"White-livered" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... woman" stirred up Mrs. Crull. She left the old gentleman's side, and advanced to within a yard of the profligate. "Old as I am," said she, "I'm strong enough to spank such a white-livered, broken-down puppy as you are. But I'll leave you to the hands of the law. It's a long lane that hasn't any turning, remember; and you'll pull up at the gallows at ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... got him in your power, him and his money, you little white-livered cat!' she cried, standing in the doorway, and fixing Lucy with a look beneath which her sister-in-law quailed, and hid her face on David's arm. 'You think you'll stop him giving it to them that have a right to look to him? Perhaps you'd better look out; perhaps there ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that Pryer had taken all Ernest's money and run away with it. She hated Pryer. "I never knew anyone," she exclaimed, "as white-livered in the face as that Pryer; he hasn't got an upright vein in his whole body. Why, all that time when he used to come breakfasting with Mr Pontifex morning after morning, it took me to a perfect shadow the way he carried on. ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... the meekest-mouthed creetur that ever wiggled away from a kiss. Why, when I stepped on her train jest as I swung her up the aisle, if you believe me, all she said was, 'I hope you didn't hurt yo' foot'; an', bless my boots, ten minutes later, comin' out of church, she whispered in my year, 'You white-livered, hulkin' hound, you, get off my veil!' Well, well, it's sad how the ceremony ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... knife. I'll allow you that advantage. Meet me face to face! Damn you, be a man! Anything that you can gain by my signature, you can gain by my death. Get the best of me, if you can, in a man's fight. Pah!" He spat contemptuously. "You're a coward, Moran, a white-livered coward! You don't dare fight with me on anything like equal terms. I'll get out of here somehow, and when I do—by Heaven, I'll corner you, and ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... write me such infernal trash about the opinions of a villanous dog who can't even en a decent sentence? I've been damning you for a white-livered Austrian up and down the house. Let the fellow bark till he froths at the mouth, and scatters the virus of the beast among his filthy friends. I am mad-dog proof. The lines you quote were written in an awful hurry, coming up in the train ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... begin. Next day there was quite a meeting of our folks here. My back gate kept a-clicking till sundown. All but Paterson came, Miss Jenkins, and he's less than half a Roscoe, and no Collamer at all. His mother was one of them white-livered Lulls, from Pomfret. He's bound, anyway, to stand by you, because he's getting wages from your uncle. Well, I settled it all then and there, this fair business, I mean, but I told them to wait, for I some expected to ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... those murderers down in Cuba as we ought to be. The President and the whole Republican party," he shouted, "are a lot of hogs who've chawed so much gold their digestion won't work and their brains are torpid; and there's nothing to do but to kick them into this war—the whole greedy, white-livered, Trust-owned, thieving lot of them, including that great immaculate Joss up at the White House with his manners. Damn his ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... Highlands; she meets beggars in her rides at Windsor; she writes verses in albums, or draws sketches, or is mistaken for the house-keeper by some blind old woman, or she runs up a hill as if she were a child. Who finds fault with these things? he would be a cynic, he would be white-livered, and would have gall for blood, who was not struck with this graceful, touching evidence of the love her subjects bear her. Who could have the head, even if he had the heart, who could be so cross and peevish, who could be so solemn and perverse, as to say that ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... as I am, I have observed these three swashers. I am boy to them all three: but all they three, though they would serve me, could not be man to me; for, indeed, three such antics do not amount to a man. For Bardolph,—he is white-livered, and red-faced; by the means whereof 'a faces it out, but fights not. For Pistol,—he hath a killing tongue, and a quiet sword; by the means whereof 'a breaks words, and keeps whole weapons. For Nym,—he hath ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... to have become quite white-livered," she exclaimed to him with a harsh, derisive laugh. "You were not so a year ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... thought," exclaimed Dolphin. "You're a cock-tail. In your old age you've grown white-livered. I guess, Garstang, you'd better retire, and leave those to carry out the work who don't know ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... ape English manners and speech," said Thornton, "but he is a cad, just the same, and the friends he has made here at Yale are a lot of thin-blooded, white-livered creatures. Look at them! There is Bruce Browning, once called 'King of the Sophomores,' but cowed and bested by Merriwell, to be afterward dropped a class. There is Jack Diamond, a boastful Southerner. He forced Merriwell to fight, but fawned about Merriwell's ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... there's a difference, lad," Cross pointed out, setting down the tankard of beer from which he had been drinking. "You talk sometimes that white-livered stuff about not hitting a man back if he wants to hit you, and you drag in your conscience, and prate about all men being brothers, and that sort of twaddle. A full-blooded Englishman don't like it, because we are all of ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "Oh, I know the white-livered Greasers better than any of you, don't mistake me," replied Belding. He was pale with rage, but ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey |
