"Shrank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stick from her. The child shrank back, and Hi, realizing that he was going too far, ceased beating ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... the door, but, at the moment of opening it, shrank back. Was it apprehension, the wish to withdraw himself from the influence of that astonishing man, who gave his orders with such authority and who seemed to ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... the senior of Velasquez, shrank a bit, it seems, from the contest, and connoisseurs have said that there is a little lack of the exuberant, joyous Rubensesque quality in the various pictures done by the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... his countenance, Joshua Daunton bowed submissively to all but myself. To me he advanced with an insulting smile and an extended hand. I shrank back loathingly. ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... of his wardrobe and belongings, purchased two ponies for a few crowns, and he and Geoffrey, with a solitary suit of clothes in a wallet fastened behind the saddle, started for their journey to Cadiz. They mounted outside the city, for Gerald shrank from meeting any acquaintances upon such a sorry steed as he had purchased; but once on their way his spirits rose. He laughed and chatted gaily, and spoke of the future as if all difficulties were cleared away. The ponies, although rough animals, were strong and sturdy, and carried their ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... signal from the alferez a guard, armed with a whip, began his cruel task. The whole body of Tarsilo shrank. A groan, suppressed and prolonged, could be heard in spite of the rag which stopped up his mouth. He lowered his head. His clothes were ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... the world that would deny him his right to the sunshine and the streams. The young orator saw it all; his lip curled bitterly, and his words burned. He awakened such a sympathy for the reptile, and such a feeling of resentment against the hand which had ruined this little life, that the offender shrank away from ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... always reigned around her; she had no cat—that cherished society of old women—not even a sparrow came to rest under her roof. It seemed as if all animated nature shrank from her glance. The bloated spider alone took delight ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... over hers where it lay idly on the saddle-horn, the reins loosely held. He leaned closer, his eyes burning, his face near her own, so near that she shrank back, and drew on her hand ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... spirits shrank to their home, while we returned to the clouds. The large rain drops fell slowly, and the bow of bright colors rested between the heavens and the earth. The strife was over, and we were conquerors. I know that Unktahe hates me—that he would kill me if he could—but ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... her at the front door. She came down radiant and talking animatedly to her hostess; but when they had parted and she was alone with Clavering her face seemed suddenly to turn to stone and her lids drooped. As she was about to pass him she shrank back, and then raised her eyes to his. In that fleeting moment they looked as when he had met them first: inconceivably old, ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... they were close enough to see that it was a dog, a Collie pup, wild-eyed and half-starved. Shorty stepped nearer and put his hand out to pat the dog's head; but the animal only trembled and shrank back, then whined a pitiful whine. They could see now that the dog was fast in a steel trap, held securely by his hind leg. Shorty reached down and released the bruised and swollen leg from the trap, and as the dog ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley
... communicated by Wordsworth's accomplished friend, Sir George Beaumont. To him I had been sketching the distressing sensitiveness of Sir Sidney pretty much as I have sketched it to the reader; and how he, the man that on the breach at Acre valued not the eye of Jew, Christian, or Turk, shrank back—me ipso teste—from the gentle, though eager—from admiring, yet affectionate—glances of three very young ladies in Gay Street, Bath, the oldest (I should say) not more than seventeen. ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... about her personally. He had seen nothing except a woolly head, a dark blue dress, and two black, bare feet and ankles, but because she was Mandy Ann, bound slave of "ole Miss Harris, who lived in de clarin'," and for that reason she connected him with something from which he shrank with an indescribable loathing. At last he concluded to try the narrow berth, but finding it too hard and too short went out upon the rear deck, and taking a chair where he would be most out of the way and screened from observation, he sat until the moon went down behind a ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... Each student was to clip a column newspaper article of comment (not facts) and condense it to the limit of safety. Then editorials gave up their gaseous matter in clouds, chatty news stories boiled away to paragraphs, and articles shrank up to ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... as they lay chewing their cud, would let the little girl pat them as much as she pleased. They never shrank from the touch of her soft little hands. Sometimes papa would let May stand beside him when he milked. Then she would be sure to get a good saucer of milk to feed the kittens with. She was a great friend of all ...
— The Nursery, March 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... I shrank back against the mouldy wall of that old stairway shivering as if I had been suddenly stricken with the ague. I had trembled in every limb before ever I heard the sound of the sudden scuffle, and from ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... until in course of ages the fiery tides would cease to ebb and flow. If the impact had been somewhat indirect it would rotate slowly on its axis, and under the influence of gravity and centrifugal force acquire a globular shape which would gradually flatten to a lenticular disc. As it cooled and shrank in volume it would whirl the faster round its axis, and grow the denser towards its heart. By and by, as the centrifugal force overcame gravity, the nebula would part, and the lighter outskirts would be shed one after another in concentric ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... seemed since, more than once, insurmountable—yes! Insane—yes! But wrong—no! Now, hard hit by Savourneen Dheelish, the strength to think she might cross the barriers revived, and the insanity of the scheme shrank as its rightness grew and grew. After all, did she not belong to herself? To whom else, except her parents? Well—her duty to her parents was clear; to ransom their consciences for them; to enable them to say "We destroyed this man's ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... Fay shrank back for very life. She could not pass through that flood and live. Nevertheless she felt herself pushed ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... silent for a moment, as if waiting to see the effect of that last word; unless, indeed, she were hesitating, out of delicacy, to include her lover's family in her complaint. The young man shrank with a terrible presentiment. Dona Bernarda was not the woman to stand by idle and resigned in the face ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the heroine's history. In the original conception, and in the book as actually written and printed, Miss Mowbray's mock marriage had not halted at the profane ceremony of the church; and the delicate printer shrank from the idea of obtruding on the fastidious public the possibility of any personal contamination having occurred to a high-born damsel of the nineteenth century." Scott answered: "You would never have quarrelled with it had the thing ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... to go forwards: but he was ashamed to seem churlish to so hospitable a man; and he was curious to see that wondrous bed; and beside, he was hungry and weary: yet he shrank from the man, he knew not why; for, though his voice was gentle, it was dry and husky like a toad's; and though his eyes were gentle, they were dull and cold like stones. But he consented, and went with the man up a glen ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... He felt that it was his duty to enter the Gospel ministry. Naturally a modest man, he shrank somewhat from this voice of God; but finally, in 1844, submitted to ordination. He was ordained by the Rev. John Anderson, father of the late Richard Anderson, of St. Louis, or by the Rev. John Livingston, of Illinois, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... afraid of the altered man than Bessie, and for long shrank from any conversation with him, was at last induced by his mother to consult his father as to his ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... He shrank from it now, staring. The feathery roots matted across his chest, the mass of them felt slimy like the hide of a ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... chilled for her so many opening friendships. In her eyes love was a very sacred thing, hardly to be thought of till it came, reverently received and cherished faithfully to the end. Therefore, it is not strange that she shrank from hearing it flippantly discussed and marriage treated as a bargain to be haggled over, with little thought of its high duties, great responsibilities, and tender joys. Many things perplexed her, and sometimes a doubt of all that till now she had believed and trusted ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... shrank back and a deadly fear seized him. What had he done? What had he done? He remembered past kindnesses. He remembered how Sahira had been saved from a life of sorrow and shame by Aurelius Lucanus. How had he repaid him? By treachery and evil. For the first time in his life, Alyrus was conscious ...
— Virgilia - or, Out of the Lion's Mouth • Felicia Buttz Clark
... with an elderly dame as housekeeper. From almost every college in Europe came visitors to his humble dwelling, and willingly he imparted to others any benefit derived from his lonely researches. But he proffered no hospitality, and shrank from all offers of friendship. Yet, unsocial as he was, everyone loved him. The peasant threw kindly pity into his respectful greeting. Even that terror of the village, Mother Darkmans, saved her bitterest ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... of the innovation of lamps and closed shutters. He had, in fact, come from his own room because of the fury of the storm. He growled that the noise of it annoyed him, but would not have acknowledged the truth, that the force of it appalled him, and that he shrank from being alone while the lightning threw threats in every direction, and the crashes of ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... I observed the characteristics of Coriander's African gorilla with new interest. He performed wonderfully well; it was difficult to realize that the hairy, ravening, agile, and grotesquely-moving beast, from which every visitor shrank back aghast, was only jolly Jack Gale serving out his hard servitude for an anticipated bride, very much after the ancient fashion of Laban's kinsman. The cunning rascal had a fashion of leaping at the bars ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... and hand; and he taught his art to a daughter of his own, who works very well. He so delighted to lay his hands on antiquities in marble, impressions in gesso of works both ancient and modern, and drawings and pictures by rare masters, that he shrank from no expense; wherefore his house at Vicenza is adorned by such an abundance of various things, that it is a marvel. It is clearly evident that when a man bears love to art, it never leaves him until he is in the grave; whence he gains praise and his reward during his lifetime, and makes himself ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... forth again, for he dreamed not of guile and falsehood, and he dreaded neither man nor beast that might meet him in open battle. Long time he fought with the Solymi and the Amazons, until all his enemies shrank from the stroke of his mighty arm, and sought for mercy. Glad of heart, Bellerophon departed to carry his spoils to the home of the Lykian King, but as he drew nigh to it and was passing through a narrow dell where the ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... forward of Vance and Rainey, in the intent look in their eyes, it was evident that a crisis had approached. But Mr. Hallowell, terrified and trembling, shrank back. His voice broke hysterically. "No, no!" he pleaded. Both anger and disappointment showed in the face of Vance and Rainey; but the girl, as though detached from any human concerns, continued unmoved. "I see another figure," she recited. "A young girl, but she is of this world. I ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... She still shrank back from his touch, consumed with a new and unlooked-for fear of him. And all the while she was telling herself that she must remain calm, and make ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... Missouri, and leaving the trail behind me, I somehow had a foreboding that I might be mistaken for a faker and looked upon as an adventurer, and I shrank from the ordeal. My hair had grown long on the trip across; my boots were somewhat the worse for wear, and my old-fashioned clothes (understood well enough by pioneers along the trail) were dilapidated. I was not the most presentable specimen for every ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... that the merchant was thoroughly aroused. His face was pale with anger, and the look he cast upon me was one of bitter resentment. For the instant he eyed me as if he intended to spring upon me and choke the life out of my body, and involuntarily I shrank back. But then I recollected that the minions of the law who stood beside me would not allow such a course of procedure, and this ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer
... red His smileless lips. "Who art thou?" Lilith said, And faint a hidden pain her hot heart stirred, When low, and rarely sweet, his voice she heard. She looked, half-pleased—and half in strange surprise Shrank 'neath the gaze of those wild, starry eyes. "Oh, dame," the stranger said, "where waters leap Bright glancing down, I rested oft, where steep Thy Eden o'er, bare-browed, a peak uprose. Naught craving ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... Veronica shrank from me and turned pale. In that moment the intense beauty of the face and figure was borne in upon me, she clung as if for support to the easel with one soft hand, all the youthful body seemed to shrink together in a beautiful dismay, great tears rolled down ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... consecrating herself wholly to God in religion; its duties and solicitudes seemed a decided obstacle to the cultivation of that spirit of prayer and recollection which had become as her life-breath. Drawn daily more and more forcibly to an interior life in God, she shrank with her whole soul from a position which must necessarily immerse her in he distracting occupations and harassing cares of the world. But accustomed to look on her parents as the representatives of God, and therefore seeing only His will in the impending project, she submitted with the respectful ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... "After this I fairly shrank to nothing, and dropped out. On rising I saw that there was a wetness streaked with blood all over my cock and cods; boylike, the sight of blood frightened me, and I began to cry, she wiped it all off, and skinned back my prick to wipe under it but here the raw surface ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... the midnight train south. Stella was out of town. He followed her. He felt that he could not meet her before strangers with self-control, or go through formalities. He wrote a brief note at the hotel asking to see her alone. Then he shrank from the thought of meeting her with detestable things ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... Egbert was the first among mankind to reduce to practice the principles of Mark Winsome—principles previously accounted as less adapted to life than the closet. Egbert," turning to the disciple, who, with seeming modesty, a little shrank under these compliments, "Egbert, this," with a salute towards the cosmopolitan, "is, like all of us, a stranger. I wish you, Egbert, to know this brother stranger; be communicative with him. Particularly if, by anything hitherto dropped, his curiosity has been roused as to the ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... something which made him draw near, but his approach was followed by a dead silence, and the blood flushed to his temples; but that was no time for angry remonstrance, and he shrank away. ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... Waldo Emerson's saying: "That is the one base thing in the universe, to receive benefits and render none." Like his distinguished father, he was tolerant in dealing with men who differed from him, but he never shrank from the expression of an opinion because it would bring sacrifice ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... your sister, my child, come to me;" and little Jessie, wondering, let her mother darn the rent. Amy felt very uncomfortable, for she knew that Mrs. Leslie's eyes were not strong, and were probably aching with the effort of such fine work; but she shrank from offering her services, and made her escape from the room ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... him, now that this woman was no longer there to sustain and inspire him,—that woman with the marvellous talent for intrigue, the matchless courage that shrank from nothing, and the energy which sufficed for everything? Sarah had, besides, filled his imagination with such magnificent hopes, and opened before his covetous eyes such a vast horizon of enjoyment, that he had come to look upon things as pitiful, ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... swiftly, and the billet thudded against his shoulder, staggering him. Instantly two of the scowmen threw themselves upon the woman and bore her to the ground, where she fought, tooth and nail, while they pinioned her arms. Vermilion, his face livid, seized Chloe roughly. The girl shrank in terror from the grip of the thick, grimy fingers and the glare of the envenomed eyes that blazed from ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... She shrank back with a shudder, crying out that he should spare her her own contempt—that he should leave her the power to seek peace—and her voice had such a tone of terror, as she recoiled from him, that he felt how powerless any protest ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... shrank back before the boy; but seeing the eager faces about him and realizing that the others expected something from him he jerked off his coat and ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... down. He would have stopped at some house and asked for shelter, but the hour was so late that he shrank from disturbing strangers. The night was not uncomfortably cool and ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... of elections had begotten bribery, corruption, and strife; the over-weening luxury had fostered unworthy ambitions—it was a time of much lawlessness. Under the shadow of the embassies infamous intrigues were planned by bands of idle men, who shrank from no deed of evil which held its promise of gold; the water-storey of some splendid palace might be a lurking-place for unprincipled men—spies and informers by profession—who wore the liveries of noble families whose secrets they would ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... he was at home once more and, to all seeming, candidate for churchly ministrations, Reed found he drew back a little from their meeting. At the start, even though his bodily strength allowed it, his nervous energy shrank from the ordeal of seeing people. It seemed to him that there would be so many things he ought to explain to them to make his position clear. Of course, with his family and the Keltridges and even the despised Dolph Dennison, it was different, although even the irresponsible Dolph ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... point is Miss Herschel. It is well known, not only that she gave her brother valuable assistance in his astronomical pursuits, but that some of the discoveries attributed to him were actually made by her; not because he wished to defraud her of the honor of her achievement, but because she shrank from ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... She had applied that answer to some thought that pervaded her mind, which I did not understand, or at least which her words had revealed to me much less clearly than she had imagined; but after thinking over it, I shrank from the new and formidable explanation which such a course must inevitably ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... people in it. To her they seemed terribly self-sufficing. They seemed occupied and prosperous, from her front parlour window; she did not see anybody going by who appeared to be in need of her; and she shrank from a more thorough exploration of the place. She found she had fancied necessity coming to her and taking away her good works, as it were, in a basket; but till Mr. Brandreth appeared with his scheme, nothing ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... paid for four places, and thereby secured a first-class solitude, visited the telegraph office, and shrank the few pounds in his pocket by sending a number ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... had had necessarily much experience with children. She soothed the boy, and felt that no limbs were broken; indeed, he complained of nothing, but he turned whiter and whiter, and shrank ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... complete explanation of the mystery connected with the strange unreasoning jealousy which he had cherished against my mother had arrived; and whilst I fancied that he was equally eager with myself that the explanation should be made, I could not help seeing that he at the same time shrank from the ordeal. ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant, with a salary of thirteen hundred livres, and transferred to the Fourth Regiment, which was in Valence. He heard the news with mingled feelings: promotion was, of course, welcome, but he shrank from returning to his former station, and from leaving the three or four warm friends he had among his comrades in the old regiment. On the ground that the arrangements he had made for educating Louis would be disturbed by the transfer, he besought the war ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... he could not have cast aside all conventional restraints, of taste as well as of propriety, as Rubens and even Rembrandt did on occasion; but as Van Dyck, the child of Titian almost as much as he was the child of Rubens, ever shrank from doing. Still the ease and splendour of the life at Biri Grande—that pleasant abode with its fair gardens overlooking Murano, the Lagoons, and the Friulan Alps, to which Titian migrated in 1531—the Epicureanism which saturated ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... or less before her. Her own circle had been too limited to give Norah much experience of the outer world, and she shrank instinctively from anything that lay beyond Billabong and its surroundings. No one, meeting her in her home, would have dreamed that she might be shy; but the truth was that a very passion of shyness came over her when she thought ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... hastily retiring, closed the casement. Could she have heard of his flirtation with the Alcayde's daughter? He would soon dispel every doubt of his constancy. The door was open. He rushed up-stairs, and entering the room, threw himself at her feet. She shrank back with affright, and took refuge in the ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... All shrank still farther back, when there was no possibility of being seen in the first place. The man did not look up, but kept his slouch hat pulled so far down that nothing of his face was visible. He held his ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... night John Trafton decided to make the attempt, if circumstances seemed favorable. He shrank from it as the time approached and felt that he needed some artificial courage. For this reason he visited the tavern and patronized the ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... pity and yearning tenderness swept through the Doctor's heart as he sat twisted around in his chair, staring at that reflection in the mirror. He was uncertain what he ought to do. He longed to go to him with some word of comfort, but he shrank from the thought of saying anything which ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... and it stood away in such violent opposition to the teaching of our fathers and uncles that it did not corrupt us. That man, the stronger animal, owed chivalry and care to woman, had been deeply grounded in our concept of life, and we shrank from these vile stories as from something disloyal ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... ranchers looked at each other and it can not be denied that there was a joyous light in their eyes. Nell shrank closer to her father, and Mr. Merkel reached over and placed his hand in reassuring fashion on ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... and seemed to speak to the child, for Owen saw her turn and survey him wonderingly; then it seemed as if she shrank back when the man put out his arms, still speaking in a wheedling tone, and Owen could see Jessie shaking her little head in a decided negative in answer to his questions—evidently the intruder was ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... goal of his hope was so near, within the very grasp of his hand, a strange timidity fell upon him, and he shrank from crossing the ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... Generally speaking, Agnes shrank from the mere thought of a lecture from this terrible dame. But this time, beyond the unpleasant sensation of the moment, it produced no effect upon her. Her whole mind was full of something else; something which she had ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt
... views of Fox; and, as official leader of the Whigs, he had it in his power to bring nearly the whole of the party over to the Government side. From this course, which would have placed country above party, the Duke shrank; and his followers were left to sort themselves at will. There was a general expectation that Portland would publicly declare against Fox; but friendship or timidity held him tongue-tied. Malmesbury sought to waken him from his "trance," but in vain.[144] He lay ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... against his horse's sides, and swept ahead of Commandant Genestas, as if he shrank from continuing this conversation any further. When their horses were once more cantering abreast of each other, he spoke again: "Nature has created this poor girl for sorrow," he said, "as she has created other women for joy. It is impossible to do otherwise than ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... was probably no more than the idea that those woods formed a limit to the world of light and gladness in which I lived. My eye could not penetrate their dimness, and with a childish, human feeling I shrank from the undiscovered and unknown. But as I grew older, and read the stories in the small books which were given to me for presents, or lent by my little friends, I had other and plainer reasons for the ...
— Small Means and Great Ends • Edited by Mrs. M. H. Adams
... of battle, flung it quivering on the board: "Lo!" he cried, "I came to bid thee baleful greeting with my sword; Thou hast dulled the edge that never shrank from battle's fiercest test— Now I come, as comes a brother, swordless unto ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... stood with his back to the window, his pistols raised, and his head carried proudly—happily—like a man whose self-respect was coming back to him after many days. Harris shrank before his fierce eyes and pointed barrels. The Portuguese, however, had merely given a characteristic shrug, and was now ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... first came to Washington he had thoughts of taking the mission to Constantinople, in order to be on the spot to look after the dissemination, of his Eye Water, but as that invention; was not yet quite ready, the project shrank a little in the presence of vaster schemes. Besides he felt that he could do the country more good by remaining at home. He was one of the Southerners who were constantly quoted ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... troubling emotion. Now and again he looked at her with different eyes—eyes from which the joy had of a sudden faded, rather fearful eyes that looked a question which could not be asked. Her eyes rather shrank from his, and when they did look into them it ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... tofore the foremost of his rank, In sturdy steel forth stept the warrior bold, The first he smote down from his saddle sank, The next under his steel lay on the mould, Under the Saracen's spear the worthies shrank, No breastplate could that cursed tree outhold, When that was broke his precious sword he drew, And whom he hit, he felled, ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... saw him take a step in their direction, they shrank back. Although not averse to having a little entertainment of the sort at times, none of them seemed to particularly fancy ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... hand he thrust it farther out for the girl to take, but she shrank back. Beasley saw the movement and laughed. He pointed at it and leered up ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... the tired children slept, the sisters sat conversing about many things. Not about the future. Firm as was their trust in God, the future seemed dark indeed, and each shrank from paining the other by speaking her fears aloud. Of her husband Mrs Elder spoke with thankfulness and joy, though with many tears. He had known and loved the Saviour, and had died rejoicing in His salvation. She had prayed ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... dashed open the last door with a blow of his fist, and stopped, confronting the intruder. The sisters shrank back pale and trembling, but the Kalevide stood beside them, with the hat in his hand, and apparently no taller than themselves. Sarvik asked who he was, and how he came to throw himself into the trap; but the hero at once challenged him to wrestle, ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... matter the cliffs themselves, swept by the spray and humming with the roar of the beach—even the bald headland towards which they curved as to the visible bourne of all things terrestrial—shrank in comparison with the waste void beyond, where sky and ocean weltered together after the wrestle of a two days' storm; and in comparison with the thought that this rolling sky and heaving water stretched all the way to Europe. Not a sail showed, not a wing anywhere ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... slipped it under his arm with a possessive air, while she made to Brady some hurried excuses in a trembling voice. For a moment still she hung back, but Adams drew her gently with him, and after the first few steps, she recovered herself and walked rapidly to the waiting carriage. Inside she shrank back immediately into a corner from which, when they had rolled off, she sent forth a nervous question. "What is it? Tell me what ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... impudent air which he before wore. He glanced, for a moment, at my fist, which I had by this time clenched, and his features became yet more haggard; he faltered; a fresh 'one-and-ninepence,' which he was about to utter, died on his lips; he shrank back, disappeared behind a coach, and I ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Rafael shrank at the sound of that somewhat mocking voice, which seemed to people the darkness with brilliantly ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... sense of loss and disillusionment which had haunted her earlier in the evening, and she shrank back into her corner without a word, fearing that Miss Jinny's clear vision might after all substantiate ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... take all these pictures of Frederick on {72} trust—on the faith of the father who loathed him, of the mother who detested and despised him, of the brothers and sisters who shrank away from him, of the minister who could not find words enough to express his hatred and contempt for him. Of course the mere fact that father and mother, brothers and sisters, felt thus towards the prince is terrible testimony against him. But there ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... went on for some time, but not with a very satisfactory result, for added to his weakness the boy now showed an increasing terror of his father. He shrank from the hard words or the uplifted hand with an evident fear, which only strengthened Mr Darvell's anger, for it mortified him still more to find his lad a coward as well as ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... upon her. She had a kind of terror of Elsie; and the thought of having charge of her, of being alone with her, of coming under the full influence of those diamond eyes,—if, indeed, their light were not dimmed by suffering and weariness,—was one she shrank from. But what could she do? It might be a turning-point in the life of the poor girl; and she must overcome all her fears, all her repugnance, and go ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... calls Him the Lamb of God. John knew that He was to make the Messiah manifest to Israel by His baptism, for God had told him so. He did not know Jesus to be the Christ till after His baptism, yet he shrank back from the idea of baptizing him, and pleaded his unworthiness. He was worthy, and specially appointed of God, to make manifest the Messiah, but gave way under a sense of unworthiness at the thought of baptizing his cousin, Jesus of Nazareth! What a flood of light ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... upon every one was that he was not to be trusted; his dark eyes were not frank and clear, the thin lips were shrewd, with lines about them that betokened cruelty; it was a face from which children shrank instinctively, and women as a rule did not love. They stood side by side under the shade of an elder tree. Plainly as patrician was written on her beautiful face and figure, plebeian was imprinted on his. He ...
— Marion Arleigh's Penance - Everyday Life Library No. 5 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... authority remained with the King, but the court of Louis was the focus of resistance to the Revolution, and even though a quasi-prisoner the King was still strong. Monarchy had a firm hold on liberal nobles like Mirabeau and Lafayette, on adventurers like Dumouriez, and even on lawyers like Danton who shrank from excessive cruelty. Had the pure Royalists been capable of enough intellectual flexibility to keep faith upon any reasonable basis of compromise, even as late as 1792, the Revolution might have been benign. In June, 1792, Lafayette, who ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... let me stay and say one word to the lady!" Stevens seized his great stick savagely. "Clear out!" he cried in a hoarse, angry voice, and made a step towards her as if he would strike her. She shrank away from him, and then, a sudden thought seizing her, she turned and ran through the woods as fast as her feeble strength would allow. The instant that she was out of sight, Stevens very deliberately and carefully tore up the little slip of paper with which she had entrusted him, and scattered ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... spoil that charming complexion of yours by late hours." He spoke with a sort of sneer, but immediately passed his finger down her delicate cheek with a tenderly caressing gesture, as if to make up for the previous hardness of his tone. Kitty shrank away from him, but he only smiled and continued softly: "Those pretty eyes must not be dimmed by want of sleep. Go to bed, ma belle, and dream ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... offer to become a teacher in the great idiot asylum in Syracuse. Her sensitive nature shrank from the work, but with real self-sacrifice she accepted it for the sake of the family, and went off in October. Meanwhile Louisa had been thinking deeply about her future, and her diary tells the story of ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... "Oh, well, if she shrank from it, of course, as a gentleman, you were bound to take her part; but don't spoil your chances in life, Sandy, I beg, by any entanglement with these villagers of which you may repent. A pretty country lassie to smile when you look at ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... had given what I had not dared to ask, assurance of present acceptance. I should have all the work and privation for which I had bargained—should be a thistle-digger in the vineyard; should be set to tasks from which other laborers shrank, but in no trial could I ever be alone, and should at last ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... Mr. Raven shrank away from these gruesome details, but Mr. Cazalette showed the keenest interest in them, and would not be kept from the doctor's elbows. He was pertinacious ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... gallantry was made, hesitated to accept it. It much exceeded the reserve imposed on one of her station and years to allow of such homage from the other sex, though the occasion was generally deemed one that admitted of more than usual gallantry; and she evidently shrank, with the sensitiveness of one whose feelings were unpractised, from a ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... wine, with accompaniments of glasses and cake, from the cupboard and the oak sideboard, and the refreshment was duly presented to the guests. They both partook of the cake, but obstinately refused the wine, in spite of their hostess's hospitable attempts to force it upon them. Arthur, especially shrank from the ruby nectar as if in terror and disgust, and was ready to cry when ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... self-confidence she listened to the sermon. It was beautiful, simple, full of feeling and even of passion, but she felt that it was made for her, and she shrank before the thousand people who were thus let into the secret chambers of her heart. It treated of death and its mystery, covering ignorance with a veil of religious hope, and ending with an invocation of infinite love so intense in feeling and expression ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... the place, his enemies will send us to the devil. Let us keep well in mind what great works we have begun here, and what vast importance they possess; we should not know how to finish them without him, and his enemies would say that he had taken flight because he shrank before such undertakings." Many other things bearing weightily upon the subject were said among them. But it was the young Roman, Macaroni, who first put heart into the company; and he also raised recruits ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... storms then shook the ocean of my sleep, Blotting that moon, whose pale and waning lips Then shrank as in the ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... I like them very much." Blondin's languid, rich voice corrected her. Nina shrank sensitively. "I think they're very charming little schoolgirls. But I don't want them ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... presence of that great concourse of people, in presence too of the universal reprobation of the Empire which had brought defeat, invasion, humiliation upon France, the officer commanding the gendarmes shrank from carrying out his orders. There must have been a brief parley with the leaders of our column. In any case, the ranks of the gendarmes suddenly opened, many of them taking to the footways of the bridge, over which our column swept at the double-quick, ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... Suddenly the Flopper shrank into a doorway. From amidst the crowd behind, the yellow flare of a gasoline lamp, outhanging from a secondhand shop, glinted on brass buttons. An officer, leisurely accommodating his pace to his own monarchial pleasure, causing his hurrying ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... slave cabins of Maryland as the friend of the black man, one of a class peculiar to old Quakerism, who in doing what they felt to be duty, and walking as the Light within guided them, knew no fear and shrank from no sacrifice. Braver men the world has not known. Beside him, differing in creed, but united with him in works of love and charity, sat Thomas Whitson, of the Hicksite school of Friends, fresh from his farm in Lancaster County, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... She shrank, however, from commenting upon this extravagant and spendthrift trait in his character, even to Uncle Amazon. Nor would she have spoken to anybody else ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... toil, decipher its floral carvings choked with soot. I felt answerable to the schools I loved, only for their injury. I perceived that this new portion of my strength had also been spent in vain; and from amidst streets of iron, and palaces of crystal, shrank back at last to the carving of the mountain and ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... her pallid cheeks, "I mean that I need no longer profess to love what I hate; to cherish what I despise; to fondle what I loathe; to cast soft looks on that which I would pierce with daggers!" And she in turn took a step, quick and menacing, toward her wretched lover, who cowered and shrank back into the shadow of ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... evolved through material 532:18 sense, produced the immediate fruits of fear and shame. Ashamed before Truth, error shrank abashed from the divine voice calling out to the cor- 532:21 poreal senses. Its summons may be thus paraphrased: "Where art thou, man? Is Mind in matter? Is Mind capable of error as well as of truth, of evil as well as of 532:24 good, when God is All and He is Mind and there ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... had concluded, Smith, who felt that his doom was sealed, exerted all his strength, burst from the men who held him, and darted like an arrow towards that part of the living circle which seemed weakest. Most of the miners shrank back—only one man ventured to oppose the fugitive; but he was driven down with such violence, that he lay stunned on the sward, while Smith sprang like a goat up the steep face of the adjacent precipice. A dozen rifles instantly poured forth their contents, and ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... of it, and here another. The road never heeded. A stream ran right across it, still it straggled on. Suddenly it gave up the minimum property that a road should possess, and, renouncing its connection with High Streets, its lineage of Piccadilly, shrank to one side and became an unpretentious footpath. Then it led me to the old bridge over the stream, and thus I came to Wrellisford, and found after travelling in many lands a village with no wheel tracks in its street. On the other side of the bridge, my friend the road struggled ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... should not they choose our wives, limit our expenses, and stint us to a certain number of dishes of meat, of glasses of wine, and of cups of tea? Plato, whose hardihood in speculation was perhaps more wonderful than any other peculiarity of his extraordinary mind, and who shrank from nothing to which his principles led, went this whole length. Mr. Gladstone is not so intrepid. He contents himself with laying down this proposition, that whatever be the body which in any community is employed to protect the persons ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... He shrank from the note as from a lizard, while his lip quivered, and he tried to swallow his emotion down. Then ensued mutual expostulation, which he terminated by producing a knitted purse, which might have belonged to his grandfather—or to Brian Boru's grandfather, for that matter— and disclosing a ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... mother she was willing to take a husband, but the husband must be of her own choice. She wished to enter upon a wholly new life, remote from the social conditions which of late years had crushed her spirit. From the men who had hitherto approached her, she shrank in fear. Horace Lord, good-looking and not uneducated, yet so far from formidable, suggested a new hope; even though he might be actuated by the ordinary motives, she discerned in him a softness, a pliability of nature, which would harmonise with ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... flight, Gabriel had to go about his semi-ecclesiastical duties and take part in Church ceremonies as heretofore. This so chafed him that he sometimes thought of proclaiming himself; but though he did not shrink from the thought of the stake, he shrank from the degradation of imprisonment, from the public humiliation, foreseeing the horror of him in the faces of all his old associates. And sometimes, indeed, it flashed upon him how dear were these friends of his youth, despite reason and religion; how like a cordial was the laughter ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... The girl shrank as from a sudden and mortal danger. Her lips trembled, her eyes half closed, and with a hurried and passionate gesture she rose from her chair, thrust from her the scarlet blooms, and with one lithe movement of her body put between her ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... hand; but she shrank away from him, trembling a little, and with a frightened look ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... Patience shrank from the spectacle, and Rusha hung upon her, saying the soldiers would be there, and beginning to cry. At that moment, however, Tom Gates' voice came near shouting for "Stead! ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the case, The target for the foe's artillery. Scarce could the members of his retinue Within a ring of hundred yards approach About there and about, a stream of death, Hurtled grenades and cannon-shot and shell. They that had lives to save fled to its banks. He, the strong swimmer, he alone shrank not, But beckoning his friends, unswervingly Made toward the high lands ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... behind the mirror table and caught him by the arm. The poor drunkard, his face pallid, shrank away from this great bulk of shining scarlet. His eyes moved lamentably round the chamber and rested first upon Katharine, then upon ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... he faltered, but now and again there came, When we spoke of the Cause and its doings, a flash of his eager flame, And he seemed himself for a while; then the brightness would fade away, And he gloomed and shrank from my eyes. Thus passed day after day, And grieved I grew, and I pondered: till at last one eve we sat In the fire-lit room together, and talked of this and that, But chiefly indeed of the war and what would come of it; For Paris drew ...
— The Pilgrims of Hope • William Morris
... attempts at an omniprevalent Democracy were made. Yet this evil sprang necessarily from the leading evil, Knowledge. Man could not both know and succumb. Meantime huge smoking cities arose, innumerable. Green leaves shrank before the hot breath of furnaces. The fair face of Nature was deformed as with the ravages of some loathsome disease. And methinks, sweet Una, even our slumbering sense of the forced and of the far-fetched might have arrested us ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... as the glaring sun cleared the high plateau on the eastern horizon, the ethereal colours of daybreak faded. The magic towers and pyramids lowered and shrank in bulk until they became only ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... sparingly filtered through the depth of superimpending wood; and the air was hot like steam, and heady with vegetable odours, and lay like a load upon the lungs and brain. Underfoot, a great depth of mould received our silent footprints; on each side, mimosas, as tall as a man, shrank from my passing skirts with a continuous hissing rustle; and, but for these sentient vegetables, all in that den of pestilence was motionless ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mother, never; please don't whip me, I'll mind you;" and as she spoke, she shrank as far as possible into the corner of the room. "What's all this—what's the matter, Jule? What on earth are you ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... the world sees it? That man who is trying to steal my wife from me is the curse, the foul fiend, the shadow, the shame. I met him in the City only yesterday. He tried to bow, but I looked him in the face and cut him dead. He paled and shrank away." ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... "She shrank from my scrutiny with a nervous movement and flushed to the roots of her red-brown hair. Then she answered coldly that I was wrong, that she was in excellent health, but that she could not expect any more than other people to preserve perennial ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... but I can only say that it took me completely by surprise. You see, I had never known any other young man at all intimately, and George I had looked upon more as a brother than anything else. When he spoke of love, my first feeling was one of annoyance and fear. I shrank from answering, and when he pressed me I asked him to let me have time to think it over. He wisely dropped the subject, and before we got home he was chatting to me as ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... said the professor, and he so thoroughly stared Sam out of countenance, that the man shrank from the fierce frown and backed ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... not meet them half-way; his repeated repulses by the Doctor and all the difficulties that beset his return to freedom had made him very sulky and snappish. He had not patience or adaptability enough to respond to their advances, and only shrank from their rough good nature—which naturally checked the current of ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... rooms at Castleford were at opposite sides of a large square hall, and even in the short transit between them Errington felt instinctively that Miss Liddell shrank from him. The tips merely of her black-gloved fingers rested on his arm, while she kept as far from him as the length of her own permitted. At table her host was on her right, and Lady Alice opposite, next ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... shone with a strange expression before which the little art teacher instinctively shrank. He took ...
— Their Mariposa Legend • Charlotte Herr
... town slowly. In those days pity for the vanquished was a sentiment but little comprehended, and he had certainly not learned it among the Romans, who frequently massacred their prisoners wholesale. Woe to the vanquished! was almost a maxim with them. But Beric shrank from witnessing the scene, now that the tables were turned upon the oppressors. Nationally he hated the Romans, but individually he had no feeling against them, and had he had the power he would at once have arrested the effusion of blood. He wished to ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... those who go to the bottom of things; he shrank from the proofs, and his vague jealousy was lost in the immensity of ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... from cold and excitement, and then shrank close to his companion, for the dogs suddenly charged into the place, the hollow walls of the gloomy quadrangle echoing their baying, as all three, according to their means of speed, made ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... so strongly reinforced that his army grew to seventy thousand men. At his back lay Nuremberg, his faithful ally, ready to aid him with thirty thousand fighting men besides. As his force grew that of Wallenstein shrank, until by the end of the siege pestilence and want had reduced his ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... sir," cried the unconscious man. It was only the last outbreak of Philip's delirium, but Pete trembled and shrank back. ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... Verner, whom she despised in her heart for not being a lady. With all her deficiencies, Lady Verner was essentially a gentlewoman—not to be one amounted in her eyes to little less than a sin. No wonder that she, with her delicate beauty of person, her quiet refinements of dress, shrank within herself as she swept past poor Mrs. Verner, with her great person, her crimson face, and her flaunting colours! No wonder that Lady Verner, smarting under her wrongs, passed half her time giving utterance to them; or that ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... books at random and poring over it. Every word for him. It was true. God was almighty. God could call him now, call him as he sat at his desk, before he had time to be conscious of the summons. God had called him. Yes? What? Yes? His flesh shrank together as it felt the approach of the ravenous tongues of flames, dried up as it felt about it the swirl of stifling air. He had died. Yes. He was judged. A wave of fire swept through his body: the first. ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... corrected her mistake, but was, of course, powerless to do so. Bitterly she regretted her tactlessness and folly. But she could do nothing, and to add to her distress, she saw that Jimbo shrank from her in a way that could not long escape the watchful eye of the mother. But, if the boy shed tears of fear that night in his bed, it must in justice be told that she, for her part, cried bitterly in her own ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... considered myself as a Jew responsible for the wayward one. I lost control of myself, and ran out. But after I had been in the street for some time, I was seized with fear of the Catcher. Every stranger I met seemed to me to be a Catcher. I shrank into myself, walked unsteadily hither and thither, and did not know how to hide myself. Then a man met me. His large beard and curled side-locks made me think he was a good man. I looked at him imploringly. "What ails you, my boy?" he asked in a soft ...
— In Those Days - The Story of an Old Man • Jehudah Steinberg
... fail me, but you know how one imagines things, how one asks oneself questions. If I was like this, if I was like that, what should I do? I used to say to myself, if the very worst happened to me, if I was ill of some loathsome disease from which everybody shrank away, or if my mind was unhinged and I was tempted with horrible temptations like I have read about, I would go to Cecilia. She would not turn from me; she would run to meet me as the father in the parable did, not because I was her friend but because I was in trouble. All who are in trouble ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... Owing to his sense of honor and his conscientiousness, he shrank from doing what his heart so intensely desired; and, before making up his mind, he wished to hear the views of his friends, General von Koeckeritz and Field-Marshal Kalkreuth, who were carrying on the peace ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... my senses returned, all was frightfully dark, and my mind remembering what had occurred, shrank from the idea of beholding more; yet curiosity overmastered all. Who, I asked myself, was this man of evil, and how came he within the castle walls? Why should he seek to avenge the death of poor Michel Mauvais, ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... answer, that a violent headach prevented my leaving my room. The headach was true; and I had a reluctance equally true to see the "human face divine" for that evening at least. There was one exception to that reluctance, for thoughts had begun to awake in me, from which I shrank with something little short of terror. There was one "human face divine" which I would have made a pilgrimage round the world to see—but it was not under the roof of Mordecai. It was in one of the little cottages on which I was then looking from my window, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... but not for long; a burst of voices heralded a new danger, and he shrank into a doorway. Along one of the lanes a troop of children, the biggest not twelve years old, came dancing and leaping round something which they dragged by a string. Now one of the hindmost would burl it onward with a kick, now another, amid screams of childish laughter, tripped headlong ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... south-east corner. The ground sloped away a little, and the arch opened into the stainless blue. A sound of footsteps made Carroll look up, and through the archway came Raymond Fothergill. He had heard the cry, he had outrun the rest, and, even in his blank bewilderment of horror, Archie shrank back scared at his cousin's aspect. His brows and moustache were black as night against the unnatural whiteness of his face, which was like bleached wax. His eyes were terrible. He seemed to reach the spot in an instant. Carroll saw his hands ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... command. When he was by her bedside, a great constraint had come upon him. What had been easy to embody in a letter, was terribly difficult to frame in spoken speech. Several times he had tried to open the way to a confession. He knew it must scarify Elaine, and he shrank from it. But yet it was plain her mind was not at rest, and that was worse for her than the knowledge ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... Damayanti, afflicted with anguish and burning with grief, began to rush hither and thither, weeping in woe. And now the helpless princess sprang up, and now she sank down in stupor; and now she shrank in terror, and now she wept and wailed aloud. And Bhima's daughter devoted to her husband, burning in anguish and sighing ever more, and faint and weeping exclaimed, "That being through whose imprecation the afflicted Naishadha suffereth this woe, shall bear grief that is greater than ours. ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa |
