"Shirking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... little shorn lamb, doing their best to aid in helping to eliminate her awful past—a task by no means easy. Poor unfortunate, sinned-against little Rosa! Her life forever blighted through the shifting and shirking of responsibility on the part of the older sister, who had promised the dying mother to carefully guard and guide the little helpless girl. Poor ruined child! Shunned, whispered about and pointed at by her schoolmates, she, sensitive girl that she was, suffered so intensely from such ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... copying some one else's problems and shirking your own daily work. When the exams come you're not 'in it'; you just have to 'go way back and sit down,'" and the roguish dimples played in her cheeks as the slang phrases slipped glibly from her tongue. ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... seeming lack of interest, she had suddenly spoken—telling him what she had all the evening nerved herself to say. Her voice had faltered once or twice but she had steadied it bravely and gone on to the end, shirking nothing, evading nothing, dealing faithfully with the whole sex problem as far as she was able—outraging her own reserve that her son might learn the pitfalls and temptations that would assuredly lie in wait for him, sacrificing her own modesty that ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... to impress upon you children"—here she turned abruptly to the little Delaneys—"is that lessons are lessons, and play is play. During lesson-time I allow no wandering thoughts, I allow no attempts at shirking your duties. The tasks I set you will be carefully chosen according to your different abilities, and I can assure you beforehand that learned they must be. If I find that they are not carefully prepared I shall punish ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... purposes, which, to tell the truth; were frequently coming round; for the liquor was both better and cheaper than in these degenerate days. I shall never forget the start which the sonorous voice of the chairman gave me, as he bawled out,—"None of that, Jenkins; we can't have any shirking here; you must take one side or the other,"—and he did, amidst the tumultuous laughter with which the Hall resounded. The contest was a good-natured one, and I have no doubt which party proved victorious, considering that the prevailing sentiment of the town was pretty well ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... she must surely have seen me—and besides"—his voice softened with affection—"do you think, old chap, I would have shifted a misunderstanding like that on to your shoulders. Thank God, I am not yet reduced to shirking the penalties of my own blameless acts, even when they will ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... had greater reason for blushing had you persevered in it; for what is so unbecoming—what can appear worse to you, than disgrace, wickedness, immorality? To avoid which, what pain is there which we ought not (I will not say to avoid shirking, but even) of our own accord to encounter, and ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... the labourer—stimulated if his efforts slackened by the touch of absolute misery—was forced to devise elaborate rules for restricting the hours of toil, making its performance needlessly complex, and shirking with extreme ingenuity and conscientiousness. In the older trades, of which the building trade is foremost, these two traditions, reinforced by unimaginative building regulations, have practically arrested any advance whatever.[26] There can be no doubt that this influence ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... centuries, like Spain or Greece,—the virtue has gone out of her. A man or a nation is not here upon this earth merely to do what is pleasant and profitable. It is often called upon to carry out what is unpleasant and unprofitable; but if it is obviously right, it is mere shirking ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... "No shirking, you young ones!" commanded the crippled girl, in her sharp way. "Remember the hare would have won the race easily if he hadn't laid down to nap beside the course. Come! some tortoise will beat you in French and Latin ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... threatened Bath, but it refused to surrender; and he thereupon retired to Norton St Philip, intending to enter Wilts. There he had a skirmish with the advanced guard of the royal forces which had marched from London to meet him; and shirking a more general engagement, he withdrew to Frome. The townspeople of Frome, like those of Taunton and Bridgwater, gave him their sympathy, but nothing else; and disappointed at the lack of support, and wearied with his march along ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... replied the barge-woman. "I like washing, too, just the same as you do; and for that matter, whether I like it or not I have got to do all my own, naturally, moving about as I do. Now my husband, he's such a fellow for shirking his work and leaving the barge to me, that never a moment do I get for seeing to my own affairs. By rights he ought to be here now, either steering or attending to the horse, though luckily the horse has sense enough to attend ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... physically, Matilda was possessed of remarkable vitality and an iron will, and she showed great powers of execution and administration, never shirking the gravest responsibilities. A part of her life was spent in the rough camps of her devoted feudal soldiery, and—weak woman though she was—she led them on to battle more than once, when they seemed to need the inspiration of her presence. Women warriors there have been in ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... pace, incredulous anger in his eyes. "Evelyn! Are you crazy? It's not the habit of British officers to sneak behind their wives when they're wanted at the front. It comes hard on you: but it's the price a woman pays for marrying a soldier and there's no shirking it——" ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... freshman crew that ever appeared at Saltonstall," declared a spectator. "Every man seems to be a worker. There's no one shirking." ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... up and tell your story. If you don't tell it at once, without any more shirking, I shall have you locked up for the ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... got to have the courage. Or you have. Do you know what Ellen wants to have done?" Mrs. Kenton put it in these impersonal terms, and as a preliminary to shirking her share ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... drifts like a boat without a pilot. Lack of sleep to those whose work is muscular means a numbness in the nerve cells which guide those muscles, so that they disobey the will or act unreasonably and without direction. But too much sleep, like over-indulgence in any anaesthetic, is only shirking that duty and avoiding that effort to which the higher life calls us, and the sluggard who sleeps more than the tired nerves need is allowing himself to sink deeper and deeper into a slough of despond. He forgets his toil in sleep, but it is only by active, conscious effort when awake that ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... priests are not consulted, nor is Ahab. The former would have had some excuse for shirking the sharp issue; but the people's assent forced them to accept the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... says the Berliner Tageblatt, "what are they? They are snufflers, snivelling, snorting, shirking, snuffling, vain-glorious wallowers in misery...." It is thought likely that the Berliner Tageblatt is ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various
... nor Monty knew Leslie well enough yet to understand this shirking of what they anticipated as a delightful task. Herbert had always been used to horses, and to fine ones. He loved his own Bucephalus, "back home," as a dear friend, and looked forward to equal enjoyment in his new Blackamoor. With a little laugh he glanced at ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... "rights" have no existence, and that we must perforce accept the burdens of life, labour, and death that are laid upon us. We can do no good by nourishing fears, by encouraging silly conventionalities, by shirking the bald facts of life; and we should gently, joyfully, trustfully look our fate in the face and fear nothing. Life will never be the joyous pilgrimage that it ought to be until men have learned to crush their pride, their doubts, their terrors, and have also learned to regard the ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... read two sermons through, having been forbidden by the doctor to take his place in the church because of the draughts, and thinking, apparently, that it would be mean and wrong to make that an excuse for shirking an onerous duty. An hour a day was devoted by him religiously to the Bible. The rest of his time was occupied by the care of his property. Nothing gratified him so much as the coming in of one of his tenants, all of ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... and hit upon such diabolical devices for annoying people, that the neighbours had to threaten them with a whipping. Moreover, Adelaide did not inspire them with much fear; if they were less obnoxious to other people when she was at home, it was because they made her their victim, shirking school five or six times a week and doing everything they could to receive some punishment which would allow them to squall to their hearts' content. But she never beat them, nor even lost her temper; she lived on very well, placidly, indolently, in a state of mental abstraction ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... armed. That is why you and I are in the world at all—not to prepare to go out of it some day, but to serve God actively in it NOW. It is monstrous, and shameful, and cowardly to talk of seeking the Kingdom LAST. It is shirking duty, abandoning one's rightful post, playing into the enemy's hand by doing nothing to turn his flank. Every hour a Kingdom is coming in your heart, in your home, in the world near you, be it a Kingdom of Darkness or a Kingdom of Light. You are placed where you are, in a particular ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... Flooring downing (a man). Flushing delivering a blow right on the mark, and straight from the shoulder. Line 5. Crossing unfair fighting; shirking. ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... be a misunderstood man. So you think, among other bad qualities, I have the habit of shirking work? Let me tell you, Miss Bartlett, that the reason I am here is because I have worked too hard. Now, confess that you are sorry for what you said—trampling on an already ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... common dodge of these gentry,' continued he in a disrespectful tone. 'They never find that it will be impossible to attend so long as the honorarium is unpaid; afterwards—— Bah! Mere robbery, sir—taking the money, and shirking the work. However, as we cannot help ourselves, you must do the best you can alone; for I fear the judge will not postpone the trial any longer. Come, and have a dram of brandy, and keep your nerves steady, and all will go well.' I need not say it required all ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... that, it being a transient novelist's business to please the light-winged hosts which live for the hour, and give him his only chance of half of it, let him identify himself with them, in keeping to the quadrille on the surface and shirking ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... fellow afloat," was the answer. "He's none of your milk-and-water chaps who'll let butter melt in their mouths, of that you may be assured; but he knows what ought to be done, and what man can do; and he makes them do it too. There's no shirking work or being slack in stays when he carries on the duty, and there's not a smarter ship in the service, nor a happier one either, though he won't allow an idler on board. The fact is, my boy, both officers and men know that no one can shirk their work, so it comes easy ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... While you are smirking And lying and shirking life's duty of duties, Honest sincerity, We are in verity Free! Free to rejoice In blisses and beauties! Free as the voice Of the wind as it passes! Free as the bird In the weft of the grasses! Free as the word Of the sun ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... physically incapable of doing it. Whatever Mill undertook he accomplished, often in the face of enormous difficulties. Coleridge never finished anything, and his works are a heap of fragments of the prolegomena to ambitious schemes. Mill worked his hardest from youth to age, never sparing labour or shirking difficulties or turning aside from his path. Coleridge dawdled through life, solacing himself with opium, and could only be coaxed into occasional activity by skilful diplomacy. Mill preserved his independence by rigid ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... in good earnest. He wanted to know the truth of this matter. For himself, he believed that the guilt of Senator Dilworthy was established beyond the shadow of a doubt; and he considered that in trifling with his case and shirking it the Senate was doing a shameful and cowardly thing—a thing which suggested that in its willingness to sit longer in the company of such a man, it was acknowledging that it was itself of a kind with him and was therefore ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... going to try to begin a new life over here," he said, almost aloud. "Surely, I have repented sorely enough, and this is not shirking my just punishment. A man ought to make something of himself, and I never could, in my frame of mind, with that poor, silent old woman constantly before my eyes, and knowing that she will never forgive my offence, and is perhaps constantly praying for some calamity ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... five miles from the sampan these festive mariners of the Kan-kiang have developed into shuffling, shirking gormandizers, who peer longingly into every eating-house we pass by and evince a decided tendency to convert their task into a picnic. Finding me uncomplaining in footing their respective "bills of lading" at the frequent places where they rest and indulge ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... awake and victorious in young George Warrington; his black eyes shot out scorn and hatred at the simple and guileless gentleman before him. "You are shirking from the question, sir, as you did from the toast just now," he said. "I am not a boy to suffer under your arrogance. You have publicly insulted me in a public place, and I ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... by his father for his flighty notions, his habit of shirking and general unreliability. "Hard work never killed anybody," the ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... the daily routine of his toil for the worldly rewards of life, his paltry jealousies of next-door neighbours are dwarfed to insignificance. They no longer matter, for the judgment of God is at hand. The smugness of his self-complacency, his life-long hypocrisy in the shirking of truth, are broken up. He feels naked, and afraid, clinging only to the hope that he may yet have time to build up a new character, to acquire new spiritual strength, and to do some of the things he has left undone—if only he ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... the role of husband and father as particularly honorable, and proclaim its shirking, without adequate cause, as dishonorable. Depict it as a happier and healthier state than celibacy or pseudo-celibacy. For a man to say he has never met a girl he can love simply means he has not diligently sought one, or else he ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... trouble would have been wasted. We give our girls seats and every living thing the law asks for, and our men make no complaints that we hear. But, of course, we ain't omnipotent. Things are said, things happen we don't get onto, little tricks that cost us money. Folks shirking, and even stealing; we have to keep a sharp lookout. We can't turn the spotlights on to everybody at once. So when we come across a pair of lamps that are bright, a long way above the average we sometimes make ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... a horrid mess, and I'm sorry that it had to come out, but there's no use shirking, is there? If someone, no matter who, stole your hat, you'd feel they should be brought to justice. Isn't stealing an idea a lot worse? I don't really think you ought to feel so badly, Elinor. If Doris Leighton could do such a thing, ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... cuckoos did![218] If I have concluded peace, 'twas disgust that drove me; for I see men with hoary heads in the ranks and young fellows of your age shirking service. Some are in Thrace getting an allowance of three drachmae, such fellows as Tisameophoenippus and Panurgipparchides. The others are with Chares or in Chaonia, men like Geretotheodorus and Diomialazon; there are some of the same kidney, too, ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... while doing what I feel to be my duty, than remain here shirking responsibility. Last night I heard the voices of the past calling me, and I seemed to see the myriads who are to come after us beckoning me. I know it is my duty to go. You would not have me ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... was shirking its duty toward Nebraska, the Wyandot Indians, a civilized tribe occupying lands in the fork of the Kansas and Missouri rivers, repeatedly memorialized Congress to grant them a territorial government.[424] ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... to me highly improbable if really she has slept for two hundred and fifty thousand years, which, of course, I can't decide, that an immortal spirit would be allowed to remain idle for so long. That would be wallowing in a bed of idleness and shirking its duty which is to do its work. Also, as she tells you, Bickley, you are not half so clever as you think you are in your silly scepticism, and I have no doubt that there are many things in other worlds which would expose your ignorance, if only ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... luckless soldiers who had her by the arms, away she darted down the road, still screaming like some infuriated child, and rushed straight for the open gateway of the Hays. Of course the guard hastened in pursuit, the major shouting "Stop her! Catch her!" and the men striving to appear to obey, yet shirking the feat of seizing the fleeing woman. Fancy, then, the amaze of the swiftly following spectators when the trader's front door was thrown wide open and Mrs. Hay herself sprang forth. Another instant and the two women had met at the gate. Another instant still, ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... and chafed under harness. One or two of them had the true Highland addiction to card-playing; and though I set a pretty stern face against this curse—as I dare to call it—its effects were to be traced in late hours, more than one case of shirking "rounds," and a general slovenliness ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... Johnny with his hands full of aircraft literature. If it worked, all right. If it didn't work, Johnny would not be on the Rolling R pay roll any longer, but Tex would not have lost anything. It would be convenient to have Johnny down at Sinkhole Camp, shirking his job while he fiddled around with his flying bug. Tex believed he knew how he could keep the bug very active, and Johnny very much engrossed with it—down at Sinkhole Camp. It was simple enough, and worth the slight effort ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... interpretations of the meanings of all the phenomena of the heavens. Two old janitor saints had charge of the floor of the skies. One of them was a jolly old man who liked boys, and always kept the sky swept clean and blue. The other took a sour delight in shirking his duties, so that it might rain and spoil all our fun. Perhaps it was Drew's sense of loneliness and helplessness so far from earth, which made me think of winds and clouds in friendly human terms. However that may be, these reveries, hardly worthy of ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... poor creature from the gutter can put an end to himself; there is no nobility in the act and no great amount of courage required for it. It is a deed rather of cowardice shirking duty, generated in a monstrous feeling of self, and accomplished in the most sinful, ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... Ben began to work with renewed vigor. He had found a purpose in life and there was something for him to look for beyond dinner, a dance and the end of the day. He had always been a good hand, but now he became a model—no shirking, no shiftlessness—and because he was so earnest his master did what he could to help him. Numerous little plans were formulated whereby the slave could make or ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... he's shirking his duty? Send for him, and you'll see he will tell you I am not fit for the crank to-day; my ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... There was a slight compensation in this—the three had room to lie more comfortably at night-time. Between the two lines of benches ran a narrow raised platform, and along this two boatswains walked, whip in hand, to keep the rowers up to their work, and to visit severely any attempt at shirking the forced duties of their unhappy position. About a score of the slaves were white men: there were two Englishmen besides the five from the Golden Boar, the rest being Spaniards or Portuguese convicted of some crime; but the majority of the rowers were Indians, who on some pretext ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... the house of Hades, his sons divided his estate and cast lots for their shares, but to me they gave a holding and little else; nevertheless, my valour enabled me to marry into a rich family, for I was not given to bragging, or shirking on the field of battle. It is all over now; still, if you look at the straw you can see what the ear was, for I have had trouble enough and to spare. Mars and Minerva made me doughty in war; when I had picked my men to surprise the enemy with an ambuscade I never gave death ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... craft is sucking in almost as much water as our fine fellows drive out of her, sir, but for all that there isn't one of them shirking his duty," he answered, in a cheerful voice. "If we could have a glass of grog apiece served out among us, I don't think as how it would do ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... negative rather than positive. With all of his opportunities, he was narrowing his life to the pursuit of pleasure and his love for her. Roger had shirked responsibility toward his fellow man by withdrawal; Porter was shirking ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... startling visitor from a world of nightmares. He stood repulsive and smiling in the sudden silence. This clean white forecastle was his refuge; the place where he could be lazy; where he could wallow, and lie and eat—and curse the food he ate; where he could display his talents for shirking work, for cheating, for cadging; where he could find surely some one to wheedle and some one to bully—and where he would be paid for doing all this. They all knew him. Is there a spot on earth where such a man is ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... hasty breakfast and then got out their picks and spades, of which they had brought enough along for each member of the party. There was no shirking or holding back. They were like so many young hounds eager to slip from the leash when the signal ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... very doubtful. But I would rather have it written on my monument that I died at the desk than live under the recollection of having neglected it. My conscience is free and happy, and would be so if I were to be lodged in the Calton Jail. Were I shirking exertion I should lose heart, under a sense of general contempt, and so die like a ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... what I intensely dislike, Mr Maine. If there is anything that annoys, irritates, or makes me dissatisfied with the men— the gentlemen under my command, it is evasion, shuffling, shirking, or prevarication." ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... from a beastly school, such schools are hardly to be found nowadays—a hardened young sinner at thirteen. The Manor licked me into shape. Speaking generally, I suppose the tone of the house insensibly communicated itself to me. The Manor was cock-house at games and work. I began by shirking both. But the spirit of the Hill was too much for me. I couldn't shirk that. Some jolly old boys, we all know them and like them, are always saying that their early school-days were the happiest of their lives. They're fond of telling this big lie just as they're settling down to their ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... own eyes saw that there was no shirking, no mismanagement here. He seemed to be everywhere at once during those busy days which followed the entrance into the town. But outraged nature would have her revenge at last, and for three days he had lain helpless and suffering in the room assigned ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... anxious and flushed, and every now and then gazed very hard in the Captain's face; but she said not a word about the quarrel, for she had a noble spirit, and would as lief have seen anyone of her kindred hanged as shirking from the field of honour. What has become of those gallant feelings nowadays? Sixty years ago a man was a MAN, in old Ireland, and the sword that was worn by his side was at the service of any gentleman's gizzard, upon the slightest difference. But the good old times and usages are fast fading ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hard day. There is more complaining, more shirking, more gossip than in the middle of the week. Most of the girls have been to dances on Saturday night, to church on Sunday evening with some young man. Their conversation is vulgar and prosaic; there is nothing in the language they use that suggests an ideal or any ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... to avoid so formidable a task as the conquest of the South African Republic. At the best she had nothing to gain, and at the worst she had an immense deal to lose. There was no room for ambition or aggression. It was a case of shirking or fulfilling a most ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... you were cross? Or suppose your neighbor were deaf, and could only see what you did. Would she read the sign of smiles on your face, or the sign of frowns? Would she see prompt obedience, and cheerful work, or lagging footsteps, and the shirking of tasks? Look over your signs to-day, and see if you are hanging out pleasant ones so that people will ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37. No. 16., April 19, 1914 • Various
... next week, perhaps, the extreme fascination of the job will obliterate a certain feeling of flatness, of disappointment, of ... of ... of shirking. Yes, that's it: I feel as if I were shirking all the horrors. You see, I shall enjoy this job immensely. All the hateful "arrangering things" for large numbers of men, all the tiresome formalities, all the discomfort, all the future dangers, finished with—over. I don't say that we've had long ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... sentence may seem like shirking the whole question, because it does not state what "insuperable" means; so it may be well to add that in modern days few engineering difficulties are insuperable, as the existence of the fortress at Heligoland ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... be. I'll have no idling and shirking because I'm ill. Go down and take down the shutters directly. Let the business go on just as if I was ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... saw that further argument would be useless. He rose wondering if his act of emancipation were not an act of cowardice—the shirking of responsibility for the boy's life. His mouth closed firmly. That was just the point about the institution of Slavery. No such responsibility should be placed ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... for me, I don't think women can ever be very happy. I expect I shall get used to it—one does, to almost anything, except toothache. And I have Lancelot. She put all this quite frankly to herself, not shirking the drab outlook or the anguish of doing a thing for the last time—always a piercing ordeal for her. As for James, if she thought of him at all, it was with pity. Poor dear, he really was ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... written outside of school hours and brought to class on a definite day. A pupil should not be allowed to put off the writing of a composition any more than a lesson in geometry. On Monday of each week a composition should be handed in; irregularity only makes the work displeasing and leads to shirking. Writing out of school gives more time for criticism and study of composition, and during the second year this extra time ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... spirits of the Sepoys were ready to burst into a blaze. Strong and judicious measures, promptly put into action, might even now have allayed the excitement and dissipated the danger. But the imbecile commander-in-chief was enjoying himself and shirking care in the mountains; and Lord Canning and his advisers at Calcutta seem to have preferred to allow to take the initiative in their own way. Generally throughout Northern India the common routine of affairs went on at the different stations, and the ill-feeling and insubordination ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... Uncle Dan's way of shirking his responsibilities," Pauline explained. "It's lucky for you, May, that I'm getting on in life. I don't know what you would do if you hadn't any ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... to shape his actions in conformity with the intentions of the saintly Queen who sustained him. These influences are seen to be first and always religious; religious in the prevailing conception of a century, when the interpretation of the command "go ye and teach all nations" admitted of no shirking an obligation laid by the Divine command on each Christian, whether priest, king or subject. An infallible Church provided the one ordained channel of divine grace and salvation for mankind, dissent from which meant damnation, and hence into that Church ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... comedy might be wholly Congrevean without a coarse word from beginning to end. It is a matter of the exclusion (not the stultification), the suspension of moral prepossessions, the absence of sympathetic sentimentalism, the habit of shirking nothing and smiling at all things. These qualities are not characteristic of the average Englishman. Now, satiric comedy did not in its initiation depend upon the average Englishman. It took its cue from the court of Charles the Second, who—with a dash ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... Mainz, Conde, and Valenciennes, the Prussian, Austrian, and British commanders did not enforce an unconditional surrender, but offered to allow the garrisons to march out with the honours of war on condition of not serving against them for a year. A better example of shirking present problems at the cost of enhanced difficulties in the future cannot be imagined. By this improvident lenity the Allies enabled the regicides to hurl fully 25,000 trained troops against the royalists of the West and deal them terrible blows. In September and October the Republicans gained ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... mild. But isn't this what I'm accused of doing—shirking my duty of personal service by ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... least half of our young mistresses in the various quarters invariably purchase these things with ready money of their own; so I can't help suspecting that, if it isn't a question of the compradores shirking their duties, it must be that what they ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... bones that cracked, the dogs bent to a heavy pull, while at the least sign of shirking down swished the relentless whip. And the big man, as if proud of his strength, gazed insolently round on the Wild. He was at home in this land, this stark wolf-land, so callous, so cruel. Was he not cruel, too? Surely this land cowered before him. Its ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... Roosevelt everything. Police headquarters were in Mulberry Street, and yet within a stone's throw iniquity flourished. He guided him through the Tenderloin District, and the wharves, and so they made the rounds of the vast city. More than once Roosevelt surprised a shirking patrolman on his beat, but his purpose they all knew was to see justice done, and to keep the officers of the Force up to the highest ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... respect. Having so long been engaged in the study of infidelity in London, I may, perhaps, be permitted to speak with something like authority in the matter; and I have no hesitation in saying that I believe the policy of shirking the subject is the most fatal and foolish one that could be adopted. Not only does such a course inspire people, especially young people, with the idea that there is something very fascinating in infidelity—something which, if allowed to meet their gaze, would be sure to attract and ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... here a fellow lurking Who his proper share is shirking, Let the door to him be shown, From our crew we'll have him thrown;— He's more desolate than death, Mixed with us; Let him go and end ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... interests were at stake, for when I thought the Duc de Noailles right, and this often occurred, I supported him; but when I knew him 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 ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... The old man sighed. It is one's duty to correct the faults of one's child, but it is not pleasant. The Reverend Cecil had not the habit of shirking any duty because he happened to ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... diamonds in Griqualand West, and its abandonment was impossible. Brand himself did not wish to take the responsibility of governing it. But he continued to press the case for compensation, and the British Government, which had forced independence upon the Boers, appeared in the invidious light of shirking responsibility while grasping at mineral wealth. If it had not been for this untoward incident, the Dutch Republics would have been more favourable to Lord Carnarvon's policy than Cape Colony was. The Transvaal was imperfectly protected against the formidable power of the Zulus, and a ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... Barstow that he was shirking no responsibilities,—but what of such unseen responsibilities as this? What of the thousand others that he should die too soon to realize? It was possible that countless other such opportunities as this must be wasted because he should not be there to play his part. But there was still time ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... kind of an existence is it for any human being, with power to do otherwise, to pass through life a worthless, good-for-nothing nonentity, living for self, shirking the sacred duties of paternity, defrauding nature and God and sowing corruption where he might be laying the foundation of a race that may never die? There is no one to whom he has done good and no one owes him a tear when his barren carcass is being given over as food to ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... after another, and so did every other member of the corps. Poor old Cotter limped pitifully on parade, but he did not say a word about rheumatism. The spirit of the men was splendid, and not one of us showed a sign of shirking, though Haines kept us ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... influence on every child with whom he came in contact? Was Mr. Clarke, working children under age in the factory to build up a great fortune for his son, very different from Mr. Lavinski, with his sweat-shop, hoarding pennies for the ambitious Ikey? Was Mrs. Clarke, shirking her duty to her father, any happier or any better than Mrs. Snawdor, shirking hers to her children? Was Mac, adored and petted and protected, any better than Birdie, now in the state asylum paying the penalty ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... so many people shirking over the mention of non-co-operation. There is no instrument so clean, so harmless and yet so effective as non-co-operation. Judiciously hauled it need not produce any evil consequences. And its intensity will depend purely on the capacity of the ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... School and at the Horace Mann School, at various "play" schools in this country and in England, all show more continuous application of the children to whatever they happen to have in hand, longer periods of intense activity, and no sign whatever of loafing or shirking. The activities selected by the children themselves involve just as much "discipline" as anything that ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... pilgrims would have flocked from hundreds of miles. I planted the trees, and the faithful servants kept on working day and night, and that beautiful grove was the result. Every tree you plant is your servant, and how faithful it is—no shirking, always at it whether you are looking or not. Look at that cherry tree. How the tiny rootlets scurry through the soil—faithful children gathering food to send up to their mother. Look at that flood of bloom. Then the fruit grows till a mass of red gleams ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... House." Some years later, when the subject was again up for discussion, Thomas B. Reed went to the heart of the situation when he declared that the rules had been devised not to facilitate action but to obstruct it, for "the whole system of business here for years has been to seek methods of shirking, not of meeting, the questions which the people present for the consideration of their representatives. Peculiar circumstances have caused this. For a long time, one section of the country largely dominated the other. That section of the country was ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... it's no use shirking facts," he said straightly. "You're only flesh and blood; and the strain of all this is just knocking you to pieces again. No reflection on your wife. You ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... did all that the people of a little town in the heart of Warwickshire could have been expected to do, and there would seem to have been no lack of public spirit, no falling away from continuous endeavour, no shirking of onerous duties. Every man had his work to do in the public service, and those who failed ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... wonderfully apt at excuses for going out at odd times, and for prolonged absences. Sound fictions were needed to satisfy Johanna, and even Maurice Guest was made to act as dummy: he had taken her for a walk, or they had been together to see Madeleine Wade; and by these means, and also by occasionally shirking a lesson, she gained a good deal of freedom. Johanna would as soon have thought of herself being untruthful as of doubting Ephie, whom she had never known to tell a lie; and if she did sometimes feel jealous of all the new claims made on her little ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... the central figure of a still landscape. The mid-day sunshine fell in broad effulgence upon it; the homely, dun-colored shadows had been running away all the morning, as if shirking the contrast with the splendors of the golden light, until nothing was left of them except a dark circle beneath the wide-spreading trees. No breath of wind stirred the leaves, or rippled the surface ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... was to have a chance to redeem herself and silence that troublesome conscience which continually reminded her she was shirking her duty. Her relief was not unmixed, for at times she felt ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... presently, turned, and threw himself heavily into the nearest chair, whence he stared curiously at his wife with morose eyes of resentment. Cicily felt the scrutiny, but she did not lift her gaze to his. She was not shirking the conflict between them, which seemed inevitable after this last episode; but she was minded to let her husband begin the attack. In her turn, she sought a chair, into which she sank gracefully, and rested in a pose of languid indifference ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... had said little or nothing of his own affection even for his daughter, but had spoken of the matter as one of which the pecuniary aspect alone was important. He had found out that the saving so effected would be material to Lopez, and had resolved that there should be no shirking of the truth in what he was prepared to do. He had been almost asked to take the young married couple in, and feed them,—so that they might live free of expense. He was willing to do it,—but was not willing that there should be any soft-worded, high-toned false ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... her cheek. "Mrs. Mahony, you're shirking my question. Tell me now, should you not be pleased to ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... result, the singers, having no longer absolute control but still anxious to display their technical acquirements, gradually changed into that now almost obsolete abomination, the "Italian opera singer," an artist, who, shirking all responsibility for the music and dramatic action, neglected the composer so far as possible, and introduced vocal pyrotechnics wherever he or she dared—and their daring ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... be the central pivot of a whirlpool of excitement? God knows he loved peace even if Fate never permitted him to sample it. He laid the whole thing unconditionally at Brian's door. Let Brian, instead of shirking his usual numismatic responsibilities in some indefinite green world of peace and calm, come home as ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... officer, and an excellent seaman—good qualities both, and such as the generality of man-of-war's men raise no objection to. Withal we are told he is "smart," meaning, of course, that there must be no shirking of duty, no infringement of the regulations with him. His reputation, I say, came with him, it stuck to him, and left with him. With the captain's arrival our first day on board came to ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... receive that American fellow, and do the honors of a ridiculous cinema show. That is not the business of the Accountant General: it is the business of the President. It is an outrageous waste of my time, and an unjustifiable shirking of your duty at my expense. I refuse ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... taught that the laws of nature cannot be broken without penalty. For every woman whose health has been weakened through nursing her child, a hundred have lost strength and health through marital excesses. The haste of having children is the costly penalty which women pay for shirking the mother's ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... senior Queen's Scholars and the Sixth Form town boys, and these kept a far more rigorous hand over the younger boys than the masters could possibly have done. A vigorous thrashing was the punishment for shirking fields, or for any action regarded as caddish; and it was therefore only the Upper 'Shells' and Sixth, who, being free from the operation of the law as to fields and water, were able ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... this group at a street corner. Number one is a shirking fellow of five-and-twenty, in an ill-favoured and ill-savoured suit, his trousers of corduroy, his coat of some indiscernible groundwork for the deposition of grease, his neckerchief like an eel, his complexion like dirty dough, his mangy fur cap pulled low upon his beetle ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens |
