with a helpless man left all alone at home. Your own ...
— One Day More - A Play In One Act • Joseph Conrad
... "Of course I should have known without asking. Now don't fret about it. To bed, to bed, to bed! We shall have to be up early to-morrow if we are to be in court ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... then, after washing the cups and plates, and putting them away in a cupboard, she drew her rocking-chair to the lamp and sat down to a heap of mending. Evelina, meanwhile, had been roaming about the room in search of an abiding-place for the clock. A rosewood what-not with ornamental fret-work hung on the wall beside the devout young lady in dishabille, and after much weighing of alternatives the sisters decided to dethrone a broken china vase filled with dried grasses which had long stood on the ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... creditors could not collect it off the property, it was not held liable for the debt, neither was Lord Leitrim, who had seized the property. Her sense of honesty and the honor of her husband's name made her fret over this debt. The doctor had declared her illness heart disease brought on by a shock, and her death imminent. To soothe her mind her sister again came forward and out of her own pocket paid the money. The widow died and was buried. ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... knowledge—I have none, And yet my song comes native with the warmth. O fret not after knowledge—I have none, And yet the Evening listens. He who saddens At thought of idleness cannot be idle, And he's awake ...
— The Enjoyment of Art • Carleton Noyes
... mother. I'm going to save the Vaughan colliery. Don't you fret about me; all you've got to do is to make dad drink, which ain't a difficult job, and to stick to the story that I have been over for an hour to see schoolmaster. Good-bye, mother. Don't fret; it will all ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... falls into some 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 man has a horror of evil, but he has a still greater ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... worried at a great rate about that stone, how they would get it rolled away, and when they got there it was gone. I'll remember that. I'll do just as he said: when I see a stone ahead of me, I won't stop and fret about it; I'll walk straight up to it, and when I get there maybe it will ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... 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 the ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... they were probably safe, either at Langley or Cardiff; yet there remained the possibility that they might have shared the fate of the Mortimers, and be closely confined in some stronghold. It was not in Isabel's nature to fret much over any thing; but Richard was a gentle, playful, affectionate child, to whom the absence of all familiar faces would be a serious trouble. Then what would become of Edward, whom she had tacitly criminated? What would become of Richard, the darling brother, whom not to criminate ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... ye toil, and fagg, and fume, and fret, And—what the bashful muse would blush to say. But, now, your painful tremors are all o'er, Cloath'd in the glories of a full-sleev'd gown, Ye strut majestically up and down, And now ye fagg, and now ye fear, no more! ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... 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
... What were the woes and cryings of the outer world to them, lost in the impenetrable silence of that retreat? A strange, double sensation of delight and forgetfulness surged in them both. All knowledge of disturbing human influences, of the fret, and discord, and inquietude of common existence seemed trivial and even false. They looked with confidence into each other's eyes, as though they were the sole inhabitants of some brilliant, inaccessible ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... sigh for rest achieved. There is indeed nothing that she does not know. But, for her, knowledge is not enough—she desires possession. The poorest man is glorified when she takes him to her heart. She desires no longer to doubt and fret—only to rest and to be quiet. A woman's love when she is true is like a heaven of Sabbaths. A man's, at his best, like a Monday morn when the work of day and week begins. For love, to a true man, is above all things ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... to my shame be it spoken, I take somewhat longer journies than what a wise man would think altogether right.—But the truth is,—I am not a wise man;—and besides am a mortal of so little consequence in the world, it is not much matter what I do: so I seldom fret or fume at all about it: Nor does it much disturb my rest, when I see such great Lords and tall Personages as hereafter follow;—such, for instance, as my Lord A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, and so on, ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne |
