"Shrug" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... back, and his followers pressed round him talking eagerly, several of them understanding English to some extent, and for a few minutes they conversed together excitedly, till, with a shrug of the shoulders, the principal Boer turned and ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... thing will pay; there isn't any doubt about the prosperity. As for the happiness,' he added, with a shrug of the shoulders, 'I don't think there is much real happiness in ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... doesn't matter to me," said the purifier, with a shrug. "I'm Austrian born, and I don't like the Turks. But I ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... Brennan turns from him with a disgusted shrug of her shoulders and hustles Mary out of the door. Carmody, after a second's pause, follows them. Eileen lies still, looking out into the woods with empty, desolate eyes. Miss Howard comes into the room from the hall and goes to the porch, carrying a glass ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... chewing straws. What a clear colour that girl had, to be sure! What a lissom rascal it was! A fine long girl like that should be married; by all accounts she would make a man a good wife. If he were a dozen years the better of four and fifty he might—Then came a shrug, and a "Ma!" to conclude in true Veronese Baldassare's ruminations. Shrug and explosion signalled two stark facts: Baldassare was fifty-four, and Vanna ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... you, monsieur?" he asked, with a shrug of the shoulders; "the times are evil. These miserable heretics disturb the whole country with their senseless brawls. But the mischief will ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... name of the wonderful English actress on the bill-boards in front of Abbey's Theatre, and he had been told that Miss Terrell was English, and confused the two names. As he passed Van Bibber he drew his waistcoat into shape with a proud shrug of his shoulders, and said, anxiously, "I gave your friend a good introduction, anyway, ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... Hee's signature all right," muttered Javert with a shrug of his shoulders, "only he is not the consul, but the vice- consul at Ghent and let us remember that he is of Belgian ancestry—that wouldn't incline him to deep friendship ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... no comfort but in patience or speculation. The camp for the most part received the news with a shrug. After their easy victory the soldiers walked delicately. They knew that they belonged to the most powerful force that had ever penetrated the heart of Africa. If there was to be more war, the Government had but ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... coldly, with a shrug of his draped shoulders. "He is a great politico in everything he does. But one thing your worship may be certain of—that his intentions are always rascally. This husband of my defunta sister ought to have been married a long time ago to the widow ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... subordinates because he thinks his time is too valuable to spend any great part of it putting them on the right track dooms himself to work in a vacuum. He is soon spotted for what he is, and if his superiors can't set him straight, they will shrug him aside. ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... and the gesture was immediately imitated by his Persian colleagues. From time to time the curtain was lifted and a lovely head appeared, whose questioning blue eyes fixed at once on the physician, but were always dismissed with the same melancholy shrug. It was Atossa. Twice she had ventured into the room, stepping so lightly as hardly to touch the thick carpet of Milesian wool, had stolen to her friend's bedside and lightly kissed her forehead, on which the pearly dew of death was standing, but each time a severe and reproving glance ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... unconcernedly she would jam down the lever of the taximeter the wily Italian cabby had pulled only halfway so that the meter might register double. And when that foul-mouthed one crowned his heap of abuse by screaming "Camorrista! Camor-r-rista!" at her, she would merely shrug her shoulders and say "Andate presto!" to show him she was above ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... Eleanor, with a shrug of her shoulders. "That's the bother of doing anything up here. What you do once, you are expected to repeat indefinitely. Now my method is to do one thing as well as I can, and then ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... people who had seen Garth's painting of the pearls maintained that that scrape of the palette-knife had destroyed work which would have been the talk of the year. And Pauline Lister, just after it had happened, was reported to have said, with a shrug of her pretty shoulders: "Schemes of colour are all very well. But he scraped my pearls off the canvas because some one who came in hummed a tune while looking at the picture. I would be obliged if people who walk around the studio while I am being painted will ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... cleverness is the triumph of a purely plastic art," Blondet went on. "You will not know what she said, but you will be fascinated. She will toss her head, or gently shrug her white shoulders; she will gild an insignificant speech with a charming pout and smile; or throw a Voltairean epigram into an 'Indeed!' an 'Ah!' a 'What then!' A jerk of her head will be her most pertinent form ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... another dispenser," answered Stukely, with a shrug. "I trow there are plenty of them to be had. But I would that I had my books with me. Not having them, however, I must contrive as best I can to ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... slowly, and as he did so he rested a hand on her shoulder for a brief moment. She did not shrug it off. ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... little assenting shrug. She was not quite pleased with the turn the conversation had taken; abstract ideas were not to her taste; the play of words in which Captain Burnett delighted bored her excessively. She detected, too, a spice ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Chas. Phillips of Johannesburg, when asked to dissociate themselves from Dr. Abdurahman's charges of "cruelty, inhumanity," etc., refused to do so until it could be pointed out that he had spoken untruths; that, however, could more easily be done by a shrug of the shoulders than by adducing ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... to Neville or Pamela or Gilbert or Nan, "Your darling mother. I adore her!" and Nan, contemptuous of her mother for thinking such trivial pretence worth while, and with Rosalind for thinking malicious exposure worth while, would shrug her shoulders ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... man, for a human fellow creature," said Malinkoff sternly, but the priest had gone back to his hard couch, nor would he leave it, and Malinkoff, with a shrug of his shoulders, went back to ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... University, the customary oration before the Duke was delivered by Rodolphus Agricola Phrysius. His eloquence surprised the Italians, coming from so outlandish a person: 'a Phrygian, I believe', said one to another, with a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders. But Agricola, with his chestnut-brown hair and blue eyes, was no Oriental; only a Frieslander from the North, whose cold climate to the superb Italians seemed as benumbing to the intellect as we consider ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... all, and said, If I had not brought with me proofs of serious study, they should have dissuaded me very earnestly from a science I could not graduate in without going through practical courses of anatomy and clinical surgery. That, however (with a regular French shrug), was my business, not theirs. It was not for them to teach me delicacy, but rather to learn it from me. That was a French sneer. The French are un gens moqueur, you know. I received both shrug and sneer like marble. He ended it all by saying the school ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... friend," Conseil replied, "had you ever heard of the Nautilus? No, yet here it is! So don't shrug your shoulders so blithely, and don't discount something with the feeble excuse that you've ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... probably never spoke louder than a physician at a consultation—no, not when he confronted the Duke of Burgundy. He would have to glide noiselessly from scene to scene, a whisper here, a look there, and perhaps a shrug of the shoulder or scarcely perceptible motion of the hand; yet, all through, it would be evident that he was the snake on two legs, the anointed Mephistopheles, the intellect without the feeling—and, with all ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... answer, but the flickering of the firelight made the stranger think he could detect an impatient shrug ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... that in your letter," Wanda replied, with a proud shrug of the shoulders. "A man of brains ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... placed it on the mantelpiece, and looked for some minutes at the brilliant star within it, then he closed it with a shrug of his shoulders and began to ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... thus Michel made his prosaic companions shrug their shoulders. Barbicane and Nicholl looked at the lunar map from another point of view to that of their imaginative friend. However, their imaginative friend had some reason on his side. Judge if he ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... warming his hands over the stove, made no reply, except to shrug his shoulders—he was looking intently at the little girl's face. Then he shook hands with Dr. Clay gravely and asked about the case. After hearing all that Dr. Clay had to tell him, with an imperative gesture he signified that Mrs. Cavers ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... delicate nerves, whose souls are soft and timid, it would be sufficient to point out the lurking-place where the lover lies, and say: "M. A——z is there!" [at this point shrug your shoulders]. "How can you thus run the risk of causing the death of two worthy people? I am going out; let him escape and do ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... different feelings to those with which I had timidly approached the same subject with Alan. Lucy was not a Mervyn, and not a person to inspire awe under any circumstances. My instincts were right again, for she turned away with a slight shrug of her shoulders. ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... the Jew replied: "Signor Antonio, on the Rialto many a time and often you have railed at me about my moneys and my usuries, and I have borne it with a patient shrug, for sufferance is the badge of all our tribe; and then you have called me unbeliever, cutthroat dog, and spit upon my Jewish garments, and spurned at me with your foot, as if I was a cur. Well, then, it now appears you need my help, and you come to me and say, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... me to do, in order to keep me from sponging on my wife. They are admirable men. They represent the sanity and decency of the world pronouncing judgment on the fact. No Brodrick ever blinked a fact. When people ask the Brodricks, What does that fellow Prothero do? they shrug their shoulders and say, 'He has visions, and his wife pays ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... fraction of a second the two men's eyes encountered; then Siward glanced at the dog, and turned on his heel with the slightest shrug. And that is all there was to the incident—an anxious, perplexed puppy lugged off by a servant, turning, jerking, twisting, resisting, looking piteously back as his unwilling feet ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... Spriggins emphasized the remark by a shrug of his herculean shoulders, and allowed himself to think what a blank this world would be ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... is, Monsieur," said M. Linders, turning to Graham with a smile and shrug. "This little one thinks herself of so much importance, that ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... Ze poor nefer. Zat is law. Ha! ha! you know not law. Law is ze science by vich a man who has money do as he tam please and snap his finger—so! and shrug his shoulder—so! and say, 'You not like it? Vat I care, Monsieur?' and by vich ze poor man, vedder he guilty or not, haf no single chance, not von, to escape. I haf not efen ze two huntret tollaire zat gif me my liberty till ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... said or done that was not correct, he was in a fix, and all he could say was, that "I would be likely to stop his game." Every now and then he would thrust his hands into his pockets, as if feeling for his clasp-knife, and then again, occasionally, he would give a shrug of the shoulders, as if he felt not at all satisfied. I felt in my pocket, and opened my small penknife. I thought it might do a little service in case he should "close in upon me." Just to feel his pulse, and set his heart a beating, I told him, good-humouredly, ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... a shrug of half-impatient, half-humorous assent. 'Leaves the Bishop's Palace and comes to London. He, too, wants "to live for the poor." Never for an instant one of them. Always the patron—the person something may be got out of—or, at all events, ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... as to that," replied Adelaide. "There was a girl that came to stay with Nancy King last year; her name was Freda Noell. She believed in ghosts. She said she had once been in a haunted house. What is it, Briar? Why do you shrug your shoulders?" ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... more, and soon after the surgeon came in. He made an examination, and it was evident that he had no hope. His shrug of the shoulders was not lost upon Paton, who frowned, and made a defiant movement of the lip. But presently he said to me, still in the same whisper, "John, if that old fool should be right—he won't ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... that do know how likely a man my Lord Barkeley of all the world is, to do such a thing as this. Here I spoke with Sir W. Coventry, who tells me plainly that to all future complaints of lack of money he will answer but with the shrug of his shoulder; which methought did come to my heart, to see him to begin to abandon the King's affairs, and let them sink or swim, so he do his owne part, which I confess I believe he do beyond ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... only adequate retort to this would be a shrug of his shoulders; doubted his ability to carry one off; and again ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... not go along the next week end—or the next, either. The suggestion simply is unthinkable. Such digressions may be all right for the leisure class or for invalids; but for adults, live ones, strong and playing the game? A shrug and a tolerant smile end the discussion, as, hands still in his pockets, an after-dinner cigar firm between his teeth, Sandford saunters back across the dozen feet of sod separating his own domicile from that of his fallen ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... shrug. "Why do we call all our generous ideas illusions, and the mean ones truths? Isn't it a sufficient condemnation of society to find one's self accepting such phraseology? I very nearly acquired the jargon ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... a tight movement of exasperation, too controlled for a shrug. "Ask him, why don't you. Look, Forth, I don't much care to see him. I didn't do it for Darkover; I did it because it was my job. I'd prefer to forget the whole thing. Why don't ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... glowing and cast up from the central depths; but it is a long while since the eruption, and the blocks have got cold, and the corners have been rubbed off them. I am afraid that some people, when they read such a text, will shrug the shoulder of weariness, and think that they are in for a ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... the long days, of July drew drearily along with cloudless skies, but, oh! such clouded hearts! Suspense and uncertainty weighed heavily on us all. We did not know what to-morrow might bring. Occasionally a visitor came over through curiosity to see the theatre of the accident, shrug his shoulders, wonder at the folly of young men, and depart with an air of smug self-satisfaction. There were a few letters from the factory at Loughboro', complaining and then threatening, and at last came a bill for L96.0.0, ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... wanted not courage, however deeply in vanity and affectation he had buried common sense, stood suspended, upon the request of Cecilia, that he would not go, and, with a shrug of distress, said, "Give me leave to own I am parfaitment in a state the most accablant in the world: nothing could give me greater pleasure than to profit of the occasion to accommodate either of these ladies; but as they proceed upon different principles, I am indecid to ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... "little girl" who was always as sweet and deserving and virtuous as his own fatherly interference in her affairs was disinterested and kind. "I did what I could for her—risking what might or might not be said," Mr. Pomeroy might add, with a hero's modest smile and shrug. And if nobody ever believed him, at least nobody ever ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... she could pray," said the girl called Mame, with a shrug. "She does, you know, ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... the indifferent pass before my friend's last resting-place; pause, with a shrug of pity, marvelling that so rich an argosy had sunk. A pity, now that he is done with suffering, a pity most uncalled for, and an ignorant wonder. Before those who loved him, his memory shines like a reproach; they honour him for silent lessons; they cherish his example; and, in what remains ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... inclination of her head to the sheepherder added, "The water barrel's at the back door, Mister. Come with me." Apparently this made his decision for him, for he followed the girl at once, while Jezebel with a shrug walked on with ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... careless shrug, the other turned and went back to the automobile, where he spoke in a ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... more painful," said Arnold; but the interest in his tone was a little remote, and his gesture, too, which was not quite a shrug, had a relegating effect upon any complication between Alicia and Lindsay. He sat for a moment without saying more, covering his ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... uninteresting plainness of the pasty, podgy description, and after he had heard her sing, the maestro, first dismissing her from the room, had turned to the lady who was prepared to stand sponsor for her, and had said, with an inimitable shrug of his ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... relief to his profane sea-captains and the carnal-minded superannuated employees of the Salem Custom House. "The weary weight of all this unintelligible world" presses too hard on most of those who stop to think about it. The simplest way of relief is to shrug one's shoulders and let the weight go. That is to say, we cease being poets, we are no longer the children of romance, although we may remain idealists. Perhaps it is external events that change, rather than we ourselves. The restoration of the Bourbons, the Revolutions ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... she said with a shrug, "I am not sorry. I found it very interesting, but of late those feelings of which I have told you have taken hold of me. I have felt as though a terrible shadow were brooding ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... flustered anxiety, also to the tributes to her importance betrayed therein. In vain they argued no fewer than two emperors to dissuade her. She meant to have a walk on the shore and—a demure Parisian shrug ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... genuine, sir, and three hundred years old. Old Prince Boris carried it. It's most rare. Ten years ago you might have had it for fifty gavvos. But," with a shrug of his thin shoulders, "the price of antiquities has gone up materially since the Americans began to come. They don't want a ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... and get another driver, San Pedro," directed our hero, and with another shrug of his shoulders the man accepted the revolver, and walked slowly off. Another driver was not hard to engage, as several had been hanging about, hoping for employment at the last minute, and one was ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... with a shrug. The article did not commend itself to him, save as the means of making a precis of the case. The theory of the bell appeared excessively weak, and he could not understand a man being so foolish as to ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... hopes can be so reckoned," said Richard with a shrug, "then does many a fair lord suffer from the disease. See that you do not become ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... her father's resolution, at the same time proposing to let the people choose in the matter of the prize, but he is silenced by his colleagues. They now want to know where Walter has learnt the art of poetry and song, and as he designates Walter von der Vogelweide and the birds of the forest, they shrug their shoulders. ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... this way hereabouts, too," he said with a shrug and a sign to me to dismount. Which I did stiffly; and our rifleman escort scrambled from his sweatty saddle and gathered all three bridles in his mighty, ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... terribly serious. For we are rapidly floating toward trouble; and, hypocritically enough, we will not admit it. When it is said, since the tragedy of Prohibition, that the reformers will next snatch our cigars and cigarettes out of our mouths, we shrug our shoulders, smile and pass on, saying, "Oh, no! that would be going too far!"—in the face of what already has been accomplished in this land of the spree and the home of ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... a shrug. 'Oh! I let him off. I wouldn't be drawn. I told him I had expressed myself so much in public there was nothing more to say. "H'm," he said, "they tell me at the Embassy you're writing a book!" You should have seen the little old fellow's ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Clendenning. She noticed the fine, glossy hair brushed from the face and worn long in the neck, curling behind the ears. She noted every movement of his body: the graceful way in which he talked with his hands, using his fingers to accentuate his words, and the way in which he shrugged his shoulders—the shrug of a Frenchman, although not a drop of their blood could be found in his veins—and in the quick lifting of the hand and the sidelong glance of the eye, all so characteristic of Richard when some new thought or theory reached his brain for the first time. Gradually and unconsciously ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... economics, you who dally with the cold substance of that monstrous water-lily that Reason has planted in the hearts of our cities; I beg of you, if by some chance this obscure book falls into your hands, do not smile with noble disdain, do not shrug your shoulders; do not be too sure that I complain of an imaginary evil; do not be too sure that human reason is the most beautiful of faculties, that there is nothing real here below but quotations on the Bourse, gambling in the ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... present time, it is difficult to persuade serious scientific enquirers to occupy themselves, in any way, with the Noachian Deluge. They look at you with a smile and a shrug, and say they have more important matters to attend to than mere antiquarianism. But it was not so in my youth. At that time geologists and biologists could hardly follow to the end any path of enquiry without ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... a wild-hearted, unlettered Manuela applies the inexorable law of the land to her own detriment, and, with a sob in the breath, sits down to her spinning again, her mouldy crust and cup of cold water, or worse fare than that. Joy is not for the poor, she says—and then, with a shrug, Lo que ha ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... shrug your shoulders. Alfred did not do that. He told me of his own experiences—in great cities. It ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... know how strictly orthodox Victor and his family are. Of course I don't agree with them—perhaps I have broader views—(with a shrug) but I understand how they feel. They consider that any union without a church marriage is—well, ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... answered, with a slight shrug of the shoulders, "but I fear she will excite too much remark by her wild antics. I do not like to be ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... the centuries And saw how Athens stood a sunlit while A sovereign city free from greed and guile, The half-embodied dream of Pericles. Then saw I one of smooth words, swift to please, At laggard virtue mock with shrug and smile; With Cleon's creed rang court and peristyle, Then sank the sun in far ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... a little longer—of visits he made to Nazi agents in the Middle West and in New York, of secret conferences with propagandists and spies. But he refused to do any more than shrug his shoulders ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... the perspiring bourgeois, 'ecoute, je te supplie—' The swing-door received them and was left swinging to and fro. I wanted to follow, but had not paid for my bock. I beckoned my waiter. On his way to me he stooped down and picked up something which, with a smile and a shrug, he laid on my table: 'Il semble que Mademoiselle ne s'en servira plus.' This is the thing I now write of, and at sight of it I understood why there had been that snapping and crackling, and what the white ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... The Frenchman, with a shrug and a droll grimace, "if you insist on paying for a bottle of wine ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... was the tolerant approval of the prophet verified. "I'd be doing the same thing myself if I lived here long. Conformity's in the air. I felt it the moment I left the railroad and struck this—wilderness." Once again the unconscious shoulder shrug. "It's an atavism, this life. I've reverted a generation already. It's only a question of time till one would be back among the cave-dwellers. The thing's in the air, ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... than I can tell you," said Kilsip, with a shrug of his shoulders. "It's down in the book as being bought for medicinal ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... one of the learned or inquisitive attendants who surrounded him could explain; and when Froissart inquired why it was that he was not married, being so handsome and so valiant a knight, his question was met with "the shrug, the hum, the ha," that denoted some secret. At length, as he was not easily to be satisfied when anything romantic was on the tapis, he found a person to explain to him how things stood with respect to the brother ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... something that's always with me, not something I have to go and consult or that I can get sick of and put down somewhere. And it's got to remind me forcibly enough so that I take notice and don't just shrug it aside, like I sometimes do even when Daisy reminds me of things. That's what your stupid team can invent for me! If they do a good job, I'll pay 'em as much as ...
— The Creature from Cleveland Depths • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... manners!' murmured Lesbia, with a languid shrug of her shoulders, as she strolled ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... passed the rumours with a shrug and a gesture of scorn; but when they were repeated again and again, some began half to believe them. Many said that there must be some truth therein, for Sir Lancelot was ever wending his way to the north country, and fought there many battles and ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... Korak, with a shrug. If the man wanted to be killed it was none of his affair. He wanted to kill him himself, but for Meriem's sake he would not. If she loved him then he must do what he could to preserve him, but he could not prevent his following him, more than to advise him against ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a thought, Margery had broken her promise to Janet. Well, what if she had? Margery gave her shoulders an impatient little shrug. Who, pray, was Janet McFadden that she should come between friends? To be sure, in her way, Janet was a good, kind creature, and she meant well, but wasn't she a trifle excitable and a little too emphatic, don't you think? On the whole, ...
— A Little Question in Ladies' Rights • Parker Fillmore
... restrain a shrug of impatience. It was three weeks since they had met,—three weeks crammed with excitement, energy, achievement, and fortune to Key; and yet this place and this man were as stupidly unchanged as when he had ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... a deliberate, knowing wink. With a careless shrug she moved away in search of more promising and ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... heard. After that evening in Cadogan Square he had several times asked: "Well, have you heard the Te Deum?" or "Has Heath played any of his compositions to you yet?" To Mrs. Mansfield's invariable unembarrassed "No!" he gave a shrug of the shoulders, a "He's an extraordinary fellow!" or a "Well, I've made a failure of it this time!" Once he added: "Don't you want to hear his music?" "Not unless he wants me to hear it," Mrs. Mansfield replied. Elliot looked at her for a minute with his large, prominent ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... the point at once with the faintest possible shrug. "As you wish, dear child, of course; but I do beg of you to be prudent. He speaks of coming this afternoon. But would you not like him to postpone his visit till I can be ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... Hollister was tempted to turn the man away when he went back up there in the morning. But that, he concluded with a shrug of his shoulders, was carrying a mere ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... and Vetch lifted his sword as though to defend himself. But his courage failed him, and indeed his was a hopeless case if it came to a tussle, as he very well knew. Incontinently he dropped his sword point, and with a shrug of the shoulders, said: ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... he commenced finding fault with this one and that, the men would shove their tongues in their cheek and shrug their shoulders. They did not pay the slightest regard to anything he said; while the more bolder spirits, perhaps, of the stamp of Jim Chowder, winked openly the one to the other, expressing an opinion in a sufficiently loud ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... as if you'd always been here," replied Captain Eri. "Queer how soon we git used to a change. I don't know how we got along afore, but we did some way or other, if you call it gittin' along," he added with a shrug. "I should hate to have to ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... of the woman of whom her destroyer had rented the little apartment on Sixth Avenue, where she had passed her happiest days and her last. The rich merchant's son heard of her death with a half sigh and then a shrug; but if ever the blood of a human being lay upon the head of another, that of poor Mary R—lies upon the head of the rich merchant's son, and ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... alors, Quakere? Quel drole de mot! Je ne suis pas Quakere, moi!' he might have answered, with a disdainful shrug of his high, narrow, aristocratic French shoulders. Yet here ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... a little shrug of the shoulders, "I can hardly tell you. The phrase seemed to come out of its own accord. I have felt from the beginning that it was in pain and—starved, though why I felt this never occurred to me till ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... "You shrug your shoulders, but tell me, how much has naturalism done to clear up life's really troublesome mysteries? When an ulcer of the soul—or indeed the most benign little pimple—is to be probed, naturalism can do nothing. 'Appetite ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... instructions with a silent shrug. He informed Roy and Peggy that there was just enough water left to fill the bags for the dash across the desert. He said no more, but there was a curious kind of reticence in his manner, as if he was holding back something he did not wish to express outwardly. It was not till everything ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... way we fell in with the foresters, who were going a deer-stalking; they had a buck to kill for the duke, so we joined company, and gave that satisfactory shrug of the shoulders, with the expectation of sport, that a spider would feel while sitting in the corner of a hollow nut-shell, and seeing his victim already entangled in his web, while he was whetting his appetite with suspended hope, in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 536, Saturday, March 3, 1832. • Various
... Indians northward where he was going. It was plain that his personal safety never gave him a thought. He soon bade us good night. The Ogdens shrugged their shoulders and were amused. That was their way of taking it. Dr. MacBride sat too heavily on the Judge's shoulders for him to shrug them. As a leading citizen in the Territory he kept open house for all comers. Policy and good nature made him bid welcome a wide variety of travellers. The cow-boy out of employment found bed and a meal for himself and his horse, and missionaries ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... coin in order to test his fate. Finally he decided upon the vessel sailing first. Not until, with his scanty baggage, he was actually on the deck of the next boat to anchor, did he take any interest in its course—"For the Rio de la Plata." . . . And he accepted these words with a fatalistic shrug. "Very well, let it be South America!" The country was not distasteful to him, since he knew it by certain travel publications whose illustrations represented herds of cattle at liberty, half-naked, plumed Indians, and hairy cowboys whirling over their heads ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... said Carl, with a shrug of his shoulders as he looked toward his chum; "don't you see he may have thought he could tell Mr. Culpepper about it, and offer to hand over, or destroy the paper, for a certain amount ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... say this to my face, looking at me all the time with those honest eyes! I could not forbear a little shrug at this, but she turned the subject, placidly, but with ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 353, October 2, 1886. • Various
... replied by an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders. "We know better than to interfere when she's in one of her ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... individual way with a slow, ponderous significance. Christie passed his hand absently down the barrel of the pistol on his knees, till his fingers rested on the trigger. If he had had any murderous intention, however, he seemed to think better of it, for he contented himself with a shrug and an oath, and the supercilious inquiry: "What are you givin' us, anyway?" The man of the black beard eyed his movements with a furtive interest. Amberley stood a moment, to give a still more deliberate emphasis to his words, thinking, the while, that in spite of the unvarnished ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... towards them, and Dawson felt the bare shoulder that pressed against his arm shrug slightly. The man was ten paces away, walking right on to them, and looking to the sky, when, with throbbing temples and tense lips, Dawson rose, ran at him, and gripped him. He had the throat in the crutch ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... deal about women and their goings on, don't you know?' said Mr. Tom, with a sort of shrug. 'They're always changing and chopping and twisting about. The best way is to marry them offhand, and take the nonsense ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... no appeal from her tone, and with a slight shrug he recovered his composure, took her hand, which he kissed with a practised air, and calling out from the threshold: "I say, Newland, if you can persuade the Countess to stop in town of course you're included in the supper," left the room ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... people. We may admit the necessity for a Conscription Act—may confess its justice and impartiality; but few men who are liable to fall into its pitiless clutches, can speak of such an act without a shrug of uneasiness or a wicked expression of anger. Again, it must be universal in its application. It must meet all classes and conditions of society; must be adapted to all shades of religious and political belief; ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... can't see anything better to do than tell him his son bought the house of our next-door neighbor here. (With a shrug.) Thunder, I've heard that a steaming lie is the best kind. (Mock-heroically.) 'Tis the will of the ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... mob have thronged the sight to greet, And motley figures throng the spacious street; Majestical and calm through all they stride, Wearing the blanket with a monarch's pride; The gazers stare and shrug, but can't deny Their noble forms and blameless symmetry. If the Great Spirit their morale has slighted, And wigwam smoke their mental culture blighted, Yet the physique, at least, perfection reaches, In wilds where ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... a kind of half-shrug. It was at once a gesture of relief and of dismissal, so without more ado I said, "If there's nothing further you want, I'll make off now. If you want me any time I'll be ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... want to set eyes on Sobber again," said Dick, with a shrug of his broad shoulders. "The idea of introducing that deadly snake into the school was the limit. Why, half a dozen of us might have been bitten ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... they ought to be superior to us. I ventured all alone among them. "Good day, sirs." Response, a slight bend of the head. I looked at their encampment, no one moved. It seemed as if they did not see me. I asked them if my curiosity annoyed them. A shrug of the shoulders as if to say, "What do we care?" I spoke to a young man who was mending the meshes in a net very cleverly; I showed him a piece of five francs in gold. He looked the other way. I showed him one in silver. He deigned to look at it. "Do you ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... aliter visum" meets us at every step. Ripheus is the most just and upright among the warriors of Troy, but he is the first to fall. An inscrutable mystery hangs around the order of the world. Men of harder, colder temper shrug their shoulders, and like Augustus repeat their "vanitas vanitatum" with a smile of contempt at the fools who take life in earnest. Nobler and more sensitive souls like that of Vergil carry about with them "the pity of it." It is this melancholy that flings its sad grace ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... Whiteman could only shrug. There had always been ammunition in Heart's Desire sufficient for all benevolent and social purposes. No one had suspected sheep. The Carrizoso plateau had been sacred ground, and it was unsupposable that it could ever be desecrated ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... Preserving Establishment and the chief butcher at Tunumburra. Fair Helen scorned them both. Result: The two buyers bought beasts elsewhere and, as you would understand, on a cattle station, butchers may not be flouted. Though I daresay,' Lady Bridget added with a shrug, 'if I could have had the butchers in the house—I draw the line only at Harris—and had sung to them and played up generally, I might have scored even off Mrs Hensor. But they wouldn't come until after she had ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... been more than twenty-five or twenty-six. He was tall, well-built, blond. His hair and eyes were about the color of Rathburn's. But Rathburn particularly noted the man's face, and whatever it was he saw there caused him to shrug ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... daughter merely labored to make the German woman a still more powerful factor in upholding the might of German Kultur—that being the secret hidden in what was after all but a fantasy—caused the powers to shrug their shoulders and ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... I thought," she says with a slight shrug. It isn't so much what she says—it's the way she says it, the tone and all that, which makes you feel smaller and smaller until you could crawl into your own watch pocket and live happily there ever after. There'd be slews of room and when you wanted the air of an evening you could ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb |
