"Shirk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with you, and will surely punish you, if you don't forsake your wicked ways. You that live in town are eyeservants behind your master's back. Instead of serving your masters faithfully, which is pleasing in the sight of your heavenly Master, you are idle, and shirk your work. God sees you. You tell lies. God hears you. Instead of being engaged in worshipping him, you are hidden away somewhere, feasting on your master's substance; tossing coffee-grounds with some wicked fortuneteller, ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... the 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 a laugh,' he rejoined gaily, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... was 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 ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... he stood in the Ark door bagonin and shoutin' to the animals to walk in male and female. Or his voice kinder soothin' and patronizin' tellin' the female dove to go out and shirk round on the water and see if it wuz safe for the males in the party to go out. Oh, how nateral that would sound to wimmen, soundin' out ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... to the task of dragooning into order the unruly mass. Half the men have spent their advance, and mean to run as soon as the ship arrives. They intend to do as little as they can,—to "soger," and shirk, and work against the ship all they can. The captain cares only to make a quick passage and get what he can out of the crew. Community of interest there is none. Brutal authority is pitted ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... 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
... "Shirk away out of the club. Only if you do that it seems to me that you'll have to go on shirking for the rest ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... 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
... not shirk the very difficult question of the relation between the bodily and the mental ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... 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 |
