"Coward" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... know them, because thou art ever with thy lady, and hast her good favour; but I know them well; and the best I can get from them is Lazy Flanderkin, and Greedy Flanderkin, and Flemish, sot—-I thank the saints they cannot say Coward Flanderkin, since ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... You and I know that there's some sort of madman in command, a man that quotes the Bible and speaks English; but madman or not, he's a great general, and woe betide Virginia if he gets among the manors. I was sent to the hills to get news, and I've got it. Would it not be the part of a coward to bide here and make no ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... your own nerves, laughed the voice, when, if you had not been a coward, you might have faced it down and lied again, and all would have been well. But you shall have another chance, and lying is very easy, even when the nerves are over-wrought. You will do better the ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... You coward!" she cried. "You have made me shoot a man, and I never shot a man in ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... Bump of cowardice is 's big 's an egg. This man, fren's," said he, dropping the victim's head and advancing impressively, "is a very dangerous character. Look out for 'm. He's a liar, an' a thief, an' a coward, an' a——" ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... too evident. Spencer, regarding him from a single viewpoint, deemed him a coward, and his gorge rose at ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... thousand lives Like many men's. And yet men love to live As if mere life were worth their living for. What but perdition will it be to most? Life's more than breath and the quick round of blood; It is a great spirit and a busy heart. The coward and the small in soul scarce do live. One generous feeling—one great thought—one deed Of good, ere night, would make life longer seem Than if each year might number a thousand days, Spent as is this by nations of mankind. We live in deeds, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... fine, breezy, sunny world full of beauty, interest, and deep satisfaction for our humanity, the doors of which you are closing on yourselves. If some people have traveled there unwisely or have lost their way in it, that is only a coward's reason for staying outside. Things may seem to be going very well with you in spite of your attitude while you are still in the early twenties—you may say that you are getting from life all that you want. But as you approach the thirties you will infallibly discover ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... hesitatingly; I reviled him for a coward; but the pain, even of the first strokes, was too much for me. I could feel the sweat on my forehead, my finger nails dug into the sides of the stone, its sharp edge cut into the soft inside of my clutching fingers, I bit my tongue to keep from shrieking, yet my voice, as I taunted Agathemer and ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... nothing but the azure breast Of ocean and the sky—the sea and sky, And the lone bark; no clouds were floating by Where the sun set, but his great seraph light, Went down alone, in majesty and might; And the stars came again, a silver troop, Until, in shame, the coward shadows droop Before the radiance of these holy gems, That bear the images ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart
... you consider that, being crippled, I shall not have the strength to kill you? But there's no question of my killing you, Florence. Have you ever known me kill people? Never! I'm much too big a coward, I should be frightened, I should shake all over. No, no, Florence, I shan't touch you, ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... of the hateful Spaniards was a fatal argument. Instead of respecting their monarch, though in his official robes, the populace howled angry curses at him as a degenerate Aztec, a coward, no longer a warrior or ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... hither with such idle stories at a time when there's already far too much discord among the people! You good-for-nothing vagabond! What! I suppose you want the peasant folks to beat the landlords to death, burn their castles to the ground, and rob them of everything? Coward and rebel as you are, the gallows-tree is far too good for you. I tell you what it is. I'll put you in irons and send you to the county jail, and there you may sit till your turn comes to stand before ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... "People are different," he said. "A man is not a coward because he cries. I have seen two boys fighting and pulling each other's hair and crying all the time, but they fought on. They did not cry because they ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... before the patience and perseverance of Crook and his handful, finally wore out the Indians, presents, perhaps, the one instance where they were brought fairly to bay and the soldiers had an opportunity to give them a thorough beating. This unique battle demonstrated also how desperately even a coward will fight when his back is against a wall. And it showed, as few other frontier fights have shown, the splendid courage of the regular American soldier in this arduous, ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... honoured presence of Falstaff," and applauding the "sweet, sound, ripe toothsome, wholesome kernel" of Falstaff's character as well as humour. He even defied the opinion of his idol, Victor Hugo, and contended that Falstaff was not really a coward. All the world will agree that Swinburne was right in glorifying Falstaff. He glorified him, however, on the wrong plane. He mixed his planes in the same way in his paean over Captain Webb's feat in swimming the English Channel. "I consider ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... prosaic: "mad avarice" is an unhappy combination; and "the coward distance yet with kindling pride" is not only reprehensible for the antithetical turn, but as it is a quotation: "safe distance" and "coward distance" you have more than once had recourse to before—And the ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... little parley, a little edging toward him, a sudden blow might have served. Yet I was glad in my heart that I had not used craft; cat traits are not instinctive with me; craft, stealth, a purring ambush—faugh! I was no coward to beat him down unawares. I had openly declared him prisoner, and I was glad I had done so. Why, I might have shot him as we talked, had I been of a breed to do murder—had I been inhuman enough to slay him, unwarned, ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... "I'm a coward, Aileen, and you are just like our Father Honore; but I will put all behind me. I will not regret. I will work out my own salvation here in my native place, among my own and among strangers. I vow here I will, ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... Attorney-General assured Mme. Bourjot that the action would not be taken, she felt quite a coward after all the terror she had gone through, and weak and helpless from emotion, she could not endure any more, and so ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... fine spectacular heroism of other officers of lower rank. Currie, the most picturesque physique on the West front, was no man for mere gallantry. Poor dashing Mercer, beloved of the ranks, later paid the penalty for the sort of bravery that inspires troops but does not win battles. Currie was no coward. But he was cautious. The Scot in him preordained that he might be a necessity higher up. He just flung his left flank around south and hung on. We read ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... Marquis de la Roche-Guyon. It will always be a matter of thankfulness to me that I was not left to sacrifice the fairest woman in the world to the rescue of a thankless coward.' ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... Jake Kloon; Leverett was as treacherous as only a born coward can be; Sid Hone, Harvey Chase, Blommers, Byron Hastings, — he knew them all too well to trust them, — a sullen, unscrupulous pack, partly cowardly, always fierce, — as are any creatures that live furtively, feed only by their wits, and slink ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... more, than this very one. Reject this, and you may die in your sins. Why do I say this? Is it to frighten your soul? Oh, no! It is to persuade you. I show you the peril. I show you the escape. Would I not be a coward beyond all excuse, if, believing that this great audience must soon be launched into the eternal world, and that all who believe in Christ shall be saved, and that all who reject Christ will be lost—would I not be the ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... to-day a persistent cause. Moreover, since interpueblo warfare exists and head taking is its form, head-hunting is a necessity with an individual group of people in a state of nature. Without it a people could have no peace, and would be annihilated by some group which believed it a coward and an ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... her cousin Theodahad partner of her throne (not, as sometimes stated, her husband, for his wife was still living). The choice was unfortunate. Theodahad, notwithstanding a varnish of literary culture, was a coward and a scoundrel. He fostered the disaffection of the Goths, and either by his orders or with his permission, Amalasuntha was imprisoned on an island in the Tuscan lake of Bolsena, where in the spring of 535 she was murdered in ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... of hewn stone. What kind of a man could he have been? What were his reflections as he went about his farm-work and thought of his sister at the head of armies? Was he merely a lout or something worse—the prototype of our Conscientious Objector: a coward who disguised his cowardice with ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... and who made the journey a lively and eventful one by her total lack of desire to proceed over the road from Edgewood to Acreville. But that, the cow's tale, belongs to another time and place, and the coward's tale must come first; for Elisha Simpson was held to be sadly lacking in the manly quality ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... craven thought came upon me to use a bullet to end it all, and once I actually lifted my revolver to my head; but dead Inyati's last whisper seemed again to sound in my ear had I made a "good fight," to end it like a coward? ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... through the mud, cursing Mannering, cursing the Motor Pirate, above all cursing myself for my own pusillanimity. Why had I listened to Winter? Why should I have allowed myself to be persuaded to play the part of coward, merely that Winter's car should have ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... are a coward," my wife went on. "Just think of his arriving there, all excitement over his ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... get nothing from these fools," he muttered; "and I am very much afraid of being here between a drunkard and a coward. Here's an envious fellow making himself boozy on wine when he ought to be nursing his wrath, and here is a fool who sees the woman he loves stolen from under his nose and takes on like a big baby. Yet ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... come together. Raise the draw! Close the gates! Let the first to flee be the first to die, and at the castle gates! Let them make an unwilling stand in defense of their own lives and so defend the gates! They tell me a coward fights hard when cornered. Dare disobey at your peril! It is the command ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... not believe that this man was a coward. It was his boast that he could shoe anything that could walk into his shop, and he lived up to the boast. I give him that due, on my honour. Many a devil walked into that shop wearing the hoof and hide of a horse ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... because he is such a coward. Pray, he couldn't help it; he was too frightened. You were too frightened, weren't you, Robert? You are such a coward!" ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... down and across for some familiar landmark, and looked in vain, growing momentarily more frightened at the attention she was attracting by standing irresolutely there. Flossy Shipley, in her girlhood days, had been almost a hopeless coward; and Flossy Roberts felt, by the throbbing of her heart, that she had not yet outgrown her girlish character. Suddenly she gave a little exclamation of delight, and with a spring forward laid her hand on the arm of one whom ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... honest poverty That hangs his head, and a' that? The coward slave, we pass him by, We dare be poor for a' that! For a' that, and a' that, Our toil's obscure, and a' that: The rank is but the guinea's stamp, The man's the gowd for ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... has done for you," I insisted, "hasn't made any one happy. It has only kept making things worse and worse for you and every one else, and finally it has made you a coward." ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... outlaw her and condemn her taste in everything. As they passed out of the cathedral, she would rather have gone home than continued the walk as he begged her, if she were not tired, to do; but this would have been flight, and she was not a coward. So they sauntered down the Rue Fabrique, and turned into Palace Street. As they went by the door of Hotel Musty, her pleasant friends came again into her mind, and she said, "This is where we stayed last week, with ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... [rising in alarm]. Pettikins, none of that, if you please. If you hint the slightest doubt of Hector's courage, he will go straight off and do the most horribly dangerous things to convince himself that he isn't a coward. He has a dreadful trick of getting out of one third-floor window and coming in at another, just to test his nerve. He has a whole drawerful of Albert Medals for ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... Sunday, and take a fair start, as Flossy says, it isn't pleasant to go in after the exercises have fairly opened?" As she said this, for the first time in her life Miss Ruth Erskine began to have a dim idea that possibly she might be a coward; this certainly ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... to Mr. Alcando he was not a coward, but this was very unusual for him, to make pictures in the face of a great danger—to stand calmly with a camera, turning the crank and getting view after view on the strip of celluloid film, while a flood of ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton
... thou wilt have it,—like a coward, fled, Fled while his soldiers fought; fled first, Ventidius. Thou long'st to curse me, and I give thee leave. I know thou cam'st ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... the Stuarts, there are no songs about them and no praises in the West, whatever there may be in the South. Why would there, and they running away and leaving the country the way they did? And what good did they ever do it? James the Second was a coward. Why didn't he go into the thick of the battle like the Prince of Orange? He stopped on a hill three miles away, and rode off to Dublin, bringing the best of his troops with him. There was a lady walking in the street at Dublin when he got there, and he told her the battle was lost, ...
— The Kiltartan History Book • Lady I. A. Gregory
... a coward, but the giant iguana was not pleasant to look at. Tom, with the butt of his rifle, gave it a gentle shove, whereupon the creature scurried off through the brush as though glad to make ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... treachery; he indeed has obtained release though he has been wrongfully slain. I am his foster brother; I put that wazir to death with a blow of my sword, and made the attempt to kill the king; but he entreated mercy, and swore that he was innocent; I having spurned him as a coward, allowed him to escape. Since then, my occupation has been this, to carry the bier, in this manner, through the city, on the first Thursday of every moon, and to mourn for the ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... mean by that?" he demanded. "Have you turned coward, that you surrender to a couple of ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... a coward, however passive, brings an element of treachery into a dangerous situation. Nostromo's nervous impatience passed into gloomy thoughtfulness. Decoud, in an undertone, as if speaking to himself, remarked that, after ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... horrid murder. He wanted me to have no more to do with them, and when he saw I was attached to them, begged me earnestly to treat them always as inferiors, to 'keep them in their place'; and this I promised, coward-like, to do, although I knew that, in the way he meant, ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... darkness was coming on, and she had a sense of being surrounded. It agitated her, but she pulled herself together, stood still and admonished herself. She called herself a fool; she asked herself if she was going to be a coward. She laughed out loud at her own apprehension; but a chill stole into her blood when she heard near by— there was no doubt about it now—mockery of her own laughter. Then suddenly, before she could ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Carnaby was no coward. His steel-grey eyes blazed as he met his cousin's look. "Carnaby dear, do you know what you are to me? You are my kinsman; my only male relation. I'm so fond of you already, don't spoil it! Think what you can be to me if you will. I am all alone in the world and when you grow a little older ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... up the train—we're not stopping any man from crossing right now. What I have in mind now is to ask you, do you classify me as a coward just because I ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... thou wretch, thou coward, Thou little valiant, great in villany! Thou ever strong upon the stronger side! Thou fortune's champion, that dost never fight But when her humorous ladyship is by To ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... Easterns are brave men and we of Egypt have always heard that among them none is braver than Idernes who gained his advancement through courage and skill in war. Let him therefore come out together with the lord who named me a liar, armed with swords only, and I, who being a liar must also be a coward, together with my servant, a black dwarf, will meet them man to man in the sight of both the armies, and fight them to the death. Or if it pleases Idernes better, let him not come and I will seek him and kill him in the battle, or by him ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... rope enough to hang himself. He'll swing as high as Haman ere long. Robin told me of the coward's treachery." ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... to himself that he was the greatest coward and the greatest villain that ever stood on earth. Words he had none. Then they heard Lady ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... you coward. If he insists on hurling a boot at your head, why dodge it—dodge it! Or wait, stay where you are. ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... always," muttered Nigel, "believed myself to be a man of ordinary courage, but now—I shall write myself a coward, ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... there looking like a devil. Hate me if you like—but don't betray us, moaning and moping because you can't have the moon. Put on your armour, and go down into the battle. Don't play the coward, boy!" ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... say, you worry me. You are a coward, like all other men are! You are frightened of that poor creature!" He immediately jumped up and said, furiously: "I should like to know what he does, and why you are so set against him? Does he make you unhappy? Does he beat you? Does he deceive you ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... unchartered passion. So long as I could keep my love well masked and hidden what harm could come to her or any if I should give it leave to live in prison? None, I thought; and yet at times was made a very coward by the thought. For love, like other living things, will grow by what it feeds upon, and once full-grown, may haply come to laugh at bonds, ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... Phil," said Harry, grinning. "I say, Fred, he is such a coward; worse than you are a ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... face. I saw that he was of middle size, fairly well dressed, and as some blown sand had drifted over his boots and ankles I knew that he had been there for some hours. There was blood upon his collar, and the fingers of his right hand were tightly clenched. I told myself that I was a coward, and I set my teeth. I must lift his head from the water, and cover him up with my own coat while I fetched help. But when I stooped down a deadly faintness came over me. My fingers were palsied ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a coward," she said in a broken voice. "O Hamish, it does seem as though our troubles were too many and ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... yourself in the waters of the Nile rather than break through man's stupid superstition and convention! Why do you look so amazed? Am I touching on some old memory? Come, let us leave these black embers of coward mortality and return to ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... passing of Napoleon centers attention anew on one of the baffling figures of all time—a man at once attractive and repulsive; a soldier of infinite courage who on at least one occasion acted the coward; a master strategist who, to the last, seemed never to fully grasp that strategy by which he almost ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... had kicked him out of the road, and lying in his straw bed the poor wretch had burned with resentment, cowed, helpless; and sleeping, had dreamed of killing the brute and awoke with a tune on his black lips. He knew Lije Peters, neighborhood bully without being a coward, a born black-mailer, a ruffian with the touch of humor, ignorant with sometimes an allegorical cast of speech. As he entered the room he looked about and seeing no ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... loyalty and honour forbade, by becoming ardent in the pursuit and effecting the capture of Spurling, that so he might prove his innocence. An emotion of shame and self-disgust throbbed through him that it should have been possible for him, even for a moment, to entertain such a coward's thought as that. He shook himself free from temptation and looked about. What was Pere Antoine doing? What had he meant by saying that he was perhaps preventing him from being hanged? Did he still believe him to be guilty, as he had evidently done ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... bed. He took one out of a cardboard box in his bag, and thought it might do him good to smoke it now. But an adult tobacco-smoker looked so curiously at the little thin cross between cigar and cigarette, that it was transferred to a pocket unlit, and the coward hid himself behind his paper, in which there were several items of immediate interest to him. Would the match hold out at Lord's? If not, which was the best of the Wednesday matinees? Pocket had received a pound from home for his expenses, so that these questions ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... are a mean coward to set us afloat in a hostile country, without giving us our arms," said Simpson, who had once before asked for the weapons, and had ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... think a little differently, if you can. You and I between us have made an infernal mess of things. It was chiefly my fault. And as regards Palliser—well, I am sorry. Only the fellow—he may have been lovable to you, but he was a coward and a sneak to me—and he ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... said contemptuously. "You must eat less supper, Eleanor. If you were not such a coward you would not dream such things. I have no patience with ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... "I'm not a coward. Any man would be disturbed, to put it mildly, over the conviction that his life was threatened every hour, but it was of her I was thinking—of Anita! I could not bear to think of leaving her alone to face the world, penniless and hedged in on all sides by enemies. ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... a coward, Miss Burnham!" he replied, warmly. "You are speaking cruelly and unjustly of as brave a set of fellows as ever lived! The strongest man among them set the example; he volunteered to stay by Frank, and to bring him on in the track ...
— The Frozen Deep • Wilkie Collins
... way through the brown tan on the face of Braxton Wyatt, and his eyes fell before the cold gaze of the Spaniard. But he raised them again in a moment. Braxton Wyatt was not a coward, and he never permitted a guilty conscience to last longer ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... began to state that I could not promise he would not openly embrace my religion, they interrupted me, repeating that he was my child more than theirs, and could never come to any harm under my care. Coward as I was, I did not use the opportunity then given to set before them their own danger, and commend the pure faith that I knew their child held. I had occasionally talked in a general way, and once very strongly, when the mother told me of ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... a coward!" Sir Ralph exclaimed; "now I know it," and, with a taunting laugh, he ordered his men to follow him, issued from the village, and prepared, with his little band, to charge the Roundhead horse, about ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... not love the adventure of mental combat, but he was no coward. "It seems to me," he said, "that it preaches such radical changes in our government that it is seditious. To be frank, Mr. Moreton, I think the government ought ...
— The Beauty and the Bolshevist • Alice Duer Miller
... The crowd of young Kromlaix men looked at each other in consternation. Was the handsomest, the strongest, and the most daring lad in their village a coward? It was the dark year of 1813, when Napoleon was draining France of all its manhood. Even the only sons of poor widowed women, such as Rohan Gwenfern was, were no longer exempted from conscription. Having lost ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... "And I am a coward, that is why I take it, for otherwise I also must dare a heavier. But what of Issachar? This meeting can scarcely be kept a ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... John Welsh and David Hume. Of Hume there is no particular account, but Welsh we have met before. Though he had been under denunciation as a rebel ever since the Pentland rising (in which he had, indeed, borne no part), he had never given his voice for war; and, though assuredly neither a coward nor a trimmer, had always kept from any active share in the proceedings of his more tumultuous brethren. His plan, and the plan of the few who at that time and place were on his side, was temperate and reasonable. They asked for no more than they were willing to give. ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... now this side, now that, one moment on the perch above, the next on the edge of the dish, plainly longing to be in, yet the mere approach of the smallest bird in the room drove him away. Not that he was afraid, he was not in the least a coward; he met everybody and everything with the dignity and bravery of a true thrush. Neither was it that he was disabled when wet, which makes some birds hesitate; he was never at all disordered by his bath, and however long he soaked, or thoroughly he spattered, his plumage remained ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... was no coward, and had been in many a hand to-hand tussle before; but there was something in the character of the danger which would have made it more pleasant for him to hesitate awhile until he could learn its precise dimensions; but time was too precious, and the next moment, he had dropped ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... interesting and abidingly memorable. We have already reached a point where we perceive the unreality of the importance which the chronicles have sought to give to mere kings and captains. If the king was a hero, we love him; but if he was a sot or a coward, his jeweled crown and purple robes leave him as unconsidered by us as the beggar in his rags. Whatever influence, favorable or unfavorable, democracy may exert to make easy or difficult the advent of the noblest kind of man, ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... satisfaction to follow Mr. Reed's further orders to keep a sharp lookout all that night, about the premises. Meantime Eben Slade, who like most men of his sort was a coward at heart, had hastily withdrawn to a safe distance, after finding what he sought under the walnut-tree. Soon he sat down in the woods that crossed his road, and there, by the light of a candle-end that he had with him, eagerly ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... restore (what he supposed I had lost) my courage. I must not be down-hearted; many of the best men had made a failure in the beginning. I told him I had no head for business, and his kind face darkened. "You must not say that, Loudon," he replied; "I will never believe my son to be a coward." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... uncivilised instincts, but it does not make them civilised to join with a million other people in indulging them. I think that a man who refuses to join from conviction, at the risk of being hooted as a coward, is probably ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... she was nearing him again in the dance. "I want that extra five you whispered you'd give me," Antoinette heard the tall chap say. "That kick was worth it. If you don't cough up I'll tell the lady how much it cost you, you coward, to be a hero twice." Antoinette looked intently at the tall man. There was a mole on his right cheek. She was wise all of a sudden. Then she grew faint with the shock of ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... possibly be worse than it is already, drowned as I am in misery without her: whereas, if I could succeed! Ah! I would barter even emancipation for a single kiss! And O that my courage may not fail, turning coward at the very first sight of her again! For the struggle to appear indifferent, in such an ocean of rapture, will be terrible indeed, since even now, the very thought of it makes me tremble, being enough to make me fall weeping at her feet. And now the sun is setting, and it is time to go: ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... a coward, who signed death-warrants with a hand that shook, though his heart was relentless. He possessed no passions on which to charge his crimes; they were perpetrated in cold blood, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various
... gave himself up, the coward—the lying turn-tale! The treacherous dog! Swearing it off on me to save a few years of his miserable life out of jail. See here!" stopping suddenly before Mr. Pinkerton, "That traitor made me swear I would never squeal. All I got out of the whole swag was ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... tell you!" A smile almost fiendish broke over the furrows of the rugged face. "You wouldn't dast shoot, unless perhaps it was a woman, you coward!" ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... well-armed attendants. The latter, at the approach of the rioters, implored their master to make his escape, if possible, to the fortress of the Alhambra, where the count of Tendilla was established. But the intrepid prelate, who held life too cheap to be a coward, exclaimed, "God forbid I should think of my own safety, when so many of the faithful are perilling theirs! No, I will stand to my post and wait there, if Heaven wills it, the crown of martyrdom." [30] It must be confessed he ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... coward!" I thought. "Terry hates 'em like poison, and would never forgive her if she didn't worship motoring at the first go-off." As for me, I have always found a certain piquant charm in a timid woman. There is a subtle flattery in her almost unconscious appeal to superior courage ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... place in the conservatory of Mr. Merton's house, in Park Lane, where Lord Arthur had dined as usual. Sybil had never seemed more happy, and for a moment Lord Arthur had been tempted to play the coward's part, to write to Lady Clementina for the pill, and to let the marriage go on as if there was no such person as Mr. Podgers in the world. His better nature, however, soon asserted itself, and even when Sybil flung herself weeping into his ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... never seen," says I, "the fellow's a rank coward!" As for Bentley, he only fumbled with his ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol
... coward!" exclaimed the scout leader of the new patrol, as he gave Ted Slavin a push; "I'm going to speak to the chief of police about the way you rob this good woman, and see if he won't stop it. You ought to be ashamed of ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... not depressed. His coward fears of a few moments ago were gone, and he could face the situation now with considerable aplomb. Of course, it was disturbing to learn that he was probably a fugitive from justice; and with ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... name of fury seized your coward hearts?" cried their dissatisfied leader, drawing ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... cause of evil thoughts, and that he holds his position by keeping comfort away from many around him, and his fine surroundings become to him as tinsel and dross. Dyspepsia, ennui and weariness of spirit claim him. He is a poverty-haunted coward, ashamed that he is so; and, saddest of all, he is not a Christian. He does not believe that if he seeks the kingdom of God, which means only to do aright, all things of material beauty will be added to ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... and noisy, but there was a sudden silence as he entered. He was well-known here, and every pair of eyes was fixed upon him keenly. That he bore the scrutiny without flinching proved him to be no coward. The attitude of the crowd in the wine shop was not reassuring. His task was to be more difficult than he imagined, and he rose to the occasion. With a careless nod intended to comprehend every one in the room, and as though he perceived nothing extraordinary in the manner of his reception, he crossed ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... Hal, indeed!" he cried. "I thought the wind blew from that quarter," and he angrily faced his eldest son. "So, sirrah; 'twas you that did urge this foolish boy to work your traitorous purpose in such coward guise!" ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... known amongst the Fan. The marriage tie has some significance, the women will not go astray except with the husband's leave, which is not often granted. The men wax wroth if their mothers be abused. It is an insult to call one of them a liar or a coward; the coast-tribes would merely smile at the soft impeachment; and assure you that none but fools—yourself included by implication—are anything else. Their bravery is the bravery of the savage, whose first ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... these years, and I have only myself to blame. I have taught her to live it. I began it when I carried her away from here; I should have kept her at home and had her face the consequences of her sin then. I ought to have laid Archie in her arms and kept him there. I was a coward and could not, and in my fear I destroyed the only thing that could have saved her—the mother-love. Now she will run her course. She's her own mistress; no one can compel her ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... it was beastly so to butcher him. If any quarrell were twixt him and you, You should have bad him meete you in the field, Not like a coward under your owne roofe To knock him downe as he had bin an oxe, Or silly sheepe prepard for slaughter house. The Lord is just, and will revenge his blood, On you and yours for this extremitie. I will not stay an hower within your house, It ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... ever said anything against the Fenians, and I told him he had always claimed that the Fenians were the nicest men in the world, and it seemed to relieve him very much. When he got home and found the house there he was tickled, and when Ma called him an old bald-headed coward, and said it was only a joke of the boys with a foot ball, he laughed right out, and said he knew it all the time, and he ran to see if Ma would be scared. And then he wanted to hug me, but it wasn't my night ...
— The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy - Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, No. 2 - 1883 • George W. Peck
... a word on that?" demanded the Cap'n, grimly. He came close up, whirling the cudgel. "You're an old, cheap, ploughed-land blowhard, that's what you are! You've cuffed 'round hired men and abused weak wimmen-folks. I knowed you was a coward when I got that line on ye. You don't dast to stand up to a man like me. I'll split your head for a cent." He kept advancing step by step, his mien absolutely demoniac. "I've married your sister because she ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... so. A coward is a man who is afraid and runs away; the man who is frightened but does not run away, is not quite a coward," said the prince with a smile, after a ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... "And, therefore, the coward policy of this hermit is like that of these miserable princes, who, forgetful of their knighthood and their faith, are only resolved and determined when the question is retreat, and rather than go forward against an armed Saracen, would ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... a false picture is this that my coward heart hath drawn! There is Another in that room, I cried half loud, Another there before me, whose swift feet have outrun my poor trudging through the snow. For He is there who lit that feeble lamp itself, and it burns only by His will. Death-lamp though it be, it ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... It is better to be safe than sorry; and it is better to be scared than syphilitic. "I dare do all that may become a man," says Macbeth; "who dares do more is none"; let a man dare if he will with his own body, aye, his own soul; he is but a coward who does not shrink from buying voluptuous moments with the hazard of wife and child. Hydrophobia is far less perilous than venereal disease, and if one hundredth as many were attacked by it the world would be placarded with scarlet danger signs; the man who ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... is not a coward," resumed Jack, ignoring the query. "As for Feversham yonder, I can tell why he would ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... not yield thus to passion; it is criminal. I have too much indulged the flattering dreams of desire. Yet what to do?—How to act?—Must I tamely quit the field the moment an adversary appears; turn recreant to myself, and coward-like give up my claims, without daring to say such and such they are? No. Justice is due as much to myself as to any other. If he be truly deserving of preference, why let him be preferred. I will rejoice.—Yes, Oliver, mill.—He who is the ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... oath to find the Tower! That was ten years ago. The frank, manly young knight stepped forth, and declared proudly that he dared do all that might become a man. But he had some awful experience in the course of the quest that changed him from the soul of honor to a whimpering coward. His own companions spat upon him and ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... no question of Spain. I mean to stay here in England and fight the matter out. My wife would be the first person to tell me so. I cannot imagine her speaking to me again if I were coward ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... his progress to stare at the rough shack which housed the man he hated. He was no coward, and he would not take advantage of the loneliness and isolation of the spot to do him harm surreptitiously, but vividly the thought thrilled through him that someday he would assail him. Smoke was curling from the mud-and-stick ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... coward, as was quite clear, for at first he boldly stood his ground. But he would have been more than mortal if he had not felt some strange qualms about his heart when he saw a large white bear rushing furiously toward ...
— Fast in the Ice - Adventures in the Polar Regions • R.M. Ballantyne
... realms beyond the northern star, To loud Valhalla's echoing halls, I bear the hero ere he falls; The valiant dwell in those abodes, And sit amid carousing gods; Not goblets rich, nor flasks of gold, But skulls of mantling mead they hold; The coward while he gasps for breath, ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... his mother called to him, in a dear, high voice. "This is the child that has come between us and turned you from a man into a coward. Here alone is the cause of our troubles. Behold! I will remove it forever from ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... prepared a potion, Made of Concentrated Ages, Made of Many Mingled Feelings— Highest Hope and Deepest Terror— Mixed our best and worst together, Reverence and Love and Service, Coward Fear and rank Self-Interest— Gave him this when he was little, Pumped it in before the Person Could examine his prescription. So the Person, thus instructed, Now believed the things he told him; Paid the price as he was able, Died—the Priest said, went to Heaven— ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... Chesterton contends, a really horrible eugenist, because he wants to get a super-man who, having more than two legs, will be a vastly superior person to a man. Chesterton loves men. He tells us why St. Peter was used to found the Church upon. It was because he 'was a shuffler, a coward, and a snob—in a word, a man.' Even the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Councils of Trent have failed to find a better reason for the founding of the Church. It is a defence of the fallibility of the Church, the practical nature of that Body, an organization founded by ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... reflective mind, that is, moves chiefly among considerations of outward success and failure, while his inner being is convulsed by conscience. And his inability to understand himself is repeated and exaggerated in the interpretations of actors and critics, who represent him as a coward, cold-blooded, calculating, and pitiless, who shrinks from crime simply because it is dangerous, and suffers afterwards simply because he is not safe. In reality his courage is frightful. He strides ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... commanded for Mithridates in Boeotia, and afterwards had left him, and was now in the Roman army, maintained that if Lucullus would only show himself in Pontus, he might make himself master of everything at once, Lucullus replied that he was not a greater coward than huntsmen, which he should be if he passed by the wild beasts and went to their empty dens. Saying this he advanced against Mithridates, with thirty thousand foot-soldiers and two thousand five hundred cavalry. On arriving in sight of the enemy, he was startled ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... will back me living, or carry me off dead, and save my body." At news of this mighty host, and the ardor with which they were animated, the Emperor Henry V. advanced no farther, and, before long, "marching, under some pretext, towards other places, he preferred the shame of retreating like a coward to the risk of exposing his empire and himself to certain destruction. After this victory, which was more than as great as a triumph on the field of battle, the French returned, every one, to ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... said slowly and distinctly, "but you must not be a coward. There is any amount of love and good in the world, but you must search for it. Being misunderstood is one of the trials we all must bear. I think that even the most common-minded person in the land has inner thoughts and ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... lying on your lap, Your hand aneath my cheek; Love stounds my bosom through and through, But yet I canna speak. My coward heart wi' happiness, Wi' bliss is brimin' fu'; But, oh! its fu'ness mars my tongue, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... the window panes). I ought never to have concealed what sort of a life my husband led. But I had not the courage to do otherwise then—for my own sake, either. I was too much of a coward. ...
— Ghosts - A Domestic Tragedy in Three Acts • Henrik Ibsen
... right hand of mine; I grudge thee this quick-beating heart; They never gave me coward sign, Nor played ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... he intrepidly forgot the danger while he exposed himself to the greatest peril. His natural courage, indeed, too often made him forget the duty of a general; and the life of a king ended in the death of a common soldier. But such a leader was followed to victory alike by the coward and the brave, and his eagle glance marked every heroic deed which his example had inspired. The fame of their sovereign excited in the nation an enthusiastic sense of their own importance; proud of their king, the peasant ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... he ag'in refreshes himse'f, 'it's needless to go over that hunt in detail. We hustles the flyin' demon full eighteen miles, our faithful dogs crowdin' close an' breathless at his coward heels. Still, they don't catch up with him; he streaks it like some ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... retirement from every-day political conflicts which is, to say the least, very short-sighted. Extreme radicalism spurns the comparative inactivity, and says, "Lo, a sluggard!" Extreme conservatism spurns it, and says, "Lo, a coward!" It is only too true that cowards and sluggards both may take shelter under a shield of indifference; but it is equally true that any reasonably acute mind, if only charitably disposed, can readily distinguish between an inactivity which springs from craven or sluggish propensity, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... coward, really," I went on; I smiled painstakingly into his stupid pink face that seemed suddenly to have grown pinker; and then I felt my smile stiffen upon my lips, for he had whirled around on the piano stool on which he was sitting, and he smiled back at me, but not as he would have done ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... a bit in such rubbish," said Mrs. Badger, whose courage had come back with the absolute silence in the attic chamber. "I believe you're a coward, Nathan Badger. I'll go upstairs myself and see if I can't ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... Brouncker and I dined with the Duke of Albemarle. At table the Duchesse, a very ill-looked woman, complaining of her Lord's going to sea the next year, said these cursed words: "If my Lord had been a coward he had gone to sea no more: it may be then he might have been excused, and made an embassador," (meaning my Lord Sandwich). This made me mad, and I believed she perceived my countenance change, and blushed herself very much. ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... he needed me. But, but, but, I did not want to marry, and I wished that Harold had asked anything of me but that, because—because, I don't know what, and presently felt ashamed for being such a selfish coward that I grudged to make a little sacrifice of my own inclinations to help a ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... to think about slavery in the time of Garrison, or about the reformation in the time of Martin Luther. To those who try to get out of it it is not unfitting to quote Thomas Huxley's famous sentence: "He who will not reason is a bigot; he who dare not reason is a coward; he who can not reason ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... what Barry says, that I am the chief cause of the attack. The savages have heard of my chests of specimens, and naturally suppose that they contain treasure; so that I should be an ungrateful wretch, as well as a big coward, were I to run away. We Germans are not in the habit of doing that. But, from the appearance of your house, I very much doubt whether you can hold it against a determined attack. Would it not be wiser for you to unite with your brothers-in-law, and ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... offender's blood. He had been struck by the white man, and blood alone must atone for the aggression. Unless that should wipe out the disgrace he could never again hold up his head among his people—they would call him a coward, and say a white man struck the Big Eagle and he ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... drinke to kill a man or soe, why 'twas in my drinke, not I, and let my drinke be hangd for't; or, I say and I sayt, let um stay till I am drunke againe and then hange me; I care not, I shall not be sensible of it. Oh this sack! it makes a coward a Hector: the Greekes and Troians drinke no other; and that and a wench (for theres the divell out) made um cuffe ten yeares together, till at length when they had bled more than they coulde drinke they grew sober, the contented Cuckold tooke his wife home againe ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... precise counterpart of the parrot-like twist his mother had given at the luncheon table. It was an odd movement, at once timid and vicious, and in an instant I saw the spirit of Frank Jervaise revealed to me. He was a coward, hiding his weakness under that coarse mask of the brooding, relentless hawk. He had winced and retreated at my unspoken threat, as he had winced at the thought of his thrashing at school. He had taken his punishment stoically enough then, and might take ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... a critical moment. Riddell was no coward, nor was he one of those sickly individuals who, not satisfied to be struck on one cheek only, invite a repetition of the assault on the other side. Physically weak and nervous as he was, he had sufficient British instinct to move him to stand ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... warrior was in his canoe traveling across the Black-Sea-Water. At last he saw the gloomy wigwam of the cruel magician. He shot an arrow at the door and called, "Come out, O coward! You have killed women and children with your fatal breath, but you cannot kill a warrior. Come out and fight, if you are ...
— The Book of Nature Myths • Florence Holbrook
... expression, and you know how people say it. Or if you make money soon after you resign, they will say that you preferred a fortune to risking your life for your country. Or else they will say that a woman has made a coward of you, and that ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... sophistry as was devised by Agesilaus, in that great perplexity of the people as to the treatment to be given to those who had played the coward at the battle of Leuctra, when after that unhappy defeat, he decreed, that the laws should sleep for that day, it would be hard to find any parallel to; neither indeed have we the fellow of it in ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... test of a man is the fight he makes, The grit that he daily shows: The way he stands on his feet and takes Fate's numerous bumps and blows, A coward can smile when there's naught to fear, When nothing his progress bars, But it takes a man to stand and cheer While some other ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... most ignorant monster: I am in case to justle a constable.[424-5] Why, thou debosh'd[424-6] fish, thou, was there ever man a coward that hath drunk so much sack as I to-day? Wilt thou tell a monstrous lie, being but half a ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... all our goodly train How few will find our banquet hall! Yet why with coward lips complain That this must lean, ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... "Coward! Coward!" he called after her, "to run away from a poor old cripple and then call him names." He thrust the letter into his pocket, and seizing his crutch began deliberately and carefully to descend the stairs, with grave, set face, not unlike ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... something strange about this," said Sir Gervaise gloomily, catching his son by the arm. "He is no coward. That I'll warrant." ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... or was making a circuit for a more convenient spring upon them, certain it is that our three young gentlemen either became tired of waiting for him, or had thought better of their mad attempt. One proposed returning to the boat, the others assented; and after denouncing the tiger as a coward, and wholly unworthy of the name of a royal tiger, they commenced their retreat as the dark set in; gradually their pace quickened, in two minutes they were in a hard trot; at last the panic took them all, and by the time they ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... it, read the answer. The puzzle was too deep for them. Yet it was only this: to Monsieur, honour was more than a pretty word. If he could not find his cause honest, he would not draw his sword, though all the curs in the land called him coward. ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... he shrilled. "He's a liar and a bully and a coward. He'd—he'd be a murderer if he dared—but he daren't." And his face dropped on his arms folded on his crutch, and he broke into a passion of crying. Then Betty knew she might go to him. She went and knelt down and put her ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... from the strange presence, and caught at a post for support. His self-possession was gone; he trembled like the most abject coward. Only for a moment—and then, when he looked ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... needless to say that a liar and slanderer is a coward; consequently Mr. Shodd, with the consequences before his eyes, never again alluded to Rocjean, and shortly left the city for Naples, to bestow the light of his countenance there in his great character of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... do think it was quite unsuitable. Thus, too, it was very chivalrous and orderly perhaps, for him to hate De Wilton, and to seek to supplant him in his lady's love; but, to slip a bundle of forged letters into his bureau, was cowardly as well as malignant. Now, Marmion is not represented as a coward, nor as at all afraid of De Wilton; on the contrary, and it is certainly the most absurd part of the story, he fights him fairly and valiantly after all, and overcomes him by mere force of arms, as he might ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... his seat with a pale face, and a death-like sinking at his heart. "Yes, Lord Jesus," he uttered with dry lips, "I am at Thy command. Forgive my coward halting. If Thou wilt send me, I ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... the hands of scheming politicians and wire-pullers for sinister purposes—how readily it can be made use of directly it has become a mere unreasoning instinct and habit. If a war is wanted, or conscription, or a customs tariff—it may be merely to suit the coward fears of autocratic rulers, or the selfish interests of some group of contractors or concession-hunters—all that the parties concerned have to do is to play the patriotic stop, and they stand a good chance of getting what ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter |
