"Cower" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Though she recognised dimly the compelling power of this religion, and that it was one which, if sincerely embraced, would make the smallest details of life momentous with eternal weight, yet she knew that her soul could never respond to it, and whether saved or damned that it could only cower in miserable despair under a Deity that ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... wild legion Cease to thunder at my door; Fleeting through night's rayless region, Hither they return no more. Clanking chains and sounds of woe Fill the forests as they go; And the tall oaks cower low, Bent their ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... hope, of Heaven bereft; It is the destiny of man To cower beneath his Maker's ban, And hide from his ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... strong, Clatter'd a hundred steeds along, Their peal the merry horns rung out, A hundred voices join'd the shout; With hark, and whoop, and wild halloo, No rest Benvoirlich's echoes knew. Far from the tumult fled the roe, Close in her covert cower'd the doe; The falcon, from her cairn on high, Cast on the rout a wondering eye, Till far beyond her piercing ken The hurricane had swept the glen. Faint, and more faint, its failing din Return'd from cavern, cliff, and linn, And silence settled, ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... nations, which still preserve that old ethnic worship and the mediaeval superstitions, are mere lingerers and camp-followers in the march of humankind. Under the ample skirts of the Roman Church still cower and lurk the superstitions of the old ethnic world, baptized to be sure, and called by new names. The Roman see has ever had a lingering kindness for the fair humanities of old religion, which live ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... work and God's ordinances to the great work which they have to do. Other people may tell us, if they like—it will not shake our confidence—that the fire that was kindled at Pentecost has all died down to grey ashes, and that it is of no use trying to cower over the burnt-out embers any more in order to get heat out of them. They may, and do, tell us that the 'rushing, mighty wind that filled the house' obeys the law of cycles as the wind of the natural universe, and will calm ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... What room for hope? Such wrath is child of hell. Before his righteous ire I shrink, I cower; Revenge I dread—and vengeance linked with power ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille
... grandest duty that ever ennobled man, to the grief of the greatest infamy that ever crushed him down. You would hold him back from prizes before which Olympian laurels fade, for a fate before which a Helot slave might cower. His country in the agony of her death-struggle calls to him for succor. All the blood in all the ages, poured out for liberty, poured out for him, cries unto him from the ground. All that life has of noble, of heroic, beckons him forward. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... seen the child-birds growing and gaining strength. Their muscles were now well developed, their bodies were clothed with feathers, they had learned to use their wings,—they could fly. Would it not have been passing strange, had they continued as they were, contented to cower and to crawl, when they had acquired the power to soar? And will you be content to remain forever only a fledgling, satisfied with having acquired the power of rising, but never actually using the wings which these years of honorable ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... mendaciously represented him as the thief and kidnapper who is found in your own person; then, sir, would you vail your face and go out no more among men, but upon your forehead, as now upon your soul, would be the brand of thief, robber, murderer! Ay, well may you cower! well may the cold sweat force itself out upon your brow! Did it never enter into your debased mind that the villain who is degraded enough to sell himself to crime for a little sordid dust, will, for a larger sum, betray ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... in one of the music halls and gave the Mohammedans a piece of my mind. The poor Christians!—they feared the Government in the old regime; they cower before the boatmen in this. For the boatmen of Beirut have not lost their prestige and power. They are a sort of commune and are yet supreme. Yes, they are always riding the whirlwind and directing the ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... should man fear any more The voice of Pytho's dome, or cower before These birds that shriek above us? They foretold Me for my father's murderer; and behold, He lies in Corinth dead, and here am I And never touched the sword.... Or did he die In grief for me who left him? In that way I may have ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... ye, maidens, and cower! Lo, for an end of breath, Clytie, hardy and frail, Anguisht after her death. For the Sun-flower droops and is pale When her king hideth his power, And ever draggeth the woe of her piteous tale, As a woman that laboureth Yet never reacheth the hour: So Clytie yearns to the Sun, for ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... wings seem scarcely of any use, and with the laziness already alluded to that forms its characteristic feature, it seeks out a solitary spot, and having dug a hole amongst the dry leaves, there it will squat for days together without stirring. It likewise delights to cower under the gnarled roots of an old oak, or to hide itself in a holly-bush, and apparently derives so much satisfaction from its own meditations, and seems to hold all other birds of the forest in such utter contempt, that ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... sullen pass, high-crowned with snow, Where Afghans cower with eyes of gleaming hate. He hurls himself against the hidden foe. They try to rally — ah, too late, too late! Again, defenseless, with fierce eyes that wait For death, he stands, like baited bull at bay, And flouts the ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... mourning-coach driven through a wedding procession) to kill the joys we have been seeming to receive from the former words? Are we taking back all that we have been giving, and giving out instead something that will make them all cower and be quiet, like the singing birds that stop their singing and hide in the leaves when they see the kite in the sky? No, there is no need for anything of the sort. 'For all these things God will bring thee to judgment': that ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... his vote for war. But if women have been slaves, what shall we say of the little children, born in the sub-cellars, children of poverty, children of crime, children of wealth, children that are afraid when they hear their names pronounced by the lips of their mother, children that cower in fear when they hear the footsteps of their brutal father, the flotsam and jetsam upon the rude sea of life, my heart goes out to ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... drivers of the sleighs waited to be sure that the stretch beyond was clear before going forward. In the country, the winter which held the village in such close siege was an occupation under which Nature seemed to cower helpless, and men made a desperate and ineffectual struggle. The houses, banked up with snow almost to the sills of the windows that looked out, blind with frost, upon the lifeless world, were dwarfed in the drifts, and seemed to founder in a white sea blotched with strange ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... Switzerland in order to be convenient to goat's milk.... Like other carnivorous animals, an Englishman is always surly over his meals. Morose at all times, he becomes unbearably so at that interesting period of the day, when his soul appears to cower among plates and dishes; ... though he gorges his food with the silent deliberation of the anaconda, yet, in descanting upon the delicacies of the last capital dinner, he makes an approach to animation altogether unusual to him; ... ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... and turned her face to the wall, as if to shut out him and the light. He stepped to her, caught her by the wrist and forced her round towards him. At the first touch he felt her wince. So will you see a young she-panther wince and cower from her ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... fountains of squibs at that point!), then through Leadenhall Street and Cornhill, by the Royal Exchange, along Cheapside and on to Temple Bar, where the bonfire awaited the puppets. In a torrent of fire the noisy Protestants passed through the exulting City, making the Papists cower and shudder in their garrets and cellars, and before the flaming deluge opened a storm of shouting people. This procession consisted of fifteen groups of priests, Jesuits, and friars, two following a man on a horse, holding up before him a dummy, dressed to represent ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... absolutely necessary to change a woman's preconceived notions as to what she should do—as, for instance, discouraging her riding through quicksand—he would persuade somebody else to issue the advice. And he would cower in the background blushing his absurd little blushes at his second-hand temerity. Add to this narrow, sloping shoulders, a soft voice, and a ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... God, I saw nothing—though I doubt not he observed my troop. For doubtless he would be with his master—aged now, soured, and prone to cower about behind his guard, fearing the dagger or the poisoned bowl, seeing an enemy in every shadowy corner, and hearing the whistle of the assassin's bullet in ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... and the life seemingly dreary, to those who cower by ingle-nooks or stand over registers. But there is stirring excitement in this bloodless war, and around plenteous camp-fires vigor of merriment and hearty comradry. Men who wield axes and breathe hard have lungs. Blood arated ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... within the closely-fastened cage Of an old lioness, well used to fight, An untamed bull is prisoned, to engage The savage monster, for the mob's delight; The cubs, who see him cresting in his rage, And round the den loud-bellowing, to the sight Of the huge beast's enormous horns unused, Cower at a distance, timid ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... Star was standing with his two officers on the quarter-deck, "conning the vessel by the feel of the wind and rain," keeping her dead before the gale—when there came a flash and a peal which made them cower almost ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... eneuch, but she has ower mony bairns to hap them a'; her wings winna cower them, and she drives this ane awa', and winna lat ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... i' the haill queentry he wadna sell her till, sae be he was o' an auld eneuch faimily, and had rowth o' siller. Haith! noo a days the last 'ill come first, an' a fish cadger wi' siller 'ill be coontit a better bargain nor a lord wantin 't: only he maun hae a heap o' 't, to cower the stink ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... not be cast down. You, I trust, are not the man to cower at such a moment. Do not be afraid to stand up your whole length in ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen
... roused to an unexpected burst of wrath. His eyes kindled with rage, and he darted a glance at the intruders which made them cower and shrink from his rebuke. In a moment he grew calm, relapsing into his usual moody and thoughtful attitude. Taking courage, they again ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... is a mile away over the hill, yet he lingers not by the fire; but, with his books slung over his shoulder, he sets out to face the storm. When he reaches the topmost ridge, where the snow lies in drifts, and the north wind comes keen and biting, does he shrink and cower down by the fences, or run into the nearest house to warm himself? No; he buttons up his coat, and rejoices to defy the blast, and tosses the snow-wreaths with his foot; and so, erect and fearless, with strong heart and ruddy cheek, he goes on ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... cannot be vain and arrogant? I think most of us have some interest in arguing the contrary. And it is of the nature of vanity and arrogance, if unchecked, to become cruel and self-justifying. There are fierce beasts within: chain them, chain them, and let them learn to cower before the creature with wider reason. This is what one wishes for Mordax—that his heart and brain should restrain the outleap of ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... a firmness which was very gentle, and yet he could see that Bulstrode seemed to cower under that gentleness, his face looking dried and his eyes swerving away from the glance which rested on him. Caleb felt a deep pity for him, but he could have used no pretexts to account for his resolve, even if they would ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... dollars he could lick the Crisis in a fair stand-up fight, if he wouldn't draw a knife on him. So it went—sum was for war, and sum was for peace. The skoolmaster, however, sed the Slave Oligarky must cower at the feet of the North ere a year had flowed by, or pass over his dead corpse. "Esto perpetua!" he added! "And sine qua non also!" sed I, sternly, wishing to make a impression onto the villagers. "Requiescat in pace!" sed the skoolmaster, ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 2 • Charles Farrar Browne
... strip of meadow between—is green too with rising wheat, high enough now to hide the partridges. Before it got so tall it was pleasant to watch the pair that frequent it; they were so confident that they did not even trouble to cower. At any other time of year they would have run, or flown; but then, though scarcely forty yards away and perfectly visible, they simply ceased feeding but ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... a new renown Even on Victoria's crown, Mightiest friend of blessed peace By commanding wars to cease, Paralysing faction still, Swift in act and strong of will, Forcing every foe to cower Under Britain's patient power, Like himself, firm, frank, and true, ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... all unseen, TROY HOUSE, and BEAUFORT'S bowers of green, And nameless prospects, half defin'd, Involv'd in mist, were left behind. Yet as the boat still onward bore, These ramparts of the eastern shore Cower'd the high crest to many a sweep, And bade us o'er each minor steep Mark the bold KYMIN'S sunny brow, That, gleaming o'er our fogs below, Lifted amain with giant power, E'en to the clouds his NAVAL TOWER[1]; [Footnote ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... tidings. Dante, Paul, Swedenborg, Edwards have seen the pit. It opens only in the holiness of such men,—is a thunder out of clear sky, before which generations of the impure, like brute beasts, tremble and cower. An equal moral genius will see that the ascension of an immortal Love has left behind this vacuum, mitigated, not deepened, by the furniture of devils and their flame. Men strive in vain to be afflicted by a revelation of the best and worst. The mind ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... saw an astonishing thing. Suddenly Mr. Ricardo seemed to shrivel—to cower back into himself. His fierce, triumphant energy had gone as at a blasting touch of magic. ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... out that this conception has its roots deep in primitive human nature: The Birth of Humility, Oxford, 1910, p. 17. 'It would, perhaps, be fanciful to say that man tends to run away from the sacred as uncanny, to cower before it as secret, and to prostrate himself before it as tabu. On the other hand, it seems plain that to these three negative qualities of the sacred taken together there corresponds on the part of man a certain negative attitude of mind. ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... her work—turning neither to the right nor to the left, doing her duty with the bravery and patience of a soldier on the firing-line, knowing that any moment some stray bullet might end her usefulness. She would not dodge, nor would she cower; the danger was no greater than others she had faced, and no precaution, she knew, could save her. Her lips were still sealed, and would be to the end; some tongue other than her own must betray her sister and her trust. In the meantime she ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... had nerved himself for the worst, and did not cower or show signs of fear, as Socrates expected ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... savagely upon the girl. She seemed to cower away from him, half lifting her hands as though in fear that ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... what have I to win? Therein I seek not to enter, but only to have Nicolete my sweet lady that I love so well.... For in Paradise go none but ... these same old priests, and halt old men and maimed, who all day and night cower continually before the altars, and in the crypts.... These be they that go into Paradise; with them have I naught to make. But into Hell would I fain go; for into Hell fare the goodly clerks and goodly ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... inspirited by a sense of wrongs endured, and of the justness of its cause, bore away the palm, and plucked from the brow of its more aged competitor many a laurel yet green from the ensanguined fields of Europe. In scores of hotly-contested battles, the British lion, unused as it was to cower before a foe, was compelled to "lick the dust" in defeat. At York, at Chippewa, at Fort Erie, at Lundy's Lane, at New Orleans, on Lake Champlain, on Lake Erie, on the broad ocean, Great Britain and the world were taught lessons of American ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... beauty hovers still, and ne'er takes wing, But with a silent charm compels the stern And tort'ring Genius of the bitter spring, To shrink aback, and cower upon ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... Thou wilt not cower in the duet, Maryland! Thy beaming sword shall never rust Maryland! Remember Carroll's sacred trust, Remember Howard's warlike thrust— And all thy slumberers with ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... had been carrying was lying, neglected, on the floor. Locke snatched it up and, shooting one of the thugs, managed to cower the other. ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... you think sitting on her eggs must be rather cramping work for the flamingo with those long legs? But I will tell you how cleverly she contrives. Instead of building a nest on the ground, where she would find it impossible to cower closely enough over her eggs to keep them warm, the flamingo heaps up a hill of earth so high, that she can sit comfortably upon it with her long legs dangling, one on each side. At the top is a hollow just large enough to hold her two or three white ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")
... anyone did come. Now it is warm enough for me to pick off the outer layer of dew-wet leaves from whatever heaps of dead leaves are hereabouts. I can gather the dry leaves into that little grotto. We can lie on a bed of them, wrapped up in them we can cower under them, we can even pull our heads under and be invisible if we hear ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... mist, but whence and how it is impossible to say, there come other angels dark of hue and foul smelling. But the white angels carry swords, and they wave these swords, and the scene is reflected in them as in a mirror; and the dark angels cower in a corner of the cemetery, but they do ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... toils and tears, Through passions that still enticed; Through station that came unsought, To dazzle me, snare, betray; Through the baits the Tempter brought To lure me out of the way; Through the peril and greed of power (The bribe that he thought most sure); Through the name that hath made me cower, "The holy bishop of Tours!" Now, tired of life's poor show, Aweary of soul and sore, I am stretching my hands to go Where nothing can ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... that explains the foreign language—and I do not know Spanish." Then facing him again with an air and look that made him cower, in spite of his bravado, she sternly asked: ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... go straight up the bank. I may find a ledge, or some rocks, under which we may cower," ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... of all, the Lord, And Ruler of the height, Who, robing day in light, hast poured Soft slumbers o'er the night, That to our limbs the power Of toil may be renew'd, And hearts be rais'd that sink and cower, And sorrows be subdu'd." ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... must be the Queen Sudarshana who is approaching near. [Aside to SUVARNA.] Suvarna, you must not hide and cower behind me like that. Mind, the umbrella in your ...
— The King of the Dark Chamber • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... what, prodigious words; Has peeled a wand and called it by a name; Weareth at whiles for an enchanter's robe The eyed skin of a supple oncelot; And hath an ounce sleeker than youngling mole, A four-legged serpent he makes cower and couch, Now snarl, now hold its breath and mind his eye, And saith she is Miranda and my wife: 'Keeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill crane He bids go wade for fish and straight disgorge; Also a sea-beast, lumpish, which he snared, Blinded the eyes of, and brought ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... lead out the Queen. Nobody else moves. The townspeople cower and stare. The two little pages that bore her train as she entered remain back of the throne, not knowing what to do. As she goes by them, her train dragging on the ground, the two ragged little boys of Lisa, the wood-gatherer, run out from the group of citizens, ...
— The Lamp and the Bell • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... of the disadvantages of a broken life is, that what a person may do with a kind of conscience in the one part, he feels compelled to blush for in the other. The despotism exercised in the school, even though exercised with a certain sense of justice and right, made the autocrat, out of school, cower before the parents of his helpless subjects. And this quailing of heart arose not merely from the operation of selfish feelings, but from a deliquium that fell upon his principles, in consequence of their sudden exposure ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... shadowy, with a film of moisture glistening on the wall, was as gaunt and cold as a thing that is dead and rigid. But with an effort I sent such thoughts to the right-about. The long, drafty subterranean passage was chilly and dusty, and my candle flared and made the shadows cower and quiver. The echoes rang up and down the spiral staircase, and a shadow came sweeping up after me, and another fled before me into the darkness overhead. I came to the wide landing and stopped ...
— The Red Room • H. G. Wells
... enemy had done. And 'tis an enemy who, scattering tares Amid the corn sown in Creation's field, With deadly coil the growing plant ensnares. And no mean enemy, nor one unsteeled For bold defiance, nor reduced to cower Ever in covert ambuscade concealed, But at whose hest the ravening hell-hounds scour A wasted world, while himself prowls to seek, Like roaring lion, whom he may devour, And upon whom his rancorous wrath to wreak, Sniffing the tainted steam of slaughter's breath, ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... man thou art Craves—and shame bids not breath within him cease - Craves of the woman that thou knowest I am Peace? Ay, take hands at parting, and release Each heart, each hand, each other: shall the lamb, The lamb-like woman, born to cower and bleed, Withstand his will whose choice may save or damn Her days and nights, her word and thought and deed - Take heart to outdare her lord the lion? How Should this be—if the lion's imperial seed Life not against his sire as brave a brow As frowns upon his mother?—Peace ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... volume till the very hills seemed to cower in fear. Miss Whitmore gasped when a limp form was dragged from the cabin and lifted to the back of ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... have a fire all night. In the morning they cower over it like inhabitants of the poles. Of course we as well as they, having been baked in the summer's sun, now feel ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... the circle one of the swift outriders selected precisely our direction! Straight as an arrow he came for us, at full gallop. I could see the toss of his horse's mane against the light from the opened door. There was no time to move. All we could do was to cower beneath our rock, muscles tense, and hope to be able to glide around the shadow ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... dead girl cringe and whine, And cower in the weeping air— But, oh, she was no kin of mine, And so I ...
— Nets to Catch the Wind • Elinor Wylie
... the smoke of Hell, little the wonder. But we cannot yet believe. There is a sparing strain in nature, and through the world, as a thread, is spun a silence which smiles, and on the end of events we find placarded large the words: "Why were ye afraid?" A dignified Hope, therefore—even now, when we cower beneath this worldwide shadow of the wings of the Condor of Death—becomes us: and, indeed, we see such an attitude among some of the humblest of our people, from whose heart ascends the cry: "Though He slay me, yet will I trust ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... a grumbler, all sulky and sour, But for Christopher's temper such trash was too much; And it soon made the malecontent quiver and cower, When he saw preparations for handling the Crutch. "Lay your croaking aside," The old gentleman cried, "Or I'll make you eat up each ungenerous word: Not our deadliest foe, Such injustice should know, And far less shall a friend be ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... you will say. 'T is true: We cower timidly beneath the rod Lifted in menace by an angry God, But won't endure it from an ape like you. Detested simian with thumb prehensile, Switch me and I would brain ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... he said, looking about his chaotic domain disparagingly, "and they say they may have to have me out here next Sunday—somebody's sick or missing. But they won't," he continued darkly. It was a threat, we felt—a threat that would make some presumptuous superior cower and conform. "I really belong at our branch in Dellwood Park, where there is something; not out here, beyond the last of everything." And he said more to indicate that his energies and abilities ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... the garden of the cottage, which, low-roofed, seemed to submit to the majesty of nature, and cower amidst the venerable remains of forgotten time. Flowers, the children of the spring, adorned her garden and casements; in the midst of lowliness there was an air of elegance which spoke the graceful taste of the inmate. With a beating heart I entered the enclosure; as I stood at the entrance, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... if he too had the scent. There is no hurry, for the dogs are true as steel and will stand there as long as the frightened birds lie, while the latter, obedient to the instinct of sudden terror, will cower where they are for an hour, with their heads drawn back, their mottled breasts pressed to the earth and their legs gathered under them, ready to spring into the air. We cock our guns, agree to shoot respectively at the birds which go right or left or straight before us, and then ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... take you with your irons! Shall we, men who followed Red Jabez through a sea of blood, cower to a woman of such soft mettle? Dolores, queen or woman or wench, it is for you, not us, to explain. Lads—" he shrieked, flashing about and haranguing his companions—"back me in this. We will know why the sloop lacked powder; why to-day's ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... thee, haste thee; surely Ye soon will feel his power. Be watchful, be not weary; Let not thy spirit cower. ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... fiendish vengeance which awaited a spy. I knew that men with their lives in their hands would stick at nothing. All I could do was to cower at the bottom of the boat and listen silently ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... as it has done for the Esquimaux or Fuegian; and not so bountiful as to crush them by its very luxuriance, as it has crushed the savages of the tropics. They saw enough of its strength to respect it; not enough to cower before it: and they and it have fought it out; and it seems to me, standing either on London Bridge or on a Holland fen-dyke, that they are ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... are both of us wiser and stronger: we have gone through fire. Who foretold it? This day, and this misery and perversion that we can turn to joy, if we will—if you will! No heart to dare is no heart to love!—answer that! Shall I see you cower away from me again? ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a little flower 'Neath a great oak tree: When the tempest 'gan to lower Little heeded she: No need had she to cower, For she dreaded not its power - She was happy in the bower Of her great oak tree! Sing hey, Lackaday! Let the tears fall free For the pretty little flower ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... again a fresh shivering fit came on. At such times I would cover my head with the bedclothes and cower, and see the Picture even so floating visibly in mid-air like ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... seasoned passenger, to spend his time on the open deck. To stand out on the front (one can hardly call it a prow, where the periphery is that of an average wash-tub) or at the stern is to be drowned by rain or sawn asunder by icy winds or broiled like an oyster, and to cower under the upper deck is to get a lively sense of the Cave of the Winds. One with a healthy sense of smell and an instinct for oxygen may well shrink from entering the cabin, and prefer the perils and discomforts ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... believe that she had grace to fill it with life, to move at ease in it, to press it into soft and rounded lines. Her linked companions also were beauties of their day—that sleek and sleepy Nicoletta, that ruddy Guglielmotta; but they seemed to cower in their rigid clothes, and they ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... shrink and wither, Custom-straitened like her waist, All her thought to cower together, Huddling sheep-like with the rest, With the flock of soulless bodies on a pattern schooled ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... wagged beseechingly, at once deprecating severity and asking kindness. The poor animal had evidently been used to gentle treatment; it would look up in a boy's face, and give a leap, fawning on him, and then bark in a small doubtful voice, and cower a moment on the ground, astonished perhaps at the strangeness, the bustle and animation. The boys were beside themselves with eagerness; there was quite a babble of voices, arguing, discussing, suggesting. Each one had a plan of his own which he brought before the ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... back the sea for England's dower; His footfall bade the Moor change heart and cower; His word on Milton's tongue spake law to France When Piedmont felt ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... since. She did not realise that it was the system to which she had stubbornly committed herself, that drove the people of the fields to cut their crops green to be baked in the oven, because their hunger could not wait; or made them cower whole days in their beds, because misery seemed to gnaw them there with a duller fang. That she was unconscious of its effect, makes no difference in the real drift of her policy; makes no difference ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... huge limbs were rent from some of the larger trees with a crash like thunder, and swept far away into the forest. The very earth trembled and seemed terrified at the dreadful conflict going on above. It seemed to the two friends as if the end of the world were come; and they could do nothing but cower among the branches of the tree and watch the storm in silence; while they felt, in a way they had never before experienced, how utterly helpless they were and unable to foresee or avert the many dangers by which they were surrounded, ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... The man's evident intention, made obvious by his manner and his leer at the old woman, was to say something against her; the Prince was in a mood to quarrel with any one, on any ground at all, who did not cower to him. ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... sou for my life?" she said, while she stood straight up again with the majesty of a queen. "Do you think I feared for me—for myself? Oh! no, my own lover, never that! They can kill me when they choose, but they won't; it is you for whom I fear. Only your danger could make me cower, no other in ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... Let Christendom cower 'neath Stripes and Stars, Cloaking her shame under legal bars, Not too moral for traffic, but shirking wars, While the Southern cross, floating topmast high. Though torn, perchance, by a thousand scars, Shall ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... She turned into a narrow path in the shadow of arches, clothed by a great Austrian brier, on which here and there a yellow flame still glowed. "Mr. Boyce—when I meet you in company you shrink and cower detestably; when I meet you alone, you fence with me impudently enough and shrewdly; and always you avoid me while you can. I suppose there's in all this something more than the freaks of a fool. Then it's fear. Prithee, sir, why ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... took him from the train, the dog was led through crowds of people and bustling, noisy streets that made Jan cringe and cower. At last they reached a place where water stretched so far that it touched the sky, and the water kept moving all the time. This frightened him, for he had never seen any water excepting in the little lake ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker
... glorious host among, That band of poets who have greatly sung. But woe, alas, I cannot, I no power Of singing have, all my tired heart is wrung To think I might have known a happier hour, And sung myself, not let my aching spirit cower. (tat. 14.) ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... looks not after brother, no man for another cares. The gods in heaven are frightened, refuge they seek, Upward they mount to the heaven of Anu. Like a dog in his lair, So cower the gods together at the bars of heaven. Ishtar cries out in pain, loud cries the exalted goddess:— All is turned to mire. This evil to the gods I announced, to the gods foretold the evil. This exterminating war foretold Against my race of mankind. Not for this bare I men that ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... worse than that quiescence in disgrace, Which only merits—and should only—scorn. Oh, let me see the Negro night and morn, Pressing and fighting in, for place and power! All earth is place—all time th' auspicious hour, While heaven leans forth to look, oh, will he quail or cower? ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... familiar with our native legends and tales, the willows and alders in the fields and by the brooks are peopled with hidden beings, fairies, and witches. They stretch out ghostly arms, as their veils wave over their loose hair, they bow, cower, raise themselves, become as big as giants or as little as dwarfs. They seem to lie in wait for the weak, to fill ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... North wind blows; to-day our hearts are one, Though you are 'mid the English snows and I in Austral sun; You, when you hear the Northern blast, pile high a mightier fire, Our ladies cower until it's past in lawn and ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... dressed and finished their packing. About the house hovered the profound silence of the cold night, such a night as makes all living things, men and beasts, cower away for warmth into the depths of sleep. Antoinette's teeth were chattering: she was frozen body ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... this much in his criticisms upon Black Bill's story; but at the present moment there was something in the tremendous figure of Obed, and also in the fear which he had that all was discovered, which made him cower into nothingness before his antagonist. Yet ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... and even scream. And all through life an unexpected and loud noise is likely to startle us. An investigation has shown that thunder is feared much more than lightning. Children will laugh at the flashes of lightning, but will cower ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... coals is the same as to cower over the coals, as a gipsy over a fire. Thus Hodge says of Gammer Gurton ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various
... younger children, in blythe forgetfulness of the storm; every now and then, however, the eldest of them, when the shutters rattled and the lum-head roared, would pause in his innocent daffing, and cower in towards Mrs Pawkie, as if he was daunted and dismayed by something ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... go to bed? You, with your crimes, go to bed? Why, you couldn't sleep! You would cower all night! Go to bed! Oh, my dear Struboff, think better of it. No, no, we'll none of us go to bed. Bed's a hell for men like us. For you above all! Think ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... of his ire, For he was one who could arouse and fire The coldest heart, so ardent was his own. His fearless eye, his calm intrepid tone, Bespoke the leader, strong with conscious power, Whom following friends will bless, while foes will curse and cower. ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the occasion and how to sit, what to avoid and how to avoid it. As it is, we go in a state of nervous agitation, obsequiously costumed; our last vestige of self-assertion vanishes before the unwinking Cyclops eye of the instrument, and we cower at the mercy of the thing and its attendant. They make what they will of us, and the retoucher simply edits the review with an eye to the market. So history is falsified before our faces, and we prepare a lie for our grandchildren. We fail to stamp our individualities upon our photographs, ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... of murderers that he had been made to fear. Peter,—and other Peters about the country,—had filled his mind with sad foreboding. And there had always been something timid, something almost unmanly in his nature. He had seemed to prefer to shrink and cower and be mysterious with the Carrolls to coming forward boldly with such a man as Yorke Clayton. The girls had seen this, and had declared that he was no more than a boy; but his father had seen it and had made no such allowance. And now he saw that he trembled. But Florian got up ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... she would cower down in the bottom of the cart and cry and pray. Storms terrified her. It seemed as if all the anger of the heavens were levelled at her. She would cry and moan pitifully whilst O'Connell would try to soothe her and tell ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... I strike not thee, I will not hold thee in dungeon tower. Though the king chain me, I will not cower, Though my sire ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... you," remarked Kennedy, still holding Carroll in his vise-like grip, while the drug fiend's shattered nerves caused him to cower and tremble, "to know that a special detective working for me has located Mr. and Mrs. Dawson at Bar Harbor, where they are enjoying a quiet honeymoon. Brown is safely in the custody of his counsel, ready to appear and clear himself as soon as the public opinion ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... not that this same jeering band Will bite the dust—will lick the Mohawk's hand; Will kneel and cower at the Mohawk's feet; Will shrink when ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... delicate shower of spray over him. He was perfectly enchanted, and fluttered, turned about, and frisked, like a bird possessed. As he became accustomed to it, I began to throw handfuls of water over him, and that he did enjoy. He would cower down, and lie with his wings expanded and beak open, receiving charge after charge of water till quite out of breath; then he would run a few paces away on his island till he recovered himself, and then would go ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... I. "Let there be trouble—the more the better. This system has got to end, sooner or later. These capitalists with their speculation and corners and trusts make things go from bad to worse. Why should I cower in Rawdon's office, like a frightened dog, while hunger walks the streets? Hunger is the master revolutionary. When he comes we ought to turn out and salute him. Anyway, I'M going to ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... has found its strong wall, we know how the parasite plants grow and prosper. They were not created to stretch forth their branches alone, and endure without protection the summer's sun and the winter's storm. Alone they but spread themselves on the ground, and cower unseen in the dingy shade. But when they have found their firm supporters, how wonderful is their beauty; how ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope |
