"Shrug" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on him," he said, with a shrug of his wide shoulders, "to die just when he was on the point of ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... influence of the Mendelssohnian rhetoric and enlightenment, of reform and assimilation, have, in the last twenty years of the nineteenth century, been followed by a new generation which seeks to take up a standpoint other than the traditional towards the question of Zion. These new Jews shrug their shoulders at that twaddle which has been the fashion among rabbis and literati for the last hundred years, and which boasts of a "Mission of Jewdom," said to consist in this, that the Jews must live forever in dispersion among the peoples ...
— Zionism and Anti-Semitism - Zionism by Nordau; and Anti-Semitism by Gottheil • Max Simon Nordau
... a deprecatory shrug of the shoulders, and busied himself with the girths of his saddle. At the touch and the sight of the buckles, his eyes became grave and earnest. And it is not only Frenchmen who cherish this cult of the horse, making false gods of saddle and bridle, and ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... disdainful movement of her shoulders which might have been a shrug if she had had French instead of Irish blood in her veins. In her evening cloak of green velvet trimmed with gray fox she had the look of a small wild creature of the forest. Beneath her thick eyelashes her eyes shone through a greenish mist; and at the moment there was something frightened and ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... with the real ivy that Bruce Marshall's great-grandmother had brought with her from England. Judith thought contrastingly of Eben King's staring, primrose-colored house in all its bare, intrusive grandeur. She gave a little shrug of distaste. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the Royalist party. There was, they explained, at the moment no government, no officials, no Minister. Their various appointments were arranged for and would be confirmed immediately after the coronation. Until then they were only private persons. So Domiloff, with a suave jest and a shrug of his shoulders, shut himself up in his house, while the cathedral bells clashed and the cannon ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... replied, "had you ever heard of the Nautilus? No, yet here it is! So don't shrug your shoulders so blithely, and don't discount something with the feeble excuse that you've never heard ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... orderly life like a few drops of blood in the ocean. She directed upon me for a moment the uncomprehending glance of her narrowed eyes and then would turn her scornful powdered face away without a word. She would not even take the trouble to shrug her shoulders. ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... her, shrugged his shoulders and followed her into the carriage. My master had many English attributes, but in the shrug, the pantomime of Kismet, he ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... people's shortcomings, and if Burleigh had not known her too well to give her false tales credence, she might have worked some serious mischief. As it was, everyone took her gossip with a grain of salt, remarking, with a smile and a shrug after she had gone away, "Of course, that may be true, but ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... little man eagerly. "Oscilloscopes. Portable force-field generators. A neural distorter." Melinda's face was blank. The little man frowned. "You use them, of course? This is a Class IV culture?" Melinda essayed a weak shrug and the little man sighed with relief. His eyes fled past her to the blank screen of the TV set. "Ah, a monitor." He smiled. "For a moment I was afraid—May ...
— Teething Ring • James Causey
... shoulder-shrugs and eyebrow-elevations, because it was "not exactly the thing to get out, you know"; but if it wasn't to get out, why did he let it out? and so from my dark corner I watched him as a cat does a mouse, and the lamp-light shone full upon him, and I understood every word and shrug, and I am going to tell it all to the world. I translated that the holy father had been "skylarking" in a boat, and in gay society had forgotten his vows of frugality and abstinence and general mortification of the flesh, and had become, not very drunk, but drunk enough ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... if the reason of it was not so clear to Pedro's mind, and his hot Latin blood flew instinctively to his face. But for that, he might have shown some concern or asked an explanation. As it was, he at once retorted with the national shrug and the national ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... Meanwhile it would enhance your enjoyment mightily to watch his physiognomy, the movements of his great, grey, shaggy head, the lightening and darkening of his eyes, his smile, his frown, his occasional slight shrug or gesture. But the oddest thing was this, that he could take as well as give; he could listen—surely a rare talent in a monologist. Indeed, I have never known a man who could make ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... what shall I do there all that time?—though I may run on to California. But it seems my daughter-in-law would have her honeymoon in the mountains while the aspens are just a certain yellow she's fond of. So of course"—with his little shrug Katie loved—"what's my having a month on ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... she proceeded, "something about Ghosts or Dynamite or Midnight Murder—one could understand it: those things aren't worth the shilling, unless they give one a Nightmare. But really—with only a medical treatise, you know—" and she glanced, with a pretty shrug of contempt, at the book over which I had ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... knows of it," interpolated Blanco. "The tall man with the extremely pale face and the singularly piercing eye who sits facing us,"—Blanco paused,—"is the Duke Louis Delgado. He is the nephew of the late King of Galavia, and if—" the Spaniard gave an expressive shrug, and watched the smoke ring he had blown widen as it floated up toward the ceiling—"if by any chance, or mischance, Prince Karyl, who is to be crowned at Puntal three days hence, should be called to his reward in heaven, the gentleman ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... like to go back and try to bring out the wagons we had left behind, and he wanted me to go back with him and help him. I explained to him by the map he had made, and one which I made myself, that I considered it impossible to bring them over. He seemed much disappointed, and with a shrug of his shoulders said "mucho malo" (very bad) and seemed to abandon the idea of getting a Yankee wagon. They very much admired an American wagon, for their own vehicles were rude affairs, as I shall bye-and-bye describe. We bade each other many adios, ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... slight shrug. "At present there's nothing I loathe more than pearls and chinchilla, or anything else in the ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... was a ponderous but expressive shrug, and without a word Lapierre turned and stepped ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... sagaca. Shrewdness sagaceco. Shriek kriegi. Shriek (of the wind) mugxi. Shrill sibla. Shrink malpliigxi. Shrivel up sulkigxi. Shrimp markankreto. Shroud mortkitelo. Shroud kasxi, protekti. Shrub arbeto. Shrug altigi. Shudder tremeti. Shuffle (cards) miksi, enmiksi—igi. Shuffle (prevaricate) cxikani. Shun eviti. Shut fermi. Shutter, window fenestra kovrilo. Shuttle naveto. Shy timeta, hontema. Shyness timeteco, ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... of his life were such as would go far to explain reserve and irony—is it, I would ask, reasonable to suppose that Buffon did not, in his own mind, and from the first, draw the inference to which he leads his reader, merely because from time to time he tells the reader, with a shrug of the shoulders, that he draws no inferences opposed to the Book of Genesis? Is it not more likely that Buffon intended his reader to draw his inferences for himself, and perhaps to value them all the more highly ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... a jackanapes like that," said Boots, with a contemptuous shrug, turning away, and brushing ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... me," interrupted that young lady, with a shrug of her shoulders. "I can take my chance as I have often done before—to-day, ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... you please," he returned, with a shrug of the shoulders. "I will not ask you to keep a look-out for me, because I can do that quite well from the windows of the captain's cabin; and," looking round, "I do not think you can do any mischief up here. You are sure you will not come down? Very well, ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... improvement of the lot of those who have hitherto been regarded as being for ever abandoned and hopeless. Shame indeed upon England if, with the example presented to us nowadays by the Emperor and Government of Germany, we simply shrug our shoulders, and pass on again to our business or our pleasure leaving these wretched multitudes in the gutters where they have lain so long. No, no, no; time is short. Let us arise in the name of God and humanity, and wipe away the ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... Cockney, harbormaster, known as "Pinkie" because of his rosy complexion, was pallid with fear, the other European residents of Sandakan seemed utterly indifferent to the danger to which they were exposed. But life in a land like Borneo breeds fatalism. As an official remarked, with a shrug of his shoulders, "After you have spent a few years out here you don't much care how you die, or how soon. Plague is as convenient a way of going out as ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... would be left for her to wind up the interview and get out of the place without arousing too much attention. With a self-possession which astonished both men, knowing her immense interest in this matter, she laid down the stick, and, with a gentle shrug of her shoulders, ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... them in paying up the deficiency. In fact, he who is least able to do it has to carry it all. Nobody else will trust the church. He has to trust it for hundreds of dollars. And then when his grocer and his landlord and his tailor go unpaid, men shrug their shoulders and say, pityingly, "Oh! he's a minister, he is not trained to business habits." And the world looks on in wonder and in silent contempt to see the Christian Church carrying on its business in a manner the flagrant ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... twenty-five or twenty-six. He was tall, well-built, blond. His hair and eyes were about the color of Rathburn's. But Rathburn particularly noted the man's face, and whatever it was he saw there caused him to shrug and frown deeply. ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... encarnacion f. incarnation. encarnado red; m. flesh-color. encender to kindle, light. encerrar to shut up, lock up, contain. encierro confinement, prison. encima above, over, at the top. encina evergreen oak. encoger to contract, shrug. encolerizar to provoke, anger. encomendar to recommend. encontrar to encounter, meet; vr. find. encorvar to bend. encuentro encounter, meeting. endemoniado devilish, confounded. enderezar to direct, set right, address. endiablado ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... butter (they were not, it appears, constrained to choose between spears and butter). How can he compose six foot metres, he asks, with so many seven foot patrons around him, all singing and all expecting him to admire their uncouth stream of non-Latin words? The shrug of the shoulder, the genial contempt of one conscious of an infinite superiority—how clear it is. One is reminded ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... which was engraved with the three letters: U. S. S. On such occasions, anyone observing him closely could have remarked that he carried his head higher than usual, and whenever he was asked what these initial letters signified, he would simply shrug his shoulders and say that he had got the ring from a comrade in his student days, and really did not know what ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... "you may shrug your shoulders, but you can't shrug us out of existence. Here we are, and you can't get over us. You are our father, and I presume that a kind of respect is due to you. Yet how can you hope for our respect? Have you earned it? Did you earn it when you ill-treated ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... if you are afraid," said Thor, with a shrug of his shoulders. And the wolf replied, "To show that I am no more cowardly than the gods, I will suffer myself to be bound if one of you will put his ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... see you take the last blow so well." There was an ironical little twang to that speech, and Polly could n't help it. Tom colored up and looked hurt for a minute, then seemed to right himself with a shrug, and said, in his outspoken way, "To tell the honest truth, Polly, it was not a very hard one. I 've had a feeling for some time that Trix and I were not suited to one another, and it might be wiser to stop short. But she did not or would not see it; and I was not going to back out, and leave ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... know why he calls him 'poor Charlie,'" said Rose, with a shrug. "I suppose, however, we must all seem like objects of compassion to Harry, at the moment of his triumph, as none of us have what has fallen ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... roar which never ceases all day long, a hurrying, a striving and eagerness to clear the stock and gain money. If the prices were fixed, business would soon be done. But if you have taken a fancy to a Kurdish mat and ask the price, the tradesman demands a quite absurd sum. You shrug your shoulders and go your way. He calls out another, lower price. You go on quietly, and the man comes running after you and has dropped his price to the lowest. In every shop bargains are made vociferously in the same way. ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... thus I greet you in your old sacred Fatherland, not jokingly and merrily, like the book, whose writer seems to have become a stranger to me, but earnestly and briefly; for the great fast of the European world, expecting the passion, and waiting for deliverance, can endure no indifferent shrug of the shoulders and no hollow compromises and excuses. He who cannot act at this time, can yet rest and mourn." For such words, veiled as they were, resigned as they were, the fortress of Mayence was at that time the ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... asked Phanes, with an incredulous shrug of the shoulders. "Why the Persians are rulers over half the world already. All the great Asiatic powers have submitted to their sceptre; Egypt and our own mother-country, Hellas, are the only two that have been shared ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... with a shrug, "I cannot see what you are going to do about it. This vessel flies the English flag. I have as much right on board her as you, and from the fact that you are booked under an assumed name I imagine that I ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... bit, he commenced finding fault with this one and that, the men would shove their tongues in their cheek and shrug their shoulders. They did not pay the slightest regard to anything he said; while the more bolder spirits, perhaps, of the stamp of Jim Chowder, winked openly the one to the other, expressing an opinion in a sufficiently loud ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... hear that, now?" she laughed with a shrug. "An' how should I know? I guess if Susan Betts could tell the end of all the beginnin's as soon as they're begun, she wouldn't be hangin' out your daddy's washin', my boy. She'd be sittin' on a red velvet sofa with a gold cupola over her head a-chargin' five dollars apiece for tellin' ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... mob have thronged the sight to greet, And motley figures throng the spacious street; Majestical and calm through all they stride, Wearing the blanket with a monarch's pride; The gazers stare and shrug, but can't deny Their noble forms and blameless symmetry. If the Great Spirit their morale has slighted, And wigwam smoke their mental culture blighted, Yet the physique, at least, perfection reaches, ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... happy thing to be satisfied," said Mr. Shelby, with a slight shrug, and some perceptible feelings of ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... answer to that was a shrug. She was, as I think I have said, a very shrewd person. I have since had reason to believe that she could, if she had chosen, have relieved my mind very considerably, but at the moment she thought it was the spur I needed, and she was not going to lessen the effect of what she ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... took to that ould dog," Says he, wid a shrug av his slats, "So we've got us a new dog from Galway, And och, he's ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... accompanied with displeasure, is expressed nearly in the same way. Without displeasure, it is done with a visible reluctance, which occasions the bringing out the words slowly, with such a shake of the head, and shrug of the shoulders, as is natural upon hearing of somewhat which ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... one cousin to the other, and then turned an inquiring glance on Mademoiselle Viefville. The latter gave a slight shrug, and seemed to ask an explanation of the young lady's ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... left the field to Violet and with a curt shrug had turned his back and stood looking out over the cove, stroking his chin reflectively. Miss Browne's eloquence had risen to amazing flights, and she already had Mr. Tubbs inextricably mixed with. Ananias and Sapphira, when the Scotchman broke ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... a good fellow standing at a great window overlooking a busy street or a picturesque square, and reporting with gusto to the comrade in the rear of the room what of mirth or sadness he sees; he hints at the policeman's strut, the organ-grinder's shrug, the schoolgirl's gaiety, with a gesture or two which is born of an irresistible impulse to imitate; but he never leaves his fascinating post to carry the ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... you, Maximilian, do not shrug your shoulders with impatient disdain, at my writing such things about myself. It is hard for me to do it, you may suppose, but the sequel of this narrative will prove to you that these puerile details, of which I feel the bitter ridicule, are unfortunately indispensable. I close ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... Caesar with a shrug of his shoulders, but he withheld the remark added by the venerable elder of the ambassadors, that they did not fear a foe who by so vile a deed had incurred the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the Sphinx. Now she remembered his very words: "We Egyptians, we have other things to do than to go and stare at the Sphinx. We prefer to enjoy our lives while we can, and not to trouble about it." She remembered the shrug of his mighty shoulders that had accompanied the words. Almost she could see them and their disdainful movement before her. Yes, the Sphinx was fading away in the night, and Baroudi was there in front of her. His strong ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... like a polar bear just out of the water, and laughs heartily. He has delivered himself of something that makes everybody else laugh; the mania has caught upon his own subtle self. The negroes laugh in expressive cadences, and shrug their shoulders as Mr. M'Fadden continues to address them so sportively, so familiarly. Less initiated persons might have formed very satisfactory opinions of his character. He takes a peep under one of the seats, and with a rhapsody of laughter draws forth a small ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... up her hands with the shrug of old days—the sharp little shrug his sisters used to imitate and that she hadn't had to go to Europe for. The only thing was that he blessed ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... e'en get another dispenser," answered Stukely, with a shrug. "I trow there are plenty of them to be had. But I would that I had my books with me. Not having them, however, I must contrive as best I can to ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... rather a thing to cry about? But who could know if her smiles came from the heart? She was, no doubt, to be pitied too. It was wrong of Marianna to speak so unkindly of her mistress. She ought not to shrug her shoulders and make faces, but it was just like a servant. That was another cause of annoyance to the young man. If there had been anything between the schoolmaster and his stepmother, he would, of course, have noticed it of his own accord, he was no longer a foolish boy. Rosa gave him ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... Deronda, with a scarcely perceptible shrug. "Vandernoodt told me her name was Harleth, and she was with the Baron and Baroness von Langen. I saw by the list that Miss Harleth was ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... and play, the young gentlemen, and I cannot find it in my heart to drive them away, though sometimes I lose a respectable lodger by their noise. But, after all, what would you?" she added with a shrug; "I love them, the young men. But, Monsieur," she cried, "you have had no supper! And where is Monsieur your companion? Comme il ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... my apartment. It was a snug, clean, and comfortable little old-fashioned room at the top of the castle. As soon as we had entered, the boy, who appeared to be a shrewd, good-tempered little fellow, said with a shrug of the shoulder, 'If it was going to bed I was, it shouldn't be here that you'd catch me.' 'Why?' said I. 'Because,' replied the boy, 'they say that the ould masther's ghost has been seen sitting ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... time several persons had hurried to the scene of the encounter. Kathleen's sole reply to the threat was a contemptuous shrug of her shoulders. "Come on, girls," she said so nonchalantly that the curious ones dropped disappointedly away. Not more than four minutes had elapsed from the time the uncouth stranger had appeared until he slunk off. Emma, Grace and ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... the detectives looked in. He glanced to the other side of the carriage and saw a dark-haired young man in an ulster, and a pretty girl taking leave of her lover. Erica's face entirely hid Herr Haeberlien's from view and the man passed on with a shrug and a smile. She had contrived to readjust his wig, and with many last words, managed to spin out the remaining time, till at last the welcome signal of ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... your house on the sand," said Mrs. Merston, and turned from her with a shrug. "And great will be the ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... eyes, to her amazement saw Genevieve's sensitive mobile face actually grow tired and sad-looking while she watched, and then the moment Miss Watson was safely out of sight, with a slight grimace and shrug Genevieve was smiling triumphantly at her own cleverness, and slyly watching the effect of it ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... cunningness and sweetness of that incipient box-maker, who, Angelina informed me, goes to kindergarten in a free hack along with a crowd of other babies. But Angelina, bless her soul! is down on the kindergarten. She says, with a pout and a contemptuous shrug, "they don't teach you're kid nothing but nonsense, just cutting up little pieces of paper and singing fool songs and marching to music." Angelina admitted, however, that her bambino was supremely happy there,—so happy, in fact, that she hadn't the heart to ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... able to do everything, and they have not been surpassed in what they did as painters, sculptors, architects, engineers, fortifiers of cities, mathematicians, thinkers. No one nowadays ever thinks of a painter as being anything but a painter, and people shrug their shoulders at the idea that an artist can do anything of the kind ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... said Miss Fairbanks, with a shrug. "Why, any one with half an eye could see that ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... with a petulant shrug of the shoulders, as much as to say that she was no longer under obligations to me for preventing her capture by the party that had raided the tavern. The big Irishman, who had evidently recognized the little lady as a person of some importance, went so far as to try to persuade ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... (here he shook his head), "and monsieur speaks argot very well." (A shrug.) "Perhaps he knows more than he credits himself with. Perhaps" (and here his wink was diabolical)— "perhaps monsieur knows ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... his shoulders and made play with his clawlike hands, as if he understood me not. It was a lie, for I knew that he and the English tongue were sufficiently acquainted. I told him as much, and he shot at me a most venomous glance, but continued to shrug, gesticulate, and jabber in Italian. At last I saw nothing better to do than to take him, still by the collar, to the edge of the garden next the churchyard, and with the toe of my boot to send him tumbling among the graves. I watched him pick himself up, set his ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... we sent out for men half of those we got might be riffraff and make trouble for us, without so much as a sheriff within a hundred miles. "I'd sooner pick up new men one at a time," he concluded, "even if it takes a month. We've ladies here, and if we got in a gang of tramps——" he gave a shrug and a ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... Peaches accomplished a shrug that was wonderful, and gazed at the ceiling, her lips closed. Mickey watched her a second, then he began softly: "Flowersy-girl, I don't see what you mean! I don't know why you act like this! I don't know what's to have a tantrum for, ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... goes out into the billiard-room. DOT clasps her hands together, and standing there in the middle of the room, looks from her brother to her father, from her father to her brother. A quaint little pitying smile comes on her lips. She gives a faint shrug of her shoulders. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... so, the old man uttered a sound very like a snore. Mr Armstrong gave an imperceptible shrug of his shoulders and inwardly meditated a retreat, when the sound came through the darkness again. There was something in it which brought the tutor suddenly to his feet. He struck a match and hastily ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... thus plac'd at happy distance, Give him good words indeed, but no assistance. As some unhappy wight, at some new play, At the Pit door stands elbowing a way, While oft, with many a smile, and many a shrug, 25 He eyes the centre, where his friends sit snug; His simp'ring friends, with pleasure in their eyes, Sink as he sinks, and as he rises rise; He nods, they nod; he cringes, they grimace; But not a soul will budge to give him place. 30 Since then, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... spoke louder than a physician at a consultation—no, not when he confronted the Duke of Burgundy. He would have to glide noiselessly from scene to scene, a whisper here, a look there, and perhaps a shrug of the shoulder or scarcely perceptible motion of the hand; yet, all through, it would be evident that he was the snake on two legs, the anointed Mephistopheles, the intellect without the feeling—and, with all that, he could not be the hero of a play. Or, if he was made the hero, he would ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... you ever ferret out anything more about those parchment scraps we found among the King's coin? You said that you should make some inquiries." "Bezants are bezants and tell no tales," said Guy with a shrug. "And if they did, they might lie, like so many of those who love them. Why, you recall that I repacked that gold in my own chest because I thought one of the clerks was growing too fond of it. I took it as it lay and never ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... if you'd always been here," replied Captain Eri. "Queer how soon we git used to a change. I don't know how we got along afore, but we did some way or other, if you call it gittin' along," he added with a shrug. "I should hate to have to try it ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... gave a shrug with her shoulders, and did not say a single word more. Lady Fanny, who was as gay as a young kitten (if I may be allowed so to speak of the aristocracy), laughed, and blushed, and giggled, and seemed quite to enjoy her sister's ill-humour. ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... came out from Pianura to give Odo religious instruction and who dismissed his questions with the invariable exhortation not to pry into matters that were beyond his years. Odo had loved the pictures in the chapel all the better since the abate, with a shrug, had told him they were nothing but old rubbish, the work ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... with a shrug of his shoulders, and with true Parisian sangfroid as to such matters of morality, "a trifle not worth considering. Of course, a good-looking garcon like Gustave must have his little affairs of the heart before he settles for life. Unluckily, amongst ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... once said to me, speaking of her caprices; a quotation, a chance word heard in an unexpected quarter. Mr. Hardy and Mr. Blackmore I read because I had heard that they were distinguished novelists; neither touched me, I might just as well have bought a daily paper; neither like nor dislike, a shrug of the shoulders—that is all. Hardy seems to me to bear about the same relation to George Eliot as Jules Breton does to Millet—a vulgarisation never offensive, and executed with ability. The story of an art is always the same,... ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... Our guide points out some of the prisoners, and invites us to look in at them through their little square windows. Strange to say, he does not seem to be at all conversant with the nature of their offences. 'Dios sabe!' accompanied by a shrug of the shoulders, is invariably the commandant's reply to any query respecting a particular prisoner. 'Dios sabe' may, however, signify a great deal more than 'Heaven knows;' and, perhaps, the commandant chooses not to ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... TERRY. If Mr. PINERO so meant it, if he so wrote it for Mr. TERRY and for Mr. TERRY only, then there is nothing more to be said; Mr. PINERO's ideal is realised. But if the author did not intend Mr. TERRY's impersonation, then he must be content to sacrifice the ideal to the real, shrug his shoulders, and pocket his profits. Yet, as if making an appeal to the public to judge between the auctorial abstract and the representational concrete, Mr. PINERO not only publishes his playbook, but sells it in the theatre. Visitors to TERRY's, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various
... midst of a small knot of fishermen, every now and then answering their questions with a gesture, a shrug of the shoulders, or shake of the head; but chiefly regarding my recovery and waiting, as I could see, for me ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... lose any," was the meaning answer. Then, in reply to Hamilton's half-contemptuous shrug, Morton continued frankly. "After all, Hamilton, you can make a profit. It won't be large, but it will be a profit. This is the day of small profits, you must remember. It will be necessary for you to put in a few more of the latest-model machines, and to cut labor a bit. In that way, you ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... Edward could only shrug his shoulders and shake his head, in answer to my indignant remonstrances. At last he made room for me in a corner of the crowded bar, set before me some food, and left me to watch the strange life I had come to; and before long I soon ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... worth while to quarrel over the comparatively unimportant matter of Aunt Jane's invitation. A quarrel might be inevitable later on; Rachel wanted to save all her resources for that. She gave her shoulders a shrug, and wrote Aunt Jane's name down on the wedding list in her large, somewhat untidy handwriting—a handwriting which always seemed to irritate her mother. Rachel never could understand this irritation. She could never ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... smile that had come to him at this contact. With a shrug he passed on, leaving with her the thought of beauty enmeshed by death. She wondered who this young man was, who might have been another Robert Schumann, ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... convinced he had to do with a lunatic. He seated himself with a shrug, content to wait the upshot; and a pause ensued, during which he thought he could distinguish a hurried gabbling as of a prayer from behind the arras immediately opposite him. Sometimes there seemed to be but one person engaged, ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... "Oh, that!" A shrug of his shoulders and a wry smile expressed his indifference to such a result. "Did he ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... a puzzled air, and stepped through the window which he had opened, on to the lawn, whither, with a quaint little shrug of her shoulders, Mary followed ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... as well have done so, so transparent was the questioning glance that traveled to her left hand in search of the telltale solitaire. Even though his search was not rewarded, he felt certain that the hand concealed in the folds of her dress wore the fatal ring. Of course, mused he, with a shrug, he might have guessed it. No such beauty as this was wandering unclaimed about the world. Well, her fiance, whoever he might be, was a lucky devil! Without doubt, confound his impudence, his arm had ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... the next man. But who can stand the anguish of the unknown thing which is bound to happen? ... I'm right. You feel it, you're sure of it. At the end of these few fixed minutes an inevitable, fated event must happen. Don't shrug your shoulders, man; you're ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... difficult to decide what is false and what is true—"he said at last with a little shrug of his shoulders—"But I think that even a false religion is better for the masses than none at all. Men are closely allied to brutes, . . if the moral sense ceases to restrain them they at once leap the boundary line and give as much rein to their desires and appetites as the hyenas ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... dot ish so," said Otto with a grin and shrug of his shoulders, "but I be glad to take a flogging for him dot does so much for ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... physician and the philosopher agree only when both acknowledge that unconscious psychic processes are "the appropriate and well-justified expression for an established fact." The physician cannot but reject with a shrug of his shoulders the assertion that "consciousness is the indispensable quality of the psychic"; he may assume, if his respect for the utterings of the philosophers still be strong enough, that he and they ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... the subject of the murder had been mentioned, and Sommers would quietly hint at his complicity, the other, with a shrug of his shoulders and a peculiar smile, would abruptly change the conversation. His strong will and the constant admonitions of his counsel had prevented him from revealing in any manner the secret of his crime, and except for ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... since the previous evening had been keenly regretting that he did not allow himself to be made Vice-President, contemplated the scene with a shrug of the ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... irradiated his handsome, virile countenance, Sir Walter held out his hand to clasp his cousin's in token of appreciation. Captain King expressed no opinion save what might be conveyed in a grunt and a shrug. ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... wanted not courage, however deeply in vanity and affectation he had buried common sense, stood suspended, upon the request of Cecilia, that he would not go, and, with a shrug of distress, said, "Give me leave to own I am parfaitment in a state the most accablant in the world: nothing could give me greater pleasure than to profit of the occasion to accommodate either of these ladies; but as they proceed upon different principles, I am indecid ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... energies, or more exactly, by the component of a number of attracting forces. We do not display lights, so are thus comparatively safe from discovery. They'll catch us sooner or later, though, of course." Dantus indulged in a fatalistic shrug of ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... with a shrug of his powerful shoulders. "It's just like you, Brick, to spoil a festibul-day with your low idees! Why don't you keep them idees for a rainy day? Just lay up them regrets and hankerings for the first rainy day, and then be of a piece with the heavens and earth. 'If you can't stay cheerful while ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... a cool head," replied Sardanapalus, with a stoical shrug. "Ah! there's the bell," he added, as a loud ting was heard outside. "The curtain's going up. Now hurry away to the front, and see the last act. The scene where I'm burnt on the top of all my treasures isn't to be missed. It's the grandest and most moving scene in any ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... last night,' she said with a shrug. 'Neither monsieur nor mademoiselle; and this morning I receive orders to send letters to ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... not restrain a shrug of impatience. It was three weeks since they had met,—three weeks crammed with excitement, energy, achievement, and fortune to Key; and yet this place and this man were as stupidly unchanged as when he had left them. A momentary fancy that this was the reality, that he himself was only awakening ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... Hollyer's fine renderings of Watts and Burne-Jones of which I had never seen Raffles take the slightest notice before. But it seemed that they must hang where he had hung them, and for once I saw them hanging straight. The books had also suffered from good intentions; he gave them up with a shrug. Archives and arcana he tested or examined, and so a good many minutes passed without a word. But when he stole back into the inner room, after waiting a little at the folding-doors, there was still some faint strain upon his lips; it was only when he returned, shutting the door ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... began monsieur, with a shrug, when Mark checked him by a gesture almost as intimidating as that by which he had just ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... laugh and a shrug). The stocks and the whipping-post! Come, drive such thoughts from your head! Look! Yonder comes Jock with a tankard of apple juice! Cups for us all! Quick, Lackleather! (Carved wooden cups are taken from the trunk of a hollow tree.) Come, ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... coruscations of the poet’s wit made the sparks from the burning paper seem pale and dull. He died away from home, or not a scrap of correspondence would have been left for the publishers. Although the “public” acknowledges no duties towards the man of literary or artistic genius, but would shrug up its shoulders or look with dismay at being asked to give five pounds in order to keep a poet from the workhouse, the moment a man of genius becomes famous the public becomes aware of certain rights in relation to him. Strangely ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... the men running to cut the boat lashings and struggle to launch the boats from the deck. Ned Rackham, handsome and debonair, stared coolly at the brigantine but gave no sign that he had heard the ultimatum. With a shrug he walked across the poop, glanced up at the British ensign which flew from his main truck, and made no motion to pull ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... little shrug of the shoulders, "Oh, he says war is impossible. The credit system makes it impossible. But if he really thinks so, I don't see why he should say it so often and so violently. Oh, Peter, ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... said Dr. Dare. The man let himself into the boat at a light bound, and the negro rowed them away. The Mercy, heading outwards, seemed to shrug her shoulders, as if she had thrown them off. The strip of burning water between them and the town narrowed rapidly, and the group set their faces firmly landwards. Once, upon the little voyage, Dr. Frank took up an idle pair of oars, with some ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... little uneasily. "In pleasing her you are pleasing me," she answered, and with a shrug of his shoulders he turned ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... all-powerful favorite decided the girl's fate; for it was equivalent to a mandate for her debut. The precocious child knew the danger of the path opened for her. To the remonstrances of her mother she said with a shrug of her pretty shoulders: "To go to the opera is to go to the devil. But what matters it? It is my destiny." Poor Mme. Arnould scolded, shuddered, and prayed, and ended it, as she thought, by shutting the girl up in a convent. But Louis XV. got wind ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... eats cash," remarked another with a shrug. It was a saying to which Mackay had become accustomed. For it was one of the shameless proverbs ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith
... him while he made his laughing protest, of the four conspirators who had just been put to the cruel death which Cyprus reserved for her traitors; but their little game was happily over, and he dismissed the memory with a slight shrug of his graceful shoulders. "Was there ever a kingdom without malcontents?" he had asked, turning to his wife. "Was everyone satisfied throughout the length ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... said Miss Kendal, with a shrug. "Well, then, Sidney said that he could not bring the mummy to this place last night as it was so late. He intended—so he told my father in the letter—to remove the case containing the mummy ashore to an inn near the wharf at ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... only shrug his shoulders. His reason agreed, his instinct rebelled; he could not have ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... was silence between the two. Absinthe is not a liquor to be drunk hastily, or even to be talked over too much in the drinking. Henri did not seem to expect any other reply than the expressive shrug, and each man consumed his beverage dreamily, while the absinthe, in return for this thoughtful consideration, spread over them its benign influence, gradually lifting from their minds all care and worry, dispersing the mental clouds that hover over all men ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... a shrug down the length of him, "yer know what I mean, lady. 'Tain't a turn, it's wind. He told me to tell yer he's got his collars and cuffs in dat grip for a scoot clean out to 'Frisco. Den he's goin' to shoot snow-birds in de Klondike. He says yer told him not to send ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... to set eyes on Sobber again," said Dick, with a shrug of his broad shoulders. "The idea of introducing that deadly snake into the school was the limit. Why, half a dozen of us might have been bitten ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... musing; "but thou mistakest my intentions. I let him not go; howbeit, at worst I would only mark him in the ear, and turn him up again after this warning, peradventure with a few stripes to boot athwart the shoulders, in order to make them shrug a little, and shake off the ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... shrug the thought away and smile at his own nervousness, when he heard that unmistakable sound of a foot pressing the floor. And then he remembered that he had left his gun belt far from the bed. In a burning moment that lesson was ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... Ted could only shrug his shoulders, as he turned away to see if McCall was hurrying dinner. He knew that he would waste time arguing with the spirited young woman, who was as good a cowgirl as he was a cowboy, and for one of her sex ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... in I, 1-5: I am to learn. Antonio completes this line by a shrug of the shoulders or a gesture. "It would be remarkable," concludes Collin, "if there were no interruptions or pauses even though the characters speak in verse." Another example of this breaking of the line for dramatic purposes is found ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... a shrug of his shoulders. "But I have made my agreement with the Austrian government; and when the war has been won, I ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... shrug of surprise, accompanied with a slight glance of indignation. Walt Wilder in love! With whom can it be? As he can himself think of only one woman worth falling in love with, either in that solitary spot, ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... French," sighed Mademoiselle. "But what will you?" with a little shrug. "It is not every day that our Principal makes a birthday! As for me, I am glad ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... praise of any one, and it seemed to excite his interest, she would pooh-pooh it, literally with a "pooh!" a shrug of the shoulders, a toss of the head, or an impatient tap ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... the concierge, with an expressive shrug. And the clack of his sabots was soon heard on ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... old man decayed in his intellects. If a young or middle-aged man, when leaving a company, does not recollect where he laid his hat, it is nothing; but if the same inattention is discovered in an old man, people will shrug up their shoulders, and say, 'His ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... the face throughout the campaign, yet the burgher endeavoured to show a cheerful countenance. In this he succeeded to a surprising degree. It is a characteristic of the Boer that he can meet frowning fortune with a smile or at least a shrug of the shoulders. He found that his best policy was to forget the reverse of yesterday. Flying to-day before the enemy, to-morrow he will rally, and charge that same foe with almost ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... with a shrug; while her father, turning his eyes on each speaker in succession, very deliberately helped himself to a pinch of snuff, his ordinary recourse against a family quarrel. The curiosity of the ladies was, ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... arts, has so far mollified his morals that he is an exceedingly humane and judicious bullock-driver. He regarded me as a somewhat despicable new-comer (at least so I imagined), and when next morning I asked where I should wash, he gave rather a French shrug of the shoulders, and said, "The lake." I felt the rebuke to be well merited, and that with the lake in front of the house, I should have been at no loss for the means of performing my ablutions. So I retired abashed and cleansed myself therein. Under his bed I found Tennyson's ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... of the people answers the cry of distress that is heard all over this bountiful land by a shrug, and a nod to the master to drop a few more crumbs, as if the people were hungry ...
— Confiscation, An Outline • William Greenwood |
