"Cringing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... age, and a married man. By trade he was a gentleman's outfitter in the New North Road, and the competition of business squeezed out of him the little character that was left. In his hope of conciliating customers he had become cringing and pliable, until working ever in the same routine from day to day he seemed to have sunk into a soulless machine rather than a man. No great question had ever stirred him. At the end of this snug century, self-contained in his own narrow ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... offered to the Queen by such men as Spenser, Raleigh, Essex, Shakespeare, and Sidney, the most noble, chivalrous, and gifted spirits that ever gathered round a throne, is not to be judged of as the flattery which cringing courtiers pay to a dreaded tyrant; but rather as the outpouring of a general enthusiasm, the echo of the stirring voice of chivalry, and the expression of the feelings of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... stopped a chariot, and came off with a hatful of gold, but the victims, impatient of disaster, raised the county, and Gentleman Harry was laid by the heels. Never at a loss, he condescended to a cringing hypocrisy: he whined, he whimpered, he babbled of reform, he plied his prosecutors with letters so packed with penitence, that they abandoned their case, and in a couple of days Simms had eased a collector at Eversey Bank of three hundred ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... look away from him, for my faded eyes Like a cringing dog at his heels offend him now, Like a toothless hound pursuing him with my will, Till he chafes at my crouching persistence, and a sharp spark flies In my soul from under the sudden frown of his brow, As he blenches and turns away, and my ...
— Amores - Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... was delightful—a wild-dog puppy from the Ysabel bush, being taken back to Malaita by one of the Meringe return boys. In age they were the same, but their breeding was different. The wild-dog was what he was, a wild-dog, cringing and sneaking, his ears for ever down, his tail for ever between his legs, for ever apprehending fresh misfortune and ill-treatment to fall on him, for ever fearing and resentful, fending off threatened hurt with lips curling malignantly from his ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... exception of Tchebu Lama, was the only Bhoteea about the Durbar who could speak Hindostanee, and who did it very imperfectly: he was our attendant and spy, the most barefaced liar I ever met with, even in the east; and as cringing and obsequious when alone with us, as he was to his masters on other occasions, when he never failed to show off his authority over us in an offensive manner. Though he was the most disagreeable fellow we were ever thrown in contact with, I do not think that he was therefore selected, ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... it got to be the prettiest, proudest thing you ever set eyes on. She might have been a queen from the very beginning. And as for Pavelek, she just ruled him from the time she began to have any sense. It was mighty queer to see that man, who had behaved so bad to her mother, cringing before that child. He doted on her, and she didn't care a button for him. It used to make me feel almost sorry for Pavelek, sometimes. She'd look at him, when he tried to please her and amuse her, like he was a performing dog. It kept Pavelek in order, I can tell you, and made things easier for ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... shouting through his soul. In all his cringing attitudes, the God-fugitive is now too plainly known. The sailors mark him; more and more certain grow their suspicions of him, and at last, fully to test the truth, by referring the whole matter to high Heaven, they fall to casting lots, to see for whose cause ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... rest of us, is to make money. Roland quite evidently scorns it, and at the last instructs us for nothing. Fencing-masters don't promote freebooting expeditions, and, besides, a fencing-master is always urbane and polite, cringing to every one. I have watched Roland closely at times, trying to study him, and in doing so have caught momentary glimpses of such contempt for us, that, by the good Lord above us, it made me shrivel ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... from time to time to the man on the couch. A feeling of pity arose in her breast. Harry Green was unworthy, after all. He was not what he had seemed to be to her in those days of her teens. He was no longer an idol; her worshipful hours were ended. Instead, he was a weak, cringing being in the guise of a strong attractive man; he had been even more false than Agatha, and he had not the excuse of love to offer in extenuation. Pity and loathing fought for supremacy. Something was shattered, and she felt lonely yet relieved. Strangely, ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... from the office, leaving him cringing and grovelling on the floor. "There will be no directors' meeting, Mr. Sexton," she informed the manager as she passed through the general office. "It ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... fuming with impatience and scolding her maid, who looked on half awake. I handed her the bogus telegram with a cringing gesture. She snatched at it, tore off the cover and read, while I watched her furtively from under ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... Egypt's cringing traitor brought The gory gift of Pompey's honour'd head, Check'd the full gladness of his instant thought, And specious tears of well-feign'd pity shed: And Hannibal, when adverse Fortune wrought On his afflicted empire evils dread, 'Mid shamed and sorrowing friends, ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... a carrier's cart ready to start, and a keen, thin, impatient, black-a-vised little man, his hand at his gray horse's head, looking about angrily for something. "Rab, ye thief!" said he, aiming a kick at my great friend, who drew cringing up, and avoiding the heavy shoe with more agility than dignity, and watching his master's eye, slunk dismayed under the cart,—his ears down, and as much as he had of tail ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... make a woman of her,' said Hollyhock. 'She is naught in life but a cringing kitchen cat at present, but it is our bounden duty to turn her into something better. How shall we set to ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... wretched man tightly by the wrist, he quickly sought shelter behind a pile of building material which lay some distance away. He hoped that this cringing dastard would not hear that other clamour of the people which invariably followed the call for vengeance: "Hail Taurus ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... had been acquitted of meditating violence against her sacred life, then would I have fallen at her feet, and presenting the jewel, have prayed no other favor than that my love and zeal should be put to the severest test. But now—it were confessing too much—it were cringing too low—to beg the miserable gift of life, on no other score than the tenderness which her Majesty ...
— Other Tales and Sketches - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... his discoveries. By living a plain but honest life, declining magnificent offers of positions from royal patrons, at the same time refusing to grovel before nobility, he set a worthy example to other philosophers whose cringing and pusillanimous attitude towards persons of wealth or position had hitherto earned them the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... I'm going to put them in my bungalow—the two little upstair rooms shall be theirs. When I run down to find myself it will be homey to see the two shining, old faces there to greet me. They are not a bit cringing; I think they know how much they will mean to me. They consider me rather immoral, I know, ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... Rather, there was in him a profound yearning for rest, for long dreaming by the fire or in the sun, with his pipe to smoke, and Jim's Louisa to look after him, and nothing to do but to draw a half-crown from his box when he wanted it. No more hard work in rain and cold; and no cringing, either, to the young and prosperous for the mere fault of age. The snowy valley, with its circling woods, opened to him like a mother's breast; the sight of it filled him with a hundred simple hopes and consolations; he hurried to bury ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... on rapidly in deep, resounding roars, and the misery of the cringing, suffering brute was unfolded—told in heart-rending intonations, until at last he gave up his breath in ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... and unhesitatingly award it. I at least have found among them a more genuine, spontaneous sentiment of regard for their teachers than either in England or Scotland—a sentiment utterly free from the cringing submissiveness which too often passes muster in England as a juvenile virtue. However feared—and, accordingly, respected—an English teacher may be by his scholars, he is nevertheless an ogre to most of them—to the aristocrat a plebeian pedagogue to whom he must defer, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... evening prayer; he bullied his daughters, seemed to bully his wife, who led him whither she chose; gave grand entertainments, and never asked a friend by chance; had splendid liveries, and starved his people; and was as dull, stingy, pompous, insolent, cringing, ill-tempered a little creature ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fetch and carry, do the dirty work of. go with the stream, worship the rising sun, hold with the hare and run with the hounds. Adj. servile, obsequious; supple, supple as a glove; soapy, oily, pliant, cringing, abased, dough-faced, fawning, slavish, groveling, sniveling, mealy-mouthed; beggarly, sycophantic, parasitical; abject, prostrate, down on ones marrowbones; base, mean, sneaking; crouching &c v.. Adv. hat in hand, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... other way, and not, apparently, care whether they get a cent or not, dad would go and hunt them up, and divide his roll with them. Dad is not what you would call a "tight wad," if you let him shed his money normally, when he feels the loosening coming on, but you try to work him by bowing and cringing, and his American spirit gets the better of him, and he looks upon the servant as pretty low down. I have told him that the tipping habit is just as bad in America as in France, but he says in America the servant acts as though he never had such a thought as getting a tip, and ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... was something, though, that was almost deadly about it. It pierced like a lancet. It seared like a red-hot iron. It humbled almost too much. Here was no exaggerated humility, no pleading to be borne with, no cringing, and no doubt. A man who knew was standing up, and, with a sort of indifference to outside opinion that was almost frightening, was saying some of the things he knew ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... "The idea of showing a pistol to such a whelp of cowardice! Hand me the letter!" And with an impatient step forward, he stood towering over the cringing, shrinking, pitiful object in the chair. The nerveless hands presently drew forth a letter from an inner pocket. This Ray quickly seized; glanced hurriedly over it, stowed it in his blouse, then ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... to what could no longer be prevented, what had already probably taken place, and feverish endeavors to prevent it notwithstanding. In accordance with these two moods his behavior toward Apollonius took the form of unconcealed obstinacy or of cringing and vigilant dissimulation. When the first mood governed him he sought forgetfulness day and night. Unfortunately the discharged workman had found employment in a quarry near by and was his companion on many a night. The important people turned away from him, and revenged themselves ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... them both. He had been turned out of office in disgrace for having voted in favour of the Exclusion Bill, but had made his peace by employing the good offices of the Duchess of Portsmouth and by cringing to the Duke of York, and was ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... was pronounced, Essex spoke like a man who expected nothing but death; but he added, that he should be sorry if he were represented to the queen as a person that despised her clemency; though he should not, he believed, make any cringing submissions to obtain it. Southampton's behavior was more mild and submissive; he entreated the good offices of the peers in so modest and becoming a manner, as ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... world's benefit. He shall found an ideal modern state, catholic in creed, righteous in law, a centre of conscience—even geographically—in a world relapsing to Pagan chaos. And its flag shall be a "shield of David," with the Lion of Judah rampant, and twelve stars for the Tribes. No more of the cringing and the whispering in dark corners; no surreptitious invasion of Palestine. The Jew shall demand right, not tolerance. Israel shall walk erect. And he, Israel's spokesman, will not juggle with diplomatic combinations—he will play ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... each lot reached the deck they kow-towed to the girl and then trotted forward to the fo'c'sle, disappearing like rats, their teeth chattering from exposure during the night, stripped to the waist as they were, and never could one have imagined these little cringing harmless looking men the jackals ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... goin' to make it up to you, Gerrie, I'm goin' to make it up to you. Don't you be afraid. You're safe to be the most envied girl in this county. You'll make some splash, let me tell you, when my plans are carried out." He patted her cringing shoulder, and with one more longing look turned and ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... same sense of equality is noticeable. Shopkeepers and their assistants are not the cringing, obsequious slaves that we know so well in England. There is none of that bowing and smirking, superfluous "sir"-ing and "ma'am"-ing, and elaborate deference to customers that prevails at home. Here we are all freemen and equals; and ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... of, the cavalier advanced into the room, with the calm assurance of a man who feels perfectly at his ease; his spurs ringing against the stone floor at every step. The landlord followed him obsequiously, cap in hand, cringing and bowing in most humble fashion—having entirely laid aside his boasting air and evidently feeling very ill at ease—this being a personage of whom he stood in awe. As the gentleman approached the table he politely saluted the company, before turning to give his orders to Maitre Chirriguirri, ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... accomplishment or all failure. The righteous man is one who 'walketh righteously, speaketh uprightly, stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, shutteth his eyes from seeing evil' (prayer and fasting). The righteous man decrees magnificently and trusts infinitely. He does not approach God like a cringing servant, licking the dust at his master's feet, but like a Prince who enters his Father's presence with the simple statement of his wants, and knowing his Father's will takes the glorious ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... and regret, the cringing driver tried to make some excuse, but Guy stopped him short, telling him to see how much the wagon was damaged, while he ran to the old man, who had recovered from the first shock and was trying to extricate himself from the folds of his camlet cloak. Nearby was a blacksmith's ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... virtue in the slave was accounted a vice in the slaveholder. Cowardice and a cringing humility were not regarded as faults in a slave. On the contrary, they were the stock virtues of the pattern slave and added to the estimation in which he was held, just as similar traits are valued in personal servants—butlers, ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... for pay. Of beasts, it is confess'd, the ape Comes nearest us in human shape; Like man, he imitates each fashion, And malice is his lurking passion: But, both in malice and grimaces, A courtier any ape surpasses. Behold him, humbly cringing, wait Upon the minister of state; View him soon after to inferiors Aping the conduct of superiors; He promises with equal air, And to perform takes equal care. He in his turn finds imitators, At court, ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... amendment and law of Congress I would stamp them with irrevocable power upon the political escutcheon of the new and regenerated republic. I would avoid the mistakes of the past, and I would spurn that cringing timidity by which, through all history, liberty has been sacrificed ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... forgive one who dares to be independent of others, and finds his source of honor in himself. And this crime Gotzkowsky had been guilty of. What he was, he had made himself. He had owed nothing to protection, nothing to hypocrisy or flattery, eye-service, or cringing. Only by the strength and power of his own genius had he elevated himself above the world which ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... anywhere. She's awful proud; proud as a Kentucky girl can be, and those people would make your uncle Lucifer look like a cringing cripple, but she'd live in an Indian ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... is not likely to die," sternly replied Frank, looking full into the Frenchman's cringing face, "do you know ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... beginning to arise over the night of Israel. Is it not wonderful—the transformation of our people? When I left Russia as a girl—so young,' she interpolated with a sad smile, 'that I had not even been married—I left a priest-ridden, paralysed people, a cringing, cowering, contorted people—I shall never forget the panic in our synagogue when a troop of Cossacks rode in with a bogus blood-accusation. Now it is a people alive with ideas and volitions; the young generation dreams noble dreams, and, what is stranger, dies to execute them. Our Bund ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... shot, cringing at Auld Jock's feet. The most sensitive of four-footed creatures in the world, the Skye terrier is utterly abased by a rebuke from his master. The whole garret was soon in an uproar of vile accusation and shrill denial that spread from cell ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... single wave of my hand would condemn you to the place of yonder slaves." Her color rose in the wave of passion, sweeping fear aside. "I have nothing but hatred for your black robe, and your interference only intensifies my purpose. Mark you now what I say; if it be the will of my people to put this cringing French woman to the torture, I lift not so much as a finger to change her fate. More, because of your insolence I give you also into their hands. We take no orders from the ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... allies. Dressed in garter-blue and buff, in compliment to Fox and his principles, forth came the young Duchess of Devonshire and her sister, now Lady Duncannon, and solicited votes for their candidate. The mob were gratified by the aspect of so much rank, so great beauty, cringing for their support. Never, it was said, had two "such lovely portraits ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... a chaplain, who gave me a surfeit of the whole tribe. The meanest sycophant, yet the most impertinent busy-body—always cringing, yet always intriguing—wanting to govern the whole family, and at the same time every creature's humble servant—fawning to my lord the bishop, insolent to the poor curate—anathematizing all who differed from him in opinion, yet without dignity to enforce the respect ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... tissue paper, and squeezed it into her pocket. Rather hopelessly, but still keeping a careful look-out, she proceeded slowly on her way, when behold, just as she reached the top of the last flight, a little cringing grey figure crossed ...
— The Kitchen Cat, and other Tales • Amy Walton
... of hideous scenes. Alternate drunkenness and inordinate affection for me, or sullen silence and cringing fear. Oh, of all the frightful moments there are in life, there can be none so dark as those that some women have to suffer from the drunken ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... Lysimachus, last day, when we Took the pure air in its simplicity, And our own too, how the trimm'd gallants went Cringing, and pass'd each step some compliment? What strange, fantastic diagrams they drew With legs and arms; the like we never knew In Euclid, Archimede, nor all of those Whose learned lines are neither verse nor ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... struck the floor this time and broke) with the cry he gave—which was not exactly a cry either, but an odd sound between a moan and a shriek. He had caught sight of the men who were seeking to detain him, and his haggard look and cringing form showed that he realized at last the terrors of his position. Next minute he sought to escape, but Styles, gripping him more firmly, dragged him back to where Mr. Gryce stood beside the bearskin rug on which lay the form of ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... you, Spring Bank, Kentucky—crazy old rat trap as it is, has done wonders for me in the way of getting me noticed. If I had any soul, big enough to find with a microscope, I believe I should hate the North for cringing so to anything from Dixie. Let the veriest vagabond in all the South, so ignorant that he can scarcely spell baker correctly, to say nothing of biscuit, let him, I say, come to any one of the New York hotels, and with something ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... cringing, cowering, with closed eyes, flattened to the ground, and sniffing softly, in an agony ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... true to his word, the young man went a little early, as he wished to be as unobtrusive as possible. At the same time there was nothing furtive or cringing in his nature. As he had openly done wrong, he was now resolved to try as openly to do right, and let people ascribe whatever motive ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... currying favour with aunt by—by crawling to her," she cried, "then I don't! If you want to—to keep my respect, you'll have to act like a man, a man with self-respect! I—I hate to see you cringing to aunt, it makes me detest you. What does it matter if she has money? Do you want her money? Do you want her money more than ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... this race will come from their fears. They are not either self-sufficing or gallant enough to travel great roads without cringing,—clear-eyed, unafraid. They are finely made, but not nobly made,—in that sense. They will therefore have a too urgent need of religion. Few primates have the courage to face—alone—the still inner mysteries: ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day
... powerful, whose life is of so great worth, may go unharmed. Why should you be set in his place? Is the fault yours? If it be, and you seek shelter behind his helplessness, you are lower than the cringing curs. Are you afraid, O great and worthy one, to stand forth and confess your wrong as any man ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... he once more gave way to indignation:—"What a damned oaf! to be thus creeping and cringing to an idiot—a child—an ape! Nothing but necessity, cruel necessity, would have put me on this task." Then turning to me, he said, in a tone half supplicating, half threatening, "Let me ask you once more: will you sign this check? Do not answer hastily; for much, very ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... any one who praises you, for you've no notion how utterly and entirely unmannerly you are. I can quite see you standing before the Margrave and speaking so pleasantly—behaving exactly as if you were flirting with Mistress Rosentaler, cringing as you do. It did not escape me that, when you wrote your last letter, you were quite full of amorous thoughts. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, an old fellow like you pretending to be so good-looking. Flirting pleases you in the same way that a shaggy old dog ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... surely if the lord liveth, he judgeth rightly of these things. But it were vain to expect that those who think God is related to his creatures as a despot is related to his slaves, will hope to please that God by aught save paltry, cringing, and dishonestly despicable practices. Yet, no other than a despotic God has the great Newton taught us to adore—no other than mere slaves of such a God, has he taught us to deem ourselves. So much for the Theism of Europe's chief religious philosopher. Turn we now to ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... to tell me, so I ran down at once to have a look at him. He was still in the strait waistcoat and in the padded room, but the suffused look had gone from his face, and his eyes had something of their old pleading. I might almost say, cringing, softness. I was satisfied with his present condition, and directed him to be relieved. The attendants hesitated, but finally carried out ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... privacy of his apartments. Visitors, indeed, arrived; sometimes in the dusk, sometimes at intempestuous hours of night or morning; men, for the most part; some meanly attired, some decently; some loud, some cringing; and yet all, in the eyes of Somerset, displeasing. A certain air of fear and secrecy was common to them all; they were all voluble, he thought, and ill at ease; even the military gentleman proved, on a closer inspection, to be no gentleman at all; and as for the doctor ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for there might still be life in Doubler's body, and she went slowly toward him, cringing and shrinking, along the ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... bank. The money which in loose hands might have relaxed the arm of industry and the spirit of independence, which might have pampered and debased a retinue of menials, and drawn around the dispenser a crowd of cringing beggars and expectants, was invested in solid houses, which Girard's books show yielded him a profit of three per cent, but which furnished to many families comfortable abodes at moderate rents. To the most passionate entreaties of failing merchants ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... they its victims; the sparkling, tripping, garrulous brooks, whose sweet voices had so long gone up like a spirit's on the air, now sped their way with a faint and death-like gurgle; the laurel, pine, and cedar, disdaining to be poor pensioners on the bounties of a gushing sunshine, or, with a cringing obsequiousness, to yield conformity to the golden mutations of a passing hour, expanded their foliage of living green, unchanged amidst the bleakest ruins of winter, while the stern-browed year, old, wrinkled, and hoary, drew nearer ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... lingering about the deck. He had evidently foresight enough to suspect what was to take place, and he appeared troubled and uneasy, and bewildered in thought. The poor fellow was quite an altered person; his habitual haughtiness had entirely forsaken him, and given place to a cringing and humble demeanor. A plate of meat was presented to him, of which he ate sparingly, and showed clearly that he was thinking more of his promised goods, than his appetite, and a quantity of rum that was given to ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... Gal. i. 6, 7,) that "their folly may be made manifest to all men." (2 Tim. iii. 8, 9; 2 Peter ii. 1, 3.)—The cruel enemy, who in the day of prosperity boasts of his success, in the day of adversity becomes the most arrant coward and cringing suppliant,—whether it be Saul or Shimei. (1 Sam. xv. 30; 2 Sam. xix. 18.) Haughty persecutors have been changed to humble suitors for an interest in the prayers of their victims,—"to worship before their feet." "The word of Christ's patience" may signify any truth or doctrine of the Bible which ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... And now she was cringing before the spectre of destitution. He asked what she would do about it, and saw the shadow of terror cross her face again. There was one recourse from starvation, it seemed—to have her children taken from her, and put in some institution! At the mention of this, ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... of battle. Every man's hand was against his neighbor; and friends to-day were foes to-morrow. Sviatopolk himself was one of the most imperfect of men. He was perfidious, ungrateful and suspicious; haughty in prosperity, mean and cringing in adversity. His religion was the inspiration of superstition and cowardice, not of intelligence and love. Whenever he embarked upon any important expedition, he took an ecclesiastic to the tomb ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... him cruelly in her exasperation. He gave a feeble squeak and she pushed him roughly down. Animals to her were a nuisance. She disliked them if she had any feeling at all. But Fou-Chow was an adjunct to her toilet sometimes, and was a coveted possession, envied by her many female friends. His tiny, cringing body irritated her though extremely when she was not using him for effect, and he was often kicked and cuffed ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... nay millions of times it is made the scapegoat by those who are too ignorant or too unfair to look their own weaknesses square in the face, and who instead of becoming imperial masters, remain cringing slaves. Think of it, what it means! A man created in the image of the eternal God, sharer of His life and power, born to have dominion, fearing, shaking, cringing before a little draft of pure life-giving air. But scapegoats are convenient ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... whined the man, with a cringing attitude. "She has a room in here, an' I saw her go in ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... irreverence should not be misinterpreted: it was an irreverence which bubbled up from a deep, passionate insight into the well-springs of human nature. In 1601, as in 'The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg,' and in 'The Mysterious Stranger,' he tore the masks off human beings and left them cringing before the public view. With the deftness of a master surgeon Clemens dealt with human emotions and delighted in exposing ...
— 1601 - Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors • Mark Twain
... an astronomer," cried Mr. Sagittarius, cringing in the voluminous waistcoat of Mr. Ferdinand. "I am an outside broker. I swear it. My dress, my manner proclaim the fact. Sophronia, tell the gentleman that I am an outside broker and that all Margate has ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... direction of his hand the cringing creature arose and hurried along the passageway just traversed by the prince, who, satisfied as to her departure, parted the curtains and entered a small ante-chamber, beyond which a sumptuously-appointed ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... plane, in an atmosphere untainted by the putrescence which is their natural element. Maverick knew that, to a man like Houston, his own baseness and villainy were written in his face, and even in his slouching, cringing gait, as plainly as though branded in letters of fire, and this was sufficient to kindle his anger against him, and Haight, by his talk, added fuel to the slowly smoldering fire. At home, but more particularly among the miners, in the camp or at the Y, Maverick expressed his views regarding Houston ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... completely!' (The possibility of feeling and expressing contempt was the most agreeable sensation to Sitnikov; he used to attack women in especial, never suspecting that it was to be his fate a few months later to be cringing before his wife merely because she had been born a princess Durdoleosov.) 'Not a single one of them would be capable of understanding our conversation; not a single one deserves to be spoken of by ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... seaward stores. Freedom and Peace shall well reward your care, My guardian mounds protect the friendly pair; Or if delirious War shall dare draw nigh, And eastern storms o'ercast the western sky, My soil shall rear the chief to guide your host, And drive the demon cringing from the coast; Yon verdant hill his sylvan seat shall claim, And grow immortal ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... pay. 40 Of beasts, it is confess'd, the ape Comes nearest us in human shape; Like man he imitates each fashion, And malice is his ruling passion; But both in malice and grimaces 45 A courtier any ape surpasses. Behold him humbly cringing wait Upon a minister of state; View him soon after to inferiors, Aping the conduct of superiors; 50 He promises with equal air, And to perform takes equal care. He in his turn finds imitators; At court, the porters, lacqueys, waiters, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... the table like an air-balloon and filled almost half the room. She smelt of scent. But she was obviously embarrassed at filling half the room and smelling so strongly of scent; and though her smile was impudent as well as cringing, it ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... was lost, nerved themselves with opium and committed the traditional puputan, or, with their wives, threw themselves on the Dutch bayonets. But, though the Balinese have bowed perforce to the authority of the stout young woman who dwells in The Hague, they have none of the cringing servility, that look of pathetic appeal such as you see in the eyes of dogs which have been mistreated, so ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... a dog's travelling-box was put out on to the platform of a little country station, and there and then duly opened by the writer. Lying at the bottom in some hay was a poor, cringing little animal, that had to be lifted out, and then lay flat upon the platform. In such terror was he that nothing would induce him to move; and the only way out of the difficulty was to take him up, while others smiled, and walk out of ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... do under such circumstances, or how support a life so bereft of its wonted supplies? Can we wonder that they should still remain the same low abject and degraded creatures that they are, loitering about the white man's house, and cringing, and pandering to the lowest menial for that food they can no longer procure for themselves? or that wandering in misery through a country, now no longer their own, their lives should be curtailed by want, exposure, or disease? If, ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... Manners even in his Hero himself. For Coriolanus who in the first part of the Tragedy is shewn so open, so frank, so violent, and so magnanimous, is represented in the latter part by Aufidius, which is contradicted by no one, a flattering, fawning, cringing, insinuating Traytor. ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... because Sophia had recently thrust upon her a fresh method of cooking green vegetables. Amy was a strong opponent of new or foreign methods. Sophia was not aware of this grievance, for Amy had hidden it under her customary cringing politeness to Sophia. ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... Janet as she listened, a loathing made bitter by the insinuation of her similarity to this poor, cringing creature beside her. ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... be murdered, and allowing so worthless a crew to lord it over them. It had been shameful enough that they had witnessed in silence the plunder of the treasury, the monopoly of all high office, and kings and free states cringing to a handful of nobles; but now a worse thing had been done, and the honour of the Republic trafficked away. And the men who had done this felt neither shame nor sorrow, but strutted about with a parade of triumphs, consulships, and priesthoods, as if they were men of honour and not thieves. ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... no free speech, no literature, little manliness, no reality, no simplicity, no accomplishment, was the era of American brag. We flattered the foreigner and we boasted of ourselves. We were over-sensitive, insolent, and cringing. As late as 1845, G.P. Putnam, a most sensible and modest man, published a book to show what the country had done in the field of culture. The book is a monument of the age. With all its good sense and good humor, it justifies foreign contempt ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... pictures of real life, allowing for their glaring lights, have an almost overpowering truthfulness. Every grade of society is made to furnish matter for his dramatic scenes. The degenerate noble is pilloried in the eighth, the cringing parasite in the fifth, the vicious hypocrite in the second, the female profligate in the sixth. It is rarely that he touches on contemporary themes. His genius was formed in the past and feeds on bitter memories. As he says, he "kills the dead." [27] ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... the perforated vessel, the young man's wealth passed away; one month found him a cringing debtor, another found him a beggar, a third found him dying in a public institution, abandoned by ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... of cringing away, struck at him with every ounce of his ninety pounds, Flatear was unprepared. He had started his spring and Breed's counter drive was aimed so low that his chest skimmed the ground. Flatear slashed savagely downward but the yellow wolf's head was well under him, and ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... that ambition can creep as well as soar. The pride of no person in a flourishing condition is more justly to be dreaded than that of him who is mean and cringing under a ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... her to see if she was in her senses: it was not the first time he had suspected her of being deranged on this one subject. But no: she was pale as death, she was cringing, wincing, quivering, and her eyes roving to and fro; a picture not of frenzy, but ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... now and think, "He is still strong, There ought to be twenty more years of good punching there. At the end of that time he will be old and broken, Not able to strike back, But cringing and crying for leave To ...
— Fifty years & Other Poems • James Weldon Johnson
... his fears; he conceals them as a white man does his sins. But to-night Mukoki's experience had passed beyond the knowledge of his race, and he told of what had happened, trembling still, cringing when a great white rabbit darted close to the fire. Rod and Wabi listened ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... tried to make use of;—far too much.] likely to be published by the Prussian Dryasdust in coming time: but a more sordid mass of eavesdroppings, kitchen-ashes and floor-sweepings, collected and interchanged by a pair of treacherous Flunkies (big bullying Flunky and little trembling cringing one, Grumkow and Reichenbach), was never got together out of a gentleman's household. To no idlest reader, armed even with barnacles, and holding mouth and nose, can the stirring-up of such a dust-bin be long tolerable. ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... birth—that marvellous night with the piano. The conceit pleased him—not the less because there flashed along with it the thought that it was a poet that had been born. Yes; the former country lout, the narrow zealot, the untutored slave groping about in the dark after silly superstitions, cringing at the scowl of mean Pierces and Winches, was dead. There was an end of him, and good riddance. In his place there had been born a Poet—he spelled the word out now unabashed—a child of light, a lover of beauty and sweet sounds, a recognizable brother to Renan ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... were now seen at the turn of the staircase. The one in advance had a thoughtful, anxious, and somewhat crafty expression of face, and in spite of his loftiness of manner, which was evidently the result both of an ambitious spirit and of long continuance in high stations, he seemed not incapable of cringing to a greater than himself. A few steps behind came an officer in a scarlet and embroidered uniform, cut in a fashion old enough to have been worn by the Duke of Marlborough. His nose had a rubicund tinge, which, ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... corridor, I saw that it was now empty save for the single sentry before the emperor's door. He glanced up as I emerged from the room, the occupants of which had not seen me. I walked straight toward the soldier, my mind made up in an instant. I tried to simulate an expression of cringing servility, and I must have succeeded, for I entirely threw the man off his guard, so that he permitted me to approach within reach of his rifle before stopping me. Then it was too ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... But there is a lignite mine not far from the city, and a narrow gauge railroad running to it. Of the prosperous-seeming men, however, Bell picked out one here and there toward whom all passersby adopted a manner of cringing respect. Bell lounged against a pole and studied them thoughtfully. Men with an air of amused and careless scorn which only men with unlimited power may adopt. He saw one grossly fat man with hard and cruel eyes. The uniformed policemen drove all traffic abjectly out of the way of his ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... the Americans followed the cringing figure of the German as he was led away, and then ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... joined to superiority of talent, ignores the art of cringing; it is even impossible that merit can lead to fortune in a corrupted and venal country: on the contrary, it becomes a cause of exclusion. Virtue elevates the soul, and can neither fawn nor buy credit, ...
— The Campaign of 1760 in Canada - A Narrative Attributed to Chevalier Johnstone • Chevalier Johnstone
... the black figure inquiringly. It was not often that poor, cringing Jocko ventured to question him. "Yes, sloop," he said with an emphasis ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... recovered from the shock, the other—a long sallow creature with a false grin and a cringing ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... prisoner entered, so that George was unable to realize all that Naoum had told him; but no time was given him to speculate, for Naoum broke the silence at once. With an easiness that astonished Helmar, he addressed the Pasha as though talking to his equal. There was no cringing in his manner, and at times George thought he even detected a slight tone ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... not take a glass of spirits before you go? Will you not come and breakfast with me?' His cringing manner was most despicable; and Harland answered in a ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... recollected where I was, and struck the man between the eyes, partially stunning him. He stepped down from the platform at once, and, cringing and fawning and weeping and attempting to embrace my feet, led me round to the burrow which ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... "capital I" is a pompous effusion which strives through pretentiousness to impress its reader with its writer's wealth, position, ability, or whatever possession or attribute is thought to be rated most highly. None but unfortunate dependents or the cringing in spirit would subject themselves to a second letter of this kind by answering the first. The letter which hints at hoped-for benefits is ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... of idolatry highly soothing to men in official position, who are themselves subjected to almost similar debasement before their imperial master. In some instances, especially at a distance from the capital, the acts of cruelty perpetrated by these cringing and venal nobles, as an offset to the arbitrary rule under which they themselves exist, are enough to make the blood curdle. The knout, a terrible instrument made of thick, heavy leather, and sometimes loaded with leaden balls, is freely used to punish the most trifling offense. Men and women, ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... dignified and independent, trusting in God and not in man; and then, grace in the eyes of their fellow-men, for what is more graceful, what is more gracious, pleasant to see, pleasant to deal with, than the humble man, the modest man? I do not mean the cringing man, the flattering man, the man who apes humility for his own ends, because he wants to climb high, by pretending to be lowly. He is neither graceful or gracious. He is only contemptible, and he punishes himself. He spoils his own game. He defeats his own purpose. For men despise ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... Gilbert, the able general, who was made a G.C.B. and a baronet for his bravery and judgment on that occasion. It was pitiful to see brave warriors so painfully humiliated, for they moved about the room in their stockinged feet like so many automatons, shrinking and cringing before their conquerors, evincing the greatest pleasure in receiving the least attention from the civilians in the room. Their appearance without shoes is by order of the governor-general, to remind them of their disgrace, and to show proper ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... no more free lance work under the evil influence of low creatures like Nell Doolin, but will stand in with the "machine," and bear in mind that honesty is the best policy. So he will steadily progress; he will meet the big men of the country, and will go to them, not cringing and twisting his hat in his hands, but with quiet self-possession. He will meet the agents of the Attorney-General aspiring to become President, and will furnish them with material for their weekly Red scares. He will ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... Bareacres? "I gave the old humbug a few shares out of my own pocket. 'There, old Pride,' says I, 'I like to see you down on your knees to a footman. There, old Pomposity! Take fifty pounds. I like to see you come cringing and begging for it!' Whenever I see him in a very public place, I take my change for my money. I digg him in the ribbs, or clap his padded old shoulders. I call him 'Bareacres, my old brick,' and I see ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... soon found himself facile princeps in a circle of the highest nobility in the land. Thus it is that in the clubs of the day we find title and wealth mingling with wit and genius; and the writer who had begun life by a cringing dedication, was now rewarded by the devotion and assiduity of the men he had once flattered. When Steele, Swift, Addison, Pope, and Congreve were the kings of their sets, it was time for authors to look and talk big. Eheu! ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... children, she had always dreamed of a mysterious fate for herself, different from the commonplace routine around her. Ruth's revelations, far from daunting her, far from making her feel like cringing before the world in gratitude for its tolerance of her bar sinister, seemed a fascinatingly tragic confirmation of her romantic longings and beliefs. No doubt it was the difference from the common lot that had attracted ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... fingers and jerking him off his feet. He fell against Yellow Handkerchief's knees, who stumbled over him, and the pair wallowed in the bailing hole where the cockpit floor was torn open. The next instant I was covering them with my revolver, and the wild shrimp-catchers were cowering and cringing away. ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... came out of the big house next door. One was Anna Brinsmade; and there was her father, his white hairs uncovered. The third was Jack. His sister was cringing to him appealingly, and he struggling in her grasp. Out of his coat pocket hung the curved butt ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... leave of the Baronet with a thousand respectful bows and cringing apologies for not accepting his invitation to dinner, and venturing to hope he might be pardoned in paying his respects to him, Lady Hazlewood, and young Mr. Hazlewood on ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... roughly jerking the lariat in the direction of the steps, as a hint to the prisoner that he was to descend them; and in this ignominious fashion the once arrogant but now cowering and cringing Spaniard was led away under Jack's supervision, while Carlos, selecting a heavy riding-whip from the rack, followed the procession. The prisoner was conducted to the negro quarters, which were situated about half a mile from the house, with a belt of timber between it and them; and ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... his officers Poniatowski wrote to the King as plainly as he dared: "News is here going through the camp which surely must be spread by ill-disposed men who wish evil to Your Majesty, as though Your Majesty would treat with the betrayers of our country. The degradation of cringing to the betrayers of our country ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... Aoyama's first motion was to reward the captors with the wine cup. Harsh was the vinous scowl he cast on Zeisuke now cringing at the white sand. "Ha! Ah! A notable criminal; a firebug caught in the act, and attempting to escape. Make full confession. Thus much suffering is escaped, and the execution ground soon reached." Zeisuke had no confession to make, and to his explanation ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... with his wits sharpened by his own experiences, he never allowed himself to be fooled by servile cringing and flattery. He listened to people, but how often have I heard him say: "He is no good; he is a toady." Such people never found favour with him, as he always mistrusted them at the outset. He was protected more than others in ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... on. Everywhere I've been it's the same story, men out of work, women out of work, children who should be at school the only ones who can always get work. Everywhere men crawling for a job, sinking their manhood for the chance of work, cringing and sneaking and throat-cutting, even in their unionism. In every town an army of women like my Mary, women like ourselves, going down, down, down. Honesty and virtue and courage getting uncommon. We're all getting to steal and ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... whisperings of the women, the frowns of his enemies, the cringing attitudes of dandified hangers-on, were making Vaudrey feel very uncomfortable, when to his great relief he suddenly observed coming towards him, peering hither and thither through his monocle, evidently in search of some one, ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... Desenzano by way of Bergamo and Brescia was to go from lake to lake—Lecco to Garda; and the road was beautiful. Castles and ancient monasteries had throned themselves on hills to look down on little villages cringing at their august feet. Along the horizon stretched a serrated line of pure white mountains, sharply chiselled in marble, while a thick carpet of wild flowers, blue and gold, had been cut apart to let our road pass through. It was a biscuit-coloured ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... of the cringing and fawning of which my wealth made me the object; I loathed the deference paid me, because I knew it was paid, not to me, but to my money—I was homesick to hear someone tell me to go to hell. I wanted to brush up against that spirit which says it is as good as anybody ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... desperate condition, left it; but a company of Chaldaeans, sacrificers, and interpreters of the Sibyl's books, persuaded Octavius that things would turn out happily, and kept him at Rome. He was, indeed, of all the Romans the most upright and just, and maintained the honor of the consulate, without cringing or compliance, as strictly in accordance with ancient laws and usages, as though they had been immutable mathematical truths; and yet fell, I know not how, into some weaknesses, giving more observance to fortune-tellers ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... are the most beautiful, graceful, witty, well-informed, aristocratic-looking, and generally-beloved of the human race. You must remember that it depends very much upon the nature of a man himself whether any particular demeanor shall be agreeable to him or not. And you know well that a cringing, toadying manner, which would be thoroughly disgusting to a person of sense, may be extremely agreeable and delightful to a self-conceited idiot. Was there not an idiotic monarch who was greatly pleased, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... in his leisurely, emotionless way, "you have fight with my frien' Jake for thee packet. Yes? Ver' amusing." He shrugged his indifference, tossed the rifle to his shoulder and, without another glance at the cringing creature on the ground, walked ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... Cringing, the old man drew himself over to the wall. Detricand, seating himself in a chair, held the candle up ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker |
