"Fret" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 'I ain't a-goin' to get married, don't you fret yourself about that; I know you're a judge of these things. Order in your pipe and I'll read you the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... see,' said Peg, kneeling down on the floor beside him, and staying his impatient hand; 'what's of no use we'll burn; what we can get any money by, we'll keep; and if there's any we could get him into trouble by, and fret and waste away his heart to shreds, those we'll take particular care of; for that's what I want to do, and what I hoped to do ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... four sons in the army but still I don't fret. It is all in God's hands. You may die in your bed or God may spare you in a battle," replied Marya Dmitrievna's deep voice, which easily carried the whole length ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... "Well, but I understand it. I understand that everything between us is past and done with, and that I have nothing more to do with you, you Moloch, you! I understand that I shall not go and make my will, to become your wife and fret myself to death over this skeleton of a husband, that I may leave you to chuckle as my heir. No, no, it is past. I am not going to the justice of the peace, and I will tear ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... on Professor Haddock, "prevents respectable young ladies from making love, a thing they would enjoy doing, whilst mercenary girls do it too much and without getting any enjoyment out of it. It is indeed deplorable. But M. Leon Blum need not fret too much. If the evil exists, as he says it does, in our middle-class society, I can assure him that everywhere else he would see a consoling spectacle. Among the people, the mass of the people through town and country, girls do not deny themselves ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... Joyce is an incorrigible practical joker, and his humor has been marvellously tickled by the prodigious worry his jest has cost the Wisconsin bard. The public understands the situation; there is no good reason why Mrs. Wilcox should fume and fret and scurry around, all on account of that poem, like a fidgety hen with one chicken. Her claim is universally conceded; there is no shadow of doubt that she wrote the poem in question, and by becoming involved in any further complication on this ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... "Never fret about that, Maurice, I'll return your name as on a special service; and to have the benefit of truth on our side, you shall be named one of my orderlies, with the grade ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... daughters, worthy pair, What heaven brings ye needs must bear, Fret no more 'gainst Heaven's will; Fate hath dealt with ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... "Don't fret yourself on that score, Dolly; it will not spoil your fortune, if they do. But Juliet—I am sorry that the child has taken such whimsies into her head; it may hinder her from ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... "a little reason in these matters is better than an indefinite amount of sentimental nonsense. You are now old enough to be swayed by reason, and not to fume and fret after the impossible like a child. Neither your father nor I have acted hastily in this matter. It was a great trial to discover that you had allowed your fancy to become entangled below the circle in which it is your privilege to move, and I am thankful that my other children ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... prosper on the earth, let God be in all your thoughts. Remember that the Lord is on your right hand; and then, and then alone, will you not be moved, either to terror or to sin, by any of the chances and changes of this mortal life. "Fret not thyself," says the Psalmist, "else shalt thou be moved to do evil." And the only way not to fret yourselves is to remember that God is your refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. "He that believeth," saith the Prophet, "shall not make haste"—not hurry himself ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... Rena,'ll be de bes' dey is. Don' you worry ner fret. Dem niggers won't have no other teacher after dey've once laid eyes on you: I'll guarantee dat. Dere won't be no trouble, ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... some of the cargo and his Jewish fellow-passengers were to be landed, Aaron was tantalized for days by the quarantine, so that he must needs fret amid the musty odors long after he had thought to tread the sacred streets of Jerusalem. But at last he found himself making straight for the Holy Land; and one magic day, the pilgrim, pallid and emaciated, gazed in pious joy upon the gray line ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... arrived earlier than he had expected it, and this gave him time to lie and fret and listen again for the striking of the clock in the room downstairs. The waiting became too long, and as his fever increased he became insanely impatient and could not restrain himself. To lie and ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Men fret, men toil, men pinch and pare, Make life itself a scramble, While I, without a grief or care, Where'er it lists me ramble. 'Neath cloudless sun or clouded moon, By market-cross or ferry, I chant my lay, I play my tune. And all who hear ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... of party-making, and was quite sick with indignation at the cowardice of the men; and my lord was in as great a fret as I, but there was no remedy. We durst not go about to retreat, for we should have been in such confusion that the enemy must have discovered it; so my lord resolved to keep the post, if possible, and send to the king for ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... found that in his absence no worse mishap had occurred at home than that his father had been laid up some time with a bad leg, and that both father and mother had allowed themselves to worry and fret lest ill ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... his tasks in his usual fashion, not brilliantly or quickly, but pretty accurately. Elsie was in trouble more than once during the afternoon for inattention, and earned several bad marks, over which she did not fret. ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... him full of grieved sympathy. She did what she had not done for a long time, for an exceedingly long time, she kissed him. And shaken in the depths of her being by his "What am I to do?" as by a just reproach, she said contritely: "Don't torture yourself. Don't fret. If you like we'll go there—we'll look for her—we shall no doubt ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... tears. "Here, another cup of coffee; you have no thought for me—you give all your attention to that child—there, there is the whistle now! Ten to one I shall be late, and all your fault, forcing me to talk instead of allowing me to eat. Hand me my valise—there, good-by and don't fret," and, rushing away, he gave no kiss to little Johnny, whom he was never more to behold; no kiss to Althea, whom he was indeed to meet again, to meet again and soon; but a gulf between him and her, ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... are a wonderful young person," said Mr. Simms, proudly. "I'm sure I'm glad that's all. Don't you fret, my dear. Your father won't care much about water-nymphs, when he ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... replied Mrs. Cow, and she whisked a big horse fly off her side with her long tail. "Don't you worry and don't you fret, there'll be some clover ...
— Billy Bunny and Uncle Bull Frog • David Magie Cory
... deny it, Cyrus," said the prince. "Our offences are such that you may well mistrust us: but you have it in your power to set garrisons in our land and hold our strong places and take what pledges you think best. And even so," he added, "you will not find that we fret against our chains, for we shall remember we have only ourselves to blame. Whereas, if you hand over the government to some who have not offended, they may either think that you mistrust them, and thus, although you are their benefactor, you cannot be ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... then I thought that money was the thing I ought to get; And I fancied, once I had it, I should never have to fret. But I saw that I had wasted precious hours in seeking wealth; I had made a tidy fortune, but I couldn't buy her health. And I saw this truth much clearer than I'd ever seen before: That the rich man and the poor man have to let death ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... that wilderness," said Helm with optimistic cheerfulness; "and besides Beverley is no easy dose for twenty red niggers to take. I've seen him tried at worse odds than that, and he got out with a whole skin, too. Don't you fret about him, ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... of a royal court as well as the simplicity and sincerity of tangled vines and gnarled olives on the hillside. He had seen, with those eyes which overlooked nothing, the pomps and vanities of power, the fret and fever of ambition, the impotence and barrenness of much of that activity in which multitudes of men spend their lives under the delusion that mere stir and bustle mean progress and achievement. Out of Syracuse, with its petty court about a petty ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... with the Sergeant) Don't fret, ma'am. We'll have no crossness. All we want is to wipe the police from the face o' ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... much of a colonel if he wasn't. There, dear lad, don't you fret yourself about that. I've heered the men here say you did wonders for such a boy, and a big sergeant who fetched you off your horse was ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... to see the real explanation of such cases as those mentioned near the beginning of this discussion. The mothers who fret and rebel over their maternity, she found, are likely to bear neurotic children. It is obvious (1) that mothers who fret and rebel are quite likely themselves to be neurotic in constitution, and the child naturally gets its ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... done, my lad, you've run on strong Amidst the bustle of life's throng, Nor thrown a spavin yet; You've gone at score, your pace has told; I hope, my boy, your wind will hold— You've others yet to fret. ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... always soothes our nerves. It has a quieting effect upon us. The people there are better satisfied than any people we know of. Judging from a few restless spirits who get on some of the erratic platforms of that city, and who fret and fume about things in general, the world has concluded that Boston is at unrest. But you may notice that the most of the restless people who go there are imported speakers, whom Boston hires to come once a year and do for her ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... read the psalm, 'Fret not thyself because of evil doers.' I think he picked it out on purpose; and then he prayed that we might all lead better lives, and live in ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... who used to come in in his nervous, friendly way and try to comfort the sufferer by being talked to. "I thought this idle capacity was distinctive of little children and old maids. But it's just circumstances. I simply can't work, and things have to drift; it's no good to fret and struggle. And so I lie here and am as amused as a baby with a rattle, at ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... hysterics!" Mrs. Standish snapped as Sally, with a low cry of dismay, sank stunned into a chair. "There's nothing for you to fret about—you're all right, here, with me, under my protection. Nobody's going to look for you here; but think how fortunate it was I had the wit to change your name. No, it's I ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... Wintworth), Jovarny kim up, an' axed might the child go for a walk to the Gardens wid him; an' I jist puttin' on me shawl to go out, an' not wantin' to take the little crather in wid a sick woman, nor yet to lock the door on her, an' lave her to fret. So I says she might go wid him; and, whin she coom home, I tould Jovarny to open the door wid the kay an' let her in, an' showed her the dinner on the shelf by: an' if it's harm that's coom to her, it's harder on me than on ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... him, had roused into intense activity that part of his nature which had always loved, which he supposed always must love, the straight life; the life with morning face and clear, unfaltering eyes; the life which the Hermes suggested, immune from the fret and fever of secret vices and passions, lifted by winged sandals into a region where soul and body were in perfect accord, and where, because of that, there was peace; not a peace of stagnation, but a peace living ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... go on Without the friction caused by fret, What greater loads were lightly drawn, More easily were trials met; Then might existence be with blessings rife, And ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... and a citizen of the wide-lying universe. Like Emerson, he believed that "the scholar was a favorite of heaven and earth, the excellency of his country, and the happiest of men." Saner intellect than his never trod this earth, and could he speak to our age, with its fret and fever, his message would certainly include some words about ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... one in a thousand. I doubt, too, if she would fret much, however sorry she might be. She would say it were sent, and fall to trying to find out what good it were to do. Every sorrow in her mind is sent for good. Did I ever tell you, Mary, what she said one day when she found me taking on ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... that you have laid something by already, Andrew," said the colonel. "Do not fret over this: it is so lucky that you will soon be ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... the physical world weakens and ages the man who lives and works in it, surely the life passed amid spiritual thoughts and desires is thereby fortified and strengthened to resist the cares and worries which fret the physical body to decay. Then vainly the flesh fades, the soul makes all things new. This is a great truth—"it is only by the supernatural ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... previous, and one of her first acts in the morning was to try them on. They did not fit! Now, Mrs. Abercrombie intended to go out on that very morning, and she wished to wear these gaiters. "Enough to fret her, I should say!" exclaims one fair reader. "A slight cause, indeed!" says another, tossing her curls; "men are ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... lay motionless in the snow on the forest's edge, and Geraldine was beginning to fret at the prospect of her being too benumbed by the cold to use her rifle, when Duane touched her on the arm and drew her attention ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... lustily, the two-handed skinker! Mary must squeeze out a line propria manu; but indeed her fingers have been incorrigibly nervous to letter-writing for a long interval. 'T will please you all to hear that, though I fret like a lion in a net, her present health and spirits are better than they have been for some time past; she is absolutely three years and a half younger, as I tell her, since we have adopted ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... not turned at times from the fever and fret of the world we live in, from the spectacle of its wasted energy, its wild frenzy of work and its bitter inequality, to the land of dreams, to the pictured vision of the world as ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... the barbarous muzzle will fret a thoroughbred almost to insanity, unless, indeed, he has brains to free himself, as did a brilliant Irish setter which we once knew. This wise dog would run far ahead of his human guardian, and with the help of his ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... the shore just then was wet, So Lu-cy took off shoes and socks; She knew that nurse would fume and fret If they got spoilt ...
— The Infant's Delight: Poetry • Anonymous
... not been able to sleep for hunger, and had heard what their step-mother had said to their father. Grettel wept bitterly and spoke to Hansel: "Now it's all up with us." "No, no, Grettel," said Hansel, "don't fret yourself; I'll be able to find a way to escape, no fear." And when the old people had fallen asleep he got up, slipped on his little coat, opened the back door and stole out. The moon was shining clearly, ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... supported him; but when I knew him to be wrong, or when I caught him neglecting his duties, conniving at injustice, shirking inquiry, or evading the truth, I in no way spared him. The incident just related is an illustration of the treatment he often received at my hands. Fret, fume, stamp, storm, as he might, I cared nothing for him. His anger to me was as indifferent as his friendship. I despised both equally. Occasionally he would imagine, after there had been no storm between us for some time, that I had become reconciled to him, and would ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... would have died of inertia and ennui in less than six months after his retirement from business, had not his successor kindly allowed him to help on melting-days; and methinks the very ghosts of certain busy and energetic men must fret and fume at the idle and inactive state of their shadowy and incorporal selves; nor, unless—as some hope and believe—we are to have our familiar and customary tasks and duties to perform in heaven, could their souls be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... of seasoned strength and generous rage, Fell, at their last encounter, to the skill Of him the swart of look, the stern of will, Broad-shouldered SALISBURION. Such defeat Valiant and vigorous veteran well might fret. He erst invincible, the Full of Days, The Grand Old One, full-fed with power and praise. ACHILLES-NESTOR, to no younger foe, Because of one chance slip and casual throw, The Champion's Belt is ready to resign; Nor may his foe the final fall decline. So "Greek meets Greek" ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 25, 1892 • Various
... got several floggings. When his mother was living he was a cheerful little fellow, full of play, and quick in learning; but now he became dull and cast down, and he refused to eat; and he would cry and fret if anyone did but touch him. His poor little feet and hands were sore and bleeding with cold; so that he was afraid anyone should come ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... truth, whether they pay or receive honour, which is but transitory and profitless. To the true Christian the world assumes another and more interesting appearance; it is no longer a stage for the great and noble, for the ambitious to fret in, and the wealthy to revel in; but it is a scene of probation. Every soul is a candidate for immortality. And the more we realize this view of things, the more will the accidental distinctions of nature or fortune die away from our view, ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... an ass, and I shall tell him so. There, don't fret, darling. It isn't worth it. I could wish it hadn't happened for your sake, but I don't care ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... was immediately put under his command. But instead of being permitted his favorite pleasure of seeing his ardent warriors mounting the enemy's works, and rushing down streams of fire, followed by the bayonet, he was doomed to fret and pine in the humble office of interpreter between ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... (suddenly seizing Lavinia by the wrist and dragging her up the steps to the Emperor) Caesar this woman is the sister of Ferrovius. If she is thrown to the lions he will fret. He will lose weight; get out ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... not watch him while he let His armourer just brace his greaves, Rivet his hauberk, on the fret The while! His foot . . . my memory leaves No least stamp out, nor how anon He pulled ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... you know; Mis' Blackett out to Green Island; and we was always plannin' to go out when summer come; but there, I couldn't pick no day's weather that seemed to suit her just right. I never set out to worry her neither, 'twa'n't no kind o' use; she was so pleasant we couldn't have no fret nor trouble. 'Twas never 'you dear an' you darlin'' afore folks, an' 'you ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... you fret about that!" said George. "I'm taking care of you now, and I'll see that you soon get home and to Grays', too; that's all buncombe. As for your share of your father's estate, you watch me get it! You are his child, and there ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... capricious self-will one mania after another, and tossing it away again for some new phantom; gorging the memory with facts which no one has taught them to arrange, and the reason with problems which they have no method for solving; till they fret themselves in a chronic fever of the brain, which too often urge them on to plunge, as it were, to cool the inward fire, into the ever-restless seas of doubt or of superstition. It is a sad picture. There are many who may read these pages whose hearts will ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... The fret, the fever, the unrest endures, But the time flies.... Oh, try, my little lad, Coming so hot and play-worn, to be glad And patient of the long ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... Aunt Judy, "but that they are sure to be good for us, even when we like them least, and cannot understand them at all. We know so little what we ought really to like and dislike, dear No. 6, that we often fret and cry as foolishly as the two children did, who, while they were in mourning for their mother, broke their hearts over the loss of a ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... later—even a day later! The reckless impulsiveness of the modern girl had undone him. How was he to pay Hargate the money? Hargate must be paid. That was certain. No other course was possible. Lord Dreever's was not one of those natures that fret restlessly under debt. During his early career at college, he had endeared himself to the local tradesmen by the magnitude of the liabilities he had contracted with them. It was not the being in debt that he minded. ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... going about doing the housework, and planning just what they'd do if their husbands was to be taken off suddenly! Some girls can set around until they're blue moulded, and never a feller to ask 'em, and others the boys'll fret and pleg until they're fit to be tied, with nerves! Evvy you couldn't marry off if she was Cleopatra on the Nile, and poor Julia could hang smallpox flags all over her, and every man in the place'd want her jest the same! He wants her back, you ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... toward Captain Adoniram Tugg and his schooner. Rather, I had a strong desire to see the man whom he called his partner—the man who had given his name as Carver on the Sally Smith, but was now known to Tugg as "Professor Vose." I was in a fret of uncertainty. ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... I am not sure that they acknowledged even to themselves that they had always been lovers; they could not consent to anything so definite or pronounced; but they were happy in being together in the world. Esther was untouched by the fret and fury of life; she had lived in sunshine and rain among her silly sheep, and been refined instead of coarsened, while her touching patience with a ramping old mother, stung by the sense of defeat and mourning her lost activities, had given back a ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... paused and spake this blessing: 'Gift of my kind Father's love! Fret not, little plant, thy record Shineth in the book above. By the careless eye unheeded, Bear thy lowly, humble lot; Thou hast eased my weary walking, Thou art ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... of that. But before the test I shall send my blueprints to Washington. Our patent attorney there has already filed tentative plans and applied for certain patents that I consider completed. Don't fret. I'll make it impossible for anybody to ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs; ...
— A Day with Keats • May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron
... a wild outcry from the wood, hounds and horn lifting up their voices together in sudden delirium. Old horses pricked their ears, and young ones, and notably, Nancy, began to fret and to fidget. Some one said, unnecessarily: "That's him!" A man, farther down the road, turned his horse, and standing in his stirrups, stared over the wall into the thick covert, rigid as a dog setting his game. ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... she was going before any other eyes perceived it; and noiselessly she set her house in order. She executed her last will in terms which show that she died a Gospeller, as distinctly as if she had written it at the outset; she left bequests to her friends—"a fret of pearls to her dear daughter, Constance Le Despenser;" she named two of the most eminent Lollards living (Sir Lewis Clifford and Sir Richard Stury) as her executors; she showed that she retained, like the majority of the Lollards, a belief in Purgatory, by one ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... tired of all this world, Its folly and fret and care. Find me a little scented home Amongst thy ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... resting, blessed and hallowed the seventh day, As resting on that day from all his work, But not in silence holy kept: the harp Had work and rested not; the solemn pipe, And dulcimer, all organs of sweet stop, All sounds on fret by string or golden wire, Tempered soft tunings, intermixed with voice Choral or unison: of incense clouds, Fuming from golden censers, hid the mount. Creation and the six days acts they sung: Great ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... of de queer folks goin' roun', And way dey kip a-talkin' of de hard tam get along— May have plaintee money, too, an' de healt' be good an' soun'— But you'll fin' dere's alway somet'ing goin' wrong— 'Course dere may be many reason w'y some feller ought to fret— But me, I'm alway singin' de only song I know— 'Tisn't long enough for music, an' so short you can't forget, But it drive away de lonesome, an' dis is how she go, "Jus' tak' your chance, an' ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... attains sufficient width to admit two people, sitting abreast. On this a gunwale, rising a foot above the water, is fixed, and the stem and stern taper to a point, the latter being much higher than the other, and ornamented with fret-work and gilding. On the bow is placed a gun, sometimes of a nine-pounder calibre, but generally smaller, and the centre of the boat is occupied by the rowers, varying in number from twenty to a hundred, who in the large boats use the oar, and in the small ones ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 274, Saturday, September 22, 1827 • Various
... of saints, stronger than the eloquence of the gifted uplifters of men, stronger than any words ever written, was the grand, brooding, sculptured aspect of nature. And it must have been so because thousands of years before the age of saints or preachers—before the fret and symbol and figure were cut in stone—man must have watched with thought-developing sight the wonders of the earth, the monuments of time, the glooming of the dark-blue ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... strong and continuous, quieting down when he is approached or taken up; or it may be a worrying, fretful cry, a low moan or a feeble whine. And now as we take up the several cries, their description, cause, and treatment, we desire to say to the young mother: Do not yourself begin to fret and worry about deciding just which class your baby's cry belongs to; for help, knowledge, and wisdom come to every anxious mother who desires to learn and who is willing to be ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... are an angel, and positively you are amazingly like one, why the first time I catch you asleep I will clip your wings and keep you here with me, until we are both ready to start together. We won't hope for too much, nor fret for trifles, will we? These two things are the greatest maxims in life I know of. When I was a boy I used to call them commandments, but I got such a lecture for that, and felt so sorry for it afterwards, I never did again, ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... "Don't fret. What do we care?" was Van's easy answer. "We're not really after the view. I don't give a hurrah for what we see when we get to the top; what I want is the fun ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... a blank sheet of foolscap, Lenox gave up all further effort at mental concentration. A nostalgia of vast untenanted spaces was upon him,—of those great glacier regions where a man could stand alone with God and the universe, could shake himself free from the fret of personal desire. And he had agreed to forgo this—the one real rest and refreshment life afforded him,—to "suffer gladly" the insistent trivialities of hill-station life, merely, forsooth, because a woman had asked it of him. He anathematised himself for an inconsistent weak-minded ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... Jack, if—if my Colonel don't send orders back fur me to come ter him, an' if youse all get orders ter go on, will yer jes' fur my sake try ter find de Colonel an' tell him a message? Jes' tell him not ter fret 'bout me, cos I'se goin' ter remember de hill!" G. W. had never humiliated himself by allowing any one to suppose he cared to go beyond the hill-top. "An' jes' tell him I'll ...
— A Little Dusky Hero • Harriet T. Comstock
... soon, and, when the music broke off with a crash of clanging chords, Nasmyth led his partner out of the press into a little log-walled room where the half-built dynamos stood. It was lighted, but a sharp cool air and the fret of the river came in through a black opening in one wall. Laura sat upon a large deal case, and Nasmyth, looking down upon her, leaned against a dynamo. He smiled as he recognized that she grasped the significance of the throbbing roar ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... they on the table set, Making the vintner for to fret; He said, 'Young man! this will not do, For I was but ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... "Don't you fret, Susie," ordered Jeb, confident and patronizing. "You do what I say and everything'll be all right. That's the way to get along with me and get nice clothes—do what I say. With them that crosses me I'm mighty ugly. But you ain't a-goin' to cross me. . . . Now, about the house. I reckon I'd better ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... sailed through banks of green, Where the wild waves fret and quiver; And we've down the Danube been— The dark, deep, thundering river! We've thridded the Elbe and Rhone, The Tiber and blood dyed Seine, And we've been where the blue Garonne Goes ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... that these paltry things which men call success and honor are worth forgetting, if their place be taken by those ends of living which Christ has taught us to be really great and good. We need not fret if we lose them; we need not care if we never win them. Seeking greater prizes, why should we repine if the baubles and tinsel are not had? I say to you, forget them. Go higher up. Seek wisdom and righteousness, truth and character. Lay up treasures in the heart, and do not be bound and ...
— Joy in Service; Forgetting, and Pressing Onward; Until the Day Dawn • George Tybout Purves
... somebody mischievously watered some plants with sea-water. When Bligh discovered the offence, he flew into a rage and "longed to flog the whole company." But the offender could not be discovered, and the irate captain had to let his passion fret itself out. ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... see, it's i' this road, Mr. Penrose. They say as th' angels are glad when bad folk turn good, and I suppose they'll fret theirsels a bit if th' bad folk keeps bad; and there's mony o' ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... my Joe John, "I wonder what you mean?" You're always getting in some scrape and getting off your spleen; Keep cooler, John, and do not fret, however things may go; You'll longer last and have more friends, John A. Calhoun, ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... considerably better, to-night," remarked Jan. "She'll get about now, if she does not fret too ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Yes, sir; your satin sleeve begins to fret at the rug that is underneath it, I do observe: and your ample velvet bases are not without evident stains of a hot ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... We fret ourselves to reform life, in order that posterity may be happy, and posterity will say as usual: "In the past it used to be better, the present ...
— Note-Book of Anton Chekhov • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
... a fret at once. Netty was not the Netty of an hour ago, or she would have coaxed him out of it. But she did not notice it now in her abstraction. She had risen at the tinkle of the bell, and seated herself in a chair. Presently a nose, with a great pimple on the end of it, appeared ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... To learn and then do, is not that a pleasure? When friends come from afar do we not rejoice? To live unknown and not fret, is not ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius
... at last, "we will not wrangle on whose was the slip, or if it does not trouble you it will not trouble me. Anyway, what is a basin of pap?—nothing to fret about!" ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... Antipholus of Ephesus, was very angry, when she heard that her husband said he had no wife; for she was of a jealous temper, and she said her husband meant that he loved another lady better than herself; and she began to fret and say unkind words of jealousy and reproach of her husband; and her sister Luciana, who lived with her, tried in vain to persuade her out of her ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... ambassador, and his servant was allowed to attend him at his pleasure, and to sleep in an adjoining apartment. Even this nominal confinement, however, Galileo's high spirit was unable to brook. An attack of the disease to which he was constitutionally subject contributed to fret and irritate him, and he became impatient for a release from his anxiety as well as from his bondage. Cardinal Barberino seems to have received notice of the state of Galileo's feelings, and, with a magnanimity which posterity ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... "Don't fret, Ben," said Miss Mehitable. "You're the best boy on earth, and I want to hear all about it, for I'm sure you did ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... listen to her fussicking, dad. What's all the row about? I've had a present given to me; well, what of that? You can look at it for yourself. I can't tell you who give it me, 'cos I've promised I wouldn't; but you'll know some day, and then you'll larff. It ain't nothing to fret your gizzard about; so there. I'm old enough to look after myself, and if I ain't I never shall ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... this lonely country," said the voice, with the vim of water-fret against an obstinate stone. "Wonder what it's like in the Mandane land! ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... on to the nearest chair, "and are you putting yourself out about that, my pretty? Why, tisn't likely that you three young ladies could support yourselves. Don't you fret about that, Miss Primrose; why, you'll get quite old with fretting, and lose all your nice looks. You go to bed, my darling—there's a Providence over us, and he'll find ways and means ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... all hopes of your being restored to him; so don't fret too much about it, my dear Miss Alice," said the mate, anxious to comfort her. "He will know very well that Nub would not have deserted you; and he will have heard from the people on board that Walter went off with me; and ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... "Don't fret," she said, while tears rolled down her own face; "there's three on 'em yet, as wants their mother to ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... I wish to say to high officers of State and members of Government is this, as far as you can trust the man on the spot. Do not weary or fret or nag him with your superior wisdom. They claim no immunity from errors of opinion or judgment, but their errors are nothing compared ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... foeman of those who fled consulted the gods on the plain, and Gat answer Fret[Sec.] from that the day was propitious to battle; There the war-leader saw how mighty were the corse-ribs; The gods of the temple would thin lives in Gautland. A Sword-Thing held the Earl there where no man afore him With ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... presentation of the fact as something known by others, and requiring only to be studied and learned by the child, rules out such conditions of fulfilment. It condemns the fact to be a hieroglyph: it would mean something if one only had the key. The clue being lacking, it remains an idle curiosity, to fret and obstruct the mind, a dead weight to ...
— The Child and the Curriculum • John Dewey
... always some beauty before undiscovered bursting on my sight, and her limitless halls were full of paintings and of songs of which I would never tire. Then, as evening closed in, and I would reluctantly turn back to my crowded quarters, the sordid streets and the cramped appearance of everything would fret me, and almost make me envious of the sparrow perched on the telegraph wire over my head. For he, at least, was lifted above this thoughtless, hurrying throng among which I was compelled to pass, and the piteous, supplicating voice of the blind beggar at the corner did not ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... longer half of prosperous life, With little grief, or fear, or fret: She, loved and loving long ago, Is ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... him curiously. "We aren't that much out of the woods," he remarked; "the other gang'll get in their work, don't you fret." ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... alley, or the gamesters beadsmen that pray for them. They are somewhat like those that are cheated by great men, for they lose their money and must say nothing. It is the best discovery of humours, especially in the losers, where you have fine variety of impatience, whilst some fret, some rail, some swear, and others more ridiculously comfort themselves with philosophy. To give you the moral of it; it is the emblem of the world, or the world's ambition: where most are short, or over, or wide or wrong-biassed, and ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... that Birmingham was beginning to fret. They were crying out once more for free trade with America: European facilities were not enough, and it was Oliver's business to keep them quiet. It was useless, he proposed to tell them, to agitate until the Eastern business was settled: they must not bother the Government with such details just ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... thou not tease and fret me to and fro, Sweet spirit of this summer-circled field, With that quiet voice of thine that would not yield Its meaning, though I mused and sought it so? But now I am content to let it go, To lie at length and watch the swallows pass, As blithe and restful as ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman
... Major, very old devil—part of Bonsa," he answered, looking at his master anxiously. "Well, don't you fret, Jeekie not afraid of devils, Jeekie get you out in good time. Go to bed and leave ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... them; but how would it be in a bayonet charge against the enemy, when they want the free use of every muscle, and all their strength thrown forward? I would not give much for their chance of victory. And it is just the same with horses: you fret and worry their tempers, and decrease their power; you will not let them throw their weight against their work, and so they have to do too much with their joints and muscles, and of course it wears them up ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... but while she was preparing it the lamp went out, and there was no more oil in the house, nor any candles. What to do she did not know, for the broth must be made. Abdalla, seeing her very uneasy, said, "Do not fret and tease yourself, but go into the yard, and take some oil out of ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... burning flame! On memory's wings she's carried back to where These same wild flowers perfumed the sunny air. And once again in childhood's tireless feet, She wanders on the shore where dark waves beat And moan. She bends her head, her eyes are wet With tears. Weep not, Arline! your heart may fret Itself in vain, the world will never care. Reveal not to these heartless eyes the pain That clasps your heart, but raise your head again And let your grand, young voice ring on the air! See! 'neath your ...
— Love or Fame; and Other Poems • Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
... your own choice; so don't go and pretend to fret over it. And as to sparing you, you've been spared a deal too much, and I've been a fool to do it. And just bethink you, Faith, that if we are now to make one family with my Lady Lettice and Edith, you'd best be thinking ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... 'Don't fret yourself about us. We are well known in our county, and above suspicion. Whenever you yourself should feel that your presence was like to be a danger, I am quite willing to believe ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... "Do na fret thee, Simon," said Mistress Attwood, gently. "The rushes need a changing, and I ha' pined this long while to lay the floor wi' new clay from Shottery common. 'Tis the sweetest earth! Nick shall take the hangings down, and right things up ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... "Don't fret so, mother," said Mattie, again putting her arms around her mother's neck, and kissing her. "I will be a real good, obedient girl, and do anything you bid me. But then—" Here Mattie paused for a moment, and looked roguishly ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... of startling sincerely religious persons. But there is no help for it, if we are to combat the adversaries on their own ground; and because it is thus only that, while we startle a few, we can prove to all that the torrent of negations is but a passing rush of waters, which, fret as they may in their channel, shall be found to have left not so much as a trace of their passage ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... saying how smart she was, and all of a sudden she was taken with spasms in the heart, and went off like a flash. Parthenia is young to bring the baby up by hand. But you must be careful, and not get anxious or excited. Keep quite calm, and don't fret about anything. Of course, things can't go on jest as if you were down-stairs; and I wondered whether you knew your little Billy was sailing about in a tub on the mill-pond, and that your little Sammy was letting your little Jimmy down from the ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... His reapers, 'Make scythe and sickle keen, And bring me the grain from the uplands, And the grass from the meadows green, And from off the mist-clad marshes, Where the salt waves fret and foam, Ye shall gather the rustling sedges, ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... out the purposed site of a set of new offices; and the third lamented that her Ladyship had not on thicker shoes, that she might have gone and seen the garden. More than ever disgusted and wretched, the hapless Lady Juliana returned to the house to fret away the ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier |
