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More "Shirk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... result of my investigation into his habits as a husband and father, it is by no means clear to me that we must call him hard names. Before doing that, we ought to know not only that he stays away from his wife and children, but why he stays away; whether he is really a shirk, or absents himself unselfishly and for their better protection, at the risk of being misunderstood and traduced. My object in this paper is to raise that question about him, rather than to blacken his character; ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... idea to the critics, and the critics thought it an excellent one, and said they would undertake the job with pleasure. One must say for the critics that they never shirk work. They will sit and criticise for eighteen hours a day, if necessary, or even, if quite unnecessary, for the matter of that. You can't give them too much to criticise. They will criticise everything and everybody in this world. They will criticise everything in the next ...
— Dreams - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... on the contrary, can as little have Unity of Sentiment as they can be real friends, except to a very slight extent, desiring as they do unfair advantage in things profitable while they shirk labour and service for the common good: and while each man wishes for these things for himself he is jealous of and hinders his neighbour: and as they do not watch over the common good it is lost. The ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... the truth to those without, and though the likelihood of our narrative being given credence is, I grant you, remote, so wedded are mortals to their stupid infatuation for impossible superstitions, we should be craven cowards indeed were we to shirk the plain ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... George Hyde to be in England, and that if he were there, the General might be trusted to look after the marriage of his son. For he knew that an English noble would be of necessity bound by his caste and his connections, and that Hyde would have to face obligations he would not be able to shirk. "Then, then, his opportunity to win Cornelia would come!" And it was at this point the hopeful "maybe" entered into ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... ability to bear healthy, well-formed children, and even their ability to nurse such as are born to them; and such deformed women walk into and out of our churches as examples to young girls, without one word of admonition. And some church members deliberately shirk the responsibility of rearing families of children, either because it is not fashionable to have large families, or because children would interfere with their selfish or sensual enjoyment; and this is not the worst which ...
— Personal Experience of a Physician • John Ellis
... a public-spirited retailer of Boston, Mr. Lincoln Filene, entered the controversy. Mr. Filene resolved that, as a large consumer, he and his class had no right to shirk their responsibility by passively acquiescing in sweat-shop conditions. As an intermediary between the wholesaler and the public, the retailer had an important part in the conflict, not only because he suffered directly from the temporary paralysis of the industry, but also because ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... to shirk the boasting foe, And to march and countermarch our brave Till they fall like ghosts in the marshes low, And swamp-grass covers each nameless grave; Nor another, whose fatal banners wave Aye in Disaster's shameful van; Nor another, to bluster, and ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... But such expressions often spring from pure selfishness, and sometimes exhibit a sinful disregard for the happiness of other people. Nothing makes it right to ease yourself at the expense of others, or to shirk burdens by shifting them to other shoulders. Some are clever at that, but such action may be positively sinful. On the other hand, God can deliver us from that anxious care and foreboding and unrest with which so many good people ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... "You fellows are simply trying to shirk the thing. I declare two eggs, no bacon and three mushrooms, assuming an average size for mushrooms. One cup and a half of coffee. Three ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... that, even though she should hate me for it, I would tell her the truth. I looked at my watch; it was a few minutes past two. With a sting of self-reproach, I remembered my promise to Mr. Pfeifer, and resolved not to shirk the responsibility I had voluntarily assumed. I hastened up the hall, then down again, surveyed the dancers, sent a girl into the dressing-room with a message; but Fraulein Hildegard was nowhere ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... down under these custom-made prejudices that save you the trouble of thinking. If you and I were shipwrecked on a desert island, I have no doubt that we would come to a simple and natural understanding. I'm neither a coward nor a shirk. You would find, if you had to undertake any enterprise of danger or difficulty with a woman, that there are several qualifications quite as important as the one to ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... me as strangest of all, good comrade," I observed pleasantly to the tripping presence at my elbow, "is that these countrymen of yours who shirk to climb a flight of steps, and have palms as soft as rose petals, these wide ways paved with stones as hard ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... is freezin' to his fingers, He's a-clingin' in the riggin' of a wreck, He knows destruction's nearer every minute that he lingers, But it do'n't appear ter worry him a speck: He's draggin' draggled corpses from the clutches of the combers— The kind of job a common chap would shirk— But he takes 'em from the wave and he fits 'em fer the grave, And he thinks it's all included ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... was such a man for prompt and instant action as Colonel Miller. As Jose said more than once, he was always packing twenty-four hours' work into twelve, and no one within had ever had a chance to shirk his share. ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... state plainly and unequivocally the legitimate demands of their people, even at the cost of opposing an honored leader, the thinking classes of American Negroes would shirk a heavy responsibility,—a responsibility to themselves, a responsibility to the struggling masses, a responsibility to the darker races of men whose future depends so largely on this American experiment, but especially a responsibility to this nation,—this common Fatherland. It is wrong to encourage ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... revolutionise the world. It was not the matter of the work, but the mind that went into it, that counted—and the man who was not content to do small things well would leave great things undone. The beasts before him did not shirk their labour because it was clay and not gold dust that trailed behind the plough; why should he? And where was happiness if it sprung not from the soil? Where contentment if it dwelt not near to Nature? For what was ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... She hated the dark places of life, and got away from them and out into the sunshine as quickly as possible. Although she was too well disciplined to shirk her duty, she did it as quickly as possible and pushed it to the back of her mind. Jack and Harriet were married; that was the end of it for the present. Let life go on as before. She gave several hours of the day to her mother, the rest ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... you made up your mind there was no fault to be found with you. I will say this to your credit—that you know your trade—you needn't be shamed by anybody. Show what you can do, my lad! Do your day's work so that your comrades don't need to take you in tow, and never shirk when it comes to ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... this. There is a mystery. No one denies that. An explanation is necessary, and I accept the explanation offered by the Roman Catholic Church. I obey Her in all her instruction for the regulation of life; I shirk nothing, I omit nothing, I allow nothing to come between me and my religion. Whatever the Church says I believe, and so all responsibility is removed from me. But this is an attitude of mind which you as ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... and on, in search of his man; and now, by careful watching, like an amateur detective, he had run his prey to earth by a dexterous flank-movement and secured an interview with him where he couldn't shirk or avoid it. ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... upon his heart and his purse. These, to tell the truth, were not infrequent; for our uncle, believing that young people should be led to the exercise of active and unselfish charity, and seeing that Norman was inclined to shirk such claims, was constantly presenting them to the boy, with a view to training him in the way he should go in ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... think we may safely say, that we have more men of that class, in this country, who devote themselves to the high duties of their station, regardless of its pleasures, than in any other: men who recognize practically the responsibility of their rank, and do not shirk from them; men who think they have something to do, and something to repay, for the accidents of birth and fortune—who, in the senate, in the field, or in the less prominent, but not less noble, career of private life, act, as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... world quite as he would like it. You will be sure to have burdens laid upon you that belong to other people, unless you are a shirk yourself; but don't grumble. If the work needs doing and you can do it, never mind about the other one who ought to have done it and didn't; do it yourself. Those workers who fill up the gaps, and smooth away ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... free," she said, each word coming with an effort, "as much on your account as on my own." Then, and it seemed to me merely a truly feminine attempt to shirk responsibility, she added, "I am glad my going will be a ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... a lot of senseless "doing" And a fearful lot of work; There are gangs of men with "gangers," To see they do not shirk. There's the usual waste of power In the usual Western way, There's a tangle in the transport, And a blockage every day. The sergeants do the swearing, The corporals "carry on"; The private cusses openly, And hopes he'll ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... to notice nothing. But that is not right. We can't shirk responsibility.... Gnekker has intentions in regard to ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... on the mantel-block, There ticks a busy little clock— The measurer of time. It never stops or tries to shirk; Unceasingly it plies its work With zeal ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... no shirk. His strength seemed prodigious. When any of the others attempted to land something too big to handle alone, he was always near to help; and yet, unaided, he accomplished twice as much as ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... lungs, and became an amphibian; an aesthetic guinea-fowl admired bright colours, so it bought a paint-box, studied Mr. Whistler's ornamental designs, and, painting itself a gilded and ocellated tail, was thenceforth a peacock. But how about plants? Mr. Butler does not shirk even this difficulty. The theory must be maintained at all hazards.... This is the sort of mystical nonsense from which we had hoped Mr. Darwin had for ever saved ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... over three thousand miles of country, 'all these are excellent reasons for bringing in the Englishman. It is true that in his own country he is taught to shirk work, because kind, silly people fall over each other to help and debauch and amuse him. Here, General January will stiffen him up. Remittance-men are an affliction to every branch of the Family, but your manners and morals can't be so tender as to suffer from a few thousand of them among your ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... "Shirk it? Why should I?" He stood aside to let her pass in. "I've nothing to be ashamed of. I don't wear the garment of respectability, but then I'm not stark naked. Every man clothes himself in some article of faith, virtue if you like." The name of Sally and Sally's face swept across ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... Chaffery. "There's truths you have to grow into. But about this matter of Lies—let us look at the fabric of society, let us compare the savage. You will discover the only essential difference between savage and civilised is this: The former hasn't learnt to shirk the truth of things, and the latter has. Take the most obvious difference—the clothing of the civilised man, his invention of decency. What is clothing? The concealment of essential facts. What is decorum? ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... ordinary affair. I take it, and what is to come after it, just as other men do. I have accepted your party and your programme, and I mean to stick to them. I see that the political situation is difficult and exciting, and I don't intend to shirk. But I am no more going to slay my private life and interests at the altar of politics than my father did when he was in Parliament. If the revolution is coming, it will come in spite of you and me. And, moreover—if you will let ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... avoid saying anything about Worcester, for it is an obscure and difficult subject; but I fear the attempt to shirk it would be useless in the long run. I know from sad experience that if I omit it every inhabitant of Worcestershire who reads this article will hunt me out somehow, and run me to earth at last, with a letter demanding a full and explicit explanation of this silent insult to his native ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... me the other day, "Girls are younger nowadays, and they go on being young till they are well through middle life. At sixteen we had to look after other people, but they shirk responsibility, till women of thirty are content to be like birds of the air, just amusing themselves, and feeling no call to be ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... imprisoned for refusing to do so; further, that the free men of England should no longer be seized by the King's special mandate or warrant, it being contrary to their rights and liberties and the laws of their country. At first the King returned an answer to this petition, in which he tried to shirk it altogether; but, the House of Commons then showing their determination to go on with the impeachment of Buckingham, the King in alarm returned an answer, giving his consent to all that was required ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... expect to be stoned, but whoever has these things in his mind and does not speak them, is a dishonoured man. He is like a soldier in battle, to whom a dangerous message is entrusted; is he free to shirk it?... Why does not everyone ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... must not shirk danger," his father said, "and he must needs go well in the fight; but he is still but a boy, not fit to enter upon a hand-to-hand contest with the picked warriors of Egypt. In time I hope he will fight abreast of me, but ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... not shirk any of the other expeditions nor the garrison duty, but always marched with the foremost and retreated among the last. You ought to estimate from such considerations, those who live well and in order, and not hate a man for wearing his ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias
... of husbandry, and he now contributed much of the material which he had collected for a purely didactic work, to this controversial and political treatise. He is likewise responsible, and he never tried to shirk that responsibility, for most of the advanced financial theories which it contains. The volume was sent to England, and submitted to the Prime Minister of the day and several other persons of influence. It seems to have produced an impression in the quarters ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... were the sons of sin, Created to shally and shirk; Hem lay 'round and Haw looked on While God did ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... spoon or wooden paddle, first the baking powder with the flour and then the salt. Rub into this the cold grease (which may be lard, cold pork fat, drippings) until there are no lumps left and no grease adhering to bottom of pan. This is a little tedious, but don't shirk it. Then stir in the water and work it with spoon until you have a rather stiff dough. Have the pan greased. Turn the loaf into it and bake. Test center of loaf with a sliver when you think it properly done. When no dough adheres remove bread. All hot breads ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... when Chebek, who is no coward, had succeeded in putting an end to neighborly interference, the nest began to show a deplorable disinclination to "stay put." Whether the material could not be properly fastened, or whether the bird was so demoralized as to shirk ordinary precautions, the fact is, that every breeze shook the little structure, and four completed nests of this unnatural sort fell, one after another, in ruins to the ground. Then motherly instinct came to ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... which I present. It is primarily pacific: yet it is firm and unyielding. It courts a peaceable adjustment, yet it does not shirk ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... keenly awake. A tapping, metallic sound at once arose either upon his chair or Viola's, and the horn, or whatever it was, floated dimly into view, then vanished, and a moment later the voice of the chief "control" entered his right ear: "Man of science, do not shirk your duty. Here now we offer you a chance to solve the great ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... directions, and every one of the three marked a perishing Indian village. It was not a work in which they took any delight; on the contrary, it often saddened them, but they felt that it had to be done, and they could not shirk the task. ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... considerable row, for they're a lively people—almost as fond of fighting as the Irish, though scarcely so sound in judgment. I had some business on hand on the western side of the Cordillera, but turned back to give a helping hand to my friends, for of course I try never to shirk duty, though I'm not fond of fighting. Well, when I got to the farm nearest to this hut where we now sit, they told me that a tremendous gale had been blowing in the mountains, that ten travellers had been snowed up, and that they feared they ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... for four days; not good shooting, but work which carried the men far from home, and enabled Sir Harry to look after his cousin. George, so looked after, did not dare to say that on any day he would shirk the shooting. But Sir Harry, as he watched his cousin, gradually lost his keenness for watching him. Might it not be best that he should let matters arrange themselves? This young squire from Lincolnshire was evidently ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... on a farm. He liked the farm life, but not the farm work—a fine distinction that caused his fellow-labourers to look upon him as something of a shirk. He would rove the fields while the rest were working in them. He thought his own thoughts, such as they were, and when a book came his way, as now and ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... stole up softly to the children's nursery. This small attic room, close to the roof, low, insufficiently ventilated, was altogether too much for Sandy. The time had come for him to act, and he was never the man to shirk action in any way. Charlotte Harman was all very well; that dying father of hers, whom he pronounced a most atrocious sinner, and took pleasure in so thinking him, he also was well enough, but everything could not give way to them. Though for the present Mr. Harman's ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... often told these planters that I thought the word "slave" was the most repulsive part of the institution, and I have always observed they invariably shirk using it themselves. They speak of their servant, their boy, or their negroes, but never of their slaves. They address a negro as boy or ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... Moreover, she had never been told of the way in which her friends were contributing to pay the rent. I should have liked to tell her this, but the mystery of the affair gave a piquancy to their deed of kindness which the ladies were unwilling to give up; and at first Martha had to shirk many a perplexed question as to her ways and means of living in such a house, but by-and-by Miss Matty's prudent uneasiness sank down into acquiescence with ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... That Tibbie intended to shirk the consequences of her misdemeanour was only too clearly proved to Janice, when later she went to her room to prink for supper, for lying on her dressing stand was the miniature. Shocked as Miss Meredith was at the sight, she lifted and ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... here no question of 'spirits,' with all their physical and metaphysical difficulties. Nor is there any desire to shirk the fact that many 'presentiments' and hallucinations of the sane coincide with no ascertainable fact. We only provisionally posit the possibility of an influence, in its nature unknown, of one mind on another at a distance, such influence translating ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... of the American Notes, it must be conceded that President Wilson has rendered a conspicuous service to the Allies by compelling them to face the formidable difficulties of the problem of peace. Henceforth it will be impossible for our rulers to shirk those difficulties. They will have to give us something more tangible than mere vague and solemn abstractions, than mere rhetorical phrases and catchwords: they will have to depend on the support of public opinion. The peace settlement will have to be ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... here at once. [Exit ORDERLY.] The very men Who meanly shirk their service to the crown! A breach of duty to be remedied, For disaffection like an ulcer spreads Until the caustic ointment of the law, Sternly applied, ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... of you, sir—if I may be so bold as to say so. They know you were not brought up to sheeping. They will impose on you and shirk ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett
... time. "Then to-day it shall be. I'll shirk the fight, I'll sacrifice what shreds of duty have clung to me, because the fever for you is in my bones, and it seems to me I'd do murder for it. That's the kind of a man I am, and I have no pride in myself because of it. But I've always been that way We'll ride to the ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... soon forgotten," says he, sententiously, during a pause. "You all seem strangely oblivious of the fact that last night there was a ball in this house. Why shirk the subject? I like talking," says Mr. Potts, superfluously, "and surely you must all have something to communicate concerning it. Thanks to our own exertions, I think it was as good a one as ever I was at; and the old boy"—(I ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... your employer of the time that he pays for, but when you shirk your work you rob ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... my days here in the bush which I like best is the dawn time. But the nights have their good, and—well—and their less good times, too. My evening meal is apt to be sketchy. There is a special vein of laziness in me which makes me shirk the setting out of plates and cutlery, and, even more, their removal when used; despite the fact that I have had, perhaps, rather more experience than most men of catering for myself. Hence, the evening meal is apt to be sketchy; a furtive and far from creditable performance, with the vessels of ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... are in him—by watching him work for a single day. You can tell by the spirit which he brings to his task whether there is in him the capacity for growth, expansion, enlargement; an ambition to rise, to be somebody, or an inclination to shirk, to do as little as possible for the ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... is to be held the 12th of June. If it should shirk its responsibility, and not put a strong suffrage plank in its platform, pledging itself to use all its educational powers and all its party machinery to carry the amendment, then I shall have no respect for any woman who will speak ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... trapper, "don't shirk your victuals. There's one more course, and then you can rest if ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne
... but keep your time, And dun, and press, and harry; Tax-payers shirk, nor deem it ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various
... been overtopped, on the strength of the riddle on this paste-board. I would have done it if you had topped me even by three inches, but when it comes to feet—yards— miles, I am not the man to shirk the biggest drink that ever made the travellers'-joy palm blush with virginal indignation, or the orang- outang and the perambulating dyak howl with envy. Set them up and continue till the ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... well-matured documents. Their tone is more frank and direct than is customary in such papers, and their recommendations, extensive and varied as they have been, show that he has patiently reviewed the field of labor so sadly and so unexpectedly opened before him, and that he was not inclined to shirk the constitutional duty of aiding Congress by his suggestions and advice. An honest man, who believes in his own principles, who follows his own convictions, and who never hesitates to avow his sentiments, he has given his views in accordance with ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... astonished and showed it. She could not understand a man who had displayed such warm, even touching, appreciation of her kindness leaving her without a word, taking the opportunity of her momentary absence to disappear, to shirk away—for she put it like ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... spoke Charles's hands dropped from his face and clinched themselves together; "but I cannot go by what any one thinks unless I think so myself as well. I can't take other people's judgments. When God gave us our own, he did not mean us to shirk using it. What you say is right, but there is something which after a little bit seems more right—at least, which seems so to me. I cannot look at the future. I can only see one thing distinctly, now in the present, and that is that I cannot break my word. I never ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... modern women might take example from these little creatures," said Temperley, who, in common with many self-sufficient persons, was fond of recommending humility to others. "They never attempt to shirk their lowly tasks on the plea of higher vocations. Not one turns from the path marked out by our great Mother, who also teaches her human children the same lesson of patient duty; but, alas! by them is ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... understanding of our human limitations. We must also clearly realize as makers of the future, that as the Church has its special dangers of conservatism, cosiness, intolerance, a checking of initiative, the domestic tendency to enclose itself and shirk reality; so the cultus has also its special dangers, of which the chief are perhaps formalism, magic, and spiritual sloth. Receiving and conserving as it does all the successive deposits of racial experience, ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... hear that Anthony, though he did shirk the welcome on the quay, behaved admirably, with the simplicity of a man who has no small meannesses and makes no mean reservations. His eyes did not flinch and his tongue did not falter. He was, I have it on the ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... kind that'll shirk on me when my back's turned, or steal from me if he gets a chance, or betray any trust I put in him. He's as poor as blue-John and as proud as Lucifer, but he's as straight as the barrel of that old gun. He's got Kentucky blood in him, and ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... doubted you when I first came into this room; and I'm sorry for it, and I beg your pardon. I do believe you're a good girl—I couldn't say why if I was asked, but I do believe it for all that. I wish there was no more to be said—but there is more; and neither you nor I must shirk it. Public opinion won't deal as tenderly with you as I do; public opinion will make the worst of you, and the worst of Amelius. While you're living here with him—there's no disguising it—you're innocently in the way of the boy's prospects in life. ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... would not go farther, and asked me to lend him money to get back. I made answer: "I should not have enough left to go forward; you ought indeed to have thought of this on leaving Florence; and if it is because of your feet that you shirk the journey, we will find a return horse for Rome, which will deprive you of the excuse." Accordingly I hired a horse; and seeing that he did not answer, I took my way toward the gate of Rome. When he knew ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... door and halting, remarked: "Yes, may think better when he's by hisse'f, but not as fast. When he's got thinkin' to do that he don't want to do he mout shirk it if left by hisse'f. Well, I'll give you a leetle mo' time, but not much. My plan is that when you've got a bad piece of work on hand, git through with it as soon as possible. I'm goin' down the road a piece an' will drap in on my way back," ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... was not the one to shirk bad tidings. And consequently he increased his speed all that ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... a great administrator or agriculturist; for though I do not mean to shirk my duties, I could not devote my whole life to them,—for the simple reason that my aspirations aim much higher. Sometimes I ask myself whether we Ploszowskis do not delude ourselves as to our abilities. But if such were the case, the delusion would be only personal; other people, strangers, could ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... old Cobbett to bring on his motion for getting him erased from the Privy Council, which Cobbett wished to shirk from. He gave him a terrible dressing, and it all went off for Peel in the most flattering way. He gains every day more authority and influence in the House of Commons. It must end in Peel and Stanley, unless ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... can have that. 'Oil of Parma Violets' fits the other one pat." Rap! Rap! Bang! "What a hideous clatter! Blaise seems determined to batter That poor old turkey into bits, And pound to jelly my excellent wits. Come, come, Martin, you mustn't shirk. 'The night cometh soon'—etc. Don't jerk Me up like that. 'Essence de la Valliere'— That has a charmingly Bourbon air. And, oh! Magnificent! Listen to this!— 'Vinaigre des Quatre Voleurs'. Nothing amiss With that—England, Austria, ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... man or of one family. Metropolitan and Provincial officials of all grades should ponder over the present difficulties and carefully perform their duties. We hereby hold it the duty of the senior officials earnestly to advise and warn their subordinates not to shirk their responsibilities, in order to conform with Our original sincere intention to love and to take ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... crab's twice alive, mark! Oh, worthy, your soul, Of strange ends, great results, novel labours! Take note, I reject this for one! (ay, now, straight to the hole! Safe in sand there—your skirts smooth out all as they float!) I, shirk drinking through ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... his brethren at every street-corner," continued she. "Well, I didn't mean to dabble in witchcraft to-day further than the lighting of my pipe, but a witch I am and a witch I'm likely to be and there's no use trying to shirk it. I'll make a man of my scarecrow, were it only for ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... her—upon a white, strained face with passionate, unkissed lips, and eyes that looked bravely into his, refusing to shirk the ultimate significance which ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... stand to each other in a most unnatural relation. It is alike the mission of both to marry, but whereas women are honorably anxious to fulfill this mission, men, as we have already seen, are too ready to shirk it. Yet, by a strange inversion of the usual order of things, to the very sex which evades the mission is its furtherance ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... fallen men as they sat bound together by a mutual thirst which each abhorred, yet loved, and which none could shake off. And there was something outrageously absurd too—yes, it is of no use attempting to shirk the fact—something intolerably funny in some of the gestures and tones, with which they discussed the affairs ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... such men as had proved their integrity, powers of endurance, and fidelity to duty, were ever appointed to that position. But he had given evidence that he was a man to be relied upon, who would not shirk work, but faithfully perform it, and who might be counted upon to be always at his post, whether others were likely to know it or not. He was just such a man as we want Englishmen of to-day to be—steadfast, patient, ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... hustling, aggressive youngsters over the old standbys of the diamond more than I do. A seasoned player, as a rule, develops into a mechanical player who is always watching his averages and keeping tab on himself. While he may be too loyal to shirk, he will not take a chance which he is not compelled to. Especially is this true in running bases. How many of these old players will slide or go into a bag when they are blocked off? Very few. On the other ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick
... comes to Drummond. Wing's carbine can be utilized. He can post Moreno down the gorge at the second bend to command that approach and put little McGuffey, the recruit, at the next bend to command Moreno and send a bullet through him if he shirk or swerve. ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... worst term of reproach that can be applied to a sailor. It signifies a skulk, a shirk,— one who is always trying to get clear of work, and is out of the way, or hanging back, when duty is to be done. "Marine'' is the term applied more particularly to a man who is ignorant and clumsy about seaman's work,— a greenhorn, a land-lubber. To make a sailor ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... be done in a spurt, And while Nature provides us with genius and clown, There is nought to be gained by mere levelling down. So the plan of PROCRUSTES, my boys, will not work, Or will benefit none save the sluggard or shirk. Oh yes, the bold bully stands swaggering there With the axe in his hand, and his head in the air, Type of heedless Compulsion, the shallow of pate, Who man's freedom would sell to a fetish of State. Self-help and joint effort, as BURT wisely said, ...
— Punch, Volume 101, September 19, 1891 • Francis Burnand
... the Primal Curse On poor humanity was Compulsory Work; But Civilisation has devised a worse, Which even Christian effort seems to shirk. The Worker's woes love may assuage. Ah, yes! But what shall help Compulsory Worklessness? Not Faith—Hope—Charity even! All the Graces Are helpless, without Wisdom in high places. Though liberal alms relieve the kindly soul, You can't ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, February 4, 1893 • Various
... "To shirk my duty would be a bad beginning of my service on this ship," smiled Darrin. "Thank you, Coxswain, but I'll take my share of ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... corresponded to his outward appearance; he was at once violent and feeble, indolent, narrow-minded, and sensual, and was easily swayed by his courtiers and mistresses. The idea of a war had no attractions for him, and he was inclined to shirk it. His uncle Artabanus exhorted him to follow his inclination for peace, and he lent a favourable ear to his advice until his cousin Mardonius remonstrated with him, and begged him not to leave the disgrace of Marathon unpunished, or ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... although we took up a good collection for Tuskegee, my private collection was equally large. This the leader of the quartet did not like. It was the duty of this man who was a teacher at Tuskegee, to speak as well as myself, but for some reason he did not like to do it and would always shirk it when he could. But after this meeting he cut off my support and when we reached Portsmouth, he told me that I was dividing the interest and that he could not use me further on that trip. Of course, ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards
... against a weaker nation in order to add more slave states to the Union, he formed a very positive opinion that the war was unjustifiable. But though he was forced to this disagreeable conclusion, the young Lieutenant was not the sort of man to criticize his country once she was attacked, or to shirk his duty as a soldier because he did not agree with his superiors on questions of national policy. He thought and said what he liked in private, but he kept his mouth closed in public, feeling that his duties as an officer were quite sufficient without assuming responsibilities which belonged to ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... never failed in time of need. Are you going to be the first to fail, Bob? Oh, please don't think I do not dread the thought of your going to the front, and perhaps being killed; but I cannot bear the thought that my boy should shirk his duty to his country. Tell me, Bob, why do you want to play ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... That was the strangest part of his discovery. Freddie Drummond and Bill Totts were two totally different creatures. The desires and tastes and impulses of each ran counter to the other's. Bill Totts could shirk at a job with clear conscience, while Freddie Drummond condemned shirking as vicious, criminal, and un-American, and devoted whole chapters to condemnation of the vice. Freddie Drummond did not care for dancing, but Bill Totts never missed the ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... I don't care to shirk my share of the blame, but do you think any one of my position would ever have dared to raise his eyes to you if you yourself had not invited it? Even now ...
— Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger • August Strindberg
... what a'n't white folks. Our folks can tell 'em right smart. They can't shirk out if it's only marked by the seventeenth generation. You can always tell 'em by the way they look—they can't look you in the face, if they are ever so white. The law snaps 'em up once in a while, and then, if they're ever so white, it makes 'em prove it. I've ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... of the mountain range and every spur its gun. And many a rickety son of a gun, on the tides of the future tossed, Will tell how battles were really won that History says were lost, Will trace the field with his pipe, and shirk the facts that are hard to explain, As grey old mates of the diggings work the old ground over again — How 'this was our centre, and this a redoubt, and that was a scrub in the rear, And this was the point where the guards held out, and the enemy's ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... America now has a duty in this matter. Times have changed. Things are not as they were thirty years ago. To allow a great and valuable wild fauna to be destroyed and wasted is a crime, against both the present and the future. If we mean to be good citizens we cannot shirk the duty to conserve. We are trustees of the inheritance of future generations, and we have no right to squander that inheritance. If we fail of our plain duty, the scorn of future generations surely will be ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... tent was now a place of wild confusion. Men were rushing here and there, to arm themselves with tent pegs, stakes—anything they could grab up. They were alive to the danger, but they did not shirk. The elephants were trumpeting loudly, and some were tugging at their foot chains attached to stakes driven in the ground. The big beasts knew something ...
— Joe Strong, the Boy Fish - or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank • Vance Barnum
... don't know. I've got to do his work. I daren't let him think he can shirk like this! He'll never get back again if I make him think it doesn't matter. Mrs. Twist, I'm tired of it!" she cried with sudden fierce intensity. "Never, never, never for a minute dare I be tired and weak; why I daren't ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... rose-cold, a person with neuralgia or rheumatism, and is offensive to every one. Never allow a napkin to be placed on the table until it has been well aired. There is often a conspiracy between the waiter and the laundress in great houses, both wishing to shirk work, the result of which is that the napkins, not prepared at the proper time, are put on the ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... machina, the god who helped those who could not help themselves, the god of the lazy and incapable. The nineteenth century decided that there is indeed no such god; and now Man must take in hand all the work that he used to shirk with an idle prayer. He must, in effect, change himself into the political Providence which he formerly conceived as god; and such change is not only possible, but the only sort of change that is real. The mere transfiguration ...
— Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion • George Bernard Shaw
... the Button-Moulder or not. It may be too late for him, or there may be yet time to live another life; but whatever the case may be, it doesn't alter what Ibsen set out to prove. The problem which Ibsen shirks (if indeed he does shirk it) is a subsidiary problem—a rider, so to speak. Can Solveig by her love redeem Peer Gynt? Can the woman save the man's soul? Will she, after all, cheat ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... But the French have not offended anybody, and yet they threaten us, wishing to enslave us. . . . But we French can be fierce, since they oblige us to be, and in order to defend ourselves it is just that nobody should shirk, that all should obey. Discipline does not quarrel with Revolution. Remember the armies of the first Republic—all citizens, Generals as well as soldiers, but Hoche, Kleber and the others were rough-hewn, unpolished benefactors ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... if any ill consequences arise from this piece of folly of yours, remember, I shirk ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... should receive careful consideration. She should be known to be honest, honorable, competent, healthy, and personally clean in habits and dress, and she should be tactful, obliging, and she should attend to her own affairs strictly. She should not be a gossip; she should not shirk her work or pry into family affairs that do not concern her; and she should not drag into the conversation her ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... mean, father," said the girl, "and I don't want to shirk my responsibility. It was everything to have him come right ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... is the search for the joys of love by those who would shirk all love's responsibilities. Just as honest love is the most powerful influence that can enter into a man's life, so is love's counterfeit the most disintegrating. Happiness cannot spring from the ashes of lust. Love looks ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan
... towards whom this appeal—or shall I say command- -was directed, flushed a fine colour under so many eyes, but immediately began her ingenuous tale. She had already related it a half dozen times into as many sympathising ears, but she was not one to shirk publicity, for all her retiring ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... which the fit have to bear has often been referred to by Dr. MacGregor, who states in one of his reports, "Wives and husbands, parents of bastards, all alike are encouraged by lavish charity (falsely so called) to entirely shirk their responsibilities in the well grounded assurance that public money will be forth-coming to keep them and their families in quite as comfortable position as their hardworking and ...
— The Fertility of the Unfit • William Allan Chapple
... your line, and I know you hate them. But you're dead right. I dare say I'll tell you something that will astonish you before long. But I'm not doing anything to be ashamed of. I haven't made any mistake; and if I had, I shouldn't shirk the payment." ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... the brain. Between two such statements as these, compromise or reconciliation is obviously impossible. It is then for experience to decide between these two conflicting views. This empirical appeal Bergson does not shirk. He has made a most comprehensive and intensive study of pathological phenomena relating to the mental malady known as aphasia. This particular type of disorder belongs to a whole class of mental diseases known as amnesia. Now amnesia (in Greek, "forgetfulness") is literally any loss or defect ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... distrust and hate; He says I'm lazy, and I shirk. Ah! had I genius like the late Right Honorable Edmund Burke! My chance of all promotion's gone, I know it is,—he hates me so. What is it makes my blood to run, And all my ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... enemy. A dangerous question, this!—a question posed again and again by the jingoes and the fanatics of history, and invariably answered according to the dictates of their own convenience. And yet a question which we dare not shirk, a question which a Carlyle, a Ruskin, a William Morris would not have hesitated to formulate. Does Britain stand for an Idea? Is it true that we are fighting in the main for the cause of Liberty and Democracy, for progress in Europe ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... sit like a giant above all human affairs for the next two decades, and the speech of Mars is blunt and plain. He will say to us all: "Get your houses in order. If you squabble among yourselves, waste time, litigate, muddle, snatch profits and shirk obligations, I will certainly come down upon you again. I have taken all your men between eighteen and fifty, and killed and maimed such as I pleased; millions of them. I have wasted your substance—contemptuously. Now, mark you, you have multitudes of male children between ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... this. Ever since the beginning, men have assigned to women the role of the dissuader, the drag, the hinderer. It is always the woman, tradition tells us, who persuades the man to be a coward, to stay at home, to shirk a ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... judging polar life you must discount compulsory endurance; and find out what a man can shirk, remembering always that it is a sledging life which is the hardest test. It is because it is so much easier to shirk in civilization that it is difficult to get a standard of what your average man can do. It does not really matter much whether your man whose ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... affront a judge of the present day into hanging me. They've too much of what I call thick-skinned honesty for that. It's the temper of the time to resent nothing,—to be mealy-mouthed and mealy-hearted. Jurymen are afraid of having their own opinion, and almost always shirk ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... passage to the Nore, came near several hulks filled with convicts. We soon came along side the Leyden, an old Dutch 64, fitted up with births, eight feet by six, so as to contain six persons; but they were nearly all filled by prisoners who came before us, so that we were obliged to shirk wherever we could. ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... Light is assigned to General Gregg's division, which separates us, for the first time, from our former beloved commander. But we are not among those who desire to shirk responsibility for any such cause as this. After the division had been reorganized and reviewed, in the afternoon we took up our line of march to New Market. Some rain fell towards night, which laid the ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... ignorant of anything being wrong about her ladies, although she did shirk the question regarding their possible visit to London in July. However, Hurd had learned that Grexon Hay not only was an old friend, but had been engaged to Maud for many months. This information made him the more certain that Hay had robbed Beecot of the opal brooch at the time of the accident, ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... to me, come to me! When the cruel shame and terror you have so long fled from, most beset you, come to me! I am the Relieving Officer appointed by eternal ordinance to do my work; I am not held in estimation according as I shirk it. My breast is softer than the pauper-nurse's; death in my arms is peacefuller than among the pauper-wards. ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... masters! Britain, your hands are red! You may close your heart, but you cannot shirk This terrible fact,—We—kept—the—Turk. His day was past and we knew his work, But he played our game, so we kept the Turk, For our own sake's sake we kept the Turk. Britain, your ...
— Bees in Amber - A Little Book Of Thoughtful Verse • John Oxenham
... moved his hand convulsively. "Don't you worry, padre," he said faintly; "I've been—confirmed." The lips tightened a second with pain, and then: "Reckon I won't—shirk. Have ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... Baptist. I do not know how he did it; but whenever he spoke, a something in his words made our hearts burn within us; and just to let him see that we were his children, and that it was not in us to shirk or flinch, we used to walk just as usual right up to the sluts of cannon that were belching smoke and vomiting battalions of balls, and never a man would so much as say, 'Look out!' It was a something that made dying men raise ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... sons of sin, Created to shally and shirk; Hem lay 'round and Haw looked on While God ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... every candidate for Parliament, and the Government was warned that it was alienating its best friends. The Pall Mall Gazette voiced the general feeling. "What is the evidence that an Oaths Bill would injure the Government in the country? Of one thing we may be sure, that if they shirk the Bill they will do no good to themselves at the elections. Nobody doubts that it will be made a test question, and any Liberal who declines to vote for such a Bill will certainly lose the support of the Northampton sort of Radicalism in every constituency. ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... this. I am not one of those who shirk a duty, whatever the peril be in accomplishing it. You know what price I put on Micheline's happiness; you are responsible for it, and I shall oblige ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... thrilling sight; for none knew better than they the implacably savage nature of the brutes they were about to contend with, or the deadliness of the peril to which they were so light-heartedly exposing themselves. Yet not one of them manifested the slightest disposition to shirk the encounter: possibly they all knew that to perish upon the horns of a buffalo would be preferable to the punishment that surely awaited them should they disgrace themselves and their king by showing fear in the presence of a white man. But if the riders scorned ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... but not if we shirk our responsibilities. "Alles sal reg kom" if we are true, staunch, and honourable, if with perseverance and patient endurance we fulfil our duty when its demands upon us are most exacting ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... months she was engaged on the deputation work which missionaries on furlough undertake for the stimulation of the home congregations. She had less liking than ever for addressing meetings, but she did not shirk the duty. "It is a trial to speak," she said; "but He has asked me to, and it is an honour to be allowed to testify for Him in any way, and I wish to do it cheerfully." She wanted also to persuade the women in the Church to give themselves ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... help for it, so, with a sickly smile, he put his name to the fatal document in big and shaky letters. Then Muller called another man, who instantly tried to shirk on the ground that his education had been neglected, and that he could not write, an excuse which availed him little, for Frank Muller quietly wrote his name for him, leaving a space for his mark. After this there was ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... there was no fault to be found with you. I will say this to your credit—that you know your trade—you needn't be shamed by anybody. Show what you can do, my lad! Do your day's work so that your comrades don't need to take you in tow, and never shirk when ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... personally. From the personal standpoint I should view the nomination to the Presidency as a real and serious misfortune. Nothing would persuade me to take it, unless it appeared that the people really wished me to do a given job, which I could not honorably shirk. ..." ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... fed Horse, Chickens and Pig And afterwards milked old Cow. For Farmer must work, he never can shirk! Today he is working, right now, right now! Today he is ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... the prospect before him, and did not attempt to shirk it. But he did propose certain restrictions on the regency in order that the king, should he recover his reason, might without difficulty ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... weary that I fell asleep. The only part I heard, however, touched my imagination vividly. Speaking of suicides, the lecturer said that self-murder was no escape from the miseries of the present, but only a preparation of greater sorrow for the future. Suicides, he declared, cannot shirk their responsibilities so easily. They must return to take up life exactly where they laid it so violently down, but with the added pain and punishment of their weakness. Many of them wander the earth in unspeakable misery ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... even several weeks' work was able to repair the mischief. The whole matter was necessarily known to all the clerks, and Mr. Woburn decided that his son must no longer remain in his office, where he had been able persistently to shirk his duties. Gerald was thankful to have a chance of starting afresh, away from his old associates, and gladly fell in with his father's proposal that he should leave Busyborough, and take a situation which was easily procured for him ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley
... always wanted to go back up there, Saunders. That was one period of my life that is constantly before me. I may as well speak of it and be done with it. You always seemed to shirk the subject, and I have hesitated to mention it, but there is no one else I could question. The last time I heard of Dolly Drake she was still unmarried. Is there any likelihood ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... not him? I've helped to put away every man, woman and child that has died in this settlement since I was grown, and I ain't goin' to shirk my duty to Brother Thompson—not that I ever expected to do it for him." She babbled on, gently urging me from the room, where her presence was the last blinding touch of horror ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... our weeping willow. But I couldn't stop there. . . . I can't try myself too high. I guess I'm a bit weak where you're concerned, boy—a bit weak. And I've got to go through with this. It's my job, and one can't shirk one's job. . . . Only sometimes it seems that one gets saddled with funny jobs, doesn't one? Try to see my point of view, Derek; try to understand. If it was only me, why, then, my dear, you know what would be the result. I think it would kill me if you ever thought I was marrying Mr. Baxter ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... soldier is a sneak, a shirk, a failure, a coward. He is only valuable as he is licked into shape. It is pretty much the same in business. It seems hard to say it, but the average employe in factory, shop or store, puts the face of the clock to shame looking at it; he is thinking of his pay envelope ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... officers taken prisoners, and Montgomery killed. The first reports said nothing of Winwood. When Margaret heard the news, she turned white as a sheet; and at this triumph of British arms my joy was far outweighed, Mr. Faringfield's grief multiplied, by fears lest Philip, who we knew would shirk no danger, had met a fate similar to his commander's. But subsequent news told us that he was a prisoner, though severely wounded. We comforted ourselves with considering that he was like to receive good nursing from the French nuns of Quebec. And eventually we found the ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... I am humoring Hartman too much, and letting him shirk the subject. But I have a week—more if necessary—and I don't want to be too hard on him. He'll thaw out by degrees: so long as he doesn't blame Clarice, it is all right. He has got my idea about ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... preparing dinner, aided by one of the Germans. To show that they did not wish to shirk any camp duties, Sam and Dick did what they could to assist. The dogs and the sleds were off to one side. Tom sat on one sled, wrapped in heavy blankets, for ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield
... times when I shall fail. There may be times when I shan't know that she isn't happy—a lack of perspective or something. If ever there comes a time like that and you know of it, don't spare me. I have taken the responsibility of her youth upon my shoulders and I am not going to shirk. It will be her happiness ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... the Doctor (Tom, by the way, even in the bosom of his family, always thought and talked of his father as the "Doctor")—as for the Doctor, well, Tom was inclined to shirk the risk of more tete-a-tetes than he could possibly help with so formidable a personage, even though he was ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... and this minute I'm on my way to see her." Miss Lacey made the declaration impressively. "He ought to be here himself. But I won't shirk my duty if he does his. She's come clear from Illinois, and I don't know what for. I wish I was like some folks and could let her shift for herself; but she isn't twenty yet, and I haven't got the heart. I haven't been smart, I saw that afterward; for ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... "there are some among us who would shirk, would avoid the high and lofty duty. There are some who would profane the name of love, and hide behind it to save their own cowardly skins. To these ignoble ones there is but one course left open. Go. Put your name on the roster ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... whether, with her quickened perceptions, she were more enlivened or oppressed; and the case might in fact have been serious had she not, by good fortune, from the moment the picture loomed, quickly made up her mind that what finally most concerned her was neither to seek nor to shirk, was not even to wonder too much, but was to let things come as they would, since there was little enough doubt of how ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life; the life of toil and effort; of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shirk from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... when I ask you to do all this, I, who am not given to practising deception, am asking you to go on practising yours. I am urging you to shirk the consequences of your wrong-doing—to enjoy in the world an untarnished name after you have tarnished your life. Do not think I forget that! Still I beg you to do as I say. This is another of the humiliations you have led me to: that ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... that conventions were not necessary to contentment, and that if one never ventured anything in general, one would never gain anything in particular. It was not, to speak with absolute frankness, intended to be an attempt to shirk my fair share of the natural human burden. If I had believed in my own power of bearing that burden profitably and efficiently, I hope I should not have laid it down. It was rather that I thought that I had carried a burden long enough, without having the curiosity to see ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... and Lord John, who winced under the necessity of repression, admitted the force of the objection, so far as to declare that this form of irksome restraint should not be protracted beyond the necessity of the hour. He was not the man to shirk personal danger, and therefore, in spite of insurrection and panic, and the threats of agitators who were seeking to compass the repeal of the Union by violent measures, he went himself to Dublin to consult with Lord Clarendon, and to gather on the spot his own impressions of the situation. ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... Mary and the massacre of St. Bartholomew had roused the indignation of Englishmen to the highest pitch. They were ready for any risk in open war against France and Spain, but Queen Elizabeth was always trying to shirk responsibility; and so the sea-captains who would avenge the wrongs done to the Protestants were obliged to run the risk of being ...
— Newfoundland and the Jingoes - An Appeal to England's Honor • John Fretwell
... in this matter. Times have changed. Things are not as they were thirty years ago. To allow a great and valuable wild fauna to be destroyed and wasted is a crime, against both the present and the future. If we mean to be good citizens we cannot shirk the duty to conserve. We are trustees of the inheritance of future generations, and we have no right to squander that inheritance. If we fail of our plain duty, the scorn of future generations surely will ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... very coaxing when it was worth his while) "you just manage this for me. I have a fellow in the next room waiting to breakfast: as soon as breakfast is over I shall be off to the race-ground, and so shirk that ranting old bore; you'll call on him instead, and settle it somehow." He was out of the room before ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... mantel-block, There ticks a busy little clock— The measurer of time. It never stops or tries to shirk; Unceasingly it plies its work With zeal ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... Assistant Chief of Police of San Francisco, Deputy Sheriff and ex-U. S. scout, had requested to see Miss Foster a few moments alone. Lanty knew what it meant,—her secret had been discovered; but she was not the girl to shirk the responsibility! She lifted her little brown head proudly, and with the same resolute step with which she had left the house the night before, descended the stairs and entered the sitting-room. At first she saw nothing. Then a remembered voice ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... you take into account that all this was to be worked out by a set of lazy, twaddling, shiftless laborers, who had grown up, all their lives, in the absence of every possible motive to learn how to do anything but 'shirk,' as you Vermonters say, and you'll see that there might naturally be, on his plantation, a great many things that looked horrible and distressing to ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... every parent and every teacher for a solution. The health and happiness of the coming generations depend upon the right education of the present one, and this responsibility the home and the school can neither shirk nor shift. We take great unction to ourselves for the excellence of the horses, pigs, and cattle that we have on exhibition at the fairs, but are silent as to our failures in the form of children, that drag out a half-life in our hospitals. In one state it ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... meadows in childhood: in youth Through the same silent gateways, to manhood. In truth, There is none that can know me as you do; and none To whom I more wish to believe myself known. Speak the truth; you are not wont to mince it, I know. Nor I, shall I shirk it, or shrink from it now. In despite of a wanton behavior, in spite Of vanity, folly, and pride, Jack, which might Have turn'd from me many a heart strong and true As your own, I have never turn'd round ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... reply. "I am the last man to wish you to shirk your duly; but you cannot have the temerity to declare that this young and tender creature can by any possibility be considered as at all likely to be implicated in a crime so monstrous and unnatural. The mere assertion of another woman's suspicions ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... and everything in the world would soon die. But the function of sex I passed over as lightly as possible. I did, however, try to give her the idea that love is the great continuer of life. The subject was difficult, and my knowledge inadequate; but I am glad I didn't shirk my responsibility; for, stumbling, hesitating, and incomplete as my explanation was, it touched deep responsive chords in the soul of my little pupil, and the readiness with which she comprehended the great facts of physical life confirmed ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... seek our own praise, but face about! seek the praise for another, in true brotherly spirit. Naturally, we are lazy and would shirk our task; but brace up! put vim in the job; that honours God, and incidentally, puts both success and joy in the work. When we get in trouble, naturally we chafe and become impatient; God says, "Be patient in tribulation." That's a ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... awkwardly, feeling that he was not getting on very well. "I know how kind you are and that you wouldn't shirk ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... also exhibits from some of the possessions which have recently come under our control. We may study here some of the problems which demand solution at the hands of the American people. Our flag has been planted in a far-off land, and we must face responsibilities which it would be cowardly to shirk. A message has come to us as to all other nations, to do the Master's bidding and to spread christianity and civilization into the remotest parts of the earth. To us have been intrusted duties that have cost us the blood ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... 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 claret. I ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... I leave you in charge. Keep a sharp eye on the men—especially on that lazy fellow who has a tendency to sleep and shirk duty. If the rock in the fair-way is got ready before my return, blast it at once, without waiting for me. You will find one of Siebe and Gorman's voltaic batteries in my lodging, also a frictional electrical machine, which you can use if you prefer it. In the store there is a large supply ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... the young nobleman continued, "the Miss Rackstraws came out quite strong; really they did now, upon my honour. It was quite a quiet thing. Lady Merriborough hadn't even got a new gown on. Lady Anne, you shirk London society this year, and we miss you: we expected you to give us two or three things this season; we did now, really. I said to Tufthunt, only yesterday, Why has not Lady Anne Newcome given anything? You know Tufthunt? They say he's a clever fellow, and that—but he's a ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in her eyes that he did not like to see there, and yielded. Obviously, from her viewpoint that was the only thing to do. A cowpuncher who has ridden the range since he was sixteen should not shirk a night ride in a blizzard, or fear losing the trail. It was not storming so hard a man might not ride ten miles—that is, a man like ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... much work is done By clown and kaiser, by serf and sage; All sow and some reap, and few gather the heap Of the garner'd grain of a by-gone age. By sea or by soil man is bound to toil, And the dreamer, waiting for time and tide, For awhile may shirk his share of the work, But he grows with his dream dissatisfied; He may climb to the edge of the beetling ledge, Where the loose crag topples and well-nigh reels 'Neath the lashing gale, but the tonic will fail— What does it profit?—Wheels ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... instinct in the matter, who live comfortably apart from the evil places, and so hear only now and then a message from the dying wafted on the sable wings of cholera or typhus. Is it not shabby this, to shirk their share of the work and the trouble, and to leave it to be done by softer ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... hundred of wool hanging to each of his fetlocks. The gallant combatant came well primed by his master the duke as to how he was to bear himself against the valiant Don Quixote of La Mancha; being warned that he must on no account slay him, but strive to shirk the first encounter so as to avoid the risk of killing him, as he was sure to do if he met him full tilt. He crossed the courtyard at a walk, and coming to where the duennas were placed stopped ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... in adversity, he did not shirk the responsibility of the campaign; declaring, that disastrous and bitter as it had been, he ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... entertainment, in a large measure, depended. Without pushing himself, or being the least bit officious, he had been equally helpful behind the scenes. He had held in check all those who, taking advantage of her father's absence, were disposed to dispute her authority and shirk their work—and he had also, on her behalf, successfully resisted their demand for higher wages. And, over and above all this, he had always considered her personal comfort. Her meals—which she could never bother about ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... drank, and becoming more sociable, told nigger stories. On the sugar-plantations there was a rush season, when the rule was twenty hours' work a day; when some of the niggers tried to shirk it, they would arrest them for swearing or crap-shooting, and work them as convicts, without pay. The pit-boss told how one "buck" had been brought before the justice of the peace, and the charge read, "being cross-eyed"; for which offence ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... Granger. "He isn't exactly a cooing dove in disposition, and if a fellow tries any monkey business, he comes down on him like a thousand of brick. Still, he's not such a bad kind after all. He's pretty severe, and he won't stand for a shirk or a crook. But if a fellow's white and tries to do the square thing, he'll get along and not find Hardtack too hard ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... its ethical bearings. This inquiry must necessarily lead us beyond the sphere of literary criticism proper, but it is a task which one who has undertaken to give an account of pastoral literature has no right to shirk. ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... told that he would be a fool to build a house on another man's ground, when he had a very good one ready built on his own. He gave way to such good advice, but he did not feel at all happy at the idea; and, when going up to the house, always felt an inclination to shirk in at the back-way. ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... Creator to be indulged in at the right time and in the proper manner. It is the stimulus which He has provided for the propagation of the human race. If the stimulus is strong at times, this too is a special effect of His wisdom; because without a powerful prompting of this kind, most men would shirk the burden of married life, just as very many would not care to toil if they had no hunger and thirst and other ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... the door and halting, remarked: "Yes, may think better when he's by hisse'f, but not as fast. When he's got thinkin' to do that he don't want to do he mout shirk it if left by hisse'f. Well, I'll give you a leetle mo' time, but not much. My plan is that when you've got a bad piece of work on hand, git through with it as soon as possible. I'm goin' down the road a piece an' will drap in on my way back," and as he passed out he looked back and added: "Thinkin' ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... had once been seen at church in a calico dress—though, it was true, she had slipped out of the side door before the service was over. Added to these things, Sarah had observed of late that Judy showed an inclination to shirk her duties, and had a dangerous habit of "mooning" while she ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... Bryant telling him I didn't want to send the cotton off so and told his driver. Mr. B. was not acquainted with the way the staple is usually prepared for market, concerning which I had taken pains to inform myself before leaving home, and the negroes had taken the chance to shirk. I started off to take the tour of Ladies Island and see their cotton. I visited about a dozen cotton-houses during the day along the east side of the island, and rode on to Cuthbert's Point to sleep with Joe Reed and ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... women are not less faithful and conscientious than good men. It is generally admitted that those most opposed to suffrage will very soon, on being fully enfranchised, feel it their duty to vote. They may at first misuse the right through ignorance, but they certainly will not shirk it. It is this conscientious habit on which I rely without fear. Never yet, when public duty required, have American women failed to meet the emergency; and I am not afraid of it now. Moreover, when they are ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... it as I best might; for this was one of the necessities of an office which I had voluntarily taken on my shoulders, and beneath which I might be crushed by no moral delinquency on my own part, but could not shirk without cowardice and shame. My subsequent fortune was various. Once, though I felt it to be a kind of imposture, I got a speech by heart, and doubtless it might have been a very pretty one, only I forgot every syllable at the moment of need, and had to improvise another ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... say. These Orientals contrive to surround themselves with such an atmosphere of mystery. But from what I know of Prince Shan," he went on, "I do not think that he is one to shirk danger—even from the ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... satisfaction at the Superintendent's choice of an assistant. Possibly he had the earlier bond robbery in mind, and expected now that another "mystery" would be solved. Scotland Yard guards many secrets which shirk the glare of publicity. Some may never be explained; but by far the larger proportion are cleared up unexpectedly by incidents which may occur months or years afterward, and whose connection with the original crime is indiscernible ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... isn't exactly the kind of boy I want in my store," said Mr. Graham. "He's a harum-scarum sort of boy, and likes to shirk his work. Then I suspect he stops to play on the way when I send him on errands. Yesterday he was five minutes longer than he need to have been in goin' to Sam Dunning's to carry some groceries. Thomas doesn't seem to appreciate his privileges in bein' connected ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... occupations that have allowed me no time for it, and have neglected to give advice of the condition of these islands, at present I have not, although my occupations are not fewer than in the past, attempted to shirk my duty in reporting what has happened this year in these regions, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... and to their posterity. But there are other duties which must be accepted, even though they entail national sacrifice, because laid at the nation's door, like Cuba, or forced upon its decision, like the Philippines. I see too clearly in myself the miserable disposition to shirk work and care, and responsibility, to condone the same in nations. I once heard a preacher thus parody effectively the words of the prophet—"Here am I, send him!" And I have heard attributed ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... it," cried Marchmont, shaking his fist at the great steamship in a paroxysm of disappointed rage. "It's only an excuse to shirk your duty! We've brought them out to you, and you've got to take them! I'll report you to the ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... cannot now think of a single person without some voluntary occupation; doubtless there are such persons, but I do not know them. It used to be said, in the old times, that 'it was human nature' to shirk and malinger and loaf, but we have found that it is no such thing. We have found that it is human nature to work cheerfully, willingly, eagerly, at the tasks which all share for the supply of the common necessities. In like manner we have found out that it is not human nature to hoard and grudge, ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... share it with her—which invitation he declines. He is indeed sick at heart—not for himself—(the professor doesn't often think of himself)—but for her. And where is she to sleep? To turn her out now would be impossible! After all, it was a puerile trifling with the Inevitable, to shirk asking Mrs. Mulcahy for something to eat for his self-imposed guest—because the question of Bed is still to come! Mrs. Mulcahy, terrible, as she undoubtedly can be, is yet the only woman in the house, and it is imperative that Perpetua should be given ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... Doctor Hugh had discovered, was morally not very brave. She was afraid of people and though the Willis will was as strong in her as in any of the others, she would not come out openly and demand her way. Rather Sarah would do as she pleased and shirk the consequences wherever possible. The doctor had had several little talks with her on this subject of fear and he was gradually teaching her to acknowledge her mistakes and wrong doings and patiently explaining at every opportunity ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... we're sure to be always meeting them. And besides, I'll be hanged if I'm going to shirk the Hickses. I spent five whole months on the Ibis, and if they ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... household is made up of mixed elements, and things might be lost; the second is that the preparations are under no particular control, with the result that, when the time comes, the servants might shirk their duties; the third is that the necessary expenditure being great, there will be reckless disbursements and counterfeit receipts; the fourth, that with the absence of any distinction in the matter of duties, whether large ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... and locked away in a drawer and forgotten; there will be nothing left but an empty bottle, and a rotten cork. Speak your faith if you would have your faith strengthened. Muzzle it, and you go a long way to kill it. You are witnesses, and you cannot blink the obligation nor shirk the duties without damaging that in yourselves to which you are ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... is the case with the Central Asian Khanates and with the protected States of India. If the work has to be done, and if we are the best fitted for the work, then I think that it would be a cowardice and a crime to shirk it." ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... could no longer delay the diplomatic encounter. 'Twas vain to accuse the others of tactlessness, and shirk the exhibition of his own tact. He exhibited it most convincingly by not informing the others that he was about to put it to ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... princesses learn the doctrine of equality very quickly, and are not going to sacrifice themselves to what is not considered de bon ton by the upper classes; and the girl with the laced hat and parasol, without underclothes, who does her best to 'shirk' her duties as housemaid, and is looking for marriage as an escape from work, is a fair copy of her mistress, who married for much the same reason, who hates housekeeping, and would rather board or do anything else than have the care of a family. The one ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... are compulsory, and must not be less than $15 a month and not more than one-half of his pay. The Company Commander is responsible for finding who comes under this rule. By this arrangement soldiers cannot shirk the support of dependents. The government will double the amount allotted by each soldier, to a limit of $37.50 a month. In cases where the soldier allots half of his pay the government will add to the allotment according to the following scale, ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... Shaw with an impatient frown. So the man, in addition to his other unattractive qualities, was turning out a shirk! Hitherto, with his strength and feverish if intermittent energy, plus an almost uncanny skill with boats, he had been of value. "Certainly not. We are going to make a careful survey of the cliffs, and explore every likely opening as thoroughly as possible. It will be slow ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... work A larger allowance of grub We need than is due if we shirk Exertion, and lounge in a pub; For the loafer who rests in a chair Everlastingly puffing at "cigs" Can live pretty nearly on air, So I gather at least ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 14, 1917 • Various
... in front of them, but should show consideration for her companions by keeping a backward place, supposing that several horses are taking their turn at jumping the only practicable part in a fence. Refusers are detested in the hunting field, and a lady whose hunter is known to shirk his fences and stir up equine rebellion, is soon classed among the large number of those who never ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... never do that, Gilbert. Her sense of duty is very strong. She told me once that her Grandmother West always impressed upon her the fact that when she assumed any responsibility she must never shirk it, no matter what the consequences might be. That is one of her cardinal rules. I ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... 'We're anxious to be grown-up frogs; But don't push in to do the work Of Nature till she prove a shirk; 'Tis not by jumps that she advances, But wins her way by circumstances; Pray, wait awhile, until you know We're so contrived as not to grow; Let Nature take her own direction, And she'll absorb our imperfection; You mightn't like 'em to appear with, But we must have ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... near Lunnun, where they make mountains just to look at; that must be much of a muchness with these here chaps. I never drift far from Wappin', when I'm at home, and so I can't say I've seen these artifice hills, as they calls them, myself; but there's one Joseph Shirk, that lives near St. Katharine's Lane, that makes trips regularly into the neighborhood, who gives quite a ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the kind that'll shirk on me when my back's turned, or steal from me if he gets a chance, or betray any trust I put in him. He's as poor as blue-John and as proud as Lucifer, but he's as straight as the barrel of that old gun. He's got Kentucky blood in him, and ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... morality. There are certain deeds which a good and honorable man would not do even to save his life; there are no deeds, which it is admitted that a statesman, acting on behalf of his country, may not do to save that country. It is foolish to try to shirk this disconcerting admission. The Machiavellian doctrine of "reason of state" is, in the last resort, the accepted standard of national conduct. This does not signify that a nation and its government admit no obligation to fulfil their promises, or even voluntarily to perform ...
— Morals of Economic Internationalism • John A. Hobson
... you have not wanted to. [Applause]. It is because you have not felt that it was your duty to vote. You have felt yourselves to be secure and happy enough in your privileges and prerogatives, and have left the great mass of your sisters, that shed tears and bore burdens, to shirk for themselves. You have felt that you had rights more than you wanted now. O yes, it is as if a beauty in Fifth Avenue, hearing one plead that bread might be sent to the hungry and famishing, should say, "What is this talk about bread for? ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... many I have been obliged to shirk this year, for the sake of living almost solely with "Cecilia," none have had less patience with my retirement than Miss Palmer, who, bitterly believing I intended never to visit her again, has forborne sending me any invitations: but, about three weeks ago, my father had a note from ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... there are four children. I have no doubt they are as queer, and old-fashioned, and untrained as possible. It would be like their mother to bring them up in that sort of style. Well, at least I am not the one to shirk my duty, and I certainly see it now staring me in the face. I am the wife of a hard-working vicar; I work hard myself, and I have five children of my own; but never mind, I am prepared to do my best for those poor deserted orphans. Ah, and here we are ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... evidently weighing on his mind. At last he spoke: "It is our duty," he said, "to see that the movement be not unduly crippled by the loss of these two men. Poor fellows, they are doing their duty by the Cause, and we must not shirk ours. The Bomb must be kept going at all costs; we can ill afford to lose two workers just now, but the loss of the paper would be a yet more severe blow to our movement. How thankful I am that you are with us! It is always so. The ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... not allow his patience to be abused with evil intent. He read his suppliants swiftly. The profiteer, the shirk, the fraud of any sort, was instantly unmasked. "I'll have nothing to do with this business," he burst out after listening to a gentlemanly profiteer; "nor with any man who comes to me with such degrading ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... other countries, and we think we may safely say, that we have more men of that class, in this country, who devote themselves to the high duties of their station, regardless of its pleasures, than in any other: men who recognize practically the responsibility of their rank, and do not shirk from them; men who think they have something to do, and something to repay, for the accidents of birth and fortune—who, in the senate, in the field, or in the less prominent, but not less noble, career of private life, act, as they feel, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... quickly: "I'll tell you exactly what I think, Mr. Burns: Auntie Sue said we were to be good children, and take care of things until she returned. She did not say for me to shirk my part by going to neighbor Tom's or by having any one come here. Don't you think we can do exactly ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... you shirk the thing," sneered the man with the long nose and the peaked chin; "have you had enough to-day, or do you fear the ghost of ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... cakes and sweet things, and sung out when they went to bed for the maid-servant to put on their night-caps; these sort of fellows are seldom worth much, either in school or out of it. They fudge their lessons and shirk their work at play; regular do-nothing Molly ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... knew, or did not know, she did not shirk her share of the work. She stayed up after everybody else had retired and washed every pot and pan and plate, and set her bread to rise for morning, and stirred up a big pitcher of flapjack flour to rise over night, peeled ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... faithless where boys are concerned, and I can't help secretly approving pretty bad and noisy ones, though I do object to the kind that ring door-bells. My family try to get me to stop the boys from holding conventions on the front steps, but I basely shirk out of it, because I think ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... you going to do about this? It is largely your business. You cannot shirk it and say that you send the boy to school, and it is the teacher's business to ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... at his best in a thing of this kind; he had always envied Roy his easy, bantering manner, but he was not the one to shirk a duty, so ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... thought of the excuses she would have to invent. And not a word, till Mr. Manisty was safely started on his way to that function at the Vatican which he was already grumbling over, which he would certainly shirk if he could. But, thank Heaven, it was not possible for him to ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... their ability to bear healthy, well-formed children, and even their ability to nurse such as are born to them; and such deformed women walk into and out of our churches as examples to young girls, without one word of admonition. And some church members deliberately shirk the responsibility of rearing families of children, either because it is not fashionable to have large families, or because children would interfere with their selfish or sensual enjoyment; and this is not the worst which could be ...
— Personal Experience of a Physician • John Ellis
... he returned, drawing his lips down savagely, "to give us a bit of information which we found of value. Very likely we might have hit upon it somewhere else, but that's no matter, as long as we did get it through you. We've no inclination to shirk our ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... your Punch hears of you? Can't you dissipate his fears? Did the bugle ring out vainly for the British Grenadiers? Once the regiment was famous for its deeds of derring-do, And you followed where the flag went when on alien winds it flew. Has the soldiers' "oath of duty" been forgotten, that you shirk, Not the face of foe, we're certain, but this ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 19, 1890 • Various
... you want of me," answered Oswyn shrewdly. "You said in your note that it was on a matter of vital importance to a friend of mine. I haven't so many friends that I can afford to shirk a little trouble in a matter which vitally concerns one of them. May I ask, in the first ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... shall notice that the child has a personality which he is seeking to expand; he has initiative, he chooses his own work, persists in it, changes it according to his inner needs; he does not shirk effort, he rather goes in search of it, and with great joy overcomes obstacles within his capacity. He is sociable to the extent of wanting to share with every one his successes, his discoveries, and his little triumphs. ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori
... It was felt that a slur would be left upon the whole district if his lordship actually met with the only sort of reception which was predicted for him on Mulfera. Bishop Methuen, however, was one of the last men on earth to shirk a plague-spot; and on this one, warning was eventually received that the Bishop and his chaplain would arrive on horseback the following Sunday morning, to conduct divine service, if ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... advances supplies watches his negro customers constantly; if they are working well and their crop promises to be large, he will permit and even encourage them to draw upon him liberally; it is only a partial failure of the crop, or some intimation of the negro's intention to shirk his obligations, that induces his country factor to preach the virtue of self-restraint, or moralize ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... federal territories, he is right to say so. But he should, at the same time, brave the responsibility of declaring that, in his opinion, he understands their principles better than they did themselves; and especially should he not shirk that responsibility by asserting that they "understood the question just as well, and even better, than ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... 'The Curlew' in ten days," Raed remarked. "And I don't think we had better leave here, to go off any great distance, till we feel sure she's not coming back for us. If she's not back in two weeks, I shall think we have got to shirk for ourselves." ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... never be a great administrator or agriculturist; for though I do not mean to shirk my duties, I could not devote my whole life to them,—for the simple reason that my aspirations aim much higher. Sometimes I ask myself whether we Ploszowskis do not delude ourselves as to our abilities. But if such were ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... Doubtless, as bringing preservation to their country, it implies preservation of themselves withal; but intrinsically it is the harshest duty a wise man, if he be indeed wise, has laid to his hand. A duty which he would fain enough shirk; which accordingly, in these sad times of doubt and cowardly sloth, he has long everywhere been endeavoring to reduce to its minimum, and has in fact in most cases nearly escaped altogether. It is an ungoverned world; a world which we flatter ourselves will ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... here to face calmly the necessity of doing away with a human life. I didn't shirk it for a moment. That's what a short twelvemonth has brought me to. Don't think I am reproaching you, O blind force! You are justified because you are. Whatever had to happen you would not even have ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... River was very high and there was water to a considerable depth in the ravine. Here the enemy made a last desperate effort to turn our flank, but was repelled. The gunboats Tyler and Lexington, Gwin and Shirk commanding, with the artillery under Webster, aided the army and effectually checked their further progress. Before any of Buell's troops had reached the west bank of the Tennessee, firing had almost entirely ceased; anything like an attempt on the part of the enemy to advance had ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... husband has married again, and his wife has borne him safely three daughters and a son. Each one of my six girl chums is the mother of a family. Now and again in my experience some woman has shirked a duty. But I have never yet met a woman who dared to shirk a happiness. Duties repeat themselves. There is no ...
— Different Girls • Various
... careless man. This method offers peculiar advantages for interpolation, as there is always a blank page opposite the one on which I am writing. After correcting the manuscript, it is put in typewriting and again revised. There are also two revisions of the proof. While I do not shirk the tasks which approach closely to drudgery, especially since my eyesight is not so good as it was, I also obtain expert assistance. I find that when a page has become very familiar and I am rather tired of it, my mind wanders from the close, fixed ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... Grettir's adventure on the ridge in the summer. Thorbjorn Oxmain praised Grettir's conduct, and said that Kormak would have had the worst of it if no one had come to part them. Then Thorbjorn Slowcoach said: "What I saw of Grettir's fighting was not famous; and he seemed inclined to shirk when we came up. He was very ready to leave off, nor did I see him make any attempt to avenge the death of Atli's man. I do not believe there is much heart in him, except when he has ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... of courage is that people have a right to feel frightened, but that they have no right to fail to do the job even if they are frightened. They are entitled to their feelings, but they are not entitled to shirk the necessary work of war. She believes that cowardice is not like other failings of weakness, which are pretty much man's own business. Cowardice ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... future will want a vast effusion of feeling and passion to carry it into action, and feeling and passion are only to be generated in sufficient volume among the masses, where the vested interests of all kinds are less tremendous. You upper-class folk have your part, of course. Woe betide you if you shirk it—but——' ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... brow contracted slightly, but his habitual self-control concealed completely the inclination to strangle his bright-eyed, over-dressed inquisitor. He was the last man to shirk the vicissitudes of playful speech, and he preferred this mood of Selma's to her solemn style, although his ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... the purpose of settling disputes, we can not but remember that the peace we now enjoy had to be won by the sword and that if the rights of our country are to be defended we can not rely for that purpose upon anyone but ourselves. We can not shirk the responsibility, which is the first requisite of all government, of preserving its own integrity and maintaining the rights of its own citizens. It is only in accordance with these principles that we can establish any lasting foundations for ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Calvin Coolidge • Calvin Coolidge
... hands in horror at some of the names chosen to serve on committees. "If a secretary proves inefficient, the others will very soon call her a 'slacker,' and she will have to reform or resign. It will be a question of public opinion. A girl may shirk her lessons in school and her classmates don't much care, but if she shirks the work she has undertaken to do for a society they will be very indignant. These clubs are an elementary object-lesson in community life, and will teach that each individual ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... for me to meet him on his boat, and ordered me to push on under escort of the two gunboats, Lexington and Tyler, commanded by Captains Gwin and Shirk, United States Navy. I was to land at some point below Eastport, and make a break of the Memphis & Charleston Railroad, between Tuscumbia and Corinth. General Smith was quite unwell, and was suffering from his leg, which ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... Chevalier de la Darante to her at dinner, some weeks ago, 'if I were young, I should adore you.' 'Monsieur,' she answered, 'you use that "if" to shirk the responsibility.' That put him on his mettle. 'Then, by the gods, I adore you now,' he answered. 'If I were young, I should blush to hear you say so,' was her reply. 'I empty out my heart, and away trips the disdainful nymph with ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... man!"—with savage irritability—"you don't suppose I'm enjoying it, do you? But I've no way out. I took a certain responsibility on myself—and I must see it through. I can't shirk it now, just because pay-day's come. I can do nothing ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... learned scholar he, Yet simple as a child could be. He'd shirk his meal to sit and cram A goodish deal of Eton Gram. No man alive could him nonplus With vocative of filius; No man alive more fully knew The passive of a verb or two; None better knew the worth than he ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... free men of England should no longer be seized by the King's special mandate or warrant, it being contrary to their rights and liberties and the laws of their country. At first the King returned an answer to this petition, in which he tried to shirk it altogether; but, the House of Commons then showing their determination to go on with the impeachment of Buckingham, the King in alarm returned an answer, giving his consent to all that was required of him. He not only afterwards departed from his word and ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... ambition had scope to work— Riches, they say, are a burden at best; Her onerous burden she did not shirk, But carried it all with commendable zest; Leaving her husband with nothing in life But to smoke, eat, drink, and obey his wife. She built a house with a double front-door, A marble house in the modern style, With silver planks in the entry floor, ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... not move on with William as happily after marriage as before, and while his wife did most of the work, the Bard of Nature preferred to shirk hard labor in field and wood, longing constantly to meet the "boys" at the tavern, or fish, sing, hunt and ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... first place, if I'm not a match in wits for Jake Elliott, I've no business to continue captain, and I've no right to shirk any trial of skill that he may choose to make. Besides you're my brother, and it will make the other boys think I'm partial if you stay here with me. Go back there and sleep by the fire. I'll ...
— Captain Sam - The Boy Scouts of 1814 • George Cary Eggleston
... she said, each word coming with an effort, "as much on your account as on my own." Then, and it seemed to me merely a truly feminine attempt to shirk responsibility, she added, "I am glad my going will be ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... she communed within herself, "is that the household is made up of mixed elements, and things might be lost; the second is that the preparations are under no particular control, with the result that, when the time comes, the servants might shirk their duties; the third is that the necessary expenditure being great, there will be reckless disbursements and counterfeit receipts; the fourth, that with the absence of any distinction in the matter of duties, whether large or small, hardship and ease will be unequally shared; and the fifth, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... autopsy—I am sure it is a new poison we have liberated!" If the vast majority of men shrink from and evade irksome labor with their muscles—even though life and comfort depend upon it—a still vaster majority shirk the disciplined toil and tension of the mind, which, if it have real purpose, makes little of the only rewards that spur ...
— On the Vice of Novel Reading. - Being a brief in appeal, pointing out errors of the lower tribunal. • Young E. Allison
... angry and felt wronged, because he could not get at Alethea to give her a piece of his mind any more than he had been able to get at his father. "It is so mean of people," he exclaimed to himself, "to inflict an injury of this sort, and then shirk facing those whom they have injured; let us hope that, at any rate, they and I may meet in Heaven." But of this he was doubtful, for when people had done so great a wrong as this, it was hardly to be supposed that they would go to Heaven at all—and as for his meeting ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... implies the existence of a universe maker, and that we may deduce from it some of His attributes, His power, His wisdom, His forethought for small wants, His providing of luxuries for His creatures. On the other hand, do not let us be disingenuous enough to shirk the mystery which lies in pain, in cruelty, in all which seems to be a slur upon His work. The best that we can say for them is to hope that they are not as bad as they seem, and possibly lead to some higher end. The voices of the ill-used child and ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... do so," Ned replied. "I promised the governor to stand by him to the last; and as he has scarce a soul on whom he can rely, it is clearly my duty to do so. It is not for me to shirk doing my duty as long as I can, because I fear that the day will ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... and courage without a moment's change in her routine and on insufficient sleep can only be explained by the twin facts that she came of hardy peasant stock, and, like all French children, no matter how individual, was too thoroughly imbued with the discipline of "The Family" to shirk for a moment the particular task that war had brought her. This iron discipline of The Family, one of the most salient characteristics of the French, is largely responsible for the matter-of-fact way in which every soldier of France, reservist ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Lord, man!"—with savage irritability—"you don't suppose I'm enjoying it, do you? But I've no way out. I took a certain responsibility on myself—and I must see it through. I can't shirk it now, just because pay-day's come. I can do nothing ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... made up for my failings." (Now[FN30] the merchant, O my daughter, understood all that passed between them.) Next day the driver took the Bull, and settling the plough on his neck,[FN31] made him work as wont; but the Bull began to shirk his ploughing, according to the advice of the Ass, and the ploughman drubbed him till he broke the yoke and made off; but the man caught him up and leathered him till he despaired of his life. Not the less, however, would he do nothing but stand still and drop down till ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... I would wish that it were not I, but somebody else that should say it. Most of our workmen are putting every ounce of strength into this urgent work for their country, loyally and patriotically. But that is not true of all. There are some, I am sorry to say, who shirk their duty in this great emergency. I hear of workmen in armaments works who refuse to work a full week's work for the nation's need. What is the reason? They are a minority. The vast majority belong to a class we can depend upon. The others are ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... player, of forty years' standing, but, like Parolles I was "made for every man to breathe himself on." When my form is espied near the links, the players shirk off as if I were a leper. They are afraid I may want to make a match with them, and there is no falsehood from which they will shrink, in their desire to escape me. Even Ladies,—but this is a delicate theme. Beginners breathe themselves ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 16, 1892 • Various
... a man to shirk responsibilities. It is true, dark days had come to him, when a crushing burden had well-nigh smothered him, and a bullet to still his fevered brain had seemed far sweeter to Paul than all else life might hold for him. But Paul ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... striking look, while the bedrooms were matted, daintily furnished, carefully appointed as for a bride. Much thought and trouble, much detailed labor, had gone to the making of this odd nest in a Wyoming canyon. Whatever one must think of Prosper Gael, it is difficult to shirk heartache on his account. A man of his temperament does not lightly undertake even a companioned isolation in a winter land. To picture what place of torment this well-appointed cabin was to him before ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... as strangest of all, good comrade," I observed pleasantly to the tripping presence at my elbow, "is that these countrymen of yours who shirk to climb a flight of steps, and have palms as soft as rose petals, these wide ways paved with stones as hard as a ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... Hunt, who seemed driven by a demon of quiet energy, preferred to do most of it himself. Frank got the impression that to the elder man occupation was an anodyne for some secret sorrow. Although the subaltern had no wish to shirk his duty he could not but be glad that his superior officer seemed always ready to dispense with his aid, for thus he would find it easier to get ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... that those who so ardently advocate the acceptance of Lord Kimberley's offer, in all their speeches, addresses, and articles, almost entirely shirk this question of defence, which is, after all, the root of the matter. I have formed my estimate of the number of men forthcoming in time of danger, on the supposition that a burgher law was in force in Natal, that is, that every man remaining ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... to be ill," Cicely said forlornly. "They say it would never have come, if he had only been here to manage things. He couldn't help having pneumonia and going away; but I do wish they had left that out. It's like throwing the blame on him for something he couldn't help. He isn't the man to shirk ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... this was a topsy-turvy world. She herself took her duties seriously, and had not yet been sufficiently with grown-up people to learn to shirk work. She washed and dressed the little ones. They were full of life, mischievous and unmanageable, and she had as much as she could do in looking after the three of them. As soon as they saw an opportunity, the two eldest would slip away from her, naked as they were; then she had to tie ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... the existence of a race, with all its immeasurable possibilities of sin and suffering, is one from which the boldest might recoil. But the only effective way of improving the lot of man is to rear up a new generation of better stock. For the reflecting to shirk parentage is to make over the future to the spawn of unreflecting indulgence. In the world's great field of battle no duty is higher than to keep the ranks of the forces of Light well filled with recruits. It is to no holiday that our offspring are called—rather ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... honest yes or no." He gesticulated. "Well, but life is very dull in Deptford village, and it amuses you to twist a Queen's adviser around your finger! I see it plainly, you minx, and I acquiesce because it delights me to give you pleasure, even at the cost of some dignity. Yet I may no longer shirk the Queen's business,—no, not even to amuse ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... returning fugitives. They both scorned the business, and Robt. M., would cut off his right hand, rather than engage in it. He only meant that other people should do what would degrade him. He was not a good citizen, and did not intend to be. As for his Reverence, he would shirk his Christian duties; would not pray by that lamppost, or any other lamp-post, for the success of slave-catchers. He had turned his back upon Paul, and had fallen from grace since preaching his famous sermon. ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... is an Idea behind this war—whether on our own side or on that of the enemy. A dangerous question, this!—a question posed again and again by the jingoes and the fanatics of history, and invariably answered according to the dictates of their own convenience. And yet a question which we dare not shirk, a question which a Carlyle, a Ruskin, a William Morris would not have hesitated to formulate. Does Britain stand for an Idea? Is it true that we are fighting in the main for the cause of Liberty and Democracy, for progress in Europe and the world at large? ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... thinking consciously how fine it was, made them drop the bunt of the foresail twice to try and do it better? What? They had no professional reputation—no examples, no praise. It wasn't a sense of duty; they all knew well enough how to shirk, and laze, and dodge—when they had a mind to it—and mostly they had. Was it the two pounds ten a month that sent them there? They didn't think their pay half good enough. No; it was something in them, something inborn and subtle and everlasting. I don't say positively ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... Commissioner knew what he was about in uttering his satisfaction at the Superintendent's choice of an assistant. Possibly he had the earlier bond robbery in mind, and expected now that another "mystery" would be solved. Scotland Yard guards many secrets which shirk the glare of publicity. Some may never be explained; but by far the larger proportion are cleared up unexpectedly by incidents which may occur months or years afterward, and whose connection with the original ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... is possible for the strong pupil to monopolize the values of the work by imposing his ideas upon his fellows and by doing all the work while the slower pupils are getting ready to begin. In the same way it is possible for the lazy pupil to shirk much of his responsibility through the eagerness of his companions. It is therefore necessary to maintain a balance by the use of individual problems of a more definite type. These may often be specific parts ...
— Primary Handwork • Ella Victoria Dobbs
... are some among us who would shirk, would avoid the high and lofty duty. There are some who would profane the name of love, and hide behind it to save their own cowardly skins. To these ignoble ones there is but one course left open. Go. Put your name on the roster of your country as a free man, unmarried and without ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... cause of sight-seeing, but as neither words nor gestures prove intelligible to Western obtuseness, a brown coolie seizes each arm, and rushes us up a grassy hill to a huge cavern, hung with myriad bats, and containing a pool of crystal water. The simple minds of these kindly mountaineers shirk no trouble for the benefit of the stranger, who, though regarded as a madman, must be humoured as such, not only to the top of his bent, but often beyond it. A descent through rice-fields and desas skirts the serrated cliffs of Gedeh's northward side, though tree-ferns ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... toward the door and halting, remarked: "Yes, may think better when he's by hisse'f, but not as fast. When he's got thinkin' to do that he don't want to do he mout shirk it if left by hisse'f. Well, I'll give you a leetle mo' time, but not much. My plan is that when you've got a bad piece of work on hand, git through with it as soon as possible. I'm goin' down the road a piece an' will drap in on my way back," ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... and the case might in fact have been serious had she not, by good fortune, from the moment the picture loomed, quickly made up her mind that what finally most concerned her was neither to seek nor to shirk, was not even to wonder too much, but was to let things come as they would, since there was little enough doubt of how ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... sxildi, sxirmi. Shift (garment) cxemizo. Shift movi, transporti. Shilling sxilingo. Shin tibio. Shine brili. Shingle sxindo—eto. Shining brila. Ship sxipo. Ship ensxipigi. Shipwreck sxippereo. Shipwright sxipfaristo. Shire graflando. Shirk eviti. Shirt cxemizo. Shiver tremeti. Shoal fisxaro. Shock frapo. Shocking terura. Shoe sxuo. Shoes, boots, etc. piedvesto. Shoot (tree) brancxeto. Shoot (to bud) gxermi. Shoot (a gun) pafi. Shoot (to kill) mortpafi. Shop butiko. Shore marbordo. Shore up subteni. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... have helped. The affair on Dee-side took place December 18th, 1684. On the 11th of the same month (just after Renwick's proclamation of war) a party of men, headed by James Macmichael, murdered Peter Peirson, minister of Carsphairn, at his own door. Wodrow cannot shirk this fact: he finds it detestable, and generally denounced and disowned by the more respectable of the Covenanters; but he also manages to find as many excuses for it as he conveniently can in the provocation given by the victim. Peirson, he says, was "a surly, ill-natured man, and horridly severe." ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... was sitting big with rage, but her words were cordial still: "Indeed, Mr. Albumblatt, the way officers who have influence in Washington shirk duty here and get details East is something I can't laugh about. At one time the Captain was his own adjutant and quartermaster. There are more officers at this table to-night than I've seen in three years. So we are doubly glad to welcome you ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... of us, he had no proper training in biological science, and it has always struck me as a remarkable instance of his scientific insight, that he saw the necessity of giving himself such training, and of his courage, that he did not shirk ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... commission, stating why I feel myself constrained, even in the presence of the enemy, to endeavour to rescue my cousin from the band that has carried him off. At any rate, it could not be said that I resigned in order to shirk danger. ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... first principle was always to turn up the best card, and whose second principle was never to shirk a duel, had gone to St. Petersburg in 1759 with the Baron de St. Heleine. Elizabeth was still on the throne, but Peter, Duke of Holstein, the heir-presumptive, had already begun to loom large on the horizon. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... against our sacred front They muster, miles on miles, I am resolved to stick the brunt," Said bold HORATIUS BYLES; "For Liberty I'll take my stand, Just like a stout Berserk, And still defend with bloody brand Our glorious Right to Shirk. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 12, 1916 • Various
... to introduce slavery into a free Sovereign State, then was England not so guilty in the first instance, for she sent slaves from a land of ignorance, cruelty, and idolatry, to an enlightened and Christian colony. It is in vain for either England or the United States to shirk the guilty responsibility of introducing slaves on free soil. England has the additional guilt of having acted against the wishes of the colonists; the United States has the additional guilt of increasing ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... I wake me up to work; I pray the Lord I may not shirk. If I should die before the night, I pray the Lord my work's ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... of the others were at all afraid to have run the risk. It was from no desire to shirk the danger that they had appointed Ossaroo to undertake it; but simply because, once outside, the shikaree would be far better able to find his way down the mountains: and in his native language could readily communicate ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... brethren at every street corner!" continued she. "Well; I didn't mean to dabble in witchcraft to-day, further than the lighting of my pipe, but a witch I am, and a witch I'm likely to be, and there's no use trying to shirk it. I'll make a man of my scarecrow, were it only ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... whoever else might shirk, He set his hand to every honest work,— Farmer and teacher, court ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... free to act without control; I ne'er have cherished hate for such as thee. Of all the spirits who deny, The scoffer is least wearisome to me. Ever too prone is man activity to shirk, In unconditioned rest he fain would live; Hence this companion purposely I give, Who stirs, excites, and must, as devil, work. But ye, the genuine sons of heaven, rejoice! In the full living beauty still rejoice! May that ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... boy to shirk work, and directing his brother to bring the cups, he sent his aide for the coffee while he prepared a ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... decline, while the rate of immigrant foreigners greatly exceeds it. The higher the degree of comfort and luxury in the home the smaller the birth-rate seems to be a principle of social experience. There are selfish people who shirk the responsibilities and troubles of parenthood, and there are social diseases that tend to sterility, but the childless home is always an incomplete home. Children are the crown of marriage, the ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... emperor you scorn, Seems to my mind a monarch born, Worthy to lead a column; I'll warrant he could talk and work, And, neither being used to shirk, Was rarely very solemn. ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... admonished Grace lightly, "I don't imagine that everything will be plain sailing this year. That would be asking too much. Still I hope I shall not have any serious misunderstandings with my girls. I'm going to remember my motto, 'Blessed are they that have found their work,' and not shirk anything that comes within the line ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... a snap for their dinners, or the chance of Eliza catching some young officer; and very few come while this peace goes on. I won't shirk my ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... duty, than it does now—though, even now, I must confess things have occasionally to be done by the clergyman because there is no one else to do them, and hardly from other motive than a sense of duty,—a man not being able to shirk work because it may happen to be dirty)—I say, as I wanted to do my work well, or rather, perhaps, because I dreaded drudgery as much as any poor fellow who comes to the treadmill in consequence—I wanted to interest ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... fits the other one pat." Rap! Rap! Bang! "What a hideous clatter! Blaise seems determined to batter That poor old turkey into bits, And pound to jelly my excellent wits. Come, come, Martin, you mustn't shirk. 'The night cometh soon'—etc. Don't jerk Me up like that. 'Essence de la Valliere'— That has a charmingly Bourbon air. And, oh! Magnificent! Listen to this!— 'Vinaigre des Quatre Voleurs'. Nothing amiss With that—England, ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... careful consideration. She should be known to be honest, honorable, competent, healthy, and personally clean in habits and dress, and she should be tactful, obliging, and she should attend to her own affairs strictly. She should not be a gossip; she should not shirk her work or pry into family affairs that do not concern her; and she should not drag into the conversation her own ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... better for them had they listened to the first lieutenant's admonition and come quietly down from aloft, to receive at a proper time the punishment which they richly deserved. But they must needs attempt to shirk it, with the consequences which you have all witnessed; and, so far as I am concerned, I can only say that I think they have met with no more than ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... at once. [Exit ORDERLY.] The very men Who meanly shirk their service to the crown! A breach of duty to be remedied, For disaffection like an ulcer spreads Until the caustic ointment of the law, Sternly applied, ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... shirk the boasting foe, And to march and countermarch our brave Till they fall like ghosts in the marshes low, And swamp-grass covers each nameless grave; Nor another, whose fatal banners wave Aye in Disaster's shameful van; Nor another, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... culminating point, when one day—mother, children, and maid all out—he stole up softly to the children's nursery. This small attic room, close to the roof, low, insufficiently ventilated, was altogether too much for Sandy. The time had come for him to act, and he was never the man to shirk action in any way. Charlotte Harman was all very well; that dying father of hers, whom he pronounced a most atrocious sinner, and took pleasure in so thinking him, he also was well enough, but everything could not give way to them. Though for the present ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... perfect and so pure as to be a secret unto itself; a clear, serene composure of truth, mingling so freely and smoothly with the issues of life, that while, and perhaps even because she is herself unconscious of it, she is never once tempted to abuse or to shirk her trust, though it be to play the attorney in a cause that makes so much against herself. In this respect she presents an instructive contrast to Malvolio, who has much virtue indeed, yet not so much but that the counter-pullings have rendered him intensely ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... Mr. Sabin said quietly, "to shirk my share of the work in any undertaking with which I am connected. Only in this case I claim to take the place of the Countess Lucille, my wife. I request that the task, whatever it may be which you have imposed upon her, may be transferred ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... place, that the Government of the United States does not shirk responsibility. It puts the code into the hands of its officers "for the government of all persons attached to the naval service," and is doubtless prepared to stand by the rules contained in it, as being in accordance with international law. ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... it on the grander journey." He persevered through much difficulty; which he described six weeks later, with characteristic glance at his own ways when writing, in a letter from the office of his journal. "I came here last night, to evade my usual day in the week—in fact to shirk it—and get back to Gad's for five or six consecutive days. My reason is, that I am exceedingly anxious to begin my book. I am bent upon getting to work at it. I want to prepare it for the spring; but I am determined not to begin to publish with less than five ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... justify the present in the past. What in the sapphire volume of the skies Is writ by God's own finger misleads none, But him whose vain and misinstructed eyes, They mock with misinterpretation, Or who, mistaking what he rightly read, Ill commentary makes, or misapplies Thinking to shirk or thwart it. Which has done The wisdom of this venerable head; Who, well provided with the secret key To that gold alphabet, himself made me, Himself, I say, the savage he fore-read Fate somehow should be charged with; nipp'd the growth ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... not think so, for he motioned away a bowl of the delightful mixture, though it was proffered him by the fair hands of Mrs. Mudge. The lady was somewhat surprised, and said, roughly, "I shouldn't wonder if he was only trying to shirk." ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... the summer. Thorbjorn Oxmain praised Grettir's conduct, and said that Kormak would have had the worst of it if no one had come to part them. Then Thorbjorn Slowcoach said: "What I saw of Grettir's fighting was not famous; and he seemed inclined to shirk when we came up. He was very ready to leave off, nor did I see him make any attempt to avenge the death of Atli's man. I do not believe there is much heart in him, except when he has a sufficient ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... aristocracies of other countries, and we think we may safely say, that we have more men of that class, in this country, who devote themselves to the high duties of their station, regardless of its pleasures, than in any other: men who recognize practically the responsibility of their rank, and do not shirk from them; men who think they have something to do, and something to repay, for the accidents of birth and fortune—who, in the senate, in the field, or in the less prominent, but not less noble, career of private life, act, as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... doctored numbers, Life is but a name for work! For the labour that encumbers Me I wish that I could shirk. ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams
... lawful for man to possess property. Moreover this is necessary to human life for three reasons. First because every man is more careful to procure what is for himself alone than that which is common to many or to all: since each one would shirk the labor and leave to another that which concerns the community, as happens where there is a great number of servants. Secondly, because human affairs are conducted in more orderly fashion if each man is charged with taking care of some particular thing himself, whereas there would be confusion ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... There may be times when I shan't know that she isn't happy—a lack of perspective or something. If ever there comes a time like that and you know of it, don't spare me. I have taken the responsibility of her youth upon my shoulders and I am not going to shirk. It will be her happiness ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... I could do to justify my comfortable existence here during such a time of horror. What right had I to shirk in a quiet bookshop when so many men were suffering and dying through no fault of their own? I tried to get into an ambulance unit, but I've had no medical training and they said they didn't want men of my age unless ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... abode until the amount is paid. If inability to meet the debt has been pleaded, then this self-made bailiff will insist on taking so much per cent. out of the daily receipts; if it is a mere case of obstinacy, a desire to shirk a just responsibility, the place is made so hot for its owner that he is glad to get rid of his visitor at any price whatever. Were manual violence resorted to, the interference of the local officials would be absolutely necessary; and in all cases where personal ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... upon subsequent literature, we cannot afford to neglect its ethical bearings. This inquiry must necessarily lead us beyond the sphere of literary criticism proper, but it is a task which one who has undertaken to give an account of pastoral literature has no right to shirk. ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... that thousands of foreigners are each year added to the voting population, whose ballots in the aggregate defeat the will of our enlightened, American-born citizens. Besides, it is a too convenient way for a legislature to shirk its own responsibility. If the demand is made, I hope it may be done in connection with that for municipal ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Juan de Dios Mr. Christy climbed to the top of the Diligence, behind the conductor, who sat with a large black leather bag full of stones on the footboard before him. Whenever one of the nine mules showed a disposition to shirk his work, a heavy stone came flying at him, always hitting him in a tender place, for long practice had made the conductor almost as good a shot as the goat-herds in the mountains, who are said to be able to hit their goats on whichever horn they please, and so to steer ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... best," he said. "Take my advice and dip your hands in the tar bucket without delay, and don't shirk anything the mate puts you to. My father is pretty gruff now and then, but old Growl is a regular rough one. He does not say much to me, but you will have to look out for squalls. Come, we had better go on deck, or old Growl will think that I have been putting you up to mischief. He will soon pick ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... a man here before me can afford to shirk his duty to his country. The slacker can't get along without his country, but his country can very ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... satisfying them. She cared little to realise the minor possibilities of wealth. The great purpose, the noble end to which her active life had shaped itself, was sternly present before her; she would not shirk its demands. But there was lacking the inspiration of joy. Could she harden herself to every personal desire, and forget, in devotion to others, the sickness of one great hope deferred? Did her ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... Bloody Mary and the massacre of St. Bartholomew had roused the indignation of Englishmen to the highest pitch. They were ready for any risk in open war against France and Spain, but Queen Elizabeth was always trying to shirk responsibility; and so the sea-captains who would avenge the wrongs done to the Protestants were obliged to run the risk of being condemned ...
— Newfoundland and the Jingoes - An Appeal to England's Honor • John Fretwell
... mountains just to look at; that must be much of a muchness with these here chaps. I never drift far from Wappin', when I'm at home, and so I can't say I've seen these artifice hills, as they calls them, myself; but there's one Joseph Shirk, that lives near St. Katharine's Lane, that makes trips regularly into the neighborhood, who gives quite a particular ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... nephew preached the missionary sermon—he was a stout young man with a volcanic voice—Mrs. Macfadyen could not shirk her duty, but she gave her judgment ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... and, not feeling up to his position, has a very strong disposition to back out of it. The man who really wishes he were a boy, is either painfully conscious of the loss of the purity of his boyhood, or he has the cowardly disposition to shirk the responsibilities of his life. The romantic regard which we all entertain for the simple animal content and joy of childhood, is a very different thing to this. It was Mr. Neal's loafer that really wished ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... once. It was a painful operation and he needed help. I was within hearing of this, and I was in great alarm. Sophie looked so too, and I don't think she liked disagreeable things any better than her brother, but she was a woman, and could not shirk them as ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... and every sense was keenly awake. A tapping, metallic sound at once arose either upon his chair or Viola's, and the horn, or whatever it was, floated dimly into view, then vanished, and a moment later the voice of the chief "control" entered his right ear: "Man of science, do not shirk your duty. Here now we offer you a chance to solve the ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... know that nine-tenths of your statesmen and higher officials, military and naval, are suffering from kidney diseases, which weaken their courage and will-power, and make them shirk all responsibility as far ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... it, and what is to come after it, just as other men do. I have accepted your party and your programme, and I mean to stick to them. I see that the political situation is difficult and exciting, and I don't intend to shirk. But I am no more going to slay my private life and interests at the altar of politics than my father did when he was in Parliament. If the revolution is coming, it will come in spite of you and me. And, moreover—if you will let me say so—I am convinced ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Elmer and the other children found more time to shirk, and, seeing his eagerness and ability to do so many things that he had not before understood, the family forced the poor little tired form to work far beyond its strength. But without complaint Edwin strove to do all the work assigned ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... effects upon the degraded crowds which witnessed public executions - is no longer apposite. But it may still be urged with no little force that the extreme severity of the sentence induces all concerned in the conviction of the accused to shirk the responsibility. Informers, prosecutors, witnesses, judges, and jurymen are, as a rule, liable to reluctance as to the performance of their respective parts in the melancholy drama.' The consequence is that 'the benefit of the doubt,' while salving the consciences of these servants ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... to do slipshod, evasive, hypocritical work? Can you afford to shirk, or make-believe or practise pretense in any act of life? No, no; for all the time you are molding yourself into a deformity, and drifting away from the Divine. What the world does and says about you is really no matter, but what you think and what you do are questions vital as Fate. No ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... said Dunn. "Look here, Teresa! Without knowing it, you lifted me out of hell just now; and because of the wrong I might have done her—for her sake, I spare you and shirk ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... that," he said; "your friend looks as if he needed it badly. We want every man we can get," he added; "there's terrible work before us, and nobody should shirk. If you can do no more, you ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... feels himself to be an honest man and will not shirk his part in the common cause"—the lame man tried to wriggle ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... from representing her as she really is. The suffragist is a true product of our era of liberty. Having received the same education as man, she knows and does not shirk her responsibilities towards her family; but at the same time she is free from prejudice and deems it her duty to cooeperate with man in all work concerning social reform and the public welfare ...
— The Woman and the Right to Vote • Rafael Palma
... the theatres. March's devotion to his work made him reluctant to delegate it to any one; and as the summer advanced, and the question of where to go grew more vexed, he showed a man's base willingness to shirk it for himself by not going anywhere. He asked his wife why she did not go somewhere with the children, and he joined her in a search for non-malarial regions on the map when she consented to entertain this notion. But when it came to the point she would not go; he offered to go with her then, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... and is offensive to every one. Never allow a napkin to be placed on the table until it has been well aired. There is often a conspiracy between the waiter and the laundress in great houses, both wishing to shirk work, the result of which is that the napkins, not prepared at the proper time, are put on ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... by the nature of his mission to exceed the legal limit (as when hurrying, for instance, to fetch a doctor in a matter of life or death, or to inform the Government of the landing of a hostile force) he is anxious not to shirk the penalty. He will, therefore, send on a swift messenger to warn the police to be on the lookout for him; and if he fails to run into any trap he will, on returning, report himself at all the police-stations on his route, or communicate by post with the constabularies ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton
... gratifying for me to have shared the last sad hours with you and Vesta; but malice is no part of my nature, and I am quite ready to overlook the neglect. You and Vesta must miss Phoebe sadly, and be very lonely, and I feel it a duty that I must not shirk to come and show you both that to me, at least, blood is thicker than water. One drop of Darracott blood, I always say, is enough to establish a claim on me. It is a long time since I have been in Elmerton, and I should like above all things to bring my two sweet ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... about five miles from Peshawar. It was intended that we should remain there for a couple of months, but before the end of that time I had to join the General at Rawal Pindi, where he had gone on a tour of inspection. Being anxious not to shirk my regimental duty, I did not leave Chamkanie until the last moment, and had but one day in which to reach Rawal Pindi, a distance of one hundred miles, which I accomplished on horseback between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m., only stopping at Attock a short ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... as Napoleon, sticking his map of Europe full of pins, decided that he could defeat the Austrians at Austerlitz, the Prussians at Jena. That is genius. The general-in-chief makes his plan on the supposition that all his orders will be obeyed promptly, that no one will shirk responsibility, that not one of all the vast multitude will fail to do ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... regards as guilty having been acquitted. The official inspection of the country, especially for the sake of the natives, Fajardo has committed to Auditor Mesa, but the latter is unwilling to undertake it. The Council order that no auditor shall shirk this important duty. The governor mentions in detail various minor matters, showing anxiety to act as the home government shall approve. He has been ordered to reduce military salaries, but objects to this, and enumerates the amounts paid to each officer. Directions for arranging this ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... a good deal, and begged me to be prudent and not overtax my strength; and then she talked about you, and hoped I should help you as much as possible, as though I meant to shirk any part of my duty. I do not think she really disapproved, only she seemed nervous and timid about it; but I ask you, Esther, how I could help offering my services, when Mrs. Smedley told me about the neglected state of the parish, and how few ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... as he had not tried to escape, and did not sulk or shirk, they grew to look upon him as one of them forever. Did he not mingle with them, and eat as they ate, and sleep as they slept, and appear perfectly satisfied? Other white men had become Indians; so why not he! The Indian life was the ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... the Squire, who, so far from being pleased, was irritated and disturbed by the proposal. "I ask you to do your duty, sir, and not to shirk it," the head of the house said, with natural vehemence, as he stood with that circle of Wentworths round him, giving forth his code of honour ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... sources; interesting, as presenting to the ordinary English reader, in language freed as far as possible from technicality and abstruseness, the great thoughts of the greatest men of antiquity on questions of permanent significance and value. There has been no attempt to shirk the really philosophic problems which these men tried in their day to solve; but I have endeavoured to show, by a sympathetic treatment of them, that these problems were no mere wars of words, but that in fact the philosophers of twenty-four ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... man makes me angry. I know your type inside out. You overwork and shirk exercise, and let your temper run away with you, and smoke strong cigars on an empty stomach; and when you get indigestion as a natural result you look on yourself as a martyr, nourish a perpetual grouch, and ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... about traveling light and not letting my life get cluttered up. But that isn't really the thing that's changed. I've never been willing to pay, in liberty and leisure, for things I didn't want. The only difference is that there's something now that I do want. And I shan't shirk paying for it. I ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... Never shirk! There is work for you, Work for all to do! Happy they who do it, They that shirk ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... who are to be the leaders, spend their hours in riotous living? No, never! Will they be false to duty? No, never! Will they shirk? No, never! Will they be disloyal to self, to home, to country, ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... have seen big fellows come here, who cried if they were hit, were always eating cakes and sweet things, and sung out when they went to bed for the maid-servant to put on their night-caps; these sort of fellows are seldom worth much, either in school or out of it. They fudge their lessons and shirk their work at play; regular do-nothing Molly Milksops, ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... of every order, engendered out of a corrupt and decaying society, increasing the general indolence, immorality, and unproductive consumption, and frightfully diminishing the productive force of the country, fed like locusts upon what was left in the unhappy land. "To shirk labour, infinite numbers become priests and friars," said, a good Catholic, in the year ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... can bear, or how much woman, in her uncomplaining nature, may suffer. If I could only learn 'to suffer and be strong'—in that source lies my weakness. I am only one of the many thousands of my sex who have had such struggles. I do not wish to shirk the duty imposed on me, but if more strength were given me to ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... the kind," said George. "He has his faults like us all, but they don't run in that line. No, no, Lewie will be modest enough. He may have the pride of Lucifer at heart, but he would never show it. His fault is just this infernal modesty, which makes him shirk fighting some blatant ass or publishing his merits ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... to meet him or what to say, but it was useless to shirk the interview. She entered her drawing-room with decidedly heightened colour, even while telling herself that it was absurd to feel any embarrassment ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... is somewhat a matter of buffeting back and forth aimlessly between teacher and parent. The latter is disposed to shirk the responsibility by leaning on the shoulders of the instructor who is inclined to keep shifting the burden back to the home. As a result, while the German youngster is early being adapted to a particular future course for which Nature has given him an aptitude, his ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... entrenching tools, and Colonel Roosevelt seeing so many men going to the rear, shouted to them to come back, jumped up and drew his revolver, and told the men of the Tenth that he would shoot the first man who attempted to shirk duty by going to the rear, that he had orders to hold that line and he would do so if he had to shoot every man there to do it. His own men immediately informed him that "you won't have to shoot those men, Colonel. We know those boys." He was also assured by Lieutenant Fleming, of the Tenth, ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... part of the cook, who was supposed to attend to his business himself—for the scaler was active in his work, when once he began it, and could keep up with the skidding. But now he displayed a strong antipathy to the north wind on the plains. Of course he could not very well shirk the work entirely, but he did a good deal of talking on the ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... our way," declared Hopkins. "I've got the order for these signs in my pocket, and I'll have 'em painted all over the district in a week. Keep your eyes open, Doc. If we've got to fight we won't shirk it; but I don't look for much trouble from a parcel ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... the rub! Not one short, sharp pang, and over—all fire quenched in cool mists of death and unconsciousness, but long years to come of daily, hourly, paying the price; incessant compunction, active punishment. A prospect for a martyr to shirk from, and for a woman who has made a ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... a wonderful tea-house where Uncles have grown rich. Miss West didn't mean to shirk her duty. In most things the begoggled lady was a visionary with a theory that if you don't talk about a thing it does not exist; and like most of her kind she swept the disagreeables into a dust heap and made ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... with an approving nod; "that's just the point which I'd like you and me to stick to: when we see things to be wrong don't let's shirk sayin' so as flat as we can; but don't let us go, like too many shallow-pates, and say that we know who's wrong and why they're wrong, and offer to put them all right on the shortest notice. Mayhap" (here Bax spoke in a soft ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... way in which her friends were contributing to pay the rent. I should have liked to tell her this, but the mystery of the affair gave a piquancy to their deed of kindness which the ladies were unwilling to give up; and at first Martha had to shirk many a perplexed question as to her ways and means of living in such a house, but by-and-by Miss Matty's prudent uneasiness sank down into ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... but it is worth attention. Unlike the rest of us, labouring people are unable to shirk any of life's discomforts by "getting a man" or "a woman," as we say, to do the disagreeable or risky jobs which continually need to be done. If a cottager in this village wants his chimney swept, or his pigstye cleaned out, or his firewood ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... knows as well as does the good man how to work, But one takes pride in every task, the other likes to shirk; With just as little as he can, one seeks his pay to earn, The good man always gives the bolt that ...
— All That Matters • Edgar A. Guest
... Erfurt, 1891, deserves mention. It is a passage from a speech delivered by the elder Liebknecht in the Reichstag: "As regards the defence of the Fatherland all parties will be united when it is necessary to meet an outside enemy. In that moment no party will shirk its duty." ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... be glad to hear that Anthony, though he did shirk the welcome on the quay, behaved admirably, with the simplicity of a man who has no small meannesses and makes no mean reservations. His eyes did not flinch and his tongue did not falter. He was, I have it on the best authority, admirable in his ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... how can we, starting from Chywidden, arrive at Jews'-house? I am afraid we can not do so without a jump or two; all we can do is to show that they are jumps which language herself is fond of taking, and which therefore we must not shirk, if we wish to ride straight ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... Lawrence, "great honors always bring great responsibilities with them. You are a Christian and an American—two great honors; and you mustn't shirk the responsibility to be courteous and noble and kind, which they entail. Even our dear Lord Christ pleased not Himself, you know; don't you suppose it grieves Him to see His little follower flying into ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... tone is more frank and direct than is customary in such papers, and their recommendations, extensive and varied as they have been, show that he has patiently reviewed the field of labor so sadly and so unexpectedly opened before him, and that he was not inclined to shirk the constitutional duty of aiding Congress by his suggestions and advice. An honest man, who believes in his own principles, who follows his own convictions, and who never hesitates to avow his sentiments, he has ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... my Adelaide—and Woman. I fling away all these things as the Toys of Boyhood. Life is the Soul's Nursery. I am a Man, and pine for the Illimitable! Mark you me! Has the Morrow any terrors for me, think ye? Did Socrates falter at his poison? Did Seneca blench in his bath? Did Brutus shirk the sword when his great stake was lost? Did even weak Cleopatra shrink from the Serpent's fatal nip? And why should I? My great Hazard hath been played, and I pay my forfeit. Lie sheathed in my ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... preached for me. Commonly, every church should do its own spiritual harvesting—just as much as every pair of young lovers should do their own love-making, and wise parents their own family training. Looking outside is a temptation to shirk responsibility. If a preacher can preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ faithfully, and the Lord God is with him, why rob him of the joy of the harvest by sending ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... There's more behind it, but the colonel mustn't think that there's as much money in the mines as people say. No idea how much living costs up here. Heavens, no! And the prices for labor! And then they shirk the job from dawn to dark. I have to watch 'em every ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... to reply. "I am the last man to wish you to shirk your duly; but you cannot have the temerity to declare that this young and tender creature can by any possibility be considered as at all likely to be implicated in a crime so monstrous and unnatural. The mere assertion of another woman's suspicions ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... slightly dull, laboured, almost emotionless letter. Always willing to shirk correspondence, he persuaded himself that the letter called for no immediate answer. After all, it was not to be expected that a very young girl whom a man had met only twice in his life could hold his interest very long, ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... take your place, will fill up the gap that you leave in the ranks of those who fight for freedom. And we shall fight till we get the true peace that we want—not the peace which some of you have advocated, fraternising with the common foe, listening to the specious pleas of those who shirk the one test of their honesty when they are asked to revolt against a tyranny as least as deadly as that which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 27, 1917 • Various
... has borne him safely three daughters and a son. Each one of my six girl chums is the mother of a family. Now and again in my experience some woman has shirked a duty. But I have never yet met a woman who dared to shirk a happiness. Duties repeat themselves. There is no duplicate ...
— Different Girls • Various
... been guilty of the very conduct which would have brought me into trouble. I found a number of pressed-men and discontented men, and not a few bad characters in the ship, who were always ready to grumble at what was done, and whose great aim seemed to be how they could oftenest shirk duty, most speedily get drunk, and most readily break the rules and regulations of the service. At first I was inclined to think them somewhat fine fellows, lads of spirit, whose example was worthy of imitation; but Peter observing my tendency, very ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... whole race" can't be done in a spurt, And while Nature provides us with genius and clown, There is nought to be gained by mere levelling down. So the plan of PROCRUSTES, my boys, will not work, Or will benefit none save the sluggard or shirk. Oh yes, the bold bully stands swaggering there With the axe in his hand, and his head in the air, Type of heedless Compulsion, the shallow of pate, Who man's freedom would sell to a fetish of State. Self-help and joint effort, ...
— Punch, Volume 101, September 19, 1891 • Francis Burnand
... Canadians was preparing dinner, aided by one of the Germans. To show that they did not wish to shirk any camp duties, Sam and Dick did what they could to assist. The dogs and the sleds were off to one side. Tom sat on one sled, wrapped in heavy blankets, for it was ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield
... the benefit of one man or of one family. Metropolitan and Provincial officials of all grades should ponder over the present difficulties and carefully perform their duties. We hereby hold it the duty of the senior officials earnestly to advise and warn their subordinates not to shirk their responsibilities, in order to conform with Our original sincere intention to love and to take care of ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... to have a large number of people from the capitalistic world thrown upon their hands was very much as it would be with us if we had the same number of Indians, with all their tribal customs and ideals, thrown upon our hands. They say they will not shirk their duty in the matter, and will study it carefully; but all the same, they wish ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... sustained with unfailing accuracy and precision. Now, if you take into account that all this was to be worked out by a set of lazy, twaddling, shiftless laborers, who had grown up, all their lives, in the absence of every possible motive to learn how to do anything but 'shirk,' as you Vermonters say, and you'll see that there might naturally be, on his plantation, a great many things that looked horrible and distressing to a ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... had said that he would not shirk any responsibility, began a hue and cry for the arrest of all parties in any way concerned with the direction of the building of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... under that self-inflicted lash, bordering upon hysteria when she reached the house. She could not shut out a too-vivid picture of Billy Dale lying murdered on the Tyee's bank, of the accusing look with which Fyfe must meet her. Rightly so, she held. She did not try to shirk. She had followed the line of least resistance, lacked the dour courage to pull herself up in the beginning, and it led to this. She felt Billy Dale's blood wet on her soft hands. She walked into her own house panting like a ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the Cretans, addressed: "No man, O Thoas, as far as I know, is at present to blame; for we are all skilled in warring. Neither does disheartening fear detain any one, nor does any one, yielding to sloth, shirk evil strife; but thus, doubtless, it will be agreeable to the all-powerful son of Saturn, that here, far away from Argos, the Greeks shall perish inglorious. But, Thoas—for formerly thou wast warlike, and urged on others when thou didst behold ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... on 'em, all over the body. All these nerves come from the stomach. Fact is, they're the stomach's errand-boys. They run round an' do his chores jest as he says, an' then trot back ag'in. He's an awful hard master, though,—likes to shirk, an' makes 'em lug round all his baggage an' chicken-fixin's. When he gits grumpy, which is pooty consid'able often, he's death on some on 'em,—jest walks into 'em like chain-lightnin' into a gooseberry-bush. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... month which it is safe to say was neither satisfactory to Sam nor his employer. The deacon discovered that the boy needed constant watching. When he was left to himself, he was sure to shirk his work, and indulge his natural love of living at ease. His appetite showed no signs of decrease, and the deacon was led to remark that "Samuel had the stiddyest appetite of any boy he ever knew. He never seemed to know ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger
... said Mrs Jefferson, rallying her energies, "but we should not shirk its consideration for that reason. I quite agree with Madame Zairoff that people don't think half seriously enough of their real natures, the mysterious inner something which we all feel we possess, but whose voice we ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... If Mr. F. Darwin puts the distinctive feature that differentiates Mr. C. Darwin from his predecessors clearly before his readers, enabling them to seize and carry it away with them once for all—if he shows no desire to shirk this question, but, on the contrary, faces it and throws light upon it, then we shall know that his work is sincere, whatever its shortcomings may be in other respects; and when people are doing their best to help us and make us understand all ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... God's own finger misleads none, But him whose vain and misinstructed eyes, They mock with misinterpretation, Or who, mistaking what he rightly read, Ill commentary makes, or misapplies Thinking to shirk or thwart it. Which has done The wisdom of this venerable head; Who, well provided with the secret key To that gold alphabet, himself made me, Himself, I say, the savage he fore-read Fate somehow should be charged with; nipp'd the growth Of better nature in constraint and sloth, That only bring ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... would cut off his right hand, rather than engage in it. He only meant that other people should do what would degrade him. He was not a good citizen, and did not intend to be. As for his Reverence, he would shirk his Christian duties; would not pray by that lamppost, or any other lamp-post, for the success of slave-catchers. He had turned his back upon Paul, and had fallen from grace since preaching his famous sermon. The gentlemen had been accredited with a patriotism and ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... each debater will refute those points of which he took an opposite view in his main speech, but as it is usually desirable to rebut arguments in the same order in which they were originally given, no member of the team can afford to shirk mastering each detail that in any way has a vital ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... Gustaf would probably outlast the pyramids, providing the pyramids lived in Sweden. "I'm sure His Majesty will cooperate. He has a strong sense of duty and since the real problem is his, not ours, I doubt if he will shirk it." ...
— A Prize for Edie • Jesse Franklin Bone
... which Erasmus always tries to shirk definite statements irritates us. How carefully he always tries to represent the Colloquies, in which he had spontaneously revealed so much of his inner convictions, as mere trifling committed to paper to please his friends. They are only meant to teach correct Latin! ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... hanging to each of his fetlocks. The gallant combatant came well primed by his master the duke as to how he was to bear himself against the valiant Don Quixote of La Mancha; being warned that he must on no account slay him, but strive to shirk the first encounter so as to avoid the risk of killing him, as he was sure to do if he met him full tilt. He crossed the courtyard at a walk, and coming to where the duennas were placed stopped to look at her who demanded him for a husband; the marshal of the field ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... of a number of short treatises, indicating certain laws and principles which Mary thought needed to be more generally understood and more firmly established. That a woman should not shirk the functions, either physical or moral, of maternity; that artificial manners and exterior accomplishments should not be cultivated in lieu of practical knowledge and simplicity of conduct; that matrimony is to be considered seriously and not entered into capriciously; that the individual ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... profession. I determined to study medicine at the New York Academy. This disposition of my future suited me. A removal from my relatives would enable me to dispose of my time as I pleased without fear of detection. As long as I paid my Academy fees, I might shirk attending the lectures if I chose; and, as I never had the remotest intention of standing an examination, there was no danger of my being "plucked." Besides, a metropolis was the place for me. There I could obtain excellent instruments, the newest publications, intimacy with men of ...
— The Diamond Lens • Fitz-James O'brien
... upon what you want of me," answered Oswyn shrewdly. "You said in your note that it was on a matter of vital importance to a friend of mine. I haven't so many friends that I can afford to shirk a little trouble in a matter which vitally concerns one of them. May I ask, in the first ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... turned to account if it embrace a mixture of truth and error. Of late years the study of the nervous system, and its relation to thought and feeling, have profoundly occupied enquiring minds. It is our duty not to shirk—it ought rather to be our privilege to accept—the established results of such enquiries, for here assuredly our ultimate weal depends upon our loyalty to the truth. Instructed as to the control which the nervous system exercises over man's moral and intellectual nature, we shall be better ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... of Bloody Mary and the massacre of St. Bartholomew had roused the indignation of Englishmen to the highest pitch. They were ready for any risk in open war against France and Spain, but Queen Elizabeth was always trying to shirk responsibility; and so the sea-captains who would avenge the wrongs done to the Protestants were obliged to run the risk of being condemned ...
— Newfoundland and the Jingoes - An Appeal to England's Honor • John Fretwell
... loved the sensation of life thrown open to new, however vague, possibilities. At present he was convinced that Andrew Peak had done him a service. In this there was an indication of moral cowardice, such as commonly connects itself with intense pride of individuality. He desired to shirk the combat with Chilvers, and welcomed as an excuse for doing so the shame which another temper would have ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... I have five hundred with me. Take it, Lou. There's more behind it, but the colonel mustn't think that there's as much money in the mines as people say. No idea how much living costs up here. Heavens, no! And the prices for labor! And then they shirk the job from dawn to dark. I have to watch 'em ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... Why not? You have heard the call and you are not the man to shirk it. Lesser men than you have tried—all honour to them if they were sincere—to voice the yearnings, the questions, the doubts, of a generation that has outgrown its spiritual garments. All the world feels, knows, that a new voice must come soon. The world ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... have to be our brothers' keepers," the old Squire continued. "We are all to a degree responsible for the good behavior and safety of our fellow beings. If we shirk that duty, troubles come and crimes are committed that might have been prevented. Especially in a family like ours, each ought to have the good of all at heart and do his best ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... accede to Mr. McKinley's request that he should go back and become Secretary of State. He knew the work would be too much for him, and told me so quite simply and unaffectedly, but he was never a man to shirk a duty. During his term of office, he and I were constantly in touch with each other by letter. Though Hay did not write long letters, he contrived in his short notes to say many poignant things,—often in the form of comments on ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... of the entertainment, in a large measure, depended. Without pushing himself, or being the least bit officious, he had been equally helpful behind the scenes. He had held in check all those who, taking advantage of her father's absence, were disposed to dispute her authority and shirk their work—and he had also, on her behalf, successfully resisted their demand for higher wages. And, over and above all this, he had always considered her personal comfort. Her meals—which she ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... far other indeed. Doubtless, as bringing preservation to their country, it implies preservation of themselves withal; but intrinsically it is the harshest duty a wise man, if he be indeed wise, has laid to his hand. A duty which he would fain enough shirk; which accordingly, in these sad times of doubt and cowardly sloth, he has long everywhere been endeavoring to reduce to its minimum, and has in fact in most cases nearly escaped altogether. It is an ungoverned ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... pray that no bitterness may come between you, on account of this. Responsibility comes to you early, and yet you cannot—must not shirk it." ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... Miss Pat," said Elinor, the day before the party, "is that you know when to stop. I simply haven't accomplished a thing the last two days, and yet I couldn't have the courage to shirk the Academy. You stay away joyously, and get the ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... himself against his present needs. It was a society in which hotels could not survive (even long after they were attempted) because every home was open to the stranger; and orphan asylums were impossible. Not because fathers and mothers never died, but because no one was civilized enough to shirk orphans. ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... Freddie Drummond never would have wanted to do them. That was the strangest part of his discovery. Freddie Drummond and Bill Totts were two totally different creatures. The desires and tastes and impulses of each ran counter to the other's. Bill Totts could shirk at a job with clear conscience, while Freddie Drummond condemned shirking as vicious, criminal, and un-American, and devoted whole chapters to condemnation of the vice. Freddie Drummond did not care for dancing, but Bill Totts never missed the nights at the various dancing clubs, ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... Now, I leave you in charge. Keep a sharp eye on the men—especially on that lazy fellow who has a tendency to sleep and shirk duty. If the rock in the fair-way is got ready before my return, blast it at once, without waiting for me. You will find one of Siebe and Gorman's voltaic batteries in my lodging, also a frictional electrical ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... family for active service, now that crusades and invasions of France have gone out of fashion. It seems to me that the English people get up all sorts of opening and unveiling occasions in order to supply employment to their Princes and Princesses, who, I must say, never shirk such monotonous duties, however much they may be bothered and ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... not felt that it was your duty to vote. You have felt yourselves to be secure and happy enough in your privileges and prerogatives, and have left the great mass of your sisters, that shed tears and bore burdens, to shirk for themselves. You have felt that you had rights more than you wanted now. O yes, it is as if a beauty in Fifth Avenue, hearing one plead that bread might be sent to the hungry and famishing, should say, "What is this talk about bread for? I have as much bread as I want, and plenty ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... I shirk the psychology of such a moment, for my belief is that the striking clocks struck out all power of thought and feeling, and that I played my poor part the better for that blessed surcease of intellectual sensation. On the other hand, I was never more alive to the purely objective impressions ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... to pay the rent. I should have liked to tell her this, but the mystery of the affair gave a piquancy to their deed of kindness which the ladies were unwilling to give up; and at first Martha had to shirk many a perplexed question as to her ways and means of living in such a house, but by-and-by Miss Matty's prudent uneasiness sank down into acquiescence with ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... side: life is all one. And I never wanted to shirk my share in whatever evil must be endured, whether it be sin or suffering. I wish I could cure you of ...
— Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... will fill up the gap that you leave in the ranks of those who fight for freedom. And we shall fight till we get the true peace that we want—not the peace which some of you have advocated, fraternising with the common foe, listening to the specious pleas of those who shirk the one test of their honesty when they are asked to revolt against a tyranny as least as deadly as that which you have ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 27, 1917 • Various
... have not offended anybody, and yet they threaten us, wishing to enslave us. . . . But we French can be fierce, since they oblige us to be, and in order to defend ourselves it is just that nobody should shirk, that all should obey. Discipline does not quarrel with Revolution. Remember the armies of the first Republic—all citizens, Generals as well as soldiers, but Hoche, Kleber and the others were rough-hewn, unpolished benefactors who knew how to ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and not on any secondary sources; interesting, as presenting to the ordinary English reader, in language freed as far as possible from technicality and abstruseness, the great thoughts of the greatest men of antiquity on questions of permanent significance and value. There has been no attempt to shirk the really philosophic problems which these men tried in their day to solve; but I have endeavoured to show, by a sympathetic treatment of them, that these problems were no mere wars of words, but that in fact the philosophers of twenty-four centuries ago were dealing with exactly similar difficulties ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... had surveyed it carefully as it lay beneath, wandering capriciously in the wasteful shingle-bed, and looking like a maze of tangled silver ribbons. I calculated how to cut off one stream after another, but I could not shirk the main stream, dodge it how I might; and when on the level of the river, I lost all my landmarks in the labyrinth of streams, and determined to cross each just above the first rapid I came to. The river was very milky, ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... home to manage Hamilton Lord; it's the largest trading company in the Federation. We have exclusive franchises to develop almost five hundred planets. It's my duty, Niaga; my responsibility; I can't shirk it." ...
— Impact • Irving E. Cox
... friend, Shaping the earth to a glorious end, Draining the swamps and blasting the hills, Doing whatever the Spirit wills— Rending a continent apart, To answer the dream of the Master heart. Thank God for a world where none may shirk— Thank God for ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... are made in child government. One is the indulgence of a soft, vacillating policy by the parent which permits a child to shirk his duties and to escape from the natural results of his misdeeds. Through the parent's taking upon his own shoulders the consequences of the child's wrong-doing, the child is lured into the false belief that duty may be shirked, ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... or worse position, and compelled to meet it as I best might; for this was one of the necessities of an office which I had voluntarily taken on my shoulders, and beneath which I might be crushed by no moral delinquency on my own part, but could not shirk without cowardice and shame. My subsequent fortune was various. Once, though I felt it to be a kind of imposture, I got a speech by heart, and doubtless it might have been a very pretty one, only I forgot every syllable at the moment of need, and had to improvise another as well as I could. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... that Marion was selfish, for one thing; being selfish, she was also mercenary. Kate began to fear that Marion had designs upon Fred for the sake of his timber claim; which was altogether different, of course, from Kate's designs upon Marion's timber claim! Besides, Marion was inclined to shirk her share of the cooking and dishwashing, and when she made their bed and tidied the crude little room they called their bedroom, she never so much as pretended to hang up Kate's clothes. She would appropriate the nails on the wall to her own uses, and ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... missionary question—a question which I feel it is hopeless to attempt to speak of without being gravely misunderstood, and which I therefore would willingly shirk mentioning, but I am convinced that the future of Africa is not to be dissociated from the future of its natives by the importation of yellow races or Hindoos; and the missionary question is not to be dissociated from the future of the African natives; and so the subject must be ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... hastened to reply. "I am the last man to wish you to shirk your duly; but you cannot have the temerity to declare that this young and tender creature can by any possibility be considered as at all likely to be implicated in a crime so monstrous and unnatural. The mere assertion of another woman's suspicions ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... sir," said the Squire, who, so far from being pleased, was irritated and disturbed by the proposal. "I ask you to do your duty, sir, and not to shirk it," the head of the house said, with natural vehemence, as he stood with that circle of Wentworths round him, giving forth his code of honour to his ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... trunk curled up in search of more sugar, but a stern command from the trainer caused the beast to lower it quickly. The time for play had passed. The moment had arrived for Emperor to do his work and he was not the animal to shirk his act. In fact, he seemed to delight in it. All elephants work better when they have with them some human being or animal on which they have centered their affections. Sometimes it is a little black and tan dog, sometimes a full-grown man. In this instance it happened ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... may not be able to solve it, but we cannot evade it. Each day it calls loudly to every parent and every teacher for a solution. The health and happiness of the coming generations depend upon the right education of the present one, and this responsibility the home and the school can neither shirk nor shift. We take great unction to ourselves for the excellence of the horses, pigs, and cattle that we have on exhibition at the fairs, but are silent as to our failures in the form of children, that drag out a half-life ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... handle this mad-man alone. He had seen red at the thought of it. It would be to brand his own act with unpardonable cowardice; it would be to go down into his grave with the helpless cries of this woman ringing in his ears; it would be to shirk the greatest and most sacred duty that can come to a man. The cold sweat had started upon his forehead at the ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... words in conclusion as to the general duties of a man, be he married or single. You have no right to shirk your duties as a man to your home, as a Christian to your Church, or as a citizen to your country. The support and training of your family is your first duty, and nothing may rightly come in the way of that, ...
— Boys - their Work and Influence • Anonymous
... the doctrine of equality very quickly, and are not going to sacrifice themselves to what is not considered de bon ton by the upper classes; and the girl with the laced hat and parasol, without underclothes, who does her best to 'shirk' her duties as housemaid, and is looking for marriage as an escape from work, is a fair copy of her mistress, who married for much the same reason, who hates housekeeping, and would rather board or do anything else ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... kind of boy I want in my store," said Mr. Graham. "He's a harum-scarum sort of boy, and likes to shirk his work. Then I suspect he stops to play on the way when I send him on errands. Yesterday he was five minutes longer than he need to have been in goin' to Sam Dunning's to carry some groceries. Thomas doesn't seem to appreciate his privileges in ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... track Has been through the same meadows in childhood: in youth Through the same silent gateways, to manhood. In truth, There is none that can know me as you do; and none To whom I more wish to believe myself known. Speak the truth; you are not wont to mince it, I know. Nor I, shall I shirk it, or shrink from it now. In despite of a wanton behavior, in spite Of vanity, folly, and pride, Jack, which might Have turn'd from me many a heart strong and true As your own, I have never turn'd round and miss'd YOU From my side in one hour of affliction ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... the force of circumstances either to foster or hamper a man's fellowship with God. The life of Jesus is the irrefutable argument that the Lord's song may be sung in a strange land. It is always possible to be a Christian under the most unfavorable conditions, provided the Christian does not shirk the inevitable cross. But the social order under which men live shapes their characters. Ibsen calls it "the moral water supply," and religion is intensely interested in the reservoirs whence ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... common people may, without uproar and harassing of magnates and mighty men, have access whenever it be desirable to the Lord Priors and the Standard-Bearer of Justice), affords a comment on his own criticism of his fellow-citizens, whose disposition to shirk the burden of public duty is more than once the subject of his satire. "Many refuse the common burden, but thy people, my Florence, eagerly replies without being called on, and cries, 'I load myself'" ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... every way, and every day This lazy boy would shirk, And never lift his hand to do A bit of useful work. His clothes were always on awry, His shoe-strings left untied, His hair uncombed, his teeth uncleaned, Alas, ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... accepted only by men who possess the rare power of combining their beliefs into a logical whole. Most people contrive to shirk the consequences, either by some of those evasions which, as Edwards showed, amount to asserting the objective existence of chance, or more commonly by forbidding their reason to follow the chain of inferences through more than a few links. The axiom that the ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... Commander Walke; St. Louis, Lieutenant Paulding; and Cincinnati, Commander Stembel; as well as the three wooden gunboats, Conestoga, Lieutenant Phelps; Tyler, Lieutenant Gwin; and Lexington, Lieutenant Shirk. The object of the expedition was to attack, conjointly with the army, Fort Henry on the Tennessee, and, after reducing the fort, to destroy the railroad bridge over the river connecting Bowling Green with ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... accustomed," Mr. Sabin said quietly, "to shirk my share of the work in any undertaking with which I am connected. Only in this case I claim to take the place of the Countess Lucille, my wife. I request that the task, whatever it may be which you have imposed upon her, may be transferred ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a likely nigger, an' I don't like ter flog you so much. Now, I'll leff you hire you' time, an' gwo down ter Newbern, an' shirk fur you'seff.' ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Rutherford's demands upon his heart and his purse. These, to tell the truth, were not infrequent; for our uncle, believing that young people should be led to the exercise of active and unselfish charity, and seeing that Norman was inclined to shirk such claims, was constantly presenting them to the boy, with a view to training him in the way he should ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... acts, responses. The will always has to do with causing or inhibiting some action, either physical or mental. We need to go to the dentist, tell some friend we were in the wrong, hold our mind to a difficult or uninteresting task, or do some other disagreeable thing from which we shirk. It is at such points that we must ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... of incurability" must be recognized. It is folly to let such men discover that, through our charitable interest in their families, we will either directly or indirectly pay their whiskey bills, or will assume the burdens that they deliberately shirk. A Committee on Intemperance, reporting to the Ward VIII. Conference of the Boston Associated Charities in 1886, called attention to this aspect of the question. "The committee, however, say that, in their opinion, the question of moral responsibility ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... quill-wheel, and the spinning-wheel, and the loom are heard no more among us. The last I knew of a certain hetchel, it was nailed up behind the old sheep that did the churning; and when he was disposed to shirk or hang back and stop the machine, it was always ready to spur him up in no uncertain manner. The old loom became a hen-roost in an out-building; and the crackle upon which the flax was ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... not at all relish the mission before him; he was, however, too manly to shirk it. Hence that evening, directly after dinner, he made his way to the mansion of Mr. Arthur Presby Carter, the wealthy owner of the Echo, Burmingham's most widely ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... teaching English housewives this very lesson, the simple economic truth that if they wanted bread for themselves and their families while their husbands were fagging for their country at sea, they must turn to and work for it. Yet in face of this fact here was M'Gugan's wife trying to shirk the common lot. ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... Junk was quite ignorant of anything being wrong about her ladies, although she did shirk the question regarding their possible visit to London in July. However, Hurd had learned that Grexon Hay not only was an old friend, but had been engaged to Maud for many months. This information made him the more certain that Hay had robbed Beecot of the opal brooch at the time of the accident, ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... to please without being conscious of the power he possessed. It must be owned, and no one was more ready to confess it than himself, that his literary attainments were by no means of a high order. "We don't spin tops" is a favorite saying amongst artillery officers, indicating that they do not shirk their duty by frivolous pursuits; but it must be confessed that Servadac, being naturally idle, was very much given to "spinning tops." His good abilities, however, and his ready intelligence had carried him successfully through the curriculum of his ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... of your polar-star translation. I think we scarce left anything unmadeout. But our partner has left us, and we have not yet resumed. Mary's chief pride in it was that she should some day brag of it to you. Your Dante and Sandys' Ovid are the only helpmates of translations. Neither of you shirk a word. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... de Rivoli. I saw the now vanished Carrefour de la Croix Rouge one blaze of fire. I helped to carry water to put out the conflagration at the Palais de Justice. I was prodded with a bayonet when, after working in that manner for some hours, I attempted to shirk duty at another fire which I came upon in the course of my expeditions. All that period of my life flashes on my mind as vividly as Paris herself flashed under the wondering stars of those balmy nights ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... was bounded by chasms, impenetrable and black. "It doesn't matter," said Rickie, suddenly convinced of the futility of all that he did. "Oh, let us look properly," said Leighton, a kindly, pliable man, who had tried to shirk coming, but who was genuinely sympathetic now that he had come. They were rewarded: the manuscript lay in a ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... up to work; I pray the Lord I may not shirk. If I should die before the night, I pray the Lord my work's all ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... ago said that he had not the time to take exercise or rest, that his salary was fifty thousand dollars a year, and that his company had just given him a bonus of fifty thousand; hence he could not shirk his responsibilities. He paid the full measure and was buried in six months from the time of the warning. In one issue of the New York Evening Post the following deaths ...
— Keeping Fit All the Way • Walter Camp
... not laugh, nor did he hear anyone else laugh. He had expressed the opinion that many of them held at that moment. Stonewall Jackson was driving them on in the darkness and the light that he furnished them was a flaming sword. It was worse to shirk and face him, than it was to go on and face the cannon and ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... idea that we should go into the League and bear our responsibilities; that we should enter it as gentlemen, scorning privilege. He did not wish us to sneak in and enjoy its advantages and shirk its responsibilities, but he wanted America to enter boldly ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... in arriving at the proper shape, especially when he remembers that the thickness of the cylinder shell of a twelve-line watch is only about five one-thousandths of an inch. But because the parts are small we should not shirk the problem of getting the most we possibly can out of a ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... her with a fantastic longing that seemed to him beautiful, immaterial, and innocent. He said to himself, "I don't shirk my punishment. I'm going to take it. But fair's fair—There's no occasion to make myself out worse than I really am. Norah has taken hold of me a great deal more by my int'lect than by the low animal kind of feelings that are the ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... will not encumber herself with too many tools; but she will not shirk the expense of necessary implements, the simplest by preference, and ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... said Charley with a smile. "I fear he will have to have his little lesson before he gets in that frame of mind. Walt," he continued earnestly, "I do not want the responsibility but I am not going to shirk it now that it is thrust upon me. Frankly, though, I can't help wishing that this trip was over and we were safe back in town ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... on ye, come back! Och! ye villainous pack, Ye slaves of the Saxon, ye blind bastard bunch! Whelps weak and unstable, I only am able The Celt-hating Sassenach wholly to s-c-rr-unch! Yet for me ye won't work, But sneak homeward and shirk, Ye've an eye on the ould spider, GLADSTONE, a Saxon! He'll sell ye, no doubt. Sure, a pig with ring'd snout Is a far boulder baste Than such mongrels! The taste Of the triple-plied thong BULL will lay your base backs on Will soon make ye moan That ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... behind this war—whether on our own side or on that of the enemy. A dangerous question, this!—a question posed again and again by the jingoes and the fanatics of history, and invariably answered according to the dictates of their own convenience. And yet a question which we dare not shirk, a question which a Carlyle, a Ruskin, a William Morris would not have hesitated to formulate. Does Britain stand for an Idea? Is it true that we are fighting in the main for the cause of Liberty and Democracy, for progress in Europe and the world at large? And if this be ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... "Pleeceman 'e says, 'You shirk this plain duty a-starin' you in the face, an' white feathers'll be sproutin' all over of you for a coward as refuses to do 'is little share when nations are goin' ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... truths you have to grow into. But about this matter of Lies—let us look at the fabric of society, let us compare the savage. You will discover the only essential difference between savage and civilised is this: The former hasn't learnt to shirk the truth of things, and the latter has. Take the most obvious difference—the clothing of the civilised man, his invention of decency. What is clothing? The concealment of essential facts. What is decorum? Suppression! I don't argue against decency and decorum, mind ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... lived more deeply than I. Life seems to have touched me on the shoulder and passed me by; these hands of mine have never done a real day's work, Mrs. Loring, for they've been the servants of an unwilling brain. I hated my own work as a younger man, and, though I hope I did not shirk it, I certainly did nothing that I could avoid." He paused, and went on slowly, "I've thought sometimes, of late I mean, that if life is to be worth much, if it is to be real life, and not mere existence, one must put one's whole ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... places! Oh, do keep quiet, K-MB-RL-Y! You're twitching My cape again! Mind, ASQ-TH! You'll be pitching Over that barrier, if you are not steady. Fancy us getting in this fix—already! Cabbin' it in a fog is awkward work, Specially for the driver, who can't shirk, When once his "fare" is taken. I feel shaken. 'd rather drive the chariot of the Sun (That's dangerous, but rare fun!) Like Phaethon, Than play the Jehu in a fog so woful To this ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 103, November 26, 1892 • Various
... lovable, gracious towards men, because we receive grace from God. We owe it to our Lord and to our fellows, and to ourselves, to be magnets to attract to Jesus, by showing how fair He can make a life. Joseph in prison found work to do, and he did not shirk it. He might have said to himself: 'This is poor work for me, who had all Potiphar's house to rule. Shall such a man as I come down to such small tasks as this?' He might have sulked or desponded in ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... dearly loved to have his shaggy curly head brushed, and scratched with the fine comb, and it was Jane's office to be comber-in-chief—a duty she was prone to shirk if she could. ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... Parliament, and the Government was warned that it was alienating its best friends. The Pall Mall Gazette voiced the general feeling. "What is the evidence that an Oaths Bill would injure the Government in the country? Of one thing we may be sure, that if they shirk the Bill they will do no good to themselves at the elections. Nobody doubts that it will be made a test question, and any Liberal who declines to vote for such a Bill will certainly lose the support of the Northampton sort of Radicalism in every constituency. The Liberal Press throughout the country ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... doubt That the treadmill is jolly salubrious, wich that is mere turning about, Upon planks 'stead o' pedals, my pippin. No, wheeling as wheeling's 'ard work, And that, without larks, is a speeches of game as I always did shirk. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various
... was doing so well that he expressed himself ashamed to wear his arm in a sling. He freed it from the support, moved it readily about, and declared that after the next morning he would no longer shirk duty. ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... and by loss of character parry the evil for a short space; but not long, depend upon it. You and I may not see it, but our children will, and be obliged to meet the struggle man to man, which we may now shirk. By God alone can we be saved from such consequences; may He shed his power and grace upon ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... proper sense am I a buyer of old books. I admit a bookish quirk maybe, a love of the shelf, a weakness for morocco, especially if it is stained with age. I will, indeed, shirk a wedding for a bookshop. I'll go in "just to look about a bit, to see what the fellow has," and on an occasion I pick up a volume. But I am innocent of first editions. It is a stiff courtesy, as becomes a democrat, that I ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... these people's minds that they could shirk this care that had fallen on them. To keep Morely's fall a secret would save his wife from terrible grief and pain, and would give the poor broken man a better chance to retrieve the past; and kept from her it must be, at whatever ...
— Stephen Grattan's Faith - A Canadian Story • Margaret M. Robertson
... endurance, and a quiet, unexcited temperament, and, better yet, deeply devoted to me, I felt that Cotter was the one comrade I would choose to face death with, for I believed there was in his manhood no room for fear or shirk. ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... abundance to that end and besought his neighbors to do the same, I could wish that his praying would choke him. Are we worthy to be saved—that is the question. If we expect God to furnish the flannel and the shoe leather, we are not. That is our part of the great task. Are we going to shirk ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... giant above all human affairs for the next two decades, and the speech of Mars is blunt and plain. He will say to us all: "Get your houses in order. If you squabble among yourselves, waste time, litigate, muddle, snatch profits and shirk obligations, I will certainly come down upon you again. I have taken all your men between eighteen and fifty, and killed and maimed such as I pleased; millions of them. I have wasted your substance—contemptuously. ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... was creeping into the man's cheeks. He was one to have little patience with that thing of not doing one's work. "Why am I going to be disappointed? This is no time to shirk! ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... weaker nation in order to add more slave states to the Union, he formed a very positive opinion that the war was unjustifiable. But though he was forced to this disagreeable conclusion, the young Lieutenant was not the sort of man to criticize his country once she was attacked, or to shirk his duty as a soldier because he did not agree with his superiors on questions of national policy. He thought and said what he liked in private, but he kept his mouth closed in public, feeling that his duties as an officer were quite sufficient without assuming ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... she sobbed, and she tugged and tugged, because she dared not shirk the work. Then the stone slowly rolled away. She was still uncertain as to the identity of the poor wretch who was so soon to be put out of existence. She peered at ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... a similar freak of nature, this instinct which prompts one bird to lay its eggs in the nests of others, and thus shirk the responsibility of rearing its own young. The cow buntings always resort to this cunning trick; and when one reflects upon their numbers, it is evident that these little tragedies are quite frequent. In Europe the parallel case is that of the ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... the Law I must request Less noise while we're having a well-earned rest. For the Judge and the Usher never must shirk A well-earned rest in the middle of work. It's the duty of both they are well aware To preserve their precious lives with care; It's their duty, when feeling overwrought, To preserve their lives ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... Oxmain praised Grettir's conduct, and said that Kormak would have had the worst of it if no one had come to part them. Then Thorbjorn Slowcoach said: "What I saw of Grettir's fighting was not famous; and he seemed inclined to shirk when we came up. He was very ready to leave off, nor did I see him make any attempt to avenge the death of Atli's man. I do not believe there is much heart in him, except when he has ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... the dwelling-place of Liberty. In his own way he enjoyed the scene; but he could not, as he usually did, let the peace of it sink into his heart. He had suddenly become aware that he had an unpleasant duty to perform, and to shirk a duty was a thing impossible to him. Until he had obeyed the voice of Conscience, all other voices would fail to ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... over-estimated, if honestly come by, nor is it necessary to examine too deeply into the prime motives of those who urge them upon a generation in whose eyes matter is more important than manner. Superficial refinement is better than none, but the Chesterfield pulpit cannot afford to shirk the duty of proclaiming loud and far that the only courtesy worthy of respect is that 'politesse de coeur,' the politeness of the heart, which finds expression in consideration for others as the ruling principle ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... perforce a good or bad educational center. It does its work in spite of every effort to shirk or supplement it. No teacher can entirely undo what it does, be that good or bad. The natural joyous opening of a child's mind depends on its first intimate relations. These are, as a rule, with the mother. It is the mother who "takes ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... there he is a Brooks of Crossroads. And it isn't because he wants the honor of it that he has gone back, but because the responsibility rests upon him to make the community all that it ought to be. And he can't shirk it." ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... in winter they must work or starve—as must men, the year round. But Tog had no will for work, acknowledged no master save the cruel, writhing whip; and the whip was therefore forever flecking his ears or curling about his flanks. Moreover, he was a sad shirk. Thus he made more trouble for himself. When his team-mates discovered the failing—and this was immediately—they pitilessly worried his hind legs. Altogether, in his half-grown days, Tog led a yelping, bleeding life of it; whereby he got no ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... you owe to yourself, Wade, as the reward of decent living, and some of it you owe to the Lord," Catlin told him smilingly. "But most of it you owe to this little girl here." He patted Dorothy on the shoulder and would not permit her to shirk his praise. "She's been your nurse, and I can tell you it isn't a pleasant job for a woman, tending ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... from a speech delivered by the elder Liebknecht in the Reichstag: "As regards the defence of the Fatherland all parties will be united when it is necessary to meet an outside enemy. In that moment no party will shirk its duty." ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... Canaan, accomplishes what he surely shall accomplish, when the roar of mill machinery begins to reverberate through the hills of the future Joplin, arousing the vast energies and resources of We-all, Pewee and Big Wheat, let us be generous. If there was a sponge, kicker, shirk or drone, let us cover his selfishness with the mantle of charity. Leave him under the beating light of progress to wrestle with whatever remnant of a conscience he may happen to have. If he can stand by and coolly ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... reading for a moment, and men in the gallery began to listen. But—. The long and the short of it was this; that the existing Government had come into power on the cry of a reduction of taxation, and now they were going to shirk the responsibility of their own measures. They were going to shirk the responsibility of their own election cry, although it was known that their own Chancellor of the Exchequer was prepared to carry it out to the full. He was willing to carry it out to the full were he ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
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