"Shrug" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... jokingly and merrily, like the book, whose writer seems to have become a stranger to me, but earnestly and briefly; for the great fast of the European world, expecting the passion, and waiting for deliverance, can endure no indifferent shrug of the shoulders and no hollow compromises and excuses. He who cannot act at this time, can yet rest and mourn." For such words, veiled as they were, resigned as they were, the fortress of Mayence was at that ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... generation this has ever been considered the mark of a polite education. English he may speak in addition, but not so universally. When we ask the Mexican gentleman of the old school if he speaks English there will the slightest shrug of the shoulders or lifting of the eyebrows. "No, senor," he will reply, perhaps with a polite expression of regret; "but, on the other hand, I speak French." Nevertheless, he very often does speak English, and with fluency, acquired in England or the United States—preferably the ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... care in the least about the fact," retorted Molly, with her pretty rustic attempt at a shrug, which implied, in this case, that the government of nature, like that of society, rested solely on the consent of the governed. What was clear to Kesiah was that this rebellion against the injustice of the universe, as well as against the expiation of Mr. Jonathan, was the outcome of a strong, ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... here, Gerard. I'll offer you a cigarette." The cigarette was reluctantly offered, and accepted with a shrug. "But you didn't come here merely to ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... Then he could shrug his shoulders, remain silent for a moment as if weighing his career beside his love for her, and smile suddenly and say, gently, "No. It's ended. Please, it's ended and forgotten." A laugh, a bit too casual, would leave the thing on the proper plane. Later ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... two good paintings at the Luxembourg, and one or two good modern paintings at the Louvre—the Meduse, by Gericault, for example: (How I rejoiced that I had admired it!) But all the rest of the modern paintings M. Belloc declared, with an inimitable shrug, are poor paintings. There is nothing safely admirable, I find, but the old masters. All those battles of all famous French generals, from Charles Hartel to Napoleon, and the battles in Algiers, by Horace Yernet, are wholly to be snuffed at. In painting, as in ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... implied, and even more. For, after a vast amount of fencing and an elaborate disquisition on the state of parties in the colony, Sir Robert Perry decisively refused the dissolution the Governor offered, and ended by saying, with eyebrows raised and the slightest shrug of ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... a shrug of the shoulders to his table in the morning-room. He was deeply attached to Dick, but a lifelong habit of regarding him as a good-natured, stupid, and contented giant blinded him to the storm that was beginning ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... gave a 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 of irony. The ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... out Quoz! and the exclamation never failed in its object. When a disputant was desirous of throwing a doubt upon the veracity of his opponent, and getting summarily rid of an argument which he could not overturn, he uttered the word Quoz, with a contemptuous curl of his lip and an impatient shrug of his shoulders. The universal monosyllable conveyed all his meaning, and not only told his opponent that he lied, but that he erred egregiously if he thought that any one was such a nincompoop as to believe him. Every ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... many a dear old man has passed away, unnoticed. When one asks the cause of a death friends shrug their shoulders, ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... would be back to breakfast," said the landlord; adding, with a shrug of the shoulders: "That was two hours and a half ago. He can't be ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... which I anticipate in the reception of this book, is the shrug-shoulder smile of critics at my sub-title—a Romance. There are canons and rubrics to be observed, it would seem, in the slightest action that a man attempts in this Great World's Fair of Conventionality, whose every sideshow is hedged around with the red-tape of ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... and a tavern are good things in their way," says my Lord March, with a shrug of his shoulders. "I was not born before the Georges came in, though I intend to live to a hundred. I never knew the Bernstein but as an old woman; and if she ever had beauty, hang me if I know how she ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... up quickly at the much-objected-to word, and he received the little glance with a shrug of apology ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... beat Rigdon with rods and his screams rang out, Susannah could endure no longer. She broke madly away from her keepers, running back along the road towards Emma's house. They essayed to follow; then with a laugh and a shrug let her go, calling to her to run quick and see if the prophet had fetched ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... because I thought Mr. Fenwick wanted something pretty to paint. And as he clearly don't see anything in me!'—she looked over her shoulder at the picture, with a shrug of mock humility concealing a very evident annoyance—'I thought anyway he might ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... leaning on Pauline's arm, nor, in passing, did she bestow a glance on her husband. Prince Michael indulged in an ostentatious shrug, and might have said something had not Alec's gaze dwelt on him steadily. It is to be presumed that, not for the first time, ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... more periodically than the announcement of a new opera by Rossini. It is now fifteen years since this pleasantry began to be invariably reproduced at the commencement of every winter, and always with the same success. One begins to meet in society a few Parisians who shrug their shoulders with an air of incredulity when you speak to them of the sea-serpent, but no one dares to evince the least skepticism touching the new opera of Rossini. We received this morning a letter from our correspondent at Bologna, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... melancholy shrug. "It is too true, Nello. She has been depriving herself of half her proper food every day during this famine. But what can I do? Her mind has been set all aflame. A husband's influence ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... that I can gather. I am grown most insufferably national, you see. I fancy it is a punishment for my want of it at ordinary times. Now, what do you think, there was a waiter in this very hotel, but, alas! he is now gone, who sang (from morning to night, as my informant said with a shrug at the recollection) what but 'S IST LANGE HER, the German version of Auld Lang Syne; so you see, madame, the finest lyric ever written will make its way out of whatsoever corner of patois it found its ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... very hard on him," he said, with a shrug of his wide shoulders, "to die just when he was on the ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... answer but a sour smile of a dragged-down lip and a shrug of the shoulder had come, followed by the reminder that there was always a ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... through lorgnettes into the strange world of the masses, spare that shrug. True, when Charley Chubb's hand closed over Sara Juke's she experienced a flash of goose flesh; but, you of the classes, what of the Van Ness ball last night? Your gown was low, so that your neck rose out from it like white ivory. ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... it did not behoove a Jew to become so intimate with a goy, and a Governor at that. They claimed that the Rabbi labored only to promote his own private ends; but, as these malcontents were among the first to seize the opportunity of bettering their condition, Mendel could afford to shrug his shoulders and ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... muck and rocky refuse which left no opening to the chamber of the stope beyond. Harry's carbide went high in the air, and he slid forward, to stand a moment in thought before the obstacle. At place after place he surveyed it, finally to turn with a shrug of his shoulders. ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... with just the shadow of a shrug, was all sweet reasonableness. She smiled more suavely than ever. "Surely, Lina," she remonstrated, in her frankest and most convincing tone, "I must know best what is good for dear Ettie, when I have been watching her daily for more than six months past, and taking the greatest pains ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... see you take the last blow so well." There was an ironical little twang to that speech, and Polly could n't help it. Tom colored up and looked hurt for a minute, then seemed to right himself with a shrug, and said, in his outspoken way, "To tell the honest truth, Polly, it was not a very hard one. I 've had a feeling for some time that Trix and I were not suited to one another, and it might be wiser to stop short. But she did not or would not see ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... spare. But the trouble is that your presence would become known. I should be the happiest' man alive to put my all at the accommodation of Chihuahua's fairest daughter. But if it should get out that you are here—" Gabilonda stopped to shrug his fat shoulders at ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... two younger justices whispered to each other across his portly person, peering sideways at Ingram, who showed them his smooth head and folded arms. Colonel Vero, the fourth of the tribunal, was drawing angels on his blotting paper. Then they settled themselves, one of them with a shrug, and Sergeant Weeks told of the arrest. Accused had declined to make a statement, but had spoken certain words to his landlady, one Mrs. Broughton, to the effect that what was to come was "nothing" to what had been ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... only shrug her shoulders. She herself, among many doubts, was upon the whole disposed to think as everybody thought. She did believe,—as far as she believed anything in the matter, that the Corsair had determined ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... With a shrug she turned away and shut the door. She sat down on the edge of her bed, very still. In that little passage of wits she had won, she could win in many such; but the full hideousness of things had come to her. Lies! lies! That was to be her life! That; or to say farewell to all she now cared for, to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... a shrug of the shoulders. Nicholas Fenn turned up the electric light, pulled out a bank book from the drawer of his desk, and, throwing it on to the fire, watched it ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... me three guineas," poor Frank said, with a shrug and a sigh, "and that Covent Garden scoundrel gives no credit: but she took the ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Second View only a little Dashed him with Tremour; at the Third he durst salute him Boldly; and at the Fourth Rencounter Monsieur Reynard steals a Shin Bone of Beef from under the old Roarer's Nose, and laughs at his Beard. This Fable came back to me, as with a Shrug and a Grin (somewhat of the ruefullest) I found myself again (and for no Base Action I aver) in a Prison Hold. I remembered what a dreadful Sickness and Soul-sinking I had felt when doors of Oak clamped with Iron had first clanged upon ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... to wince or kick with impatience. "Shuck"; to shrug up the shoulders, expressive of dislike ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... 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
... with the uneasy movement of one who is struggling against the effect of a fixed gaze bent upon him. Then, with a shake of the head and a shrug of the shoulders, he sat up in his chair. He tossed his hat back from his forehead, and a tuft of wavy brown hair tumbled over it. His head was held down, and his eyes were on the fire. Hugh Ritson took a step toward him and put one ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... at once; for it is not enough that a girl should not do evil: she must also avoid the appearance of evil. She will be judged by the character of her companions, and a few half-hearted denials, a shrug of the shoulders, a discreetly suppressed smile, will place her among the list of his "mashes." Oh, ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... he decided with a shrug, implying that all the four quarters were equally to his mind. He was pocketing the coin, when footsteps approached, and he lifted his head. It was the woman returning. She halted close to him with an undecided manner, and the pair ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... bile overpowered me, and I was going to seize him anti throw him out of the window, when Don Antonio Grimaldi came in. When he heard what was the matter, he laughed and said, with a shrug ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... his ideas, and throws them, by handfuls, into the midst of men. Every brain is to him an open furrow. One word dropped from the tribune always takes root somewhere, and becomes a thing. You say, "Oh! it is nothing—it is a man talking," and you shrug your shoulders. Shortsighted creatures! it is a future which is germinating, it is a ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... Dieppe with a thoughtful frown. "Oh, I can't stand it much longer!" he ended, with a smile and a shrug. ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... Miriam received her half-smile, watched her eyebrows flicker faintly up and the little despairing shrug she gave as she went on ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... would have you do your sainted grandfather credit and please your mother who has waited so long for the day when you should be old enough to be considered a man among our people." For a moment his hand lay kindly upon the boy's shoulder; then, with a shrug as though to shake off any foolish tenderness for the son he loved so dearly, he passed out of ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... talk as well as our fathers and mothers did? We hear wonderful stories of the bright generation that sat about the wide fireplaces of New England. Good talk has so much short-hand that it cannot be reported,—the inflection, the change of voice, the shrug, cannot be caught on paper. The best of it is when the subject unexpectedly goes cross-lots, by a flash of short-cut, to a conclusion so suddenly revealed that it has the effect of wit. It needs the highest culture and the finest breeding to prevent the conversation ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the window with a little shrug of the shoulders. Even as he did so, there came a faint knocking at the door. His servant had already retired. For a moment it seemed to him that it could mean but one thing. While he hesitated, the handle was softly turned and the door opened. To his ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and it was out of sheer perversity that it indulged a disinterested passion for literature. In fact, Maddox and his men were trying to do with gaiety of heart what Jewdwine was doing with superb solemnity. But whenever Rickman mentioned Maddox to Jewdwine, Jewdwine would shrug his shoulders and say, "Maddox is not important"; and when he mentioned The Museion to Maddox, Maddox would correct him with a laugh, "The Museum, you mean," and refer to his fellow-contributors as "a respectable collection ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... she loved that rambling, cornery house of his, with the gable festooned with the real ivy that Bruce Marshall's great-grandmother had brought with her from England. Judith thought contrastingly of Eben King's staring, primrose-colored house in all its bare, intrusive grandeur. She gave a little shrug of distaste. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the very wettest days, because he would send me up to my room with a book instead of letting me stay out of doors. "That is not the way to make him strong and active," she would say sadly, "especially this little man, who needs all the strength and character that he can get." My father would shrug his shoulders and study the barometer, for he took an interest in meteorology, while my mother, keeping very quiet so as not to disturb him, looked at him with tender respect, but not too hard, not wishing to penetrate the mysteries of his superior mind. But my grandmother, in all ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... He knows nothing about the Couvent de Saint Pierre and Miss Ashley-Smith and three British wounded, and his shrug implies that he ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... You're only thirty-seven or eight; you've a reasonable chance yet to exchange obesity for perspicacity before it smothers what intellect remains. And if you're anything except what you're beginning to resemble you'll stop sharp, behave yourself, go to see your neighbour, and"—with a shrug—"marry her. Marriage—as easy a way out of trouble as ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... supplied the place of heresy as a sharpener of hatred and an awakener of indefinable suspicion. Scepticism had been born into the world, almost more hateful than heresy, because it had the manners of good society and contented itself with a smile, a shrug, an almost imperceptible lift of the eyebrow,—a kind of reasoning especially exasperating to disputants of the old school, who still cared about victory, even when they did not about the ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... "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 and instinct' ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... Dante, I had lived in the days when souls were damned! Then would I uplift another shout, believe me! As things go now, we must allow the traitor to hope for his own future, and we simply shrug. We cannot plant him neck-deep for everlasting in a burning marl, and hear him howling. We have no weapons in these times—none! Our curses come back to roost. This is one of the serious facts of the century, and controls ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of that, sir," said the girl, with a pretty shrug. "My position is too secure to be jeopardized by any error of this sort. I believe I may introduce these girls without risk. I shall not vouch for them too strongly, and after their debut they must stand or fall on ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... a shrug. "Of course I've had to pay. Did you suppose Hubert's creditors would be put ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... 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. ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... his head, to look—and the spell was broken. His attitude relaxed. Anthony put his hands on the tree, and made as if to climb it. The cat gave a resigned shrug of the shoulders, and came scrambling down. Next instant, (if you please), unabashed, tail erect, back arched, he was rubbing his whiskers against Anthony's legs, circling round them, s-shaping himself between ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... when the officer demurred to their surrender, turned on him so fiercely that the man thought better of it and departed with a shrug of his shoulders, as I supposed to make ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... he so wrote it for Mr. TERRY and for Mr. TERRY only, then there is nothing more to be said; Mr. PINERO's ideal is realised. But if the author did not intend Mr. TERRY's impersonation, then he must be content to sacrifice the ideal to the real, shrug his shoulders, and pocket his profits. Yet, as if making an appeal to the public to judge between the auctorial abstract and the representational concrete, Mr. PINERO not only publishes his playbook, but sells it in the theatre. Visitors to TERRY's, who ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various
... young-eyed cherub, who developed into a musty old man who wrote musty old books, and lived a musty, dusty life all by himself, and never married or had any fun at all! How horrid, Olaf!" she cried, with a queer shrug of distaste. ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... and position. For some minutes Ivan stood debating within himself as to his right to read so much as a fragment of this condemnatory document. If he began, what great name might not become forever dishonored in his thoughts?—Bah!—What need to fear for good men, after all? With a cynical shrug, he advanced to where the parchment hung; and then, referring each second to his key, began to read at the top of one of the narrow columns. After fifteen minutes, he drew the great table across the room, pulled pencil and paper towards him, and set to work systematically. It was an hour ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... that ideal, see;" pointing to the grate. "Do you think I shall cry after a pinch of ashes?" looking her full in the face. Then, with a shrug of annoyance. "You have roused poor Olive's curiosity; she must hear of this miserable discovery of ours, or yours—bah," stamping her foot angrily, "my pride is hurt more ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... cousin, that you have come in upon us just as mother was about to dress," said Cecile Camusot in a coaxing tone. But Cousin Pons had caught sight of the Presidente's shrug, and felt so cruelly hurt that he could not find a compliment, and contented himself with the profound remark, "You are always charming, ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... of no use,' he answered obstinately, a cause de l'Exposition;' and he opposed a shrug of his shoulders to every other effort ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... crowded together so closely in a single concentrated tableau. Unthinking people laughed uproariously at the fun and nonsense of the piece; thinking people laughed too, but not without an uncomfortable side twinge of conscientious remorse at the pity of it all. Some wise heads even observed with a shrug that when this sort of thing was applauded upon the stage, the fine old institutions of England were getting into dangerous contact with these pernicious continental socialistic theories. And no doubt those good people were ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... shall certainly return to you, when your tears are dried, and when you no longer believe what young Niafer once believed; and when, remembering young Niafer's desires and her intentions as to the disposal of her life, you will shrug withered shoulders. To go on living will remain desirable. The dilapidations of life will no longer move you deeply. Shrugging, you will say of sorrow, 'What is it?' for you will know grief also to be impermanent. ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... showed them our weapons, and a violent smacking of the lips and long-drawn whistles, or a grunting "Whau!" bespoke a gratifying degree of admiration and wonder. The longer the cartridges and the larger the bullets, the more they impressed them, and our revolvers were glanced at with contempt and a shrug of the shoulders, expressing infinite disdain, until each of us shot a few rounds. Then they winced, started to run away, came back and laughed boisterously over their own fright; but after that they had more respect for ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... The man's answering shrug was frankly contemptuous. "All you English are mad," he said in the vernacular. "If she die not to-day, she will die to-morrow. And already there are too ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... answered Mulberry with a shrug of his shoulders" she would take it quite as a matter of course; but still if you dont care to ask her, why not scribble her a note describing your position and I'll send one of the maids up with it; why she would write you ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... do you really breathe, or do you just let a little current of air flow gently through a part of your lungs, not reaching the minute air-cells at all, or have you crippled a large part of your lung-power by the restrictions of tight clothing?" Now you shrug your shoulders and say, with a little irritation, perhaps, "O, now she is going to scold about corsets and tight-lacing, and I do not wear my clothes tight." But I am not now going to talk of lacing; I am going to talk about singing, and speaking, and ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... experience in the world was to go into a street or market-place of a town where he was to hold a Mission with open-air sermons, and there, without accompaniment, and with such scanty adherents as he could muster, strike up a hymn. By-standers would shrug their shoulders and go away smiling. Windows would be opened, figures would lean out, and presently ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... things!" said I, flirting the leaves over lightly, and giving a slight shrug, by way of qualifying ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... Fred's turn to shrug shoulders, and he did it inimitably, turning his back on Schubert and helping Will support me to the door. The feldwebel stood grinning while I held to the doorpost and they dragged Brown to his feet. ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... shoulders a haughty shrug and turned her back upon him. Prescott flushed, but held his ground, and he would have spoken to her again had she given him the chance. But she began to move away and he was afraid to follow deliberately lest he make a scene. Instead, ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... Retz shut the window with a shrug of protest against the vulgarity of prejudice. He did not notice four men in the garb of pilgrims who stood in the dark of ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... stand? you see great changes? Ah, sir! you never saw the Ganges: There dwells the nation of Quidnunckis (So Monomotapa calls monkeys:) On either bank from bough to bough, They meet and chat (as we may now): Whispers go round, they grin, they shrug, They bow, they snarl, they scratch, they hug; And, just as chance or whim provoke them, They either bite their friends, or stroke them. There have I seen some active prig, To show his parts, bestride a twig: Lord! how the chatt'ring tribe admire! ...
— English Satires • Various
... over Mount street bridge today," said Harry Boland with a shrug of his shoulders when I arrived at Sinn Fein headquarters to ask if the reception would still be held. "What can we do against ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell
... 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 ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... shrug their shoulders when questioned as to the depth of Maori religious feeling. It is enough to point out that a Christianity which induced barbarian masters to release their slaves without payment or condition must have had a reality in it at which the kindred ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... 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 ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... well believe he didn't say a word," Clara remarked with a shrug. "Some day he'll forget how ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... shop, better than most others in its appearance and degree, and the master of the wine-shop had stood outside it, in a yellow waistcoat and green breeches, looking on at the struggle for the lost wine. "It's not my affair," said he, with a final shrug of the shoulders. "The people from the market did it. Let them ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... a curious little shrug, rather of the back than of the shoulders, and shuffled to the box which bore the smoky lamp. Holding a needle in the flame, he dipped it, when red-hot, into an old cocoa tin, and withdrew it with a bead of opium adhering to the end. Slowly ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... six feet long, and of a brilliant green above and light yellow underneath, with the heart-shaped head that betokened an extremely venomous variety. Tossing the two writhing halves of the body into the bush with the point of his sword, and giving a shrug of repugnance, Roger passed on, followed by Harry, with no further desire to pluck orchids, and each taking care to look ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... I saw her shrug her uncovered shoulders impatiently. Her forehead was against the very blackness of the panes; pulled upward from the beautiful, strong nape of her neck, the twisted mass of her tawny hair was held high upon her head ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... work, lad," said the skipper, with an anxious shrug, while we waited on the wharf for the woman to come. "I'm very much afeared. Ay," he ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... 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 ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... returned Lisa with a shrug of her massive shoulders. "That nina is run off and Gertrudis means to ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... home than with the silent, reserved men of Spain, with whom a foreigner might mingle for half a century without having half a dozen words addressed to him, unless he himself made the first advances to intimacy, which, after all, might be rejected with a shrug and a no intendo; for, among the many deeply rooted prejudices of these people, is the strange idea that no foreigner can speak their language; an idea to which they will still cling though they hear him conversing with perfect ease; for in that case the utmost that they will concede ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... and gazed at her with a certain admiring loyalty. "Ah! so," he said, with a deep breath, "the senora is the niece of her uncle. She does well not to fear HIM—a dog,"—with a slight shrug,—"who is more than repaid by the senora's ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... lie, of course," answered Durnovo, with a shrug of the shoulders. He moved away as if he were going to his tent, but Oscard's arm reached out. His large brown hand fell ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... from myself, or you, that the earnestness which was awakened in those days is dying out in these. The richer classes of every country are tempted from time to time to fits of laziness—fits of frivolity and luxury, surfeits, in which men say, with a shrug and a yawn—"Why be very much in earnest? Why take so much trouble? Somebody must always be rich, why should not I? Somebody must enjoy the money, why should not I? At all events, things will last my time." ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... unconsciously, as he tossed the annoying bit of fabric on the little table at the head of his berth. Undoubtedly the dropping of it had been entirely unpremeditated and accidental. At least he told himself so. And he also assured himself, with an involuntary shrug of his shoulders, that any woman or girl had the right to pass his door if she so desired, and that he was an idiot for thinking otherwise. The argument was only slightly adequate. But Alan was not interested in mysteries, especially ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... happy; some days it makes one miserable only to look at her! Why is she unhappy, I wonder?" At times Lizabetha Prokofievna put this question to her husband, and as usual she spoke in the threatening tone of one who demands an immediate answer. Ivan Fedorovitch would frown, shrug his shoulders, and at last give his opinion: ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... him, and he knows them not. Gold collars ought to be saluted, but he does not do it; he does not say to them: "God loke yow Lordes!" But then his air is so absent, so strange, that instead of quarrelling with him people shrug their shoulders, and say: He is "a fole"; he is mad.[638] Mad! the word recurs again and again under his pen, the idea presents itself incessantly to his mind, under every shape, as though he were possessed by it: "fole," "frantyk," "ydiote!" He sees ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... Colonel Arran's big double house with a sullen and sidelong scowl, and continued onward with a shrug. But he smiled no ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... subaltern of the enemy's infantry, followed by his eager men, burst into this reeking interior. But just over the threshold he halted before the scene of blood and death. He turned with a shrug to his sergeant. "God, I should have estimated them at least ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... nature from its heights to its dregs, however, and promised Hamilton his unaltered friendship, even while in the flood of remonstrance. He was a philosopher, who invariably held out his hand to the Inevitable, with a shrug of his shoulders, but he loved Rachael, and wished that the ship that brought Levine to the Islands had encountered ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... was, who seemed to have nothing in his face but shining teeth and eyes) looking wistfully at a certain plot of grass, I asked him who was buried there. 'The poor people, Signore,' he said, with a shrug and a smile, and stopping to look back at me—for he always went on a little before, and took off his hat to introduce every new monument. 'Only the poor, Signore! It's very cheerful. It's very lively. How green it is, how cool! It's like a meadow! ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... marvelous discoveries concerning the venom of snakes. It is his specialty, a matter to which he has practically devoted his life. Therefore I expect that he will be able to confirm certain suspicions of mine very quickly, or"—a shrug—"explode a theory which has slowly been taking form in the back of ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... Sergeot had recourse to her expressive shrug, and then laying two francs upon the counter, and gathering up the sous which Alexandrine rather hurled at than handed her, she took her way toward the door with all the dignity at her command. But Madame Caille, feeling her snub to have ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... a pity he did not write in pencil," said he, throwing them down again with a shrug of disappointment. "As you have no doubt frequently observed, Watson, the impression usually goes through—a fact which has dissolved many a happy marriage. However, I can find no trace here. I rejoice, however, to ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... A slight shrug of the shoulders and a slight low laugh; after which, he said, "No, I think not. I have not the ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... of his fellow-citizens, who considered him the hardest and meanest of men. He had lived among them for half a century, but he was no more a Philadelphian in 1830 than in 1776. He still spoke with a French accent, and accompanied his words with a French shrug and French gesticulation. Surrounded with Christian churches which he had helped to build, he remained a sturdy unbeliever, and possessed the complete works of only one man, Voltaire. He made it a point of duty to labor on Sunday, as a good example to others. ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... object. As he thought that, Maurice was conscious of a feeling such as sometimes moves a child, upon whom a parent or guardian has laid a gently restraining hand, violently to shrug his shoulders and twist his body in the effort to get away and run wild in freedom. He knew how utterly unreasonable and contemptible his sensation was, yet he had it. The sun had bred in him not merely a passion for complete personal liberty, ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... him with the ghost of a shrug. "It has nothing in it that I shall want," she said. "Shove it as far back in the closet as ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... written or to be written. Towards the end of the fortnight the impulses to work steadily declined. I forced myself to write at intervals; but, as usual, the forced work was worthless, and I destroyed it when it was done. No, it was no use. I could merely shrug my shoulders ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... a sigh and groan the barber plied his shears, stopping constantly to give vent to his feelings with a shrug of his broad ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose
... nightmare by Monferrand's strong fist, and raised by Duvillard's triumph. Even Sagnier's ignoble article and miry revelations in the "Voix du Peuple" were of no real account, and could be treated with a shrug of the shoulders, for the public had been so saturated with denunciation and slander that it was now utterly weary of all noisy scandal. The only thing which aroused interest was the rumour that Duvillard's big affair of the Trans-Saharan Railway was soon to be launched, that millions ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... the ancestors of Punch and Judy, who lived in these early times, though probably under different names. But however they were called, they were just as queer-looking a family; and their arms would move, their shoulders shrug, their eyes roll, and their feet cut as strange capers as those of their descendants; and I have no doubt afforded the little ones, and perhaps some older persons, as much pleasure ...
— Harper's Young People, March 16, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... nothing but tea, sure! Go to Morreall, buy tiquette on the theatre, ride on the street car, make transfer to Hochelaga Park, get out, have nice glass beer—just one, m'sieu—go on the boutiques, buy nice bonnett, eh? I have monee to do like that, but [with the national shrug] I have no wife. I am tole there is everything very fonny there all year round, but me—I have only been there two, three tam; no good go alone, meet bad company, get on the dhrunk then, sure. Bigosh—excusez, Mr. Ringfield, there's nothing like young, handsome wife and plenty babee keep their ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... no one spoke. Sigurd questioned with his eyes, and Rolf answered by a shrug. Once, as Helga offered to approach the Black One, Sigurd made a warning gesture. They waited in dead silence. While the voices of the other men came to them faintly, and the insects chirped about their feet, and the birds called in ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... a shrug of the shoulders before these stupid opinions, covered by a borrowed prose whose already worn texture clung or became ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... himself so, to judge from the number of times a week he comes to see you," John answered with a shrug. "At any rate, he isn't mine, so I am off shooting. Good-bye. I hope ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... with a little shrug, and if his face was for a moment bitter it quickly enough became impassive. "It is done, and it cannot be undone—unless Hartley can undo it. And now, revenons a nos moutons! Or, at least," said he, looking at his watch—and it was between one and two—"at ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... at Coxine, hatred in his eyes, and he watched the pirate captain shrug his shoulders, turn the valve again, and return to ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... us up as hopeless, with a resigned shrug of his shoulders. He vanished into his lair, consulted a superior officer, and after a long delay returned with the news that we must pay ten centimes, probably as a penance for our ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... never took to that ould dog," Says he, wid a shrug av his slats, "So we've got us a new dog from Galway, And och, he's ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... personal attitude of each man to the moral and religious question put nowadays to everyone, the question, that is, whether it is lawful or unlawful for him to take his share of military service, and these learned gentlemen will shrug their shoulders and not condescend to listen or to answer you. The solution of the question in their idea is to be found in reading addresses, writing books, electing presidents, vice-presidents, and secretaries, ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... to insure protection for the passengers when going under bridges, but its peculiar halberd shape is a thing not one of the five thousand gondoliers in Venice can explain. If you ask your gondolier he will swear a pious oath, shrug his fine shoulders, and say, "Mon Dieu, Signore! how should I know?—it has always been so." The ignorance and superstition of the picturesque gondolier, with his fluttering blue hatband and gorgeous sash, are most enchanting. His lack of knowledge is like the ignorance ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... senores!" said Don Alonso, with a shrug. "It can't be helped, I'm afraid. It's all Domecq's doing, the scoundrel! Why didn't you dismiss him, Don Alfredo, after that affair of Moreno's death? There's not a doubt he killed Moreno, and he hasn't a spark of gratitude or goodness in ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... shrug, no longer confident; for her replies, which have sounded sensible and strong to her so far, now begin to ring rather woodenly and even priggishly against the new tone of her mother] Don't think for a moment I set myself above you in any way. You attacked ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... fill the kettle and put it on. (KATE looks at MARY, and with a shrug of her shoulders, obeys the orders.) Where's the tea till I show you ...
— The Drone - A Play in Three Acts • Rutherford Mayne
... Pansey!' echoed the bishop's wife, smiling still more; and with a slight shrug cast an amused look at Lucy, who in her turn caught Sir Harry's ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... replied Eugene, with a shrug. "He will find means to escape the vigilance of the police. So be it. Let his wounds be dressed, and let him depart whither he lists. But I have a few words of adieu to speak ere he goes." So saying, he approached his tall adversary, ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... ordinary day's work I might lay up some thousands of years' indulgence. There was but one drawback in the matter. "I don't believe in purgatory," I rejoined. "What is that to me?" said the old man, tartly, accompanying the remark with a quick shrug of the shoulders and a ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... was a cruel smile upon his lips as he leaned toward the prostrate form. He spoke tauntingly, but there was no response, then he prodded the fallen man with the point of his spear. Even this elicited no movement. With a shrug of his iron clad shoulders, the black knight wheeled and rode on down the road until he had disappeared from sight within the gloomy ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... assure you." She had had visions of covering her real purpose by buying stamps—but rejected it with a shrug. ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... the matter with it, I tell you, except that it's an old fishing scow with a roof over it. It isn't a fit place for a party of young ladies," Dee replied, with a shrug of his shoulders. "Of course, if you are set on taking the boat, I'll have to get it ready for you; but, if anything happens to it, ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... feel the truth of the doctrine from something within his own consciousness, before he will really believe it to be truth. One may convince himself of the logical necessity of the doctrine of Metempsychosis, but at the same time he may drop the matter with a shrug of the shoulders and a "still, who knows?" But when one begins to feel within himself the awakening consciousness of a "something in the past," not to speak of the flashes of memory, and feeling of former acquaintance with the subject, then, and then only, does ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... interested," she said, with a shrug of her shoulders, "not very much. You've been very kind to me and I should be an awful boor if I wasn't grateful. Of course, I don't care whether you're married or not, it's nothing to ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... cried Ambrose scornfully. An expectant look in Watusk's eye arrested him from saying more. "He's trying to find out how much Nesis told me," he thought. Aloud he said, with a shrug like Watusk himself: "Well, I'll be glad when ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... where we cannot follow him just now, but must remain with Drysdale and Saunders, who chatted on very pleasantly for some twenty minutes, till a knock came at the door. It was not till the third summons that Drysdale shouted, "Come in," with a shrug of his shoulders, and an impatient kick at the sofa cushion at his feet, as though not half pleased at the ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... 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, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 536, Saturday, March 3, 1832. • Various
... populace to persecute their fellow-countrymen, they might have lived together on friendly terms; and, for the life of me, I cannot see why people should not be allowed to worship God according to the dictates of their consciences," added the shrewd Scotchman, with a shrug of his shoulders. ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston
... always satisfied with everything; but on the other hand he was never ecstatic over anything. Every excess, even in a good feeling, jarred upon him; 'that's savage, savage,' he would say with a faint shrug, half closing his golden eyes. Marvellous were those eyes of Fustov's! They invariably expressed sympathy, good-will, even devotion. It was only at a later period that I noticed that the expression of his eyes resulted solely from their setting, ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... of the people answers the cry of distress that is heard all over this bountiful land by a shrug, and a nod to the master to drop a few more crumbs, as if the people were hungry ...
— Confiscation, An Outline • William Greenwood
... it 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
... Then, as she would not have me accompany her in the streets, I begged her to appoint another meeting. She evaded my petition at first, but, when I took her hand and refused to release it until she should grant my request, she said, after a little submissive shrug of her shoulders: ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... transaction was so strange and novel to Selene that she did not even understand her neighbor's meaning, and she only said, with a shrug: ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to I suppose I must," she said, with a shrug of mock resignation. "I should have learned by this time that it is useless to say no when you ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the half-humorous shrug of the shoulders, but the missionary spoke. "It has become my home, and its people ...
— The Priest's Tale - Pere Etienne - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • Robert Keable
... live!" the young fellow exclaimed, with a friendly shrug of his shoulders and a gleam of his white teeth; for it was easy to make friends with the genial artist. "And between the governors and the provveditori one may scarce draw breath! One's bread and onions—" ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... can search me," said Hal with a shrug of his shoulders, "which may not be very good English, but expresses my ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes
... me let my vote stand as cast. On the other side stood my notion of self-respect. I felt I must then and there and for ever decide whether I was a thing or a man. Yet, again and again I had voted for measures just as corrupt,—had voted for them with no protest beyond a cynical shrug and a wry look. Every man, even the laxest, if he is to continue to "count as one," must have a point where he draws the line beyond which he will not go. The liar must have things he will not lie about, ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... was raised, her whole attitude spoke defiance and—hard as it was for Sweetwater to acknowledge it—truth. He felt that he had received a challenge, and with a quick glance at Knapp, who barely responded by a shrug, he shifted over to the side of ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... his careless shrug. "Well, my dear, you can hardly expect me to agree, for after all it was to Ellie I owed the luck of being so long alone with you in Venice. If she and Algie hadn't prolonged their ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... an impatient shrug with her shoulders. She loved little Peter, but it seemed an injury just then to have to take care of him. All the time that her mother was sorting, counting, and arranging where things should go, she sat in the window sullen ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... sunken and rimmed with purple; eyes that told tales of sorrow and, yes! of degradation. The crowd stood round her, sullen and apathetic; poor, miserable wretches like herself, staring at her antics with lack-lustre eyes and an ever-recurrent contemptuous shrug ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... turned each toward the interior of the store, and their eyes met. Alike in gray eyes and in dark blue there was laughter. "Kittle folk, the Quakers," said the storekeeper, with a shrug, and went to put away his case of pins and needles. Haward, going to the end of the store, found a row of dusty bottles, and breaking the neck of one with a report like that of a pistol set the Madeira to his lips, and ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... the same time!" she said, with a laugh and a little Parisian shrug; and then she looked at me again with a look that one would say was abominable or charming, according as one's particular mood ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... the Canaries and Cape Blanco," returned Captain Truck, with an expressive shrug. "More hospitable regions exist, certainly; for, if accounts are to be credited, the honest people along-shore never get a Christian that they do not mount him on a camel, and trot him through the sands a thousand miles or so, under a hot sun, with a sort of haggis for food, that would go nigh ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... and all-powerful favorite decided the girl's fate; for it was equivalent to a mandate for her debut. The precocious child knew the danger of the path opened for her. To the remonstrances of her mother she said with a shrug of her pretty shoulders: "To go to the opera is to go to the devil. But what matters it? It is my destiny." Poor Mme. Arnould scolded, shuddered, and prayed, and ended it, as she thought, by shutting the girl up in a convent. But Louis XV. got ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... there was no one there; but Nina moved away a little, and then Vera, wanting to comfort her, tried to draw her closer, and then of course, Nina (because she was like that) with a little peevish shrug of the shoulders drew even farther away. There was, after that, silence between them, an awkward ugly silence, piling up and up with discomfort until the whole room seemed to be eloquent ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... comfort possess a magic power. Little by little they seduce even strong-willed people. Father and I used to live poorly and simply, and now you see how we live. Isn't it strange?" she said with a shrug. "We spend twenty thousand roubles ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... 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 left them. A momentary fancy that this was the reality, that he himself ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... three-quarters of an hour they traversed the low bush of the plain in silence. From every rising snow hummock Jean scanned the white desolation about them, and each time, as nothing that was human came within his vision, he turned toward the engineer with a sinister shrug of his shoulders. Once three moving caribou, a mile or more away, brought a quick cry to his lips and Howland noticed that a sudden flush of excitement came into his face, replaced in the next instant by a look of disappointment. After this he maintained a more careful guard ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood |
