"Cowardly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... him. The rest ran away. Noddy gave chase, and in his furious wrath felt able to whip the whole of them. He pursued them only a short distance; his sympathy for poor Mollie got the better even of his anger, and he hastened back to her side. As he turned, the cowardly boys turned also, and a storm of such missiles as the wharf ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... This repulsive and cowardly creature is yet a useful beast in its way. Living almost exclusively on carrion, it is an excellent scavenger. Most wild animals are too active for it, but it feeds on the remains left by the larger felines, and such ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... open war with that, and carrying off the population as slaves. A new empire was rising in the East, as Rome permitted the Parthians to wrest Persia, Babylonia, and Media from the Syrian kings. The selfish maxim, Divide et impera, assumed its meanest form as it was now pursued. It is a poor and cowardly policy for a great nation to pit against each other its semi-civilised dependencies, and to fan their jealousies in order to prevent any common action on their part, or to avoid drawing the sword for ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... seizing the hero's spear, he lifted it in air, and with too steady aim struck the silken lime-leaf that the loving Kriemhild had embroidered. Never in all the wide mid-world was known a deed more cowardly, never a baser act. The hero was pierced with his own weapon by one he had deemed his friend. His blood gushed forth in torrents, and dyed the green grass red, and discolored the sparkling water, and even filled the face ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... thought, and a speech little sure of itself. Normal habits, deep impressions, the ordinary contact with reality, bring frankness with them. Falsehood is the vice of a slave, the refuge of the cowardly and weak. He who is free and strong is unflinching in speech. We should encourage in our children the hardihood to speak frankly. What do we ordinarily do? We trample on natural disposition, level it down to the uniformity ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... was effective enough: "It's cowardly of you, Joe Swan, to speak of her like that." Harry's eyes were gleaming with anger. "You are presuming on the kindnesses you have done me," he went on, halting in front of him, "and if her father and a few of his friends had been here, ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... I said it, utterly ashamed of my cowardly quibbling with death. What in the name of God could possibly happen to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... cannot but make a remark on the personal bearing of these Arabs. Whether they be Arabs or Turks, or Copts, it is always the same. They are a mean, false, cowardly race, I believe. They will bear blows, and respect the man who gives them. Fear goes further with them than love, and between man and man they understand nothing of forbearance. He who does not exact from them all that he can exact is simply a fool in their estimation, to the ...
— George Walker At Suez • Anthony Trollope
... deeds of the buccaneers. In addition to the ordinary feelings of humanity, one cannot but regret, that men so heartless are to be found in a profession that is commonly thought to be generous and tender of the weak. We will, however, hope, that the very wicked and cowardly, among seamen, exist only as foils to render the qualities of the very bold and manly more conspicuous. No one can be more sensible of this truth than the friends of Captain Ludlow," the voice of Alida fell a little, as she came to this sentence, 'who has not ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... sooner or later? He must lay down the burden at last. Why not then? A pang of self-reproach followed they thought. Could he so lightly throw aside the love that had bent over his cradle. The sacred name of mother rose involuntarily to his lips. Was it not cowardly to yield up without a struggle the life when he should guard for her sake? Was it not his duty to the living and the dead to face the difficulties of his position, and overcome them if it were ...
— A Struggle For Life • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Marjorie did not fear anything for her. It might be cowardly, but she must run away from his mother. She laid Will's letter in Hollis' hand, and slipping past him hastened up the stairway. Prue followed her, laughing and pulling ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... he gave a false name, the strong probability was that they would pass on, and he would very likely get safe away. It was Johnson of whom they were thinking, not himself. But that would enable them to reach Johnson's cottage a minute sooner, and it would be a cowardly lie. No! Robert Purcas had not so learned Christ. He gave his ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... that God's strength is not all given us to be expended in our own consolation, but also to be used in our plain duties. These remain as imperative though our hearts are beating like hammers, and there is no more unwise and cowardly surrender to trouble than to fling away our tools and fold our hands idly ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... a dangerous enemy to the Protestant. Many is the time he has insulted me to my face, or, more cowardly, charged the school-boys to pelt and annoy me. In the larger towns the priest has defamed me through the press, and when I have answered him also by that means, he has heaped insult upon injury, excluded me from society, and made me a pariah and a byword to the superstitious ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... we could to get off the shore. Had we been capsized, our fate would have been sealed, for many of them were twenty feet in length, and could have crushed us and our canoe with one snap of their jaws. Happily, the brutes are as cowardly as they are powerful in appearance, and they were probably more frightened at us than we were at them. I rather think that Lejoillie, judging by his countenance, heartily wished ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... can and do read the Scriptures. Again, who is it that teaches your slaves to read? It is generally done by the children of the owners. Who would tolerate an indictment against his son or daughter for teaching a slave to read? Such laws look to me as rather cowardly."[2] This attorney was almost of the opinion of many others who believed that the argument that to Christianize and educate the colored people of a slave commonwealth had a tendency to elevate them above their masters and to destroy ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... to preserve peace between you. Now that the affair has been revealed to you, I will not sully my lips with a falsehood for the pleasure of upholding an unprincipled man." "I will not ask you to tell me more," replied I. "I know enough to make me despise the cowardly spirit of him whom I reject as unworthy of my friendship." So saying, I ran to my writing-table, and wrote to the duc de Villeroi the following note:— "MONSIEUR LE DUC,—I love my friends with all their faults, but I cannot pardon their perfidy; ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... cloud the intellect, to provide an anaesthetic against some part at least of the lingering agonies of that dreadful death. But he, whom some modern sceptics have been base enough to accuse of feminine feebleness and cowardly despair, preferred rather "to look Death in the face"—to meet the king of terrors without striving to deaden the force of one agonizing anticipation, or to still the throbbing ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... of our veiled God, which is an excellent and pacifying compensation. I trust, if your health continues to trouble you, you may find some of the same belief. But perhaps my fine discovery is a piece of art, and belongs to a character cowardly, intolerant of certain feelings, and apt to self-deception. I don't think so, however; and when I feel what a weak and fallible vessel I was thrust into this hurly-burly, and with what marvellous ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... briskly down his nose, elicited a flame that ignited his tobacco, and then he puffed, and puffed, till every moth in the shop coughed aloud. The uneasiness of Hans increased, and he looked towards the door with the most cowardly intention; and, lo! two laughing, dimpled faces, were peeping in at them. "Ha! how are you?" said the stranger; "come in! come in!" and to Hans' horror, two very equivocal damsels entered the shop. Hans felt scandalised, and was about to make a most ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... been the slave, the serf, of a stronger will—a will that has withered and crushed out, by slow degrees, the last trace of moral courage that might have beautified and strengthened my character; crushed it out, and left me a cowardly, miserable, ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... exclaimed passionately. 'Must I keep reminding you what she has done to me? Is a woman that will behave in that way likely to be innocent? Is her husband to be kept in the dark about her, deceived, cheated? I can't understand you. If you are too cowardly to do your plain duty—Hugh, how am I talking? You make me forget myself. But you know that it's impossible to spare your friend. It wouldn't be just to him. Here's a form; write the ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... to the girl, gave her a touch of courage sufficient for cowardly protestations. It seemed to relieve the tension drawn by the other woman's torment. It was more like the abuse that was familiar to her. A gush of ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... Miss Ross, not brave, but cowardly. I was so afraid you would be prejudiced against me; and you must know that I have taken a great fancy to you. I am a very strange creature: I always like or dislike a person at first sight, and I never—perhaps I should say ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... upon me," said Rob mournfully, for his thoughts were upon Joe and his sad end, and when by an effort he got rid of these depressing ideas, his mind filled with those of the Indians turning against them in so cowardly a way, leaving them to live or die, just as it might happen, while they escaped with the plunder ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... that are ignorant of the nature of the fear of God, count it a poor, sneaking, pitiful, cowardly spirit in men to fear and tremble before the Lord; but whoso looks back to jails and gibbets, to the sword and burning stake, shall see, that there, in them, has been the most mighty and invincible spirit that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... His wife and the child would be looked after; they could live with Mrs Edmund Yule, and certainly it would not be long before Amy married again, this time a man of whose competency to maintain her there would be no doubt. His own behaviour had been cowardly selfishness. Oh yes, she had loved him, had been eager to believe in him. But there was always that voice of warning in ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... further down the coast; and had White gone thither, he might even yet have found the lost. But he was a man unfitted in all respects to live in that age and take part in its enterprise. He was a soft, feeble, cowardly and unfaithful creature, yet vain and ambitious, and eager to share the fame of men immeasurably larger and worthier than he. He could draw pictures, but he could not do deeds; and now, after having deserted ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... some wounded were left on the field with their dead comrades. Ambulances were sent out for them under a flag of truce. As one Hussar was being carried on a stretcher, a young Boer jeered at him, using epithets that were so coarse and cowardly that they roused the ire of a bearded veteran who probably fought against our troops nineteen years ago. With one blow he felled the youngster, and thereby gave him an object-lesson in the treatment that is meet for those who abuse a ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... so shameful, seen from a distance of sixty leagues, from St. Germain or the Louvre, appeared miraculous, awful, terrifying. The Court admired and trembled. Richelieu to please them did a cowardly thing. He ordered money to be paid to ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... strike!" said Rybin, coming up to Pavel. "Greedy as these people are for a penny, they are too cowardly. You may, perhaps, induce about three hundred of them to follow you, no more. It's a heap of dung you won't lift with one toss of the pitchfork, ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... was," he repeated after her. "When was I cowardly?" He was composed, though there was a ...
— An Unpardonable Liar • Gilbert Parker
... "Cowardly and cold-blooded Whig like the lave o' them," burst out Jock, in a strong reaction from his former mood of tenderness. "Leave him to look after himsel', he micht have stood mair nor once thae last weeks and faced ye like a man, ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... want him to tell the truth. If he had any inclination for Lucile, he should have courted her in an honourable and open way; he should have acted as he ought, and asked her father's leave; and not have had recourse to this cowardly contrivance, which offends ...
— The Love-Tiff • Moliere
... luncheon. Blake was most civil. He asked for a private interview with Mr. Macrae, who inquired whether his school friend, Mr. Williams, might share it? Blake was pleased to give them both all the information he had, though his head, he admitted, still rang with the cowardly blow that had stunned him. He was told of the discovery of the burned boat, and was asked whether it had approached from east or west, from the side of the Atlantic, or from the head of ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... cowardly at heart, the young waif would have shuddered had he known of the callous-handed and desperate murders which had shocked Vienna just before Hugo Landor, a talented and handsome young chemist, disappeared ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... take it. Hall-marks are our only guide. When absent we merely become vicious. We know what we want; we know what we ought to have; but we're too cowardly to go after it. And so are you. And so am ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... a man's straightforward, frank instinct, Grey; and this is cowardly,—paltry, as I said before. I will speak of it again. To-night is all that is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... upon his mind. The annoying thought occurred to him that he had been foolishly prudent and apprehensive of danger. He wondered if it hadn't been a sort of coxcombry in him to think there was any danger to her in free and frequent intercourse with him! As for the danger to himself, that it was cowardly to think about. He wished he had acted differently, and felt unreasonably troubled at having let the girl drift beyond his knowledge. She had looked so young and appealing as he had seen her last, seated on the rug with the kittens on her lap, and so beautiful. No one ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... an American official to certain Germans: "We don't want the Philippines; why don't you take them?" That this attitude was foolishly Quixotic is obvious, but more effective in the molding of public opinion was the feeling that it was cowardly. ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... their duty. But I spoke with great warmth to my Lord Grey, and conjured him to charge, and not suffer the victory, which our foot had in a manner taken hold of, to be ravished from us. But instead of hearkening, he not only as an unworthy man and cowardly poltroon deserted that part of the field and forsook his command, but rode with the utmost speed to the Duke, telling him that all was lost and it was more than time to shift for himself. Wherebye, as an addition ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... enables us to explain the fact, which has so often provoked amazement, that people so refined as the Greeks,... or so rude, but morally pure, as the Germans,... managed to attribute to their gods all manner of cowardly, cruel and disorderly conduct. This method alone explains the why and wherefore of all those strange metamorphoses of gods into beasts and plants, and even stones, which scandalised philosophers, and which the witty Ovid played on for the diversion of his contemporaries. In short, this method ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... progress in the direction of justice and reason. Some bond that will be more human and just as sacred will take the place of marriage and provide for the children born of a woman and a man, without fettering their liberty for ever. Men are too coarse at present, and women too cowardly, to ask for a nobler law than the iron one which governs them. For individuals without conscience and without virtue, heavy ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... ordained that the mightiest blows of misfortune are tempered for us. During the winter evenings in Coniston, Cynthia had read little newspaper attacks on Jethro, and scorned them as the cowardly devices of enemies. They had been, indeed, but guarded and covert allusions—grimaces from a safe distance. Cynthia's first sensation as she read was anger—anger so intense as to send all the blood in her body rushing to her head. But what was this? "Right had found a champion at last" ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... man who's afraid even when he's passing everywhere as an American syndicate a cowardly custard," rejoined Madame, who appeared to be suffering under that peculiar form of flushed irritability which is apt to follow on heavy thought, indulged in to excess in a recumbent position during the daytime. "There, that's settled. So now let us get to business. Kindly hand me your ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... Leigh thought that he would be justified in joining in the attack, with what remained of his band. "If I were to get directly in their rear they would, on finding their retreat cut off, fight so fiercely that I might be overpowered. Even the most cowardly troops will fight, under those circumstances. Therefore, while threatening their line of retreat, I still leave it open to them. It is a maxim in war, you know, always to leave a bridge open ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... for instance—because their self respect won't let them stop, win or lose. But now and then there happens one who keeps on trying only because there is one other person, at least, who may be the gladder for his success. I don't expect you to understand; I know it will sound small and cowardly to you. . . . It's too lonesome living, Steve, when there's no one who cares whether you live ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... Don't be too loving or angry, bold or busy, courteous or cruel or cowardly, and don't drink too often, [E] or be too lofty or anxious, but friendly of cheer. [G] Hate jealousy, be not too hasty or daring; joke not too oft; ware knaves' tricks. Don't be too grudging or too liberal, too meddling, [N] too particular, new-fangled, or too daring. ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... you?" interposed Isobel, contemplating him steadily. "Well, I am glad to know who could have been so cowardly," she added with withering contempt. "Now I begin to wonder whether a letter which some years ago, I brought to the Abbey House to be forwarded to Godfrey, was ever posted to him who did not receive ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... I could only assure her that I did not think her rude, and I hoped she would forget the whole incident. I was pleased in spite of all—for I like to think well of women. The cynical writers say they are all mean, and mercenary, and cowardly. Was Annie? She had left many finely-dressed gentlemen, faultlessly appointed, to dance with a poor ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... took the step leading to war he had not tried out every means of peace. While his enemies denounced his meekness and apparent subservience to German diplomacy, and while some went so far as to characterize his conduct as cowardly, he serenely moved on and forced Germany to a show-down. He not only asked Germany to state her terms, but he frankly asked the Allies to give to the world their statement of what they considered the ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... a debt of 1,5001. According to Sir James Stuart Denham, Elcho asked Charles to lead a final charge at Culloden, retrieve the battle, or die sword in hand. The Prince rode off the field, Elcho calling him 'a damned, cowardly Italian—.' ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... the wretched man, who the Rat pretends is mad. The plan of the Huron chief has succeeded; it remains now only to reap the fruits of it. He frees an old Iroquois who has long been detained in captivity and sends him to announce to his compatriots that the French are seeking in the negotiations a cowardly means of ridding themselves of their foes. This news exasperated the Five Nations; henceforth peace was impossible, and the Iroquois went to join the English, with whom, on the pretext of the dethronement of James II, war was again about to break ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... seriously, discounting the light way in which he spoke of it; "he's done things just as cowardly, and so have ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... "That would be cowardly," exclaimed Randy. "We have no reason to be afraid of these fellows. They'll get a warm reception if they meddle around camp again. Let's stay here for one day anyhow. We won't find many prettier places, and besides, I'm anxious to do ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... been charred in the Undying Fires?' The lay brother saw that the lock was fast, and went back to his niche, for he was too sleepy to talk with comfort. And Cumhal went on beating at the door, and presently he heard the lay brother's foot once more, and cried out at him, 'O cowardly and tyrannous race of friars, persecutors of the bard and the gleeman, haters of life and joy! O race that does not draw the sword and tell the truth! O race that melts the bones of the people with ...
— The Secret Rose • W. B. Yeats
... himself again, and he could see that gallows-like tree right in front of him... And what was that hulking brute alongside saying about skulking shermoganish? Was he going to his death hearing the uniform he wore insulted by cowardly brutes without making a resistance of some sort? He knew he would be shot down instantly if he did, and they would be glad of an excuse, but that would be only cutting short the agony. The veins swelled on his forehead, and he felt his limbs stiffen. He made a sudden movement, ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... continuing it. She had not imagination enough to know what she was inflicting. Mary gazed after her as a shipwrecked woman might watch a plank drifting out of reach, but she said nothing; she shut her eyes and lay still for many minutes. She was a timid child but not cowardly, and such tangible things as a cross dog, a tramp, and a blacksnake in the orchard she had faced bravely, but her terror of the dark was indefinite and unendurable. She opened her eyes, shut them, and opened them again, looking for something dreadful. The furniture was shapeless, the ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... thou cowardly dog, and see how uprightly thou can'st stand. Go home into your own country and tell them what old England has done for you, and how they'll fight a thousand better men ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... drove him up the steps before him. He stopped at the top, his cowardly nature getting the better of him, and sat down ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... with indignation at the treachery of the rebel horde, sprang forward to wreak their righteous vengeance upon the cowardly traitors. So impetuous was the charge, that the rebel regiment broke, and sought safety ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... into their place again. Soon after the ship was attacked by pirates, and a sea-fight commenced; in the course of which Hamlet, desirous to show his velour, with sword in hand singly boarded the enemy's vessel; while his own ship, in a cowardly manner, bore away, and leaving him to his fate, the two courtiers made the best of their way to England, charged with those letters the sense of which Hamlet had altered to their ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... intelligence can occasionally instruct the Creator of the world how to regulate the universe; and the latter, a certain degree of servility analogous to the loyalty demanded by earthly tyrants. Obedience indeed is only the pitiful and cowardly egotism of him who thinks that he can do something ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... letters which, though the outside world still doubted his being alive, satisfied the minds of the Royal Geographical people, and his intimate friends, that he still existed, and that Musa'a tale was the false though ingenious fabrication of a cowardly deserter. It was during this time that the thought occurred to him of sailing around the Lake Tanganika, but the Arabs and natives were so bent upon fleecing him that, had he undertaken it, the remainder or his goods would not have enabled him to explore the central line of drainage, the ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... still has its beast of prey,—wolves, savage, cowardly, and mean; bears, gentle and mild compared to their grisly relatives of the Far West, vegetarians when they can do no better, and not without something grotesque and quaint in manners and behavior; sometimes, though rarely, the strong and sullen wolverine; frequently ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... A man of the calibre of Pitt or Burke, to say nothing of Strafford or Pym, who will stand up and tell his countrymen that this disruption of the union is nothing but a cowardly wickedness—an act bad in itself, fraught with immeasurable evil—especially to the people of Ireland; and that if it cost his political existence, or his head, for that matter, he is prepared to take any and every honest means of preventing ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... ignominious flight; and it was understood that so long as they remained on soil under foreign jurisdiction, no attempt would be made even to confiscate their goods and chattels as would certainly have been done under former governments. The days of treachery and double- dealing and cowardly revenge were indeed passing away and the new regime was committed to decency and fairplay. The task of the new President was no mean one, and in all the circumstances if he managed to steer a safe middle course and avoid both ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... They have behaved kindly and fairly enough to that poor girl. How was she to marry such a bankrupt beggar as you are? What you have done is a shame, Charley Belsize. I tell you it is unmanly and cowardly." ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... comes you have him kicked out and charge it to me. That man's a thief, and so is one of the Escalantes—if not more than one. As for Loring, he's head and shoulders above any of the young fellows that have sailed with me, and when I was flattened out by the rush of that cowardly gang, he stood up to 'em like a man. That one shot of his brought 'em up with a jerk and put an end ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... shared together. In just what inadequate way had he tried to fend her off? Had he said, "I shall have to wait?" Or had his blundering tongue said, instead, "We should have to wait?"—or even worse, "We shall have to wait?" In any event, he had used that cowardly, temporizing word "wait"—for she had instantly seized upon it. Why, yes, indeed; she was willing to wait; she ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... returned Lizzie, with a burning face, 'it is cowardly in you to speak to me in this way. But it makes me able to tell you that I do not like you, and that I never have liked you from the first, and that no other living creature has anything to do with the effect you have produced ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... presents he had received, and too vain of his own personal strength to attend to his mother's advice. "Certainly," said he, "the disposal of our lives is in the hands of the Almighty, and as certain it is that my strength is superior to that of Rustem. Would it not then be cowardly to decline the contest with him?" The mother still continued to dissuade him from the enterprise, and assured him that Rustem was above all mankind distinguished for the art, and skill, and dexterity, with which he attacked his enemy, and defended himself; and ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... go; but she had given her word that she would return that same evening. Moreover, Charles expected her, and in her heart she felt already that cowardly docility that is for some women at once the chastisement and atonement ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... were slain in the siege; that about five thousand men were then so dreadfully debilitated by that disease, that they were unable to proceed, and were therefore sent to England; that three hundred men-at-arms and nine hundred archers were left to garrison Harfleur; that great numbers had cowardly deserted the King, and returned home by stealth; and that after all these deductions, not more than nine hundred lances and five thousand archers ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... young fellow!" Major Browne remarked as the door closed behind him. "I don't quite know what to make of him, but I don't think he could have committed that murder. It was a cowardly business, and although I believe he might have a hand in any desperate affair, as indeed this story he has just told us shows, I would lay my life he would ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... Actions, and way of Living, was made up of innumerable Contradictions: That they were the Wisest Fools, and the Foolishest Wise Men in the World; the Weakest Strongest, Richest Poorest, most Generous Covetous, Bold Cowardly, False Faithful, Sober Dissolute, Surly Civil, Slothful Diligent, Peaceable Quarrelling, Loyal Seditious Nation that ever ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... forward and carried Every and the woman into the open air. As the former was borne past his tormentor, the fallen chief, so cowardly was his wicked heart, actually prayed him to intercede for him, and save him from a fate which, but for our providential appearance, would ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... false wert aye, And Closeburn in a Land! The laird of Lag, frae my father that fled, When the Johnston struck aff his hand. They were three brethren in a band— Joy may they never see! Their treacherous art, and cowardly heart, Has twin'd my ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... novel in this wise: "Yes, they are all alike, even the best and most tender-hearted among them. At home they are splendid fathers of families and excellent husbands; but as soon as they approach the barracks they become low-minded, cowardly, and idiotic barbarians. You ask me why this is, and I answer: Because nobody can find a grain of sense in what is called military service. You know how all children like to play at war. Well, the human ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... of difference," I said. "He is old and good; and you are young, and I wish you were as good as Darry. And then he can't help himself without perhaps losing his place, no matter how you insult him. I think it is cowardly." ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... collegiate method of transacting business and the folly of the bureaucracy. They waited till the whole army was once more united in Libya, and then endeavoured to curtail the pay promised to the men. Of course a mutiny broke out among the troops, and the hesitating and cowardly demeanour of the authorities showed the mutineers what they might dare. Most of them were natives of the districts ruled by, or dependent on, Carthage; they knew the feelings which had been provoked throughout these districts by the slaughter decreed by the government after ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... drink—don't need those things; they won't wink for cash at gambling dens and unlicensed rum-holes, they won't spark the scullery maids; and moreover the bands of toughs that ambuscade them on lonely beats, and cowardly shoot and knife them will only damage the uniforms and not live long enough to get more than a momentary satisfaction out ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... killed in my book, but if I find this to be necessary Leviatt must do the murder. But I think it would be better to have him employ some other person to do it for him; that would give him just the character that would fit him best. I want to make him seem too cowardly—no, not cowardly, because I don't think he is a coward: but too cunning—to take chances ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the Irish, sailed to North Wales, and beat Rolf, the Norman Earl, at Hereford. Oh, yes, I heard that, and," added the Kent man, laughing, "I was not sorry to hear that my old Earl Algar, since he is a good and true Saxon, beat the cowardly Norman,—more shame to the King for giving a Norman the ward ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the stranger. Throwing the robe from before his face, Onalba, the Rajah, stood before them. In an instant he was gathering Azalia and Bright-Wits to his bosom, while the villainous Garrofat and his cowardly brother fell stricken into the arms ...
— Bright-Wits, Prince of Mogadore • Burren Laughlin and L. L. Flood
... quietly did the 11th, considered to be the crack regiment of the brigade, swing round; and as calmly and firmly did the Egyptian battalion—composed of the peasants who, but twenty years before, had been considered among the most cowardly of people, a host of whom would have fled before a dozen of the dreaded Dervishes—march into the gap between the two black regiments, and manfully ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... who can make a program, something that the party can push, outside Congress, if too cowardly in. People who don't want ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... resembling shame, stole over him as he crossed the viridarium, and glanced at the grass from which—thanks to Paula's ill-meant warning—he had carefully brushed away his foot-marks before daybreak. How cowardly, how base, it all was The best of all in life: honor, self-respect, the proud consciousness of being an honest man—all staked and all lost for nothing at all! He could have slapped his own face or cried ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... when her peace of mind is at stake. How few, how very few are there, of all the various young women I know, who would have the good sense and resolution, I will say it, the integrity of mind, to act as she does! There is usually some sentimental casuistry, some cowardly fear, or lingering hope, that prevents young people in these circumstances from doing the plain right thing—any thing but the plain right thing they are ready to do—and there is always some delicate reason for not telling the truth, especially to their friends; but our daughters, Mrs. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... alternative is an awful one; one from which statesmen and nations may well shrink: but it is a question, whether that alternative may not be forced upon us sooner or later, whether we must not from the first look it boldly in the face, as that which must be some day, and for which we must prepare, not cowardly, and with cries about God's wrath and judgments against us—which would be abject, were they not expressed in such second-hand stock-phrases as to make one altogether doubt their sincerity, but chivalrously, and with awful joy, as a noble calling, an ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... and told him what snares the king had laid for him, and how he was very near to death by Saul's throwing a spear at him, although he had been no way guilty with relation to him, nor had he been cowardly in his battles with his enemies, but had succeeded well in them all, by God's assistance; which thing was indeed the cause of ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... the King kept Sir Damas from deeds of violence; yet, to the end, he remained cowardly and churlish, unworthy of the golden spurs of knighthood. But Sir Ontzlake proved him a valiant knight, fearing God and the King ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... Feraud, who for many days now had experienced no real desire to meet Lieut. D'Hubert arms in hand, chafed again at the systematic injustice of fate. "Does he think he will escape me in that way?" he thought, indignantly. He saw in this promotion an intrigue, a conspiracy, a cowardly manoeuvre. That colonel knew what he was doing. He had hastened to recommend his favourite for a step. It was outrageous that a man should be able to avoid the consequences of his acts in such a dark ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... own account as concerned Oliver Leach. For the whole story was now known,—though had Maryllia not told it quite involuntarily in a state of semi- consciousness, she would never have betrayed the identity of her cowardly assailant. But finding that she had, unknowingly to herself, related the incident as it happened, there was nothing to be done on her part, except to entreat that Leach might be allowed to go unpunished. This, however, was a form ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... dangerous to act upon them? that for an individual here and there to go out of the common course is only to make himself notorious, a stranger or a bore to his friends? Were such statements true, they would still be cowardly. We should be faithful to our convictions of what is due to truth and manhood and self-respect, be the consequences what they may. Because a few are so, the world moves. The general voice always comes in as a chorus ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... Cowardly ruffian! He should not find it so easy as he expected! If it was only a girl whom he had encountered, he should find that she was not so easily shaken off as he expected. To Hilliard's intense amazement he felt the hands fasten suddenly round his arm, the white fingers grip his flesh with no ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... God, and then went away from Jerusalem, leading Antigonus away in bonds to Antony; then did the axe bring him to his end, [27] who still had a fond desire of life, and some frigid hopes of it to the last, but by his cowardly behavior well deserved ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... Abolitionist did, nor as a stern necessity, like the Union-saver. The sickly Louisianian, following her son from Pickens to Richmond, besieging God for vengeance with the mad impatience of her blood, or the Puritan mother praying beside her dead hero-boy, would have called Dode cowardly and dull. So would those blue-eyed, gushing girls who lift the cup of blood to their lips with as fervid an abandon as ever did French bacchante. Palmer despised them. Their sleazy lives had wanted color and substance, and they found it in a cant of patriotism, in illuminating their windows ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... "The cowardly cusses!" said Jerry, as we paused to take breath from our labors. "They wanted to smoke us out, did they? Well, I reckon, by the looks round, thet maybe they'll have ter huff it putty lively themselves, ef ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... warning had taken their desired effect; and cowardly, as base, wicked, and cruel, the man made haste to flee from the scene of his intended crime, imagining at times that he even heard the bloodhounds ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... Limpopo as far as Cape Town the Second Majuba has given birth to a new inspiration and a new movement amongst our people in South Africa. A new feeling has rushed in huge billows over South Africa. The flaccid and cowardly Imperialism, that had already begun to dilute and weaken our national blood, gradually turned aside before the new current which permeated our people. Many who, tired of the slow development of the national idea, had resigned themselves to Imperialism now paused and asked ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... deeper still it went, but the blubber was yet three inches from his eager nose. Another shove—no! dislocation alone could accomplish the object. His shoulders slid very imperceptibly into the hole. His nose was within an inch of the prize, and he could actually touch it with his tongue. Away with cowardly prudence! what recked he of the consequences? Up went his hind legs, down went his head, and the tempting bait was gained ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... allocutions, conceived with a perfect knowledge of his audience, so that every insult carried home, were delivered with a mien so menacing, and an eye so fiercely cruel, that his unhappy subordinates shrank and quailed. Too often violence followed; too often I have heard and seen and boiled at the cowardly aggression; and the victim, his hands bound by law, has risen again from deck and crawled forward stupefied—I know not what passion of revenge ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... chemistry with Combette at Chene Populeux. He was a cowardly lad, whom fear of the Prussians drove into ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... so ashamed. I know it is weak and cowardly of me, but I can't help it. And—and will it cost ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... Bonacieux was cowardly and avaricious, but he loved his wife. He was softened. A man of fifty cannot long bear malice with a wife of twenty-three. Mme. Bonacieux saw that ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... poor Corrie, on being permitted again to use his windpipe. "You may kill me, but you'll never cow me. I don't believe you, you cowardly monster." ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... am. I have defiled a pure confiding child, who came in all loyalty to sit at my fire-side. Vile and cowardly nature, like some base Lovelace, I have grossly abused the confidence which was placed in me. My priestly robe, far from being a safeguard, is but a cloke for my iniquities. I have reached that pitch of cowardice that I am ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... of Orange, Henry III, and Henry IV; except that he came forward in behalf of the opposite side, and in his case there is no mention of any participation of a minister of religion. A paper was found on him in which he pronounced that man cowardly and base who was not ready to sacrifice his life for the cause of his God, his king, and his country. In his lodging there was another, on which he had put down some principles, which he seemed to have ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... spread rapidly, for fear is its powerful auxiliary, and the Cruces people bowed down before the plague in slavish despair. The Americans and other foreigners in the place showed a brave front, but the natives, constitutionally cowardly, made not the feeblest show of resistance. Beyond filling the poor church, and making the priests bring out into the streets figures of tawdry dirty saints, supposed to possess some miraculous influence which they never exerted, before which they prostrated themselves, invoking their aid ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... from her husband even the shadow of regard, and he cursed her to her face. Thenceforth will and ambition controlled his life and hers, and with an iron hand he held her in check. She saw that she was in the power of a desperate man, who would sacrifice her in a moment if she thwarted him. Through cowardly fear she remained his reluctant but abject slave, pricking him with the pins and needles of petty annoyances, when she would have pierced him to the heart had she dared. This monstrous state of affairs could not last forever, and, had not death terminated the unnatural relation, some terrible ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... that side to lose the whole whose Champion was defeated. On this mighty Colbran singled himself from the Danes, and entered upon Morn Hill, near Winchester, breathing venomous words, calling the English cowardly dogs, whose carcases he would make food for ravens. "What mighty boasting," said he, "hath there been in the foreign nations of these English cowards, as if they had done deeds of wonder, who now like ...
— Traditional Nursery Songs of England - With Pictures by Eminent Modern Artists • Various
... Edenic legend of the fall of man, which for centuries has been brandished in her face to teach her humility, and make her feel degraded in the presence of her "lords and masters." An essentially barbarous conception, born of a cowardly and brutal childhood age, and as unworthy of our day and generation as is the hideous, old-time conception of God, in which He was pictured as an angry and jealous Being, counselling the wholesale slaughter of men and little children, and the ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various |
