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More "Coward" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... made no reply to this. Somehow it seemed the most unworthy thing that his friend had said yet. It meant that Dr. Vince was a coward! ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... strawberries. His head ringing from the stroke of that sturdy black wing, his plump flank smarting and bleeding from a fierce jab of that pointed beak of the imp's, he squeaked with rage and clambered up again to the battle. Mr. Rat, you know, is no coward and ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... its way through the brown tan on the face of Braxton Wyatt, and his eyes fell before the cold gaze of the Spaniard. But he raised them again in a moment. Braxton Wyatt was not a coward, and he never permitted a guilty conscience to last longer ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... while such dreadful charges were being made openly against his mother, and being so made without any authorised contradiction. He knew that she was innocent. No doubt on that matter ever perplexed his mind for a moment. But why was she such a coward that she would not allow him to protect her innocence in the only way which the law permitted? He could hardly believe that he had no power of doing so even without her sanction; and therefore ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... The Lieutenant was no coward, but probably thinking that prudence was the better part of valor, refrained from handling his gun, and the two soon rode ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... you? Are you men, to let a comrade be butchered?" She appealed to her husband: "Are you a coward, too? ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... uncommonly plain-spoken," Phipps acknowledged, "but what's the odds? You're not a coward, Dredlinton; neither am I. Neither is Skinflint Martin, nor Stanley. Chuck letters like that on the fire, as they have, and keep cheerful. The streets of London are the safest place in the world. No cable from your ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... twenty-five anthems, before one is found that is really distinctive. If one stops at the second or third, and thinks that although not very good yet it is possibly good enough, very probably the choir will be found to be sluggish and unresponsive, filled with what Coward calls "inertia."[6] But if one goes on looking over more and more selections until something really distinctive is discovered, it is more than probable that the chorus will respond with energy ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... at Lieutenant Haines's feet he would not have been more surprised, and his surprise changed to consternation when he found himself looking into the muzzle of a revolver. Lieutenant Haines was no coward, but he was unarmed save his sword, and there was no mistaking the look in Calhoun's eye. It meant death if he attempted ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... not tried to run away. Even with the anger surging through her, Rose-Marie admitted that the child was not—in one sense—a coward. He had waited, brazenly perhaps, to hear what she had to say. With ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... climb out," rejoined Mark. "Well, den! dat showed I warn't no coward," crowed the black man, though in a very shaky voice. "If I'd been scart', would I really have wanted ter jump? It was a might long way to de groun' right den, ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... him and sapped his self-control. At heart Wyck was a coward, but he was a calculating villain as well. His lips quivered and his face paled. His voice shook ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... here to-day!" she retorted with undiminished bitterness. "Hush, you say? Nay, but I will not be silent for you, for any! They may tear me limb from limb, but I will accuse them of this murder before God's throne. Coward! Parricide! Do you think I will ask mercy from them? Come, look on your work! See what the League have done—your holy League!—while you sat ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... you know your own qualities, you can seldom force events to fit them. As long as he can avoid danger the coward may be brave, but if danger is thrust upon him, off ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... a coward, I know, but I should be grateful. I can't answer for what I should do if Darsie cried, and begged my protection. Women have twice the pluck of men ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... you the airs of benefactor toward beggar; who address you in the language of master to slave, and are answered in the language of slave to master; who are worshiped by you with your mouth, while in your heart—if you have one—you despise yourselves for it. The first man was a hypocrite and a coward, qualities which have not yet failed in his line; it is the foundation upon which all civilizations have been built. Drink to their perpetuation! Drink to their augmentation! Drink to—" Then he saw by our faces how much we were hurt, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... him off from property or pleasures. True, he had been an enemy, but he now professed a duty of having no enemies. Some concession to his cause, some appeal to his principles, would probably get the mere money secret out of him. Otto was no coward, in spite of his network of military precautions, and, in any case, his avarice was stronger than his fears. Nor was there much cause for fear. Since he was certain there were no private arms in ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... be supposed, however, that Jerry, although timid, was cowardly. On the contrary, he was bold as a lion. He could not control his sensitively-strung nervous system, but instead of running away, like the coward, he was prone to rush furiously at whatever startled him, and grapple ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... to wild untutored rage. It was proposed, however, to fire a gun as a signal, for since the distance from Perth was thought to be very trifling, it was hoped that these natives would understand its meaning. Kaiber threatened to run away, but the coward was, in fact, afraid to move five yards from the party, so, sitting down on his haunches under cover, he kept muttering to himself various terms of Australian scorn,—"The swan—the big-head—the stone ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... observed in passing); and, placing these typified traits in juxtaposition in their conflict and contrast, struck the spark of comedy. Downright, as his name indicates, is "a plain squire"; Bobadill's humour is that of the braggart who is incidentally, and with delightfully comic effect, a coward; Brainworm's humour is the finding out of things to the end of fooling everybody: of course he is fooled in the end himself. But it was not Jonson's theories alone that made the success of "Every Man in His Humour." The play is admirably written and each character is vividly conceived, ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... intended to let you take possession of this steamer, and run her into a Confederate port, Corny? My name is Passford as well as yours, and I am not a traitor, and don't believe I am a coward. At a time which suited my convenience, I left the Vernon and came on board ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... run from anybody (except his father) in his life; he was not a coward; but the present situation was very, very unusual. He was already in a badly dismantled condition, and yet Herman and Verman seemed discontented with their work: Verman was swinging the grass-cutter about for a new charge, apparently still wishing to mow him, and Herman ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... fought. It will be, in our own language, "some job," and for this reason we must use every means within our power to accomplish it. So we must not forget happiness as an asset to efficient soldiering. We will all smile where the coward would whimper, and laugh where the weakling would whine, and buckle down to what Robert Louis Stevenson called "The ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... contends, a really horrible eugenist, because he wants to get a super-man who, having more than two legs, will be a vastly superior person to a man. Chesterton loves men. He tells us why St. Peter was used to found the Church upon. It was because he 'was a shuffler, a coward, and a snob—in a word, a man.' Even the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Councils of Trent have failed to find a better reason for the founding of the Church. It is a defence of the fallibility of the Church, the practical ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... St George, St George, we cry, The shouting Turks reply: Oh now it begins, and the gun-room grows hot, Ply it with culverin and with small shot; Hark, does it not thunder? no, 'tis the guns roar, The neighbouring billows are turned into gore; Now each man must resolve, to die, For here the coward cannot fly. Drums and trumpets toll the knell, And culverins the passing bell. Now, now they grapple, and now board amain; Blow up the hatches, they're off all again: Give them a broadside, the dice run at ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... up, saying, "Who is he (meaning the young man), that he should take her for a few presents. I will kill him," and he raised a knife which he had in his hand. But he only waited till some one held him back, and then sat down, for he was too great a coward to do as he had threatened. Early they took their departure, amid the greetings of their new friends, and toward evening reached the other town. The watchman gave the signal, and numbers of men, women, and children stood out to see them. They were again shown into the chief's lodge, who ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... grimly, "though the suggestion comes a trifle late, methinks. I should dishonour my sword to draw it on a liar and a coward. Handcuffs and the hold will be a more fitting fate for ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... oddly beneath him. The Girl's sure instinct of danger, the piteousness of their case, were making a coward of him. He tore himself from her in a panic desire to go while he still had the manhood to play his part to the end; then suddenly broke down completely, and with his face buried ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... four previous treatises; he adds a prologue, and in it, following the example of Gower, he abuses all classes of society. He does not fail to begin his confession over again: from which we gather that he is something of a drunkard and of a coward, that he is vain withal ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... "You are a coward, senor Englishman! Why do you not fight fair, broadside to broadside, instead of sheltering yourself under my stern, where my shot ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... and I first came together. He was no fighter. He was all sweetness and gentleness, a love-creature though he stood nearly six feet tall and was muscled like a gladiator. He was no fighter, but he was also no coward. He had the heart of a lion, and in the years that followed I have seen him run risks that I would never dream of taking. What I mean is that, while he was no fighter, and while he always avoided precipitating a row, he never ran away from trouble when it started. ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... moment, most likely he would not have valued his life so slightly. He clewed up his canvas like a wise mariner, and lay to while the Symplegades butted one another with their foreheads of adamant, and the sea was white with terror all about them. Jason was no coward: he would have braved the passage had he alone been concerned in the result; but for Maud in her rose-garden and for the future, dear to him as his hope of heaven, he ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... least, cut off the head of the culprit. Leicester was in Bommel when he heard of Baron Hemart's faint-heartedness or treachery, and his wrath was extravagant in proportion to the exultation with which his previous success had inspired him. He breathed nothing but revenge against the coward and the traitor, who had delivered up the town in "such lewd ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... enough.' And now, suppose that the Gods had given mankind a drug, of which the effect was to exaggerate every sort of evil and danger, so that the bravest man entirely lost his presence of mind and became a coward for a time:—would such a drug have any value? 'But is there such a drug?' No; but suppose that there were; might not the legislator use such a mode of testing courage and cowardice? 'To be sure.' The legislator would induce fear ...
— Laws • Plato
... drunken usurer, stumpy and fat, choleric, a coward, and a bully. He fancies money will buy everything and every one.—Beaumont and Fletcher, Rule a Wife ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... Her hand clenched suddenly. She was to meet him at Matty's—and, thereafter, if it took all night, she would not leave him until she had got him alone somewhere and disclosed herself. The man was a coward in soul. She could trust to the effect upon him of an automatic in the hands of the White Mall to ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... money had come to him, his pecuniary cares were comparatively light, and he believed that he could be very happy with Margaret and his children. But then to be pointed at daily as a lion, and to be asked by all his acquaintances after the lamb! It must be owned that he was a coward; but are not most men cowards ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... whispered. "My uncle is a coward or rather he is very wise, and has left the house. And Prothero means to follow, but he wants us to think he's still on guard. If we only KNEW!" ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... is, but I feel more like a coward," said Charley, "just before a thunderstorm than I think I should do in the arms of a polar bear. ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... was not destined that evening to please his great-grandmother, for he had no sooner got well into the spirit of his play in the gallery than he began to sing. "I'm a coward at songs," she would sometimes say; "and if it wasn't for the dear birds; I could wish there was no ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... all things. And yet the other alternative, what was that? It could be only that she had been afraid—she, Lloyd Searight! Must she, who had been the bravest of them all, stand before that little band of devoted women in the light of a self-confessed coward? ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... two men are pushing Robert into the burning iron furnace. It is the man who has his arm on Robert's breast. Physiognomy here spoke the truth; this chief had been a notorious murderer, and was an arrant coward to boot. At the point where the boat landed, Mr. Bushby accompanied me a few hundred yards on the road: I could not help admiring the cool impudence of the hoary old villain, whom we left lying in the boat, ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... turned his terrified glance on Mr. Gibney's tortured face. Scraggs was certainly a coward at heart, but there was something in Mr. Gibney's unselfishness that touched a spot in his hard nature—a something he never knew he possessed. He bowed his head and two big tears stole down his ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... constant danger of arrest. Finally, I had to give way to her, but it went against the grain, for even while she was urging me she must have felt in her heart it would be cowardly of me to go. However, she will know some day that Victor de Gisons is no coward." ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... corner I see Alva's guard; let the voice of reason penetrate to thy heart! Dost thou deem me a coward? Dost thou doubt that for thy sake I would peril my life? Here we are both mad, I as well as thou. Dost thou not perceive that thy scheme is impracticable? Oh, be ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... you have lost your nerve, perhaps! That is a favourite expression, and you know how people say it. Or if you make money soon after you resign, they will say that you preferred a fortune to risking your life for your country. Or else they will say that a woman has made a coward of you, and that ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... the worst thing you could do," Eustace said gravely. "He would be sure to try and shut you up if you made a row—any thief would, if he wasn't such a coward as that one. But I wouldn't think about it if I were you, or you'll be fancying things, ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... as his step had been, she seemed to sense his presence. A wave seemed to sweep over her —She turned and rose fronting him full." This doesn't mean that he was full when she fronted him. Her gown—but we know about that already. "It was a coward's trick," ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... to attract the Killer's attention. Killer not only heard and saw the intruding object, but smelt it, and sprang at it violently, with a rasping, savage snarl which challenged the Giant Wolf to come forward or be for ever accursed for a coward. The rod was withdrawn on the instant, and Finn's whole great bulk crashed against the partition, as he answered Killer with a roar of defiance. The great Wolfhound stood erect on his hind-feet, snapping ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... Bargee stood off, and I saw what was passing through his mind. And I went up to him and laid my hand on his shoulder and said: 'You know what I mean, and you know what manner of man I am that talks to you like this; for you're no coward,' I said; 'but you marry Fanny Montrose within a week after she gets her freedom, or I am going to kill you wherever you stand. And that's the choice you've got to make, ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... contentment; where there was turbulence, I see peace, where there was disloyalty, I see loyalty." Then the fury of party anger burst upon him, and bowing to the storm, Robert Peel went forth while men hissed after him such words as "traitor," "coward," "recreant leader." Nor did he foresee that in losing an office he had gained ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... "They took me up to him when I came two days ago. As soon as he saw me he bellowed: 'Imbecile et inchretien!'; then he called me a great lot of other things, including Shame of my country, Traitor to the sacred cause of Liberty, Contemptible coward and Vile sneaking spy. When he got all through I said 'I don't understand French.' You should have ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... strongly to thy merit, Maso, in face of this or any tribunal;" he said, grasping the hand of the Italian. "One who showed so much bravery and so strong love for his fellows, would be little likely to take life clandestinely and like a coward. Thou mayest count on my testimony in this strait—if thou art guilty of this crime, who can hope ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... years ago. The frank, manly young knight stepped forth, and declared proudly that he dared do all that might become a man. But he had some awful experience in the course of the quest that changed him from the soul of honor to a whimpering coward. His own companions spat ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... scarcely take the trouble. It was too rough all the next day for reading or writing; and to add to our discomfort two Russian passengers got drunk, and fought at the table, and called each other "liar and coward," "snob and thief," "spy and menial," and other choice epithets. However, their bark was worse than their bite, for they cooled down after they had succeeded in ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... retreat is impossible. One must die at the post of duty. He thinks of all the formulas of courage—"None but the brave deserve the fair," "He either fears his fate too much, or his deserts are small," "There is no such coward as self-consciousness," etc. But these maxima are of no avail. His feet are feet of clay, not good to stand on, only good to stumble with. His hands are cold, tremulous, and useless. There is a very disagreeable feeling in the back of his neck, and a spinning sensation about ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... hill-side opposite, with its zigzag path through the vines marked by the figures of zealous pedestrians, and then he said suddenly: "If I asked you not to come and see our show you would set me down as a fantastical coward." ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... Pat wagged his head in undisguised scepticism. "It's easy to talk, my dear, but I should prefer actions to words. You made a poor show on that ladder yesterday, and I don't like to own a coward for my sister. Look here now, you were worrying me to give you that racket, and I said I would do nothing of the kind, but I'll change my mind and hand it over to you to-night, if you will walk that round and ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Now Ned was no coward. He would have fought in a good cause with a boy twice his size; and he was very much provoked at the words and ...
— The Apricot Tree • Unknown
... "You are turning coward!" she said, between her closed teeth. "You are afraid to be left to yourself an hour longer—afraid because of this man's voice and the touch of his hand. Aren't you proud of yourself—you! He is the beast whose name you hated ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... John Coughin Pierre Coulanson Nathaniel Connan Francis Connie Perrie Coupra Jean de Course Leonard Courtney Louis Couset Joseph Cousins Frances Cousnant Jean Couster John Coutt Vizenteausean Covazensa John Coventry John Coverley Peter Covet Zechariah Coward James Cowbran James Cowen John Cowins Edward Cownovan Enoch Cox Jacob Cox John Cox Joseph Cox (2) Portsmouth Cox William Cox Thurmal Coxen Asesen Craft Joseph Craft Matthias Craft (2) James Craig Thomas ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... without tackin' you onto him for the rest of his life? No, sir!" She stood up and took a step backward. "You go and tell everybody—tell Ruby Adair, that I say this child hasn't any father; he never had any, but he's got a mother, and a mother that thinks too much of him to disgrace him by marrying a coward, which is more than she'll be able to say for her children if she ever has ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... to keep his start. Because I am going to have you some day, if I have anything to say about it. I'll teach you to fly, and we will sure part the clouds like foam and all the rest of it. You've got more nerve than any other girl I ever saw, and, anyway, I'd like you just the same if you was a coward, because I couldn't help it no matter what you was, just so ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... "Pampered the coward heart With feelings all too delicate for use; Nursing in some delicious solitude His dainty love and ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... in his over-shoes, he was a rather formidable-looking object as he came striding down upon us, a shovel in one hand and a hatchet in the other; but as we knew him by reputation for a blusterer and a coward, we awaited his coming without any alarm for ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... like to kick you for thinking me such a coward," cried Roy, fiercely, for his encounter with the secretary had set his temper on edge. "How dare you! You had no business to fire till I came back. I did not want my mother to hear the report without some warning.—Here, corporal, give ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... interfere, Forrester, and in this manner, on any pretence, for the shelter of the coward, who, having insulted me, now refuses to give me satisfaction. If you have anything to ask at my hands, when I have done with him, I shall be ready for you," was the reply ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... of being a coward, and treachery had no rightful place in his nature. He was, however, so in the habit of fighting windmills and making mountains of molehills that he could not at first glance see any sudden presentment with a normal vision. He had no love for Englishmen and ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... forward and receiving it myself; but I was not to be killed, only sufficiently wounded to make me appear interesting—disabled in the arm, perhaps, without much suffering, for bodily pain never formed a prominent feature in my ideas of the romantic and striking—I was too great a coward; or else a plunge into the waves to rescue some drowning person from perishing, when I wished just to come near enough to death to elevate me into ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... that Peter was a coward, will you? It wasn't that he hadn't courage, but that he hadn't enough of it. And why was it that he hadn't enough of it? Because he hadn't faith enough. Peter was always very easily impressed with the look of things. It ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... perhaps get off); the captain calls up his crew, tells them, "Gentlemen, you see how it is; I don't question but we may clear ourselves of this caper, if you will stand by me." One of the crew, as willing to fight as the rest, and as far from a coward as the captain, but endowed with a little more wit than his fellows, replies, "Noble captain, we are all willing to fight, and don't question but to beat him off; but here is the case: if we are taken, we ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... thinking the whole day long. Oh! yes, I will obey him, follow his impulses, fulfill all his wishes, show myself humble, submissive, a coward. He is the stronger; but ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... an awful coward, I'm afraid," Dolly said, as the camp was approached. "Will you tell Miss Eleanor what happened; everything! I'm afraid that if I told her myself I wouldn't put in what ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake - Bessie King in Summer Camp • Jane L. Stewart
... circulation, perhaps the irritation of a nervous thread, a slight congestion, a small disturbance in the imperfect and delicate functions of our living machinery, can turn the most lighthearted of men into a melancholy one, and make a coward of the bravest! Then, I go to bed, and I wait for sleep as a man might wait for the executioner. I wait for its coming with dread, and my heart beats and my legs tremble, while my whole body shivers beneath the warmth of the bedclothes, ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... sing of nobler themes Than the weak griefs which haunt men's coward souls. The torrent of their lusty music rolls Not through dark valleys of distempered dreams, But murmurous pastures lit by sunny streams; Or, rushing from some mountain height of Thought, Swells to strange music, that our minds have sought Vainly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... sharply; "hang 'em, no; they should cut me to pieces first. But I say, old fellow, I never thought I was such a coward before." ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... "Coward! brute!" I exclaimed, gasping for breath; and losing all command of myself, I rushed in before Tommy. "Let alone the child— you'll kill him if you continue to treat him thus; if you do I will brand you as a murderer. Help! help! he is killing ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... am also afraid? Then I will not give up. My dear sir, I see you do not know the Miliszewskis. We do not know how to handle the women, but there is not a coward in our family. I know that people laugh at me, but the one who would dare to call me a coward would not laugh. I will show them at once that I am not a coward. Where ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... forming a ring around the combatants, and Bert holding his champion's coat and hat, and hardly knowing whether to cry or to cheer. The fight did not last long. Bob was the taller, but Frank the stouter of the two. Bob, like most bullies, was a coward, but Frank was as plucky as he was strong. Burning with righteous wrath, Frank went at his opponent hammer and tongs, and after a few minutes' ineffective parrying and dodging, the latter actually ran out of the ring, thoroughly beaten, leaving Frank in possession of the field, to receive the ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... hardly, she felt, of her own volition. And now, more than half against her will, she stood committed to carry through an undertaking for which even at the outset, she had no heart. For there was no turning back. The challenge, once uttered, could not be withdrawn. She was no coward. The idea came to her that if she blenched then she would for all time forfeit his respect as well as ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... an instantaneous change in Horace Lansing's demeanour. From a blustering braggart, he became a pale and cringing coward. But with a desperate attempt to bluff it out, he exclaimed, "What do you mean?" but even as he spoke, he shivered and staggered backward, as if dreading ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... to the pumps, you coward, or I will shoot you down like a dog! Call yourself a man? Why, that youngster there is worth fifty ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... such a coward," he said half aloud; and then, "I hope poor mother will not be very much alarmed, and I ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... asked me a week ago I should have had to ask to be excused from trying to tell you in the presence of ladies. I would have quit if I hadn't been too much of a coward. But now—" ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... your tongue, ye haverin' coward, For whilst I'm young I'll go flounced an' flowered, In lutestring striped like the strings o' a fiddle, Wi' ...
— Nets to Catch the Wind • Elinor Wylie
... railings, and then again, for no apparent reason, he suddenly scurries wildly across the Maidan while I pull desperately, but impotently, with fingers weak from fright. Boggley coming behind convulsed with laughter, merely remarks that I am a funk-stick—which, I take it, means the worst kind of coward. ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... convicted him, none the less the death of every individual was due to him. As I said before, a word from him and the slaughter would have ceased. But he refused to give that word. He insisted that the integrity of society was assailed; that he was not sufficiently a coward to desert his post; and that it was manifestly just that a few should be martyred for the ultimate welfare of the many. Nevertheless this blood was upon his head, and he sank into deeper and deeper gloom. I was likewise whelmed with the guilt of an accomplice. Babies ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... was thought, have induced him to make some show of resistance, or to have gone to the rescue of a young and delicate girl; but none of these things did he do, and, if the story related was true, the young man had acted like a base coward at the best, and submitted without a murmur to the outrages that were perpetrated in his presence. Instead of acting like a man, he stood tamely by and allowed a woman to be cruelly beaten, the bank robbed, and the robbers to walk off unmolested ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... "O you coward!" said the intrepid little woman to a hero of all the fights on Sherman's march to the sea; and presently they heard her attack the mysterious enemy with a lady-like courage, claiming the invaded chamber. The foe replied with like civility, saying the clerk had given her that room with the understanding ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... almost savagely, "bribery is the weapon of a coward. The Duke of Burgundy uses his money to ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... out into the room. "But that would be murder," she continued. "We should have to call it murder, shouldn't we? And that is a fearful word. I could never quite forget it. I should always ask myself if I were right, if I had the right to judge. I am a coward. The work ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... well, and the newspapers and the church people hailed his return with joy. I went once to his church. The sermon was of the same order as the ones he had preached long before his eyes had seen visions. I was disappointed, shocked. Had society then beaten him into submission? Was he a coward? Had he been bulldozed into recanting? Or had the strain been too great for him, and had he meekly surrendered to the juggernaut ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... Arakcheev was to Alexander—though not a coward like Arakcheev, he was as precise, as cruel, and as unable to express his devotion to ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... waist, all the beholders admired at the goodly sight of his large shoulders being of such exquisite shape and whiteness, and at his great and brawny bosom, and the youthful strength which seemed to remain in a man thought so old; and they said, What limbs and what sinews he has! and coward fear seized on the mind of that great vast beggar, and he dropped his threats, and his big words, and would have fled, but lord Antinous staid him, and threatened him that if he declined the combat, he would put him ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... lowered his hand; and Polydectes, who had been trembling all this while like a coward, because he knew that he was in the wrong, let Perseus ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... know, you soon will do. The fact is, you have spoiled the coppers in the cook-house, you have burned the bottoms out of them." "They were all right when I left" I retorted, beginning to feel rather "queer." If I had never been one before I felt a coward then; but, come what might, I thought, they can only reduce me in rank. So with "firm step" I marched to the sergeant-major's quarters. To my surprise—and in a manner which at once put me at my ease—the sergeant-major bade me a cheerful ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... "you should never ask a coward whether he is afraid, you only risk his telling a lie. He will say ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... many more at home like you. And even you—I believe there is a real creature down under these custom-made prejudices that save you the trouble of thinking. If you and I were shipwrecked on a desert island, I have no doubt that we would come to a simple and natural understanding. I'm neither a coward nor a shirk. You would find, if you had to undertake any enterprise of danger or difficulty with a woman, that there are several qualifications quite as important as the one ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... of the identity of his hosts. He had no doubt that this was Davie Forbes, whom he had come to spy upon and denounce! But he was no coward, and quickly reassured himself that duty alone had led him. Still, he ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... footsteps unknown to you, and haunted this house in my walks because I knew that you lived here. The memory of your face has sweetened my dreams, and those brief moments when we have passed each other daily have been sweeter than any paradise. I know the story of your struggle with that coward and of your noble act of renunciation. It cut into my heart like a knife to speak to you those necessary words the other day, and I have been miserable ever since. I said to myself at last that I ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... war: Whilst he, as if all conquest did of right Belong to him, bids them prepare to fight; Which if they should delay one hour, he swears He'll leave them to their dangers, or their fears, And shame, which is the ignoble coward's choice. At this the army seemed to have one voice, United in a shout, and called upon The god-like stranger, "Lead us, lead us on." Make haste, great sir, lest you should come too late, To share with them in ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... hand of mine; I grudge thee this quick-beating heart; They never gave me coward sign, Nor played me once a ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... be within hail, fool that I was to take the desperate chance when a little parley, a little edging toward him, a sudden blow might have served. Yet I was glad in my heart that I had not used craft; cat traits are not instinctive with me; craft, stealth, a purring ambush—faugh! I was no coward to beat him down unawares. I had openly declared him prisoner, and I was glad I had done so. Why, I might have shot him as we talked, had I been of a breed to do murder—had I been inhuman enough to slay him, unwarned, before the very eyes of the woman he had wronged, and who still hoped for mercy ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... best of it in the melee. Again, were reviewers obliged to put their names to their several articles, there would be a great difference in their style; but, secure in their incognito from the disgrace of exposure, they make no scruple to assert what they well know to be false, and, coward-like, to assail those who have seldom an opportunity, whatever may be their power, to defend themselves. Never, perhaps, was there a better proof of the truth of the foregoing observations than is afforded by the article in the Edinburgh Review upon the first ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... was no coward. No sooner was his sword out of his hand than he tore open his shirt, crying: 'Stab, villain, insulter of women!' But if I had attempted to take him at his word, and punch a hole or two in him, I could not have done so, for even while he spoke his beloved sprang between ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... sheep-dog crossed with the terrier. He has long and somewhat deservedly obtained a very bad name, as a bully and a coward; and certainly his habit of barking at everything that passes, and flying at the heels of the horse, renders him often a very dangerous nuisance: he is, however, in a manner necessary to the cottager; he is a faithful defender of his humble dwelling; no ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... "hallowed fountains," and "solemn sound;" but in all Gray's odes there is a kind of cumbrous splendour which we wish away. His position is at last false. In the time of Dante and Petrarch, from whom we derive our first school of poetry, Italy was overrun by "tyrant power" and "coward vice;" nor was our state much better when we first borrowed the Italian arts. Of the third ternary, the first gives a mythological birth of Shakespeare. What is said of that mighty genius is true, but it is not said happily; the real effects of this poetical power are put out of sight by the pomp ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... principal on the ground refuses to fight or continue the fight when required, it is the duty of his second to say to the other second: "I have come upon the ground with a coward, and do tender you my apology for an ignorance of his character; you are at liberty to post him." The second, by such conduct, stands ...
— The Code of Honor • John Lyde Wilson
... would be a bold thing to give the answer that was on her tongue, but she was no coward, and this was a crisis of importance. A proper impression made upon this woman might be productive of more good results than if made ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... bed-edge. The imminent interview disturbed him strangely, and set all manner of conflicting tides flowing in heart and brain. He was part coward and part hero; ready to face everything and to run away from everything. His pity for Annette was pity, and no more; his sympathy for Paul Armstrong amounted to a passion. He strove to bring himself to what he conceived to be a more fitting mood, but whilst he struggled with himself the inner ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... sea-coast in that belief. In France, Hobbes managed to take care of his throat pretty well for ten years; but at the end of that time, by way of paying court to Cromwell, he published his Leviathan. The old coward now began to "funk" horribly for the third time; he fancied the swords of the cavaliers were constantly at his throat, recollecting how they had served the Parliament ambassadors at the Hague and Madrid. "Turn," says he, in his ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... reply. But they were no longer fitted for coming to an understanding. They despised him as weak, and a double-dealer; and he despised them for their ignorance, their tatters, and dirt. He showed this day that he was no coward. He was indolent, irresolute, and unable to act; but he could endure. After this day, no one could, unrebuked, call him a coward. When the mob began battering upon the door of the room in which he was, he ordered it to be thrown open. ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... does not strike so near As my dependence. O, in youth and strength To sit a timid coward in the dark, And feel before I set a cautious step! It is so very dark, so far more dark Than any night that day comes after—night In which there would be stars, or else at least The silvered portion of a sombre cloud Through which ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... not be policy to announce it at the beginning. However reasonable men may be, it is still true that reason is subject to emotions and beliefs to a greater degree than is praiseworthy. If a man should open an address upon Abraham Lincoln by saying that he was a cringing coward, he would have difficulty to get an audience to hear anything he said after that, no matter how much truth he spoke. The author of such a statement would be so disliked that nothing would win for him favor. When an unwelcome theme is to ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... said, "and were it not known to be otherwise, some might hold that you are a coward. Yet it was no coward who leapt alone on board the battle ship, or who slew the great white bear to save Steinar's life. I do not understand you, Olaf, you who have doubts as to the killing of men. How does a man grow great except upon the blood of ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... of young Kromlaix men looked at each other in consternation. Was the handsomest, the strongest, and the most daring lad in their village a coward? It was the dark year of 1813, when Napoleon was draining France of all its manhood. Even the only sons of poor widowed women, such as Rohan Gwenfern was, were no longer exempted from conscription. Having lost half a million men amid the snows of Russia, Napoleon had called for 200,000 ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... there for honest poverty That hangs his head, and a' that? The coward slave, we pass him by, We dare be poor for a' that! For a' that, and a' that, Our toil's obscure, and a' that: The rank is but the guinea's stamp, The man's the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... monsieur!" I cried. "Are you coward enough to revenge yourself upon a mere lad like myself? I will not ask you what your crew will think of you, but what will you think of yourself, in your calmer moments, when ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... answered calmly. 'I am no coward. If it be true, as they say, that a system of award and punishment prevails, then I'm ready to ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... bit his lip in thought. He was by no means a coward, and two alternatives presented themselves to him. One was to say nothing and pretend absolute ignorance; the other was to drop his hand into his coat pocket and fire the little automatic which ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... thee, uncle," the hot-headed admiral was saying, "it is beyond longer bearing. This new emperor—this Diocletian—who is he to dare to dictate to a prince of Britain? A foot-soldier of Illyria, the son of slaves, and the client of three coward emperors; an assassin, so it hath been said, who from chief of the domestics, hath become by his own cunning Emperor of Rome, And now hath he dared to accuse me—me, a free Briton and a Roman citizen as well, a prince and the son of princes, with having taken bribes from these German ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... a diary in airy characters upon our brain; but I fear there is a distinction to be made; I fear that as we render to our consciousness an account of our daily fortunes and behaviour, we too often weave a tissue of romantic compliments and dull excuses; and even if Pepys were the ass and coward that men call him, we must take rank as sillier and more cowardly than he. The bald truth about oneself, what we are all too timid to admit when we are not too dull to see it, that was what he saw ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... where his duty calls him," said Suzanne with charming and simple dignity. "I love him with all my heart, because he is brave and good. He could not leave his comrade, who is also his chief, in the lurch. God will protect him, I know. I would not ask him to play the part of a coward." ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... which the Island Princess cut her swift and almost silent passage. A man must have been a cowardly bully to annoy harmless old Bill. Yet even then, young though I was, I realized that sometimes there is no more dangerous man than a coward and a bully, "He's great friends with the second mate," Bill remarked at last. "And the second mate has got no use at all for Mr. Thomas because he thought he was going to get Mr. Thomas's berth and didn't; and for the ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... notes. Lewis would read each one several times to make it seem like a letter. He seemed to feel that his father would like to see one of the letters, and one day, to keep himself from calling himself coward, ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... have preached the Word of the Lord unto them there present;[1] but the constable coming in prevented us; so that I was taken and forced to depart the room. But had I been minded to have played the coward, I could have escaped, and kept out of his hands. For when I was come to my friend's house, there was whispering that that day I should be taken, for there was a warrant out to take me; which when my friend heard, he being somewhat ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to do Slow any good, or make a man of him; and next, that he heartily wished that Winslow junior had been Miss Clara at once, as the fellows called him—it was really hard on him (Griff) to have such a sneaking little coward tied to him for ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... when he was in Spain And, when the fit was on him, I did mark How he did shake: 'tis true, this god did shake His coward lips did from their color fly; And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world, Did lose his lustre: ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... IS exceedingly keen," said I; "and though only a coward will boast of his nerves in situations wholly unfamiliar to him, yet my nerves have been seasoned in such variety of danger that I have the right to rely on ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... spirit than Burns' to stand such solitude. His heart, during those first weeks at Ellisland, (p. 097) entirely sank within him, and he saw all men and life coloured by his own despondency. This is the entry in his commonplace book on the first Sunday he spent alone at Ellisland:—"I am such a coward in life, so tired of the service, that I would almost at any time, with Milton's Adam, 'gladly lay me in my mother's lap, and be at peace.' But a wife and children bind me to struggle with the stream, till some sudden squall shall overset the silly vessel, or in the listless return of years its ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... resistance apply no longer, and what once did not disturb will now shake her to the centre. A time comes, however, when she will do well to meet and relearn to bear calmly all the little emotional trials of life. I know a nervous woman—and no coward, either—who for months, and wisely, read no newspapers, and who asked another to open and read all her letters and telegrams. The day came when she was able to resume the habits of health, but for a long time the telegram at least was a sore distress, and she could only meet it by ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... No, Madeleine, the coward, who thought she had loved her lover, was now in her room, weak and weeping, whilst he, no doubt, paced the deck in mad impatience (as a lover should), now tortured by the throes of anxiety, now hugging ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... huge enough and strong enough to crush the infuriated lad, but drink had made him a coward at heart. He stooped over and picked up an iron-ringed stake from ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... does. But surely you are not a coward, are you? Milton is not the place for cowards. I have known the time when I have had to thread my way through a crowd of white, angry men, all swearing they would have Makinson's blood as soon as he ventured to show his nose out of his factory; and he, knowing nothing of it, some ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... what for? Some forms of sudden danger make me gay, with all my faculties at their best, but not that. I had to nurse Rivers; that was the worst of it. You see, my son, I was a coward." ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... composition was like. But the composer was not readily persuaded. The thought of playing in the city where Mozart and Beethoven had been heard frightened him, and then he had not touched a piano for a whole fortnight. Not even when Count Gallenberg entered and Haslinger presented Chopin to him as a coward who dare not play in public was the young virtuoso put on his mettle. In fact, he even declined with thanks the theatre which was placed at his disposal by Count Gallenberg, who was then lessee of the Karnthnerthor ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... a very coward!" says she in bitter scorn. "And a coward is selfish always." So saying she crossed to the door and reached her hand to the bolt; but in a leap I was beside her and caught this hand, 'prisoning ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... evening. And what had led him to this? If he had been wronged and injured, why could not he redress himself like other injured men? If revenge were necessary to him, why could he not avenge himself like a man, instead of leaguing with others to commit murder in the dark, like a coward and a felon? And then he thought of his position with Keegan and Ussher. There was something manly in his original disposition; he would have given anything for a stand up fight with the attorney with equal weapons; if it had been sure ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... do I. Stas with his various faults has an upright character and never lies, for he is brave, and only a coward lies. He also does not lack energy and if in time he acquires a calm judgment, I think he will be able to take care of himself in ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... automatics. I'll get them." The scientist was no coward, anyway. His whispered words came calmly ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... cow, who was tied on behind the wagon, and who made the journey a lively and eventful one by her total lack of desire to proceed over the road from Edgewood to Acreville. But that, the cow's tale, belongs to another time and place, and the coward's tale must come first; for Elisha Simpson was held to be sadly lacking in the manly ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... were to be done her knife should do it. Oh, to seize his throat with her beautiful hands, to press and squeeze and dig until the blood gorged his face, and to see him die by inches, gasping! He had lied like a coward! Nothing easier to destroy ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... contradict your own words, and distract me! Be calm and frank, and confess at once all that weighs on your heart. You wouldn't injure me, Linton, would you? You wouldn't let any enemy hurt me, if you could prevent it? I'll believe you are a coward, for yourself, but not a cowardly ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... [Bolingbroke] was a scoundrel and a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... to Lane and said, 'Well, Hecker has flunked out. He hadn't the courage to persevere. He's a coward.' But Lane said, 'No; you're mistaken. Hecker's right. He wanted more than we had ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... Jim's face to see how the shorter guide took it. He realized that Jim was at least no coward, even though he might fear the wrath of such a forest bully as the ex-logger, and present lawless poacher Cale Martin; for he had shut his teeth hard together, and there was a grim expression on his face, ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... do nothing to him? I snatched up a log and hit him over the head two or three times, but the coward started bleeding and gave in; I should have liked to have given him more, but they came running out of their ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... have," said he, "and if he don't look like a fool all the time he is a-settin' on the eggs, it's a pity; no soul could help larfin' to see him. Our old nigger, January Snow, had a spite agin one of father's roosters, seein' that he was a coward, and wouldn't fight. He used to call him Dearborne, arter our General that behaved so ugly to Canada; and, says he one day, 'I guess you are no better than a hen, you everlastin' old chicken-hearted villain, and I'll ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... chief of state: Queen ELIZABETH II of the UK (since 6 February 1952) head of government: Lieutenant Governor and Commander in Chief Vice-Admiral Sir John COWARD (since NA 1994) and Bailiff Mr. Graham Martyn DOREY (since February 1992) cabinet: Advisory and Finance Committee (other committees) appointed by the Assembly of the States elections: none; the queen is a hereditary monarch; lieutenant governor ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... no coward by any means, but it took all Scot's eloquence and persuasiveness to induce him to consent to hazard a daylight journey through to Sumner, for he well knew its dangers. Scarcely a week passed without news of some fearful massacre ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... drive him into a corner and pin him to the wall. He very well knows that flitting and skulking from place to place, like an escaped convict, he is safe in writing what insults he pleases through the post. I can't tell how or where to find him. He is not only no gentleman, but no man—a coward as well as a ruffian. But his game of hide-and-seek cannot go on for ever; and when next I can lay my hand upon him, I'll make him eat that paper on his knees, and place ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... only many proper names, like Abeillard, Bayard, Brossard, but appellatives like leccardo, a gourmand, linguardo, a talker, criard, a crier, codardo, Prov. coart, Fr. couard, a coward.[14] That a German word hart, meaning strong, and originally strength, should become a Roman suffix may seem strange; yet we no longer hesitate to use even Hindustani words as English suffixes. In Hindustani vl is used to form many substantives. If Dilli is Delhi, then Dill-vll ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... everything," Gresham charged him with the scorn one coward feels for another. "Your operations out there were spread over ten thousand acres of ground; and it would take a dozen experts six months, without any books or papers to guide them, to make even an approximate estimate ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... legislature "had no more right to repeal the charter than the United States would have to abrogate and make void the constitution of the state, or than Great Britain would have to abolish the constitution of the United States—and the man that says differently is a coward, a traitor to his own rights, and a tyrant; no odds what Blackstone, Kent or Story may have written to make themselves and their names ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... been called a coward behind his back, and it was whispered that his throne would be in danger if that surrender were repeated. He had merited these reproaches because no one had done more than he to inflate the arrogance ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... formed some of us so that we must kill to live and for us to kill is lawful. It is not so with you. You were made to live on seeds and nuts, yet Kag-ax the Weasel, whom we all hate, is scarcely more bloodthirsty than you are. And you are a coward to boot. You haven't the courage to fight and you kill for pleasure and ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... She screamed. Roger sprang forward and struck him in the face. In his fury of sudden rage the strength of ten seemed to animate his slender body and pass into his blow. The sailor reeled back and put up his hands. He was a coward—and even a brave man might have been daunted by that terrible white face and those blazing eyes. He backed ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... I will tell you," she said at this juncture. "All the time I have been here my one thought has been of escape. I dreamed nothing else save getting my poor mother away from the clutches of that coward who had hypnotized her in the past, and made her believe he was a good man as well as her cousin from Alsace-Lorraine. And I know of a way ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... clearly as Curran. She thought the soft nature of Horace quite manageable, and if murder were to be done her knife should do it. Oh, to seize his throat with her beautiful hands, to press and squeeze and dig until the blood gorged his face, and to see him die by inches, gasping! He had lied like a coward! Nothing easier to destroy than ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... with a shotgun and bird shot was not my idea of safe sport, but I was too much of a moral coward to acknowledge to Pete that I was frightened. Pete examined his gun, ran his finger over the cartridges in his belt, and went through all the familiar motions which to him were unconscious but always ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... armed. Some of his friends congratulated him on the decided stand he had taken, and hoped he would settle the matter amicably with Elfonzo, without any serious injury. "Me," he replied, "what, me, condescend to fellowship with a coward, and a low-lived, lazy, undermining villain? no, gentlemen, this cannot be; I had rather be borne off, like the bubble upon the dark blue ocean, with Ambulinia by my side, than to have him in the ascending or descending line of relationship. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... lonely with one another. Anybody can go out into the street anywhere in America to-night and be lonely about the peace treaty, the world war, or civil war. Any man can take any crowded street and see for himself. He can pass miles of men who in their hearts are calling him a coward because he has one idea of how to defend America and they have another. If one were to take any ten blocks of Broadway and let all the people walking along stop just where they are and begin talking with ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... borrow a clout from the Boer—to plaster anew with dirt? An Irish liar's bandage, or an English coward's shirt? ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... doubt but that Patricia did more than her share of snatching. When she played, she played wildly, but she was a coward when pay time came. ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... flies, that falls and, falling, dies. To-night, when I saw that you were awake so late, I could not resist the longing I had to speak to you; and I came down stairs. I believe that all the courage of my life has been used up in this single act, and that now I can never be any thing again but a coward. But you will give me courage; you will give me strength; you will help me, will you not? Pepe, my dear cousin, tell me that you will; tell me that I am strong, and I will be strong; tell me that I am not ill, and I will ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... for a long time gazing into the forest after the party of huntsmen. "A murderer and a coward," he said. "In sanctuary he has shed innocent blood. For many evil deeds the price will surely be paid. And the ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... can exist no excuse or reason in the light of which this sin may appear as a human weakness. Because slander is the fruit of deliberate criminal spite, jealousy and revenge, it has a character of diabolism. The calumniator is not only a moral assassin, but he is the most accomplished type of the coward known to man. If the devil loves a cheerful liar, he has one here to ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... needed, Charles. Not one thoroughbred in ten makes good, unless he's got the heart of a coward, and that's just what distinguishes them from mongrels and cross-breds. Like race-horses, they're hot-blooded. They've got sensitiveness, and pride. Pride's the worst. You listen to me. I was born into the business and I've studied it all my life. I'm a success. There's only one reason I'm ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... are gone. Those were the days of great heroes, like the father of her that is now Queen. They were fine men that stood beside him, and one was my own man. I said to him, "This is the time a brave man is sure to be killed. If you come back to me, I'll always think you were a coward." He died along with a thousand of the best men in the kingdom fighting around the King. That was a great day. Four kingdoms at once we fought, and beat them to their knees. Glad enough they were to make peace with the child of ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... latest creation must back, for sure," which puzzled me a good deal at the time, although I understand it now. I began to find out the use of the "Peerage," a book which had seemed to me rather dull before; but, as I was always a coward in a coach, I made myself well acquainted with the dates of creation of our three Warwickshire earls, and was happy to find that Earl Ludlow ranked second, the oldest earl being a hunting widower, and not likely to ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... confident of succeeding in his enterprise without a war. Moreover, that he was then encouraged to despise life by the example of a common soldier, who bringing news of the defeat of the army, and finding that he met with no credit, but was railed at for a liar and a coward, as if he had run away from the field of battle, fell upon his sword at the emperor's feet; upon the sight of which, my father said that Otho cried out, "that he would expose to no farther danger such brave men, who had deserved so well ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... aunt—even the quiet, kind, cold, austere uncle—the apprentices—the strange servants— and, oh! more than all, those hardeyed, loud-laughing tormentors, the boys of his own age! Naturally timid, severity made him actually a coward; and when the nerves tremble, a lie sounds as surely as, when I vibrate that wire, the bell at the end of it will ring. Beware of the man who has been roughly treated as ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... now, for the first time, realized the folly—probably the disaster—of his flight. Might he not be needed at the cottage? Was not his dying wife's prayer for his presence and succour? Had not an unmanly selfishness led him to play the coward? Thoughts like these led him to marshal his resolves, and turn his ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... begged one of Mr Hoggins's worn-out hats to hang up in her lobby, and we (at least I) had doubts as to whether she really would enjoy the little adventure of having her house broken into, as she protested she should. Miss Matty made no secret of being an arrant coward, but she went regularly through her housekeeper's duty of inspection—only the hour for this became earlier and earlier, till at last we went the rounds at half-past six, and Miss Matty adjourned to bed soon after seven, "in order to get ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... around his neck, that gleam with snowy softness in the moonlight against the mournful draperies that fall away from them,—"if I were cold and unfeeling would I do this?" pressing her tender lips to his. "Would I? You know I would not. I am a coward too, and fear you would not look upon my plan as favorably as I do. Darling, ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... were both very excellent examples of pure British phlegm and unimaginativeness. This seemed to cast the burden upon me, for Pye was still confined to his cabin. The little man was undoubtedly shaken by the horrid events he had witnessed, and though he was confessedly a coward, I could not help feeling sorry for him. He was an abject creature now, and clung to his bunk, keeping out of the Prince's way and Barraclough's as much as possible, and pestering me ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... and who made the journey a lively and eventful one by her total lack of desire to proceed over the road from Edgewood to Acreville. But that, the cow's tale, belongs to another time and place, and the coward's tale must come first; for Elisha Simpson was held to be sadly lacking in the ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of virtue there are, but these proceed from caprice. Anger must be conquered by forgiveness; and the wicked must be conquered by honesty; the miser must be conquered by liberality, and falsehood must be conquered by truth. One should not place trust on a woman, a swindler, an idle person, a coward, one that is fierce, one that boasts of his own power, a thief, an ungrateful person, and an atheist. Achievements, period of life, fame, and power—these four always expand in the case of him that respectfully saluteth his superiors and waiteth upon ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... leaving the empty shell unhurt, like a dry skeleton or the slough of a dragon-fly larva. But when wasps or other large and dangerous insects got entangled in the webs, the hunters proceeded with far greater caution. Lucy, indeed, who was a decided coward, would stand and look anxiously at the doubtful intruder for several seconds, feeling the web with her claws, and running up and down in the most undecided manner, as if in doubt whether or not to tackle the uncertain customer. But Eliza, whose spirits always rose like Nelson's before ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... fear. Not all kinds; for there are some things we ought to fear, such as dishonour and pauperism, the fear of which is compatible with dauntless courage, while the coward may not fear them. Fearlessness of what is in our control, and endurance of what is not, for the sake of true honour, constitute the courageous habit. Its excess is rashness or foolhardiness, the deficiency cowardice. Akin to it, but still spurious, is the courage of which the motive ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... the gentleman who gambles his friend to desperation, and skulks behind a woman, like the coward he is," sneered Gilbert. ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... too, as well as strength. Power and the consciousness of power do not always go together. In regard to the strength of nature, courage and might are quite separable. There may be a strong coward and a weak hero. But in the spiritual region, strength and courage do go together. The consciousness of the divine power with us, and that alone, will make us bold with a boldness that has no taint of levity and presumption mingled with it, and never will overestimate ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... it if a man called you a coward. Don't try my woman's friendship for you too far. You insult me ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... received very severe chastisement from him, but this did not help me; on the contrary, if Auguste interfered in my behalf, my mother would pounce upon me, and I may say that I was stunned with her blows. Auguste appealed to his father, but he dared not interfere. He was coward enough to sit by and see his daughter treated in this way without remonstrance; and, in a short time, I was fast approaching to what my mother declared me to be—a ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... Narrow of heart, or free, or brave, or base, Ev'n in the infant we the man may trace; And from the rude ungainly sires may know Each striking trait the polished sons shall show. Dependent on what moods assume the reign, Science shall smile, or spread her stores in vain: As coward fears, or generous passions sway, Shall freedom reign, or heartless slaves obey. "Not unto chance must aught of power be given,— A country's genius is the gift of Heaven. What warms the poet's lays with generous fire, To which no toil can reach, ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... mighty rushing wind He falls, subduing space, To where Christ's chosen with one mind Are gathered in one place. With tongues of flame He lights on each, Whose wonder-working spell Fires them in every human speech Heaven's message forth to tell. The coward brood of doubt and fear And hesitance are fled; Before the quickening Comforter They rise as from the dead. The bolted door is yawning wide, The barred gate backward flung; And forth unarmed and fearless-eyed, They fare ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... passion were sufficient exculpations. They invented the doctrine of mental reservation, on which Pascal was so severe. Perjury was allowable, if the perjured were inwardly determined not to swear. A man might fight a duel, if in danger of being stigmatized as a coward; he might betray his friend, if he could thus benefit his party. The Jesuits invented a system of casuistry which confused all established ideas of moral obligation. They tolerated, and some of them justified, ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... Dammauville face to face had begun to exasperate him; he felt like a coward in yielding to it, and since he had not the force to shake it off, he was happy to be relieved from it by the intervention of chance, which, after having been against him so long, now became ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... destroy you, or at least to get rid of you? I have come to warn you again, and I say to you once more, take me with you to Sudun's castle, where we can live at peace, and do not act as they tell you." "I will carry out my engagement," he replied; "I will not possess you like a coward, even though I should be cut to pieces with swords." Upon this, Shama was angry and left him, while he lay down to rest, but could not sleep. He therefore rose up, saddled and mounted his horse and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... change all your ideas now, Cutlip," he said. "You see that the German is not a superman. We have beaten them. Besides, your country is at war with Germany. Only a traitor, or a coward, would ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... own way," he said. He was a coward at heart, and as he had not been in the plot against Anderson Rover he did not wish to get any ...
— The Rover Boys in New York • Arthur M. Winfield
... comfort oneself with that cheap substitute for immortality! The unconscious processes that take place in nature are lower even than the stupidity of man, since in stupidity there is, anyway, consciousness and will, while in those processes there is absolutely nothing. Only the coward who has more fear of death than dignity can comfort himself with the fact that his body will in time live again in the grass, in the stones, in the toad. To find one's immortality in the transmutation of substances is as strange as to prophesy a brilliant ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... a man like salt. A coward cannot long pretend to be brave at sea, nor a fool to be wise, nor a prig to be a good companion, and any venture connected with the sea is full of venture and can pretend to be nothing more. Nevertheless there is a certain pride in keeping a course through different weathers, ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... the boys let him severely alone, but Dan, though he said he despised him for being a coward, watched over him with a grim sort of protection, and promptly cuffed any lad who dared to molest his mate or make him afraid. His idea of friendship was as high as Daisy's, and, in his own rough way, he lived up to ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... Turk. I'll not believe it! Why do we wear swords? Where's chivalry? Iduna, a prisoner to the Turk! 'Tis false. It cannot be. Iskander, you are a coward! I am a coward! All are cowards! A prisoner to the Turk! Iduna! What, the Rose of Christendom! has it been plucked by such a turbaned dog as Amurath? Farewell, Epirus! Farewell, classic Athens! Farewell, bright fields of Greece, and dreams that ...
— The Rise of Iskander • Benjamin Disraeli
... wife, is a thing worthy of some petty Asiatic king, not a Roman Caesar; but if that position were mine, I should not write justifying letters to the Senate. But Nero writes. Nero is looking for appearances, for Nero is a coward. But Tiberius was not a coward; still he justified every step he took. Why is this? What a marvellous, involuntary homage paid to virtue by evil! And knowest thou what strikes me? This, that it is done ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... 'Don't do it for the fun of the thing, Kate. The boys wouldn't like that.' 'Oh,' she says, looking at me mighty hard. 'I've got the best of reasons for doing it.' 'Then,' says I, 'do it, no matter what they think or don't think. That's what Abe Hawk would 'a' done!' 'I'm such a coward,' she says, but I want to tell you there was fire in her words. 'Go ahead,' says I. 'Doctor, will you ride with me?' 'Hell!' says I, 'I never went to a funeral in my life.' 'Will you ride to this one with me? ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... e.—Such as Nero, Lucius Domitius, Roman Emperor; born 37; died 68; probably the most prominent type known of wickedness and cruelty, and, nevertheless, a coward. ...
— The Angel of Death • Johan Olof Wallin
... and entered the room. "How could I ever frighten her to death?" she laughed. "It's just your way; you're as great a coward as an ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... a traitor knave? Wha can fill a coward's grave? Wha sae base as be a slave? Let him turn ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... notwithstanding his stern face and proud manner, was a coward at heart, fell upon his knees before me trembling and prayed me to spare his life which lay in my hand. Well he knew that if once it came to Kari's ears, even a high priest of the Sun could not hope to escape the reward of such treachery ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... Sebright started. Her daring amazed them both. As for me, I am the greatest coward living, in the matter of surgical operations performed on myself or on others. Lucilla terrified me. I ran headlong across the room to her. I was even fool ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... noticed he was pale, looked wearied, had a gray beard, wore a bluish cap with a faded gold band round it, had on a red-sleeved waistcoat and a pair of gray tweed trousers. I would have run to him, only I was a coward in the presence of such a mob,—would have embraced him, only he, being an Englishman, I did not know how he would receive me; so I did what cowardice and false pride suggested was the best thing—walked deliberately to him, took off my hat and said, ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... men's reputation as by fire. The lesson, in the judgment of the author, is the danger of disgraceful failure to men who have neglected to keep themselves prepared, not only in knowledge of their profession, but in the sentiment of what war requires. The average man is not a coward; but neither is he endowed by nature only with the rare faculty of seizing intuitively the proper course at a critical moment. He gains it, some more, some less, by experience or by reflection. If both have been ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... word in my ears as I shouted it that awful night when Rover kept me company. Poor old Rover, lying under the snow. If he were only here I should not be quite so desolate. I believe that for the first time in my life I am a coward," and shaking with cold, or fear, or both, Hannah left her father's room and went into the kitchen, where Sam was stuffing ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... I remember that he whistled, as he went through the wood in front of me. Who had given him the breeches on his legs and the hat upon his shallow pate? And the poor little coward had skiddered away, and slept in a furze rick, till famine drove him home. But now he was set up again by gorging for an hour, and chattered as if he had done ...
— Slain By The Doones • R. D. Blackmore
... father if it wasn't my DUTY to love Grandma Irving best, because she's doing so much for me. YOU know, teacher. I wish she would leave the lamp in my room till I go to sleep, though. She takes it right out as soon as she tucks me up because she says I mustn't be a coward. I'm NOT scared, but I'd RATHER have the light. My little mother used always to sit beside me and hold my hand till I went to sleep. I expect she spoiled me. Mothers ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... it, you coward!" said Richard. "Well, then, to-morrow. We had a splendid race. Did you ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... country may have some influence in staying the spirit and deeds of violence now so rife, and that they who are so ready to resort to the rifle and revolver may learn to regard them only as the instruments of the coward or ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... she would not play the coward's part with it! She brought herself to look it straight in the face. And what she saw was that if she could be brave enough to go herself into a more spacious country, leaving hurts behind, she must not be so cowardly, ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... they went into the kingdom of Mittwoch, the air grew colder and more icy, till even the marrow in their bones was frozen. But Petru was no coward; the fight he had gone through had strengthened his powers of endurance, and he stood the ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... stout heart and stalwart frame; for there is great demand for able-bodied men there, and good prices are paid for bone and muscle. So again I say, have a care, Tom, have a care. I would not have you entertain one coward fear, yet I would have you careful not to provoke needless animosity; for we live in ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... noblest gentleman that ever lived, a man whose boots I was never worthy to lace—he broke his gallant heart and died. You remember that last night when I came through that door I begged and prayed you for mercy, and you laughed in my face as you are trying to laugh now, only your coward heart cannot keep your lips from twitching? Yes, you never thought to see me here again, but it was that night which taught me how I could meet you face to face, and alone. Well, Charles Milverton, what have you ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... really am afraid I'm a dreadful coward," he suddenly confessed. "I have been rather ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... suspicion and animosity shot from a score of eyes; fists were half-clenched; knives appeared in a trice from the concealment of rags, and a low murmur arose from the gathering. Even the imbecile morio, nature's trembling coward, became suddenly valiant, and, with huge frame uplifted, seemed about to spring savagely upon the fool. An expression of disgust replaced all other feeling on the ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... great comfort that we'll have to make our way in the world, and push our fortunes like boys. We'll have plenty of adventures and rise triumphant over them all, and be such a help to you and father. Think of that, May, you little coward," appealing to her younger sister who, in spite of her small dabbling in masculine acquirements, did not look as if the prospect of pushing her fortune like a boy was full of unmixed charm for her. But she brightened up at the visionary ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... said his conscience, "what a miserable coward you are! After all you have promised, you won't risk a laugh for the sake of getting Kitty into ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... call it. I was a conscientious objector: that is, my conviction was it would be sinful to risk a bullet in a chest full of music, like mine—a treasure-chest. But the fools didn't see it in that light. They made America too hot to hold either Giulio di Napoli or Julian O'Farrell. I'm no coward—I swear to you I'm not, my dear girl! You've only to look me square in the face to see I'm not. I'm full of fire. But ever since I was a boy I've lived for my voice, and you can't die for your voice, like you can for your country. It goes—pop!—with you. ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... defect is allied to a perfection. Hence it is that if, as often happens, we make a mistake about a man, it is because at the beginning of our acquaintance with him we confound his defects with the kinds of perfection to which they are allied. The cautious man seems to us a coward; the economical man, a miser; the spendthrift seems liberal; the rude fellow, downright and sincere; the foolhardy person looks as if he were going to work with a noble self-confidence; and so on in ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... Puff-jaw, you shall not go unpunished for this treachery! You threw me, a castaway, off your body as from a rock. Vile coward! On land you would not have been the better man, boxing, or wrestling, or running; but now you have tricked me and cast me in the water. Heaven has an avenging eye, and surely the host of Mice will punish you ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... a fair field!"—it may be sometimes a coward's apology; but it is many a time the epitome of a great, cramped, tortured, wasted life, which strove like a caged eagle to get free, and never could beat down the bars of the den that circumstances and prejudice had forged. The world sees the few who do reach freedom, ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... look, such as is to be seen only in pale blue eyes;—a look of unyielding hatred and obstinacy; a look which, combined with the evident weakness of character displayed in his features, suggested rather the subtle treachery of a coward than the fierce ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... where they might take to the roads and become successful robbers; but 1500 of the worst were selected for a distant expedition—the conquest of the far-off territory of California. And then a general was found who was in all respects worthy of his soldiery. He was pre-eminently the greatest coward in the Mexican army—so great a coward, that he subsequently, without striking a blow, surrendered a fort, with a garrison of 500 men, unconditionally, to ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... you take me for a fool?" shouted the injured man, in a great rage. "Don't tell me such cock-and-bull stories. First you insult me, and then you lie like a coward; but I'll teach ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... tree at the end of the avenue, and I saw them riding over the rise. They are going to take the place;" and, without waiting to give any further explanations, he slipped through the house and hid himself up somewhere out of the way at the back, for Jantje, like most Hottentots, was a sad coward. ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... bigger!" cried Phoebe indignantly, "and you'm nawthen but a geat coward, Ishmael Ruan. I don't want my pigs ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... that it is the spirit that quickeneth, without which the best of implements profiteth but little. The most improved guns and cannon do not shoot of their own accord; the most modern educational system does not make a coward a hero. No! What won the battles on the Yalu, in Corea and Manchuria, was the ghosts of our fathers, guiding our hands and beating in our hearts. They are not dead, those ghosts, the spirits of our warlike ancestors. To those who have eyes to see, they are clearly visible. Scratch a Japanese ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... beneath the sky be real, those Sons of Freedom would have pistolled, stabbed—in some way slain—that man by coward hands and murderous violence, if he had stood among them at that time. The most confiding of their own countrymen would not have wagered then—no, nor would they ever peril—one dunghill straw, upon the life of any man in such a strait. They tore the letter, cast the fragments in the air, trod ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... stopping to thresh his arms. Late in the evening he saw someone go to the stable, and soon after a double team was driven out. The door of the house opened and a woman came out and entered the carriage. There were good-byes spoken in loud tones with no apparent attempt at concealment. Rodney was no coward, but in his heart he was glad that, instead of two men, he had only one and a woman to deal with. The woman might ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... the words of William Blake: "He who does not love Form more than Colour is a coward." For it is, above all, Form that appeals to Mr. Hardy. The iron plough of his implacable style drives pitilessly through the soft flesh of the earth until it reaches the architectural sub-structure. Whoever tries to visualize any scene out of the Wessex Novels will be forced ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... run away. Even with the anger surging through her, Rose-Marie admitted that the child was not—in one sense—a coward. He had waited, brazenly perhaps, to hear what she had to say. With blazing ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... be honest and speak the truth. Only one who is honest is worthy of trust, and he who tells a lie confesses that he is a coward and afraid to let the truth be known. I will be honest even in little things, and will have no "white lies." Though it may seem a trifle to cheat in school or not play fair in a game, I will be above all trickery and deceit. Both in play and in work my fight ...
— How to Teach Religion - Principles and Methods • George Herbert Betts
... say, sir," he said calmly. "You are right. I am a traitor. I would not have been, but—but—well that makes no difference now. You shall see, sir, that I am no coward. I am not afraid to die. Neither need you fear that I shall not do as you command. Thus shall ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... callousness born of long exposure to danger. One of the bravest men I've ever known stood watching the ticker one day during a downward run. Suddenly I heard "My God, I'm ruined!" and he fell in a faint on the floor. And a certain bank officer, whom I knew to be an arrant coward when arrested for stealing a million, smiled at the policeman who had tapped his shoulder and asked him for a light for his cigarette. Addicks had not turned a hair as he hung up the telephone receiver, and here he was cowering in a mortal ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... girth and limb as the other was puny and misshapen, he had plucked off his sandal that with it he might drive the full force of his arguments through the jester's skull. At that the fool, being a very coward, had fled incontinently through ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... prince take delight in Benedick's conversation, she called trim 'the prince's jester.' This sarcasm sunk deeper into the mind of Benedick than all Beatrice had said before. The hint she gave him that he was a coward, by saying she would eat all he had killed, he did not regard, knowing himself to be a brave man; but there is nothing that great wits so much dread as the imputation of buffoonery, because the charge comes sometimes a little too near the truth: therefore Benedick ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... weak imagination!" replied La Corriveau; "your sickly conscience frightens you! You will need to cast off both to rid Beaumanoir of the presence of your rival! The aqua tofana in the hands of a coward is a gift as fatal to its possessor as ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... it is a sin to wish bad luck to an enemy," the widow remarked. "I will do penance for it. Still, I would strew flowers on his grave with the greatest pleasure, and that is the truth. Black-hearted, that he is! The coward couldn't speak up for his own mother, and cheats you out of your share by deceit and trickery. My cousin had a pretty fortune of her own, but unluckily for you, nothing was said in the marriage-contract about anything that she might ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... mind that coward insult and the outrage foul and keen, Flung on Drupad's saintly daughter and our ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... I was going to say, when I started to talk about '41,—to tell the truth, Johnny, I'm always a long while coming to it, I believe. I'm getting to be an old man,—a little of a coward, maybe, and sometimes, when I sit alone here nights, and think it over, it's just like the toothache, Johnny. As I was saying, if she had cut that wick straight, I do believe it wouldn't have happened,—though it isn't that I mean to lay ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... methinks that thou wilt in no sort be a coward and a weakling, if indeed in thy youth the gods thus follow with thee to be thy guides. For truly this is none other of those who keep the mansions of Olympus, save only the daughter of Zeus, the ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... me,' she said. 'Only the Jew thinks he's going to show his courage. But he's the biggest coward of them all, really, because he's afwaid what people will think about him—and Julius doesn't care ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... Sir," responded Solomon, civilly; but his thick lips curled contemptuously, and he muttered, "So this man is lily-livered after all; so much the better: it is well to have a coward for ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... say as he hid under the table. "As long as there are roses and lilies on the earth shall I not remain here?" would come the voice of the citizen from under the bed. It would be quite as easy to defend the coward as a kind of poet and mystic as it has been, in many recent books, to defend the emotionalist as a kind of poet and mystic, or the tyrant as a kind of poet and mystic. When that last grand sophistry and morbidity is preached in a book or on a ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... carried back to the city a brief response from David Windom. In a shaken, sprawling hand he informed her that if she ever decided to return to her home ALONE, he would receive her and forgive her for the sake of the love he bore her, but if she came with the coward who stole her away from him, he would kill him ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... him a coward, for you must remember he was hardly sixteen years old at the time, and that this was the first affair of the sort he had encountered. Afterward, as you shall learn, he showed that he could exhibit courage enough at ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... rush out. If they stood by their orders, then the King's life hung on the swiftness with which we could force the outer door; and I thanked God that not Rupert Hentzau watched, but Detchard. For though Detchard was a cool man, relentless, and no coward, he had neither the dash nor the recklessness of Rupert. Moreover, he, if any one of them, really loved Black Michael, and it might be that he would leave Bersonin to guard the King, and rush across the bridge to take part in the affray on the ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... stared at the man in the car. He had seen that face before only for a few seconds beneath the electric light at Long Wharf on the waterfront. But he would have known it anywhere, for it had been indelibly impressed upon his memory. So Ben Stubbles was the contemptible coward who had pushed that woman into the water and left her to her fate! He had often longed to come face to face with that man, and he had planned what he would do when they met. But here he was before him, haughty and impudent, ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... Ruth was afraid of what terrors the forest might hold, and of her general situation, she had seen enough of this boy to know that he was just a poor, miserable coward—he aroused no ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... powder entirely. The sight of this disgusted me so that I became furious, and in the measure that my anger rose my fear subsided and vanished. I railed at the poor fellow and abused and cursed him shamefully, threatening to kill him for being a coward and a fool. I made him draw the bullet and reload his musket ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... and to do Their part in shaping issues to an end. Silence may guard the door of useless words, At dictate of Discretion; but to stand Without opinions in a world which needs Constructive thinking, is a coward's part. ...
— Poems of Optimism • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... him to this? If he had been wronged and injured, why could not he redress himself like other injured men? If revenge were necessary to him, why could he not avenge himself like a man, instead of leaguing with others to commit murder in the dark, like a coward and a felon? And then he thought of his position with Keegan and Ussher. There was something manly in his original disposition; he would have given anything for a stand up fight with the attorney with equal weapons; if it had been sure death to both, he would have fought ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... was by her royal and legitimate rival? Is Hero then lighting the lamp up, and getting ready the supper, whilst Leander is sitting comfortably with some other party, and never in the least thinking of taking to the water? Ever since that coward's blow was struck in Lady Maria's back by her own relative, surely kind hearts must pity her ladyship. I know she has faults—ay, and wears false hair and false never mind what. But a woman in distress, shall we not pity her—a lady of a certain age, are we going to laugh at her because of her ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... them with duplicity, and avows that he loathes their king like the gates of hell.[2] He next reverts to himself: The warrior has no thanks, he exclaims in the bitterness of disappointment—"The coward and the brave man are held in equal honour." Nay, he goes further, and quarrels with providence and fixed destiny.—"After all, the idler, and the man of many achievements, each must die."[3] To-morrow, ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... weak rule, the spirit of liberty had grown strong, and had become equal to a great contest. The contest was brought on by the policy of his successor. Charles bore no resemblance to his father. He was not a driveller, or a pedant, or a buffoon, or a coward. It would be absurd to deny that he was a scholar and a gentleman, a man of exquisite tastes in the fine arts, a man of strict morals in private life. His talents for business were respectable; his demeanour was kingly. But he was false, imperious, obstinate, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... it seemed as if the Stuart luck had turned. Charles might well conceive himself happy. Upon his sword sat laurel victory. Smooth success was strewn before his feet. The blundering and bewildered Cope actually allowed Charles and his army to get past him. Cope was neither a coward nor a traitor, but he was a terrible blunderer, and while the English general was marching upon Inverness Charles was triumphantly entering Perth. From Perth the young prince, with hopeless, helpless Cope still in his rear, ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... that," the Squire blandly submitted. "For one thing, and the main thing, because he was a coward. He had plently of audacity but mighty little courage, and his courage gave out just when he needed it the most. And perhaps he hadn't perfect faith in himself; he was a fool, but he wasn't a crazy fool. Then again, my idea is that the scale was too small, or ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... on the most timid of men. Who told you that a soldier was never afraid, young sir? Whoever it was did not know what he was talking about. Yes, I have been afraid, deadly afraid, many times over, and no man dared to call Terence Digby a coward. To camp with a handful of men among the great lonely mountains, as your sister so aptly puts it, never knowing when or how the attack may fall—an attack of devils rather than men; to know that if you ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... armed at all pieces on a noble horse, with a great spear in his hand; and then he cried with a loud voice: Where art thou now, thou false traitor, Sir Launcelot? Why hidest thou thyself within holes and walls like a coward? Look out now, thou false traitor knight, and here I shall revenge upon thy body the death of my three brethren. All this language heard Sir Launcelot every deal; and his kin and his knights drew about him, and all they said at once to Sir Launcelot: ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... knights. One of his arms he carried in a sling, because of a recent injury. To render his condition yet more deplorable, his thigh had just been broken, as he rode up, by a kick from the unmanageable horse of his brother-in-law, La Rochefoucauld. The prince was no coward. Turning to his little company of followers, he exclaimed: "My friends, true noblesse of France, here is the opportunity we have long wished for in vain! Our God is the God of Battles. He loves to be ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... calmly considering what was best to be done. No coward fear troubled his mind, yet he clearly saw the various risks he must run. He thought of heaving his ballast overboard and trying to ride out the gale where he was, but then he must abandon all hope of reaching the harbour by his own unaided efforts. He might ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston
... Captain Blank, they whetted their swords together when peace was declared. Captain said, 'General, I'm not crazy and neither am I a coward. I looked up and seem like a man was comin' out the clouds, and so I'm goin' ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... that Stewart Morrison is no politician! But I noticed the queer flash in your eyes, Billy Tasper! Do you think he is a coward and has run away?" ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... the colored man to the attack of the Indians had a good effect. It frightened the Alaskans, and, notwithstanding the demands of the rascally white man, they would not again advance. They wanted to consider matters first, and Callack was too big a coward to ...
— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster
... when he looked upon the horrible deed of his hands, he then suddenly felt a loathsome, abominable, abject fear. The half-naked body of Verka was still quivering on the bed. The legs of Dilectorsky gave in from horror; but the reason of a hypocrite, coward and blackguard kept vigil: he did still have spirit sufficient to stretch away at his side the skin over his ribs, and to shoot through it. And when he was falling, frantically crying out from pain, from fright, and from the thunder of the shot, the last convulsion was running ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... those censors who make a coward of you can always find something to say in blame of every action, some taunt with which to reflect upon every word. Do not, then, suffer yourself to be hampered by the dread of depreciating remarks being made upon your conversation or ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... all as only a bad nightmare she's been through." His jaw clinched again so that the muscles stood out on his cheeks. "Do you know she won't say a word—not even to her mother—about who the villain is that betrayed her? I'd wring his coward neck off for him," he finished with a ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... every white man in Texas feels about it. And if such a wonder as a coward existed among them, he understands that he may as well die fighting Mexicans, as die of hunger or be scalped by Indians. A large proportion of the colonists depend on their rifles for their daily ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... gentleness and love. No rancor should remain, no vengeance should be sought; they who met in mortal conflict on the battle-field should be no longer enemies, but embrace as comrades, as friends, as brothers. None but a coward kicks a fallen foe; a brave people is generous, and the victors in the late war can afford to be generous generously. They fought for the Union, and the Union has no longer an enemy; their late enemies ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... he truly believe in God who is the truth? He who thinks to reach God by running away from the world, when and where does he expect to meet him? How far can he fly—can he fly and fly, till he flies into nothingness itself? No, the coward who would fly can nowhere find him. We must be brave enough to be able to say: We are reaching him here in this very spot, now at this very moment. We must be able to assure ourselves that as in our actions we are realising ourselves, so ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... right, sir; that is why I feared my weakness. I called you in order that the sight of you might keep alive my indignation and rekindle my wrath, for you have been a witness of my dishonor, sir. So, tell me that if I pardon I would be a coward, that I should merit my fate. Is it not ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... but a big bluff and a coward. You would have known that he was a coward, by the lies he had told and by the way he had attacked us. He wilted ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... to coward fools!—I want none of your priestcraft,' returned the nobleman. 'Do I not know the reason of all this affected love for justice and mercy. Your grand-daughter was to have married this midnight robber—they ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... he had taken for a coward, was calmly ready and was apparently quite willing to give his life—his life!—in order to save his enemy's soul. The robber had almost forgotten that he had a soul. His manhood was black and stained ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... because he is such a coward. Pray, he couldn't help it; he was too frightened. You were too frightened, weren't you, Robert? You are such a ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... commit weak and imbecile crimes, which mark the doer as a sneak and a coward. These men rob hen roosts, waylay helpless women and old men, steal clothing in hallways, and burn buildings. They are always cowardly about everything they do, and never have the pluck to steal chickens even until ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship
... scream and appear frightened than he yelled most loudly, and, running to me, caught my clothes, clinched his fists, and appeared really alarmed for two minutes. It was not affectation. Do you think this trait ominous of a coward? You know my abhorrence and contempt of those animals. Really I have been uneasy ever since it happened. You see I follow your injunction to the letter. How do you like this essay? Have ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... I've got a tidy bit of pluck in me when I'm stirred up—as much as most men have—but I can't stand rattlers. The idea of getting bitten sends a cold chill all down my back. I'd a deal sooner be hugged by a grizzly. Poison snakes and mad dogs make a regular coward ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... said Jane, "if you are not a coward, which I strongly suspect you are;" and when was a spirited boy of thirteen so urged on that had the prudence to know where to stop with propriety to himself. Marten, choking with rage, did advance to the door pointed out, and put his head inside, and ...
— Brotherly Love - Shewing That As Merely Human It May Not Always Be Depended Upon • Mrs. Sherwood
... Master Jeremy Sparrow. "Go hang thyself, coward, or, if you choose, swim out to the Spaniard, and shift from thy wet doublet and hose into a sanbenito. Let the don come, shoot if he can, and land if he will! We'll singe his beard in Virginia as we ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... Had you not told me so at the outset," he continued, still speaking very quietly and deliberately and never raising his voice, "I would even now be standing over you, dog-whip in hand, to thrash you as a defaulting coward and a perjurer .... Bah!" he added with a return to his habitual bonhomie, "I would no doubt even have lost my temper with you. Which would have been purposeless and excessively bad ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... all safe; but that carpenter and justice of the peace, Mr., or as they call him, Squire, Doolittle, was prowling through the woods. I made sure of the door before I left the hut, and I think he is too great a coward ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... is a bully he needs bullying. If ever corporal punishment is wise it is in such a case. He who inflicts pain simply because he can deserves to endure pain inflicted by someone stronger. But one must be careful not to confirm him in the coward's code. The injustice of it he must see, see by smarting under it. If ever punishment before others is wise it is in this case; for surely he who delights in humiliating others must be humiliated. But though justice suggests this course, ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... poisonous; therefore have I on me shield and byrnie. . . . Then did the famous warrior arise beside his shield, hard under helmet he bare the sword- shirt, under the cliffs of stone, he trusted in the strength of one man; nor is such an expedition for a coward." ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... doing that?" There were dangerous lights in the dark eyes, lights that showed the brutality of the coward and ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... and you toasted the Day, And now the Day has come. Blasphemer, braggart and coward all, Little you reck of the numbing ball, The blasting shell, or the "white arm's" fall, As ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Sperry into a state of positive alarm and kept his heart thumping the while, until a yawn of his host and a cheerful good-night relieved him of his fear. The doctor, like others of his ilk, was innately a coward. ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... "It was a coward blow," returned Matcham. "Y' are but a lout and bully, Master Dick; ye but abuse advantages; let there come a stronger, we will see you truckle at his boot! Ye care not for vengeance, neither—for your father's death that goes unpaid, and his poor ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 1792, the tragedy hastened to its denouement. On the night of the 9th, the tocsin was sounded, and the King and the Royal Family looked upon their fate as sealed. Notwithstanding the personal firmness of His Majesty, he was a coward for others. He dreaded the responsibility of ordering blood to be shed, even in defence of his nearest and dearest interests. Petion, however, had given the order to repel force by force to De Mandat, who was murdered ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... well, and Stryker's a coward. They gave me no trouble. I locked them in Stryker's room, lifted the bag of jewels, and came away.... I ought to tell you that they were discussing the advisability of sailing away without you—leaving you here, ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... these regions? But thou shalt buy thy rashness with thy death, And rue too late thy over bold attempts; For with this sword, this instrument of death, That hath been drenched in my foe-men's blood, I'll separate thy body from they head, And set that coward ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... waves, to see the frail bush at which the hand clutches uprooted; hard, when alone in the crowded thoroughfare of travel, to have one's last bank-note declared a counterfeit. I knew I should not be able to see her face, under the shade of this disappointment; and so, coward that I was, I turned this trouble, where I have turned so ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... believed, of cattle; for these would stray in bellowing herds about narrow lanes, and they would all charge straight through them, missing the lowered horns by some incredible fluke of fortune. If this seems to make Gerda a coward, it should be remembered that she showed none of these inward blenchings, but went on her way with the rest, composed as a little wax figure at Madame Tussaud's. She was, in fact, of the stuff of which martyrs are made, and would ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... nothing to him? I snatched up a log and hit him over the head two or three times, but the coward started bleeding and gave in; I should have liked to have given him more, but they came running out of their ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... last time, no," said I over my shoulder. "Strike me if you will," I went on, seeing him raise his fist, "I shall not defend myself, but I tell you this, Black George, the first blow you strike will brand you coward, and no honest man." ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... of the House had prevented him from replying to the attack at the time in the terms it deserved; that he had since demanded satisfaction of Moore for his language, and that Moore had refused to respond, and will thereupon pronounce him a liar and a coward." "Then," said Baldwin, "Judge Field will get shot in his seat." "In that case," rejoined Broderick, "there will be others shot too." Mr. Broderick soon afterwards informed me of his conversation with Baldwin, and asked ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... and he had much to live for, as the world reckons. He was rich (a thing not to be lightly held), one of the most popular M. P.'s in England, and the possessor of a fine old name. It would be a coward's part, surely, to spend the rest of his life in bemoaning the dead past. He would take up the duties that lay near at hand, become the true successor of his respected father, old Sir Charles, and delight the heart of his fond mother, the Lady Henrietta, by marrying ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... lofty calm). It is all true save only that I am a weakling; I am neither a weakling nor a coward. ...
— The Vikings of Helgeland - The Prose Dramas Of Henrik Ibsen, Vol. III. • Henrik Ibsen
... ... False coward, wreak thy wif; By corpus domini, I will have thy knife, And thou shalt have my distaff and ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... fewer words than were natural to him, left the presence, sprang on his horse, and as he rode from the palace, drew a letter from his bosom. "Ah, Edward," said he, setting his teeth, "so, after the solemn betrothal of thy daughter to my son, thou wouldst have given her to thy Lancastrian enemy. Coward, to bribe his peace! recreant, to belie thy word! I thank thee for this news, Warwick; for without that injury I feel I could never, when the hour came, have drawn sword against this faithless man,—especially for Lancaster. ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... will be sought after by many a better man than myself,"—he said—"Even rich men, who do not need her millions, are likely to admire her—and why should I stand in her way?—I, who haven't a penny to call my own! I should be a coward if I kept her to her promise. For she does not know yet—she does not see what the possession of Helmsley's millions will mean to her. And by and bye when she does know she will change—she will be grateful to me for ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... days, never to be recalled without a blush, the days of servitude without loyalty and sensuality without love, of dwarfish talents and gigantic vices, the paradise of cold hearts and narrow minds, the golden age of the coward, the bigot, and the slave. The King cringed to his rival that he might trample on his people, sank into a viceroy of France, and pocketed, with complacent infamy, her degrading insults and her more degrading gold. The caresses of harlots and the jests of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... eagerly agreed; then her voice took on the timbre of anxiety. "I am afraid. Sometimes I am afraid for him. He is not a coward, but there are times when we all become weak. I appoint you, Sir Manuel—" the girl smiled wanly—"I appoint you my Ambassador to be with him and watch after him—and, Sir Manuel—" her voice shook a little with very deep feeling—"I am giving you the office I had rather have than all ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... were ambushed at several points in that defile, but our perfect preparation intimidated our foes. The Indian is cruel as the grave, but he is an arrant coward. He will not risk being the first man shot, though his band ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... doorway of the cave. He was trying to think what to do. It was an awkward situation. He didn't want to be caught in what looked, on the face of it, like an act of spying, and yet he didn't wish Masterson and his cronies to think him a coward. ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... together. Raise the draw! Close the gates! Let the first to flee be the first to die, and at the castle gates! Let them make an unwilling stand in defense of their own lives and so defend the gates! They tell me a coward fights hard when cornered. Dare disobey at your peril! It is the ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... To me—not of me! Ungrateful, perjured cheat! A coward, too: but ingrate's worse than all! Beggar—my slave—a fawning, cringing lie! Leave me! Betray me! I can see your drift! 245 A lie that walks and ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... anything of the kind," she retorted, trying to break from his grasp. "Do you suppose you can kill me, too, without being found out? There is a detective here now, and Sir David Southern is not at hand to lay the blame on. You coward! ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... am ruining Mitya from jealousy on her account! Yes, she thinks that! But it's not so. To-morrow the cross, but not the gallows. No, I shan't hang myself. Do you know, I can never commit suicide, Alyosha. Is it because I am base? I am not a coward. Is it from love of life? How did I know that Smerdyakov had hanged himself? Yes, it was he ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... kill him—a tyrant—a black man! Bah! Are you too a coward?" And she sprang to her feet, the veins swelling on her white brow, her cheeks colouring, her eyes flashing fire, as if she, at least, knew not the meaning of fear. "Sooner than let such a wretch inherit my father's wealth," she cried out, "I will kill him myself—kill ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... equally eloquent: Bossu says of the Osage Indians that they suffer the pain of tattooing with pleasure in order to pass for men of courage. If one of them should have himself marked without having previously distinguished himself in battle, he would be degraded and looked upon as a coward, unworthy of such an honor. (Mallery, ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... Sylvia as they did on a stranger; and besides, she felt as if the less reply Molly received, the less likely would it be that she would go on in the same strain. So she coaxed and chattered to her child and behaved like a little coward in trying to draw out of the conversation, while at the same time ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... purpose," he thought. "She's been wondering about that trip to town to-morrow. Mother fancies I'm going after Brita, to fetch her home. She doesn't suspect that I'm too big a coward to do it." ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... silent," said Denham. "Val, if we die for it, repeat my words in Dutch. But if I live I'll kill that man, or he shall kill me.—Moriarty, you're a treacherous coward and a cur, to strike a helpless, ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... Reddy Fox, who had been listening. "You're a coward. I wouldn't have run! I would have waited and found out what it was. You and Peter Rabbit would run ...
— The Adventures of Prickly Porky • Thornton W. Burgess
... Apostle of the Individual. "Insist upon Thyself!" Emerson says—not once, but it runs as a refrain through everything he wrote or thought. "Always do what you are afraid to do!" "The Lord will not make his works manifest by a coward." "God hates a coward." "America is only another name for Opportunity." My quotations come from random memory, but the spirit is right. It is the spirit which Americans have been obliged to have since the days when the Fathers walked to meeting in fear of Indian arrows. And they need it yet. It ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... longer felt as in the previous September, that the United States had no immediate interest in the war, this group included influential men of business and many writers. They had lost patience with Wilson's patience. His policy was, in their opinion, that of a coward. On the other hand, Wilson was assailed by pro-Germans and die-hard pacifists; the former believed that the British blockade justified Germany's submarine warfare; the latter were afraid even of strong language in diplomatic notes, lest it lead ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... You are a liar, M. de Rohan. A coward, for you calumniate a woman; and a traitor, ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... joke after all—own I did it well. Ecod! if he had not given me that look, I think I should have turned the tables on him. But those d—-d fellows learn of the mad doctors how to tame us. Faith, my heart went down to my shoes—yet I'm no coward!" ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... easy to save one's self at a dead man's expense. And he knew that George's strength and courage had meant more than her life to Lucy. How could he cause her the bitter pain? How could he tell her that her brother died because he was a coward and a rogue? How could he tell her the pitiful story of the boy's failure to redeem the good name that was so dear to her? And what proof could he offer of anything he said? Walker had been killed on the same night as ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... towards it. Finally, he became afraid to walk about the room. It seemed as though some one were on the point of stepping up behind him; and every time he turned, he glanced timidly back. He had never been a coward; but his imagination and nerves were sensitive, and that evening he could not explain his involuntary fear. He seated himself in one corner, but even then it seemed to him that some one was peeping over his shoulder into his ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... the road narrowed to meet the low stone walls, and he knew as well as though he saw it that the carriage would catch the bridge and be shivered to match-wood. The horses must be stopped before they reached it, or the lady would be killed. Now Acton, with all his faults, was no coward. Without thinking of the terrible risk he ran, he sprang out into the middle of the road and waved his arms frantically at the horses moving like a thunderbolt towards him. But they were too maddened with terror to heed this waving apparition ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... you've heard we've gotten on a bit. You must even have heard of this"—placing her hand over the jar of the Brown Cold Cream. "You want to be in at the feast. You're so easy to read that I can tell you what you're after before you can get the coward words out. Marry ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... left—if you will only make haste. Go after them; overtake them; thrash him within an inch of his life; and bring her back and punish her how you please so long as you shew her that you care. You can do it if you will only make up your mind: he is a coward; and he is afraid of you: I have seen it in his eye. You are worth fifty of him—if you would only not be so cold blooded—if you will only go—dear Mr. Conolly—youre not really insensible—you will, ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... of his belly. He is a bloodsucker and a vampire. He lays unholy hands on heaven and hell at cent. per cent., and his very existence is a sacrilege and a blasphemy. And yet here am I, wilting before him, an arrant coward, with no respect for him and less for myself. Why should this shame be? Let me rouse in my strength and smite him, and, by so doing, ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... Do you not fear the consequences of such perfidy? If Cais were here he would send you to your death, instantly." Abou-Firacah returned to his father, to whom he told all that the wife of Cais had said "What, you coward," shouted Hadifah, "do you come back without completing your errand? Are you afraid of the daughter of Rebia? Go to ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... The interpreter was no coward. He had prepared himself to endure manfully the bastinado on the soles of his feet—as it was usually administered—but when he perceived that they were about to inflict the blows on a more tender part of his body, he trembled ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... spy.... But, at any rate, there was the twitch of the lips ... I deliberately threw weight into the scale of Mrs. Boyce's foolish question. If he had not lost his balance, why should he have launched into an almost passionate defence of the physical coward? ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... or arm whatsoever, and never use tartan, plaid, or any part of the Highland garb; and if I do so, may I be cursed in my undertakings, family and property; may I never see my wife and children, father, mother or relations; may I be killed in battle as a coward, and lie without Christian burial, in a strange land, far from the graves of my forefathers and kindred: may all this come across me if ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... hope I'm not more of a coward than most men, but in face of dynamite—ugh!" and he ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... boys quarrelled, and one wet the other boy's buttons with his spittle, this was a challenge to fight or be dubbed a coward. ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... bedside of her wounded hero, but again poor Mira's nerves gave way. She could not go to that dreadful place, so much nearer those frightful savages. Oh, why, why hadn't they brought her Percy here? Even Mrs. McPhail was no such coward as that. She drove back without her, and not for hours after was Mira strong enough to go. By that time he was sleeping placidly when, trembling still and pathetically pale, Mira was escorted to his bedside, and that night Mrs. Cranston had ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... why I like it. No man ever called me a coward let him try it once. I never give in and that horse shall not conquer me. I'll break his neck, if he breaks my spirit doing it. No I don't mean that never mind it's all right," and Charlie laughed in a way that troubled her, because there ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... to you, J.W. I've never said so before, but I've been wanting somebody to ask me to be a Christian for a long time. I was a coward about it, and wouldn't let on. I've been wanting to find out what I've got to do, but I wouldn't ask. Do you think ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... his sons, was one of my most loved and trusted guides, and my companion, for thousands of miles, in birch canoe by summer, and dog-trains by winter. We have looked death in the face together many times, but I never knew him to flinch or play a coward's part. Supplies might fail, and storms and head-winds delay us, until starvation stared us in the face, and even the Missionary himself began to question the wisdom of taking these wild journeys where the chances were largely ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... find out which was best. Caesar or Pompey by the test. In those past combats "rich and rare" Luke Cuzner always had his share. For Luke in days of auld lang syne Did most pugnaciously incline, Never to challenge slack or slow, And never stain'd by "coward's blow." The Joyces too, Mick, John and Walter, In battle's path did seldom falter, But "Jimmy," in those days of grace Held a peacemaker's blessed place, Nor has he wander'd far astray From the same calm and tranquil way. The belt was worn by any one Who had the latest battle ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... stiffen. He clenched his fat fists. Amazement fled before rage upon that furious face, perspiration streamed from every pore. His eyes shot this way and that like black bullets. No other man in the world can become so infuriated as the coward, for the brave man knows that he can satisfy his anger. He reserves it as a force to use in vengeance. He is temperate in that. But the worm-soul, which must crawl and be satisfied with merely stinging the heel of his enemy, ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... led by choice or interest, sought a new patron in the person of the Earl of Mulgrave. For this nobleman Rochester had long entertained a bitter animosity, which had arisen from rivalry, and had been intensified from the fact that Rochester, refusing to fight him, had been branded as a coward. Not daring to attack the peer, Rochester resolved to avenge himself upon the poet. In order to effect his humiliation, the earl at once bestowed his favour on Elkanah Settle, a playwright and poet ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... cut, he did not fear. When a man has shown such a power of action in the face of danger as Cicero displayed at forty-four in his Consulship, and again at sixty-four in his prolonged struggle with Antony, it is contrary to nature that he should have been a coward ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... eyes, I mean; sought to impress it with your mental dominance? Disease is a coward, we are told, a coward who leaves us, when it knows we feel no fear of it. If you just once would assert your manliness, ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... the effect!" said Pomp. "Your friends have discovered the ambush, thanks to that coward's uproar; and now the rascals are panic-struck! Fire again as they go into the ravine—powder alone will do now—a little noise will send ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... I think it means that you ought all to have the same kind of consciences. You ought to be equal in right doing. And in love of country. You ought to know when war is righteous, and when peace is righteous. And you can all be equal in this, that no man can make you lie or steal or be a coward." ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... ironfounders and cobblers, painters and decorators—one and all busily engaged in fabricating the implements of war; so that an onlooker might have thought the city of Ephesus itself a gigantic arsenal. It would have kindled courage in the breast of a coward to see the long lines of soldiers, with Agesilaus at their head, all garlanded as they marched in proud procession from the gymnasiums and dedicated their wreaths to our Lady Artemis. Since, where these three elements ...
— Agesilaus • Xenophon
... had just been repaired and a pile of small, sharp-edged stones lay close at hand. Clara picked one of them up and handed it to the school teacher. "Hit him," she said. "Don't be afraid. He's only a coward. Hit him on ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... took place in the conservatory of Mr. Merton's house, in Park Lane, where Lord Arthur had dined as usual. Sybil had never seemed more happy, and for a moment Lord Arthur had been tempted to play the coward's part, to write to Lady Clementina for the pill, and to let the marriage go on as if there was no such person as Mr. Podgers in the world. His better nature, however, soon asserted itself, and even when Sybil flung herself weeping into his arms, he did not falter. ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... on the previous evening. And what had led him to this? If he had been wronged and injured, why could not he redress himself like other injured men? If revenge were necessary to him, why could he not avenge himself like a man, instead of leaguing with others to commit murder in the dark, like a coward and a felon? And then he thought of his position with Keegan and Ussher. There was something manly in his original disposition; he would have given anything for a stand up fight with the attorney with equal weapons; if it had been sure death to both, he would have fought him to the death; ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... after a brief pause, "who do you think it was again? Bah! it would be too long to tell you all, and would only make you more sad; but it was a man whom your father had many reasons to hate. When he found himself face to face with him, he said: 'if you are not a coward, you will give me one hour's liberty, and we will fight to the death; I hate you for this, I despise you for that'—and so on. The colonel accepted the challenge, and gave your father his liberty till the morrow. The duel was a desperate one; the colonel ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... full height, and drew a deep breath. "Well, I guess I manage a little Christmas after this," she said, "and maybe a Fourth of July, and a birthday, and a few other things. I needn't be such a coward. I believe ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... and, if I thought it would do good, I would gladly fight him, but I fear that it would do harm. Such a scoundrel must needs be a coward, and he might call for aid, and I might be dragged off to Lancaster. Moreover, he is Ciceley's father, and my cousin Celia's husband, and, were I to kill him, it would separate me altogether from them. However, I shall in all things be guided by your father. He will know ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... and postmaster and flat-boatman. Who had followed a rough judge dealing a rough justice around a rough circuit; who had rolled a local bully in the dirt; rescued women from insult; tended the bedside of many a sick coward who feared the Judgment; told coarse stories on barrels by candlelight (but these are pure beside the vice of great cities); who addressed political mobs in the raw, swooping down from the stump and flinging embroilers east and west. This physician who was ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Billy knew himself a craven coward. Only by keeping his eyes away from the face near him could he hope for success in argument. And Cap'n Billy, with all the strength of his simple, honest nature, meant to succeed in the present ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... at the cold-blooded tone in which these men discussed the killing of the boys, but Ted only smiled, for he knew that Burk was at heart a coward, and that he did not care to rush, nor would he stand a ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... ill becomes you to assail one who cannot defend himself; mount your steed and take your lance" (for there was a lance leaning against the oak to which the mare was tied), "and I will make you know that you are behaving as a coward." The farmer, seeing before him this figure in full armour brandishing a lance over his head, gave himself up for dead, and made answer meekly, "Sir Knight, this youth that I am chastising is my servant, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... angry tones, "it ill becomes you to assail one who cannot defend himself! Mount your steed and take your lance! I will make you know that you are behaving like a coward!" ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... that this beast is almost sacred, and a white man who kills one runs some danger of his life, if the crime is discovered. It is hardly to be wondered at that the hyaenas in the "Kikuyu" country are far bolder than in other parts. Elsewhere and by nature the hyaena is an arrant coward. Here, however, he will bite the face off a sleeping man lying in the open, or even pull down a woman or child, should they be alone; elsewhere he only ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... seeing that others also have lost their fathers. But sometimes, if it so chance that she hear from some one that Orestes prepareth to come back to this land, she is furious above measure, and rageth as a wild beast; and her husband, this coward that maketh war against women, stirreth up her fury against me. And still do I look for Orestes when he shall come; but he tarrieth long, and in the meantime I perish ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church
... into Bristol Harbour in the time of our fathers? I would have given L500 to have had you and the Anti-Slavery Society in Dara during the three days of doubt whether the slave-dealers would fight or not. A bad fort, a coward garrison, and not one who did not tremble—on the other side a strong, determined set of men accustomed to war, good shots, with two field-pieces. I would have liked to hear what you would all have said then. I do not say this in brag, for God ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... of Carmen. Was she worth such sacrifice as he and Rosendo were making? God forgive him! Yes—a thousand times yes! If he betrayed Rosendo's confidence and fled like a coward now, leaving her to fall into the sooty hands of men like Padre Diego, to be crushed, warped, and squeezed into the molds of Holy Church, could he ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... bounty of Louis XVI., but when he considered the immense value of the revolutionary plunder, called national property, and that those who confiscated could also promote, he did not hesitate what party to take. A traitor is generally a coward; he has everywhere experienced defeats; he was defeated by his Royalist countrymen in 1793, by his Mahometan sectaries in 1800, and by your ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... women, and their disfigured persons, which could not be published elsewhere, of so much stock upon a farm, or at a show of beasts:- do we not know that that man, whenever his wrath is kindled up, will be a brutal savage? Do we not know that as he is a coward in his domestic life, stalking among his shrinking men and women slaves armed with his heavy whip, so he will be a coward out of doors, and carrying cowards' weapons hidden in his breast, will shoot men down and stab them when he quarrels? And if our reason did not teach us ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... "you both know I am not a coward. I shall aid you with my arm or my life; but it is a terrible business. Let us have caution, or we fail. ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... both waited on the wall in breathless silence, and then Alec, with a reckless disregard of what might be in store for him, gently let himself drop, and I, fearing more, if anything, than the present danger, to be for ever after branded as a coward if I held back, timidly followed suit. By a great stroke of luck we alighted in safety on a soft carpeting of moss. Not a word was spoken, but, falling on hands and knees, and guiding ourselves by means of a dark lantern ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... and rose to his feet. He wiped the blood from his face, and then seemed undecided what to do. He struck no blow, but spoke in tones loud enough for the watchers to hear him plainly. "I might have expected this," he said. "It was a coward's blow, the kind of blow such as you always strike. But, remember, I always pay my debts—always, even to the uttermost farthing." Then he walked ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... they will kill me," Hare-Lip spluttered, "for they will know I have told you. Yet am I not all a coward, and I will stay with you, ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... be worse than murdher," she exclaimed, "to do so. No—prepare him by your advice, Fardorougha, ay, and by your example, to be firm—and tell him that his mother expects he will die like an innocent man—noble and brave—and not like a guilty coward, afeard to look up and ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... villain and coward!" yelled the people, more fiercely than before. "He is making game of us! He has no Gorgon's head! Show us the head, if you have it, or we will take your own ...
— The Gorgon's Head - (From: "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that Antonio afterwards proved to be a stout, able, willing man, and a faithful servant, although a most arrant coward. ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... and staff, and awaited orders. General Breckenridge rode up to General Johnson, and after conversing in a low tone for a few minutes, Johnson said, so that many heard it, "I will lead your brigade into the fight to-day; for I intend to show these Tennesseans and Kentuckians that I am no coward." Poor general! you were not allowed the privilege. We then advanced in line of battle, and General Statham's brigade was engaged first. "Boys," said Breckenridge, "we must take that battery which is shelling Statham. ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson
... being within the soul of a woman. She had been searching only for her own happiness. The search had entangled another in the meshes of her life. Too much had been lived in the past two weeks to be undone by a word and forgotten in a day. She had attempted, coward-like, to run. ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... a sincere book. You have built your life on the lines there indicated. And there is a charm not merely in that sincerity but in the freedom of the life so built. I could not, for instance, follow my thoughts as you do. I do not call myself a coward for these limitations. I believe it to be a bit of my build; you say that limitation has no other sanction than convention—race inheritance, at least so I gather. Moral is derived from mos. Be it so. Does not that then fortify the common conviction that the moral is the best? Men ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... forces under Gen. Lewis, two of his men (Clay and Coward) who were out hunting and at some little distance from each other, came near to where two Indians were concealed. Seeing Clay only, and supposing him to be alone, one of them fired at him; and running up to scalp him as he fell, was himself shot by Coward, ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... to Napoleon what Arakcheev was to Alexander—though not a coward like Arakcheev, he was as precise, as cruel, and as unable to express his devotion to his monarch ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... a very useless creature, a foolish, silly, cherished, coward male. It was wild to see him rush up and down in the back yard, barking and bouncing at the wall, when there was some dog out beyond, but when the very littlest one there was got inside of the fence and only looked at Peter, Peter would retire to ...
— Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena • Gertrude Stein
... "I am not yet conquered; I shall not retreat like a coward. I have made one step, and I shall follow it up, if I can. What matters it if they refuse to take me in this big proud ship? There are others in port—scores of others. Some of them may be glad to have me. I shall try them all before I give ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... reach of the Cyclops, I called out to tease him, 'Ha! Cyclops, Cyclops, thou hast not been entertaining a coward. Zeus and the other gods have avenged the brave men whom ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... it would make a coward violent to see his mother tormented as you are by this fellow, and not to be allowed to put a ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... to let matters stand as they are; but if you start on fresh enterprises, and embark on the tempestuous sea of danger, then I put down my foot and very boldly 'halt.' I will not take another step with you. I can see by the looks of both of you that you think me a fool and a coward. Heaven grant that the future may not show you only too plainly that I have been in the right. Think over this. For twenty years fortune has favored us, but, believe me, it is never wise to tempt her too ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... left—owing, I suppose, to the force of old associations—actually the poor man approached the table, took up a pipe, filled it with tobacco, and smoked it. From that hour, strange to say, he recovered, wrote a translation of the Psalms, became a trustee of Coward's College, and took charge of a church at Uxbridge. This is 'a fac,' as Artemus Ward would say, and 'facs' are stubborn things. Of this Mr. Walford, the well-known publisher of that name in St. Paul's Churchyard was a son, and the firm of Hodder and Stoughton may be said to carry ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... been a petrified spectator of the Captain-Kettle-like manoeuvres of the cricket captain, and it did not take him long to make up his mind. He was not altogether a coward. In different circumstances he might have put up a respectable show. But it takes a more than ordinarily courageous person to embark on a fight which he knows must end in his destruction. Robinson knew that he was nothing like a match even for Stone, and Adair had disposed ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... paltry boy, and more a coward then a Hare, his dishonesty appeares, in leauing his frend heere in necessity, and denying him: and ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... have a shot without receiving one," cried Gascoigne: "the fact is that this fellow's a confounded coward, and ought to be ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... devilish instruments of torture were in use. For some twelve centuries the Holy Church carried out this inhuman policy. And to this day the term "free thought" is a term of reproach. The shadow of the fanatical priest, that half-demented coward, sneak, and assassin, still blights us. Although that holy monster, with his lurking spies, his villainous casuistries, his flames and devils, and red-hot pincers, and whips of steel, has been defeated ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... justice thrived for some time. But one day the under-sheriff served his patent automatic warrant on a young man who refused to come down. The officer then drew one of those large baritone instruments that generally has a coward at one end and a corpse at the other. He pointed this at the young man and assessed a fine of $50 and costs. Instead of paying this fine, the youth, who was quite nimble, but unarmed, knocked the bogus officer down with the butt end of his six-mule whip, took his self-cocking ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... ornamented with gilding and inscriptions in letters of gold; and a large gilt cipher of the Sultan decorates the front. Our attempt to pass into the second court was less successful: Mustapha being a great coward, he was afraid to offer the sentinels a bribe; yet I have no doubt that the sight of a gold dollar never fails to gain admission for the unbeliever, whether Jew or Christian. Turning away from ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... young Lord and an eminent traveller, two men of the world with whom he had never dined before, he was apprehensive that they might think they had a right to take such liberties with him as Beauclerk did, and therefore resolved he would not let it pass; adding, that 'he would not appear a coward.' A little while after this, the conversation turned on the violence of Hackman's temper. Johnson then said, 'It was his business to COMMAND his temper, as my friend, Mr. Beauclerk, should have done some time ago.' BEAUCLERK. 'I should learn of YOU, Sir.' JOHNSON. ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... been a bad lot, and you was in the right when you called me a coward and a beast; but your father showed me what a man was, and I've tried to be a man. You was fond of me once, Mary; you'll love me a little when I'm gone, and don't let the kid think ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... "king of beasts." He is greatly indebted, however, to the imagination of the poet for the noble qualities which he is supposed to possess. He is, though capable of gratitude towards those from whom he has received kindness, often treacherous and revengeful, and Dr Livingstone considers him an arrant coward. The stories, however, which I have to ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... though King Ramses had made a terrible bungle of his generalship, he was at least a brave man. Leaping into his chariot, and calling to the handful of faithful soldiers to follow him, he bade Menna lash his horses and charge the advancing Hittites. Menna was no coward, but when he saw the thin line of Egyptian troops, and looked at the dense mass of Hittite chariots, his heart almost failed him. He never thought of disobedience, but, as he stooped over his plunging horses, he panted to the King: "O mighty strength ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie
... which coward dread on my pale cheeks Imprinted, when I saw my guide turn back, Chas'd that from his which newly they had worn, And inwardly restrain'd it. He, as one Who listens, stood attentive: for his eye Not far could lead him through the sable air, And the thick-gath'ring ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... language of men, men do not understand their language. I only saw that Zerbino refused to listen to reason, and that he insisted that the three sous should be spent immediately. Capi got angry, and it was only when he showed his teeth that Zerbino, who was a bit of a coward, lapsed into silence. The word "silence" is also used advisedly. I mean by silence that he ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... called de Marmont in a loud voice, "a coward like you has no right to touch the hand ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... Was she worth such sacrifice as he and Rosendo were making? God forgive him! Yes—a thousand times yes! If he betrayed Rosendo's confidence and fled like a coward now, leaving her to fall into the sooty hands of men like Padre Diego, to be crushed, warped, and squeezed into the molds of Holy Church, could he ever again face ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... the only Means of their Escape. At length, good Words, and a Bowl of Punch the Captain made for each Mess, laid this Storm for a while; but that which at first pacify'd these turbulent Spirits, was what blew them up again: For when they were all drunk, the Boatswain said the Captain was a Coward, and took a Merchant-man for a Man of War: That his Fear had magnified the Object, and deprived them of the Means of either taking others, or defending themselves. This he said in the Captain's Hearing, who, without returning any Answer, took a Pistol from his ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... cast Three bodies more beside him in one spot; For nobler should I find it here to die In open quarrel for my kinsman's weal, Than for thy wife—or Menelaues', was 't? Consider then, not my case, but your own. For if you harm me you will wish some day To have been a coward rather than ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... said Henry, "let us jump over and get some plums. Nobody will see us. We can scud along through the tall corn, and come out on the other side." Thomas replied, "It is wrong. I don't like to try it. I would rather not have the plums than steal them, and I will run along home." "You are a coward," said Henry. "I always knew you was a coward; and if you don't want any plums, you may go without them. But I shall have some very quick." Just as Henry was climbing the wall, the owner of the field rose up from the other side. Henry jumped ...
— Anecdotes for Boys • Harvey Newcomb
... her Virtue she is without Blemish: She has not the least Charity for any of her Acquaintance, but I must allow rigidly Virtuous. As the unthinking Part of the Male World call every Man a Man of Honour, who is not a Coward; so the Crowd of the other Sex terms every Woman who will not ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... ruther get run out for fightin than to be uh coward. (He slings the guitar round his neck an' picks up his box of shells.) Well, Ah reckon Ah'll go git Daisy her turkey cause she sho wont git none less Ah go git it. Here come Elder Simms anyhow ...
— De Turkey and De Law - A Comedy in Three Acts • Zora Neale Hurston
... said of me, sir, that I was a coward. I have looked death in the eyes; I have often hunted and arrested criminals who would not have had the least hesitation in doing away with me. There are whole gangs of rascals who have vowed my death. All manner of horrible ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... Nonconformists and Papists Bookseller's, and there looked for Montaigne's Essays Bought Montaigne's Essays, in English But if she will ruin herself, I cannot help it Endangering the nation, when he knew himself such a coward I know not how in the world to abstain from reading Inventing a better theory of musique King, "it is then but Mr. Pepys making of another speech to them" Never saw so many sit four hours together to hear ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Diary of Samuel Pepys • David Widger
... shot at us!" Bud cried hotly. "Well, let me tell you that it was a coward's trick. ...
— The Boy Ranchers on Roaring River - or Diamond X and the Chinese Smugglers • Willard F. Baker
... good morals and good-breeding, and for the prevention of quarrelling, or unseemly and abusive conversation, any person who should call or designate any other person in the said town by the name of thief, villain, rascal, rogue (schurke), cheat, charlatan, impostor, wretch, coward, sneak, suborner, slanderer, tattler, and sundry other titles of ill-repute, which I cannot recollect now, and could not render into English were I to recall them, should, upon complaint of the person aggrieved, and upon proof of the offence by the evidence of worthy and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... could see to strike or to parry. Wherever a shout was heard, they would wheel round and lunge in that direction. Valour was useless: chance and chaos ruled supreme: and the bravest soldier often fell under a coward's bolt. The Germans fought with blind fury. The Roman troops were more familiar with danger; they hurled down iron-clamped stakes and heavy stones with sure effect. Wherever the sound of some one climbing or the clang of a scaling-ladder betrayed the presence of the enemy, they ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... he began after another pause. "I was a little confused for a moment—must have seemed incoherent." His voice cleared and he made an effort to straighten himself. "Well, I was a damned coward once and I've been trying to live it down ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... The sides of this garden are mysteriously divided: by which avenue shall she approach? Suddenly he hears the low voice—she comes nearer. Now let the world laugh again! But, alas! when she does appear, it is in the company of her lover, and it is only to bid him good-by. Why does the coward hind take her at her word? A stick, a stone, a wave of the cold sea, would be more responsive to that deep and tremulous voice, which has now no longer any of the art of a wilful coquetry about it, but is altogether as self-revealing as the generous abandonment of her eyes. The poor cipher! ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... to bask 25 In the full blaze of power, the rustling serpent Lurks in the thicket of the Tyrant's greatness, Ever prepared to sting who shelters him. Each thought, each action in himself converges; And love and friendship on his coward heart 30 Shine like the powerless sun on polar ice; To all attach'd, by turns deserting all, Cunning ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... future, Beyond the end of that Chieftain Who shall be the last of the race Which allowed only death to a coward. ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... had no faith in the plot, and they regarded it with indifference. A few expressed hostility to it. One captain, who had been a prisoner before and seemed glad to have been captured again, a bloated, overgrown, swaggering, filthy bully, of course a coward, formerly a keeper of a low groggery and said to have been commissioned for political reasons, was repeatedly heard to say in sneering tones in the hearing of rebel sentries, "Some of our officers have got escape on the brain," with other words to the like effect. Colonel Hartshorne finally ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... hopes. So onward I went, stumbling and splashing through the mud, cursing Mannering, cursing the Motor Pirate, above all cursing myself for my own pusillanimity. Why had I listened to Winter? Why should I have allowed myself to be persuaded to play the part of coward, merely that Winter's car should ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... would not stop. "It's the truth, you fool. It's that cursed petticoat's making a coward of you. It's for her that ye're afeard—and she, Colonel Bishop's niece! My God, man, ye'll have a mutiny aboard, and I'll lead it myself sooner than surrender to be hanged in ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... resuscitation of Polly, Owen Murray, true to his new passion for the Leghorn family, had been reviving Mr. G. Bird and now with regard for decorum, he set him quietly upon his feet. Did the Golden Bird run like a coward from the scene of the catastrophe of his making? He did not. He deliberately stretched his wings, gave a mighty crow, and walked over and began to peck in my smock-pockets at corn that had lain there many ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... know it is but a play. And if it was really a ghost, it could do one no harm at such a distance, and in so much company; and yet if I was frightened, I am not the only person." "Why, who," cries Jones, "dost thou take to be such a coward here besides thyself?" "Nay, you may call me a coward if you will; but if that little man there upon the stage is not frightened, I never saw any man frightened in my life. Ay, ay: go along with ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... begun to make Mars a little overconfident. By now Mars was fully convinced that Forrester was nothing but a coward, and he was absolutely certain that he could beat the newcomer easily, if he could only come ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... these men that is brave sort of intermittent, like folks have fever. Half the time he is a darn coward, but when you don't expect it, for instance when the pancakes are burned, or the steak is raw, and his dyspepsia seems to work just right, he will flare up and sass the cook, and I don't know of ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck
... 'I had half forgotten; grief is selfish, and I was thinking of myself and not of you, or I had never blurted out so bold a piece of praise. 'Tis the best proof of my sincerity. But come, now, I would lay a wager you are no coward?' ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... myself strongly protested against it, but without avail. I never heard such a cowardly piece of business in my life. No good will come of it, you may depend. . . . —— says he would cut all the women and children's throats he catches. Told him distinctly he was a d——d coward." ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... alone with satire's scorpion stings, But with the magic power even on the face, By their malevolent taunts and biting sneers, To raise three blistering blots[36] that typified Disgrace, dishonour, and a coward's shame, Which with their mortal venom him would kill, Or on the hour, or ere nine days had sped, If he declined the combat, and refused Upon the instant to come forth with them, And so, for honour's sake, Ferdiah came. For he preferred to die a ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... "We had no coward among us. Yet since thou wilt hear it, noble princess, none rode in the thick of the fight like the knight of the Netherland. Marvellous was the work of Siegfried's hand. All that the knights did in battle—Dankwart and Hagen and the ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... man; truth to tell, he is a coward. His whole system is suffering from the shock, while the long tramp he has taken in search of his horse, which strayed from the road, increased ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... he meant to have it. For some seconds, we both waited on the wall in breathless silence, and then Alec, with a reckless disregard of what might be in store for him, gently let himself drop, and I, fearing more, if anything, than the present danger, to be for ever after branded as a coward if I held back, timidly followed suit. By a great stroke of luck we alighted in safety on a soft carpeting of moss. Not a word was spoken, but, falling on hands and knees, and guiding ourselves by means of a dark lantern Alec had bought second-hand ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... angels, and beheld in the end,—with besmirched brow and debased mien, a disgraced sensualist, not merely a deceiver of another woman's innocent confidence, and her tempter to dishonor and wretchedness, but a poltroon—a whipped coward who had not dared to lift voice or pen in denial or extenuation of ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... Revisit not the wool we steep; And genuine worth, expell'd by fear, Returns not to the worthless slave. Break but her meshes, will the deer Assail you? then will he be brave Who once to faithless foes has knelt; Yes, Carthage yet his spear will fly, Who with bound arms the cord has felt, The coward, and has fear'd to die. He knows not, he, how life is won; Thinks war, like peace, a thing of trade! Great art thou, Carthage! mate the sun, While Italy in dust is laid!" His wife's pure kiss he waved aside, And prattling boys, as one disgraced, They ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... look beneath the brows as though thou wert no coward," they said, and showed him ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... violence from him was past and done with. In the grip of his passion, ugly as it was, he had risen somewhat from his essential weakness; in the moment he had at least thought of himself as a conqueror. Now he was again what he always really was at heart, a contemptible coward. ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... to time men who were not speaking on the subject of the moment mentioned this strange word, "Dupin," open which there ensued shouts of derision and bursts of laughter. "Utter the name of that coward ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... This man was a coward. He had seen the contracted silhouette, but had not had the courage to go up to it; he went hurriedly towards his house, seized an old gun which hung on two rusty nails and walked back into the garden. The gun was ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... exactly, Miss Natalie; I could have faith in your word, except that I believe you to be mistaken, deceived. Hobart is not square; he is using you for his own ends. Under these conditions, I would be a coward to give such a promise, and leave you helpless in this ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... Vivian Standish, "how can you stand there and hear this girl give up her name and her honor, into such vile keeping. You are a coward and a blackguard, and I ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... perch and fell among the strawberries. His head ringing from the stroke of that sturdy black wing, his plump flank smarting and bleeding from a fierce jab of that pointed beak of the imp's, he squeaked with rage and clambered up again to the battle. Mr. Rat, you know, is no coward and no quitter. ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... for a time in the abyss of self-reproach. The very day they reached Gauley Bridge in their unceremonious retreat, he came to me, crying with shame, and said, "General, I have behaved like a miserable coward, I ought to be cashiered," and repeated many such expressions of remorse. I comforted him by saying that the intensity of his own feeling was the best proof that he had only yielded to a surprise and that it was clear he was no ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... for that spirit, seer, I've watched and sought my life-time long; Sought him in heaven, hell, earth and air— An endless search, and always wrong! Had I but seen his glorious eye Once light the clouds that 'wilder me, I ne'er had raised this coward cry To cease to think, and cease to be; I ne'er had called oblivion blest, Nor, stretching eager hands to death, Implored to change for senseless rest This sentient ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... off, and I saw what was passing through his mind. And I went up to him and laid my hand on his shoulder and said: 'You know what I mean, and you know what manner of man I am that talks to you like this; for you're no coward,' I said; 'but you marry Fanny Montrose within a week after she gets her freedom, or I am going to kill you wherever you stand. And that's the choice you've got to make, Paul Bargee,' ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... friar, finding himself no match for the fool in words, and being as broad and stout of girth and limb as the other was puny and misshapen, he had plucked off his sandal that with it he might drive the full force of his arguments through the jester's skull. At that the fool, being a very coward, had fled incontinently through ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... anxiety oppresses me. It seems to me I am in the presence of a sphinx, who is in the act of solving a great mystery! I am a coward, and would take refuge in flight, but curiosity binds me to ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... that once I thought I would not go. I almost determined to write Augustus a note giving it up; but I thought that he would laugh at me for being such a coward, and I tried to picture to myself once more how fine it would be to be a real actress, and be always praised as ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... insubordination, in the event the grave of many a noble spirit, that might otherwise have proved an honour to themselves and a credit to their country. The brutal tyranny that characterised his conduct on this occasion, would have alone sufficed to brand him with the imputation of "coward," had it been even unconnected with the many subsequent acts of oppression which have stamped his career, and of which it is to be hoped for the prevention of future monsters, that the infamy will long survive the records. The 26th of January, 1808, the memorable day when, by the ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... discover the tribal name by which these Indians now designate themselves. The name Seminole they reject. In their own language it means "a wanderer," and, when used as a term of reproach, "a coward." Ko-nip-ha-tco said, "Me no Sem-ai-no-le; Seminole cow, Seminole deer, Seminole rabbit; me no Seminole. Indians gone Arkansas Seminole." He meant that timidity and flight from danger are "Seminole" qualities, and that the Indians who had gone west at the bidding of the Government ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley
... since that day. He had known why—and he knew at this minute. It was because he was afraid of Harlan—he feared him as a coward fears the death that confronts him. The sensation was premonitory. Nor was it that. It had been premonitory—it was now a conviction. In the time, in Lamo, when he had faced Harlan some prescience had warned him that before him was the ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... advantage of the incident, by at once informing the emperor that it had come to his knowledge that this coward, so worthily dismissed from office, had, on the merest suspicion, cast into prison a painter who was undoubtedly one of the first of living artists, and with him ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the kid. He jumped back, eyes widening, to face his oncoming opponent in an open space. He was no coward, that kid, and he knew how to handle a vibroblade. In his own unwise, suicidal way, he was perfectly capable of proving himself. He held out the point of that shimmering metal shaft, ready to parry any offensive thrust that Mike the ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... him down). Fly thou, thyself, to hell! This sword shall pierce Who talks to me of fear, or coward flight! ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... be, certainly; though, were it not for such a case as this, we should not have thought of considering Richard Jones a coward. It seems he did not dare to try to take away a sled from a boy who was as big as himself, but attacked little James, for he knew he was not strong ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... a peacock—a lump of vanity!" exclaimed Norman; "without an atom of moral courage to stand any persuasion short of being desired to put his head into the fire—a perfect coward!" ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... thou, Destiny, whithersoever ye have appointed me to go, for I will follow, and that without delay. Should I be unwilling, I shall follow as a coward, but I must follow all ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... said that she would eat all he had killed there; and observing the prince take delight in Benedick's conversation, she called him "the prince's jester." This sarcasm sank deeper into the mind of Benedick than all Beatrice had said before. The hint she gave him that he was a coward, by saying she would eat all he bad killed, he did not regard, knowing himself to be a brave man; but there is nothing that great wits so much dread as the imputation of buffoonery, because the charge comes sometimes a little too near the truth; therefore Benedick ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... like the thought of entering the back door of a store in the middle of the night like a thief, and, like a thief, taking away that hidden money. She knew she was going to be afraid, horribly afraid—it frightened her now—but she could not let that fear make a moral coward of her. ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... could not he redress himself like other injured men? If revenge were necessary to him, why could he not avenge himself like a man, instead of leaguing with others to commit murder in the dark, like a coward and a felon? And then he thought of his position with Keegan and Ussher. There was something manly in his original disposition; he would have given anything for a stand up fight with the attorney with ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... was in the wrong. O'Toole is the most selfish man in the whole world. Cowardly, too! But there never was a selfish man who was not at heart a bit of a coward. Sure enough, sooner or later the cowardice comes out. It is a preposterous thing that O'Toole should think that you and I are going to rescue his heiress for him while he sits at his ease by the inn fire. No; let ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... returned the one who had been derisively designated as a liar, "ef you wasn't sech a darn coward, you might do something of the kind, Sile; but you are the biggest coward this side of Long Islan', so the critter down on Devil Island won't git bothered by you ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... went, with her light step, afraid of itself lest it turn coward, and in the big dark room at the back of the house, its gloom defined by the point of light from a shaded reading candle, she was left, and stood still, almost wishing for Sophy whose footfalls lessened on the stairs. There were two bits of light in the room, the candle and Madame ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... you will help me get rid of them. There's something else, something more serious, more uncanny. It terrifies me. I feel that I'm in the power of some supernatural being who takes a fiendish delight in torturing me. I'm not a coward, Dr. Owen," Penelope lifted her head proudly, "for I truly have no fear of real danger that I can see and face squarely, but the unseen, the unknown——" She broke off suddenly, a strained, listening look on her face. Then she shivered ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... placed in them? Is a temperance lecturer never to quote the self-reproaches of poor Cassio because Master Will Shakespeare, there is evidence to prove, was a gentleman, alas! much too fond of the bottle? The man that beats the drum may be himself a coward. It is the drum that is the important thing to ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... he was, was evidently not a coward; he sprang at his enemy's throat and almost bore him backwards to the grass. But his enemy extricated himself with a singularly inappropriate air ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... (majestaetsbeleidigung), by which all criticism of the despotic head of the State or his actions is made a heinous criminal offence, to which severe penalties are attached, it is not too much to say is a law which brands the ruler who accepts it as a coward and a cur, and the Legislature which passes it as a house, not of representative citizens, or even subjects for that matter, but of representative slaves. It must not be forgotten that the law in question strikes not only at public expressions of opinion in the ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... of these excessive characters are singularly contrasted. Jezebel scoffs at approaching retribution, and, shining with paint and dripping with jewels, is pitched to the dogs; Lady Macbeth goes like a coward to her grave, and, curdled with remorse, receives ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... abroad his friend's offence, Betrayed by generous confidence. No wife of equal lineage born The wretch's joyless home adorn: Ne'er may he do one virtuous deed, And dying see no child succeed. When in the battle's awful day Fierce warriors stand in dread array, Let the base coward turn and fly, And smitten by the foeman, die. Long may he wander, rags his wear, Doomed in his hand a skull to bear, And like an idiot beg his bread, Who gave consent when Rama fled. His sin who holy rites forgets, Asleep when shows the sun ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... flush broke its way through the brown tan on the face of Braxton Wyatt, and his eyes fell before the cold gaze of the Spaniard. But he raised them again in a moment. Braxton Wyatt was not a coward, and he never permitted a guilty conscience to last longer than ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... "The coward slave we pass him by— We dare be poor for a' that. For a' that, and a' that, Our toils obscure and a' that; The rank is but the guinea's stamp, The man's the ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... that a liar and slanderer is a coward; consequently Mr. Shodd, with the consequences before his eyes, never again alluded to Rocjean, and shortly left the city for Naples, to bestow the light of his countenance there in his great ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... replied the child, "Valence will think me a coward." Then shaking his head, "It is too long till ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... cupola Doe from Cobham, when the season comes, bucks season being past Down to the Whey house and drank some and eat some curds Eat some butter and radishes Endangering the nation, when he knew himself such a coward Espinette is the French term for a small harpsichord Ever have done his maister better service than to hang for him? Family governed so nobly and neatly as do me good to see it Fear what would become of me if any real affliction should come Fear that ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... opposite direction? She looked up and down and across for some familiar landmark, and looked in vain, growing momentarily more frightened at the attention she was attracting by standing irresolutely there. Flossy Shipley, in her girlhood days, had been almost a hopeless coward; and Flossy Roberts felt, by the throbbing of her heart, that she had not yet outgrown her girlish character. Suddenly she gave a little exclamation of delight, and with a spring forward laid her hand on the arm of one whom she ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... shoulder, pointed to this line and whispered sorrowfully: "But I—called you coward, Joel." He looked up at her, and smiled a little. "I know better now," she said. "So—give me the pen ... ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams
... She felt like a coward when she went to Goldsmith and demanded to be sent out on the road, and she experienced for a while, the utter demoralization of cowardice. The logic of the situation told her to stay where she was. If it were true, ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... hadst thou not disclosed thyself. He has one great merit in a coward of not being ashamed for his cowardice; and this is a characteristic of the modern Egyptian, whose proverb is, "He ran away, Allah shame him! is better than, He ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... conclude all I have more to offer against them (with respect to their being prompted by the fear of shame) by applying to the duellist what I think Dr. South says somewhere of the liar, "He is a coward to man, ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... is guilty; 'tis I that have destroyed thee, much to be lamented; who bade thee to come by night to places full of terror, and came not hither first. O, whatever lions are lurking beneath this rock, tear my body in pieces, and devour my accursed entrails with ruthless jaws. But it is the part of a coward to wish for death.' He takes up the veil of Thisbe, and he takes it with himself to the shade of the tree agreed on, and, after he has bestowed tears on the well-known garment, he gives kisses {to the same}, and he says, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... SEMPER! But will he be 'his sometime self throughout the year'? Anyway, he has deserved of us, and he must disappoint me sharply ere I give him up. - Bene - or Peni-Ben, in plain English - is supposed to be my ganger; the Lord love him! God made a truckling coward, there is his full history. He cannot tell me what he wants; he dares not tell me what is wrong; he dares not transmit my orders or translate my censures. And with all this, honest, sober, industrious, miserably ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Selwyn, stopping his walk and sitting on the arm of a big easy-chair, 'if there is a coward in this ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... and the shameful tricks so basely ventured by the casuist who wished to keep his penitent. From Navarro to Escobar the strangest bargains were continually made at the wife's expense, and some little wrangling went on after that. But all this would not do. The casuist was conquered, was altogether a coward. From Zoccoli to Liguori—1670 to 1770—he gave up ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... animosity shot from a score of eyes; fists were half-clenched; knives appeared in a trice from the concealment of rags, and a low murmur arose from the gathering. Even the imbecile morio, nature's trembling coward, became suddenly valiant, and, with huge frame uplifted, seemed about to spring savagely upon the fool. An expression of disgust replaced all other feeling on the features of the ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... be compared with the sufferings I see others endure, and endure cheerfully: this is a great shame and humiliation to me, because I have not learnt to suffer cheerfully: I am too easily undone by suffering and by the sight of suffering in any living thing; but although one may be a coward—that is to say, one may inwardly shrink from every kind of suffering,—one can be, and it is necessary to be, quite submissive; and to refrain from the slightest rebellion or selfishness—this ...
— The Prodigal Returns • Lilian Staveley
... my freedom for an indefinite time," she thought, "in order that William may see Cassandra here at his ease. He's not the courage to manage it without my help—he's too much of a coward to tell me openly what he wants. He hates the notion of a public breach. He wants to ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... too deeply wounded for further endurance even from her, for he suddenly straightened himself, and throwing his rifle over his shoulder, said sternly, "I'm not a coward. I never hung back from fear, but to keep mother from charity, so I could fight or die as God wills. You may laugh at the man who never gave you anything but love, if you will, but you shall never laugh at my deeds. ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... joie fait peur." [Abranyi, who was the Secretary of the Festival Committee which had been formed for the celebration of Liszt's Artist-Jubilee in November 1873 at Budapest, had in their name invited Liszt to take part in this.] Nevertheless I could not suit myself to the role of a coward; I will therefore endeavor to surmount my fear and to make myself worthy to share with my brave compatriots in the joy ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... no, and that would be the end of it. Girls like a man who compels them—they like to obey, at least when they are young. I don't believe any girl ever loved a coward yet. Do ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... society—shorn of his virtues or his splendor, he does not care to face his fellows. Among atheists—Christians being without the question of suicide—among atheists, whatever may be said to the contrary, none but a base coward can take up a ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... "O ye coward race! Ye abject Greeklings, Greeks no longer, haste Homeward with all the fleet, and let us leave This man at Troy to ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... was what seemed to me a peculiarly ominous kind of silence, and I felt shocked and frightened, not so much of my adversary as at myself. The feeling was mingled with shame, for I began to think that I must be a terrible coward, and I found myself wondering what my uncle would say if he knew how unfit I was to be trained to become ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... me tell you that you saw as pretty a fellow hanged as ever trod shoe leather. Aye!" putting his face nearer to that of the officer, "and there was many a coward looked on, that might much better have ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... Christian England haunted us like a ghost in whom we could not quite believe. An aristocrat like Palmerston, loving freedom and hating the upstart despotism, must have looked on at its cold brutality not without that ugly question which Hamlet asked himself—am I a coward? ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... church service, with the awful guilt upon her soul, and the thoughts of approaching retribution, almost made her physically ill. As yet there was very little fortitude in Elizabeth's soul. She was the only coward in the Gordon family, John was wont to say, and, though she dreamed of valorous deeds as the successor of Joan of Arc, in real life she had never yet been able to ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... "Listen to me, Dr. Perrin. You are a chivalrous gentleman, and you think you are helping a man in desperate need. But I say that anyone who would permit you to tell such a tale is a contemptible coward!" ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... or so to the passion that could burn us, my Carl? Do you really fear me, stranger from a strange people? Don't you know how much I thirst to drink of your lips! Look at me, you coward. Are you afraid of a woman? Don't you know how curious I am as to how you of this planet make love? I who am a student of love, am most curious about you. Stand still. Here we are prisoners, about to die, perhaps, and you refuse me one sup of pleasure ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... It is an abstract term that describes an attribute, but feathers are things and therefore concrete. Hence the pair of words illustrate Inclusion by Abstract and Concrete, and is indicated by In. by A. and C., or merely by In. Other examples: "Sour, Vinegar;" "Sweet, Sugar;" "Coward, Fear;" "Swiftness, Express ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
... called a "peace-maker." Mr. Hobby called him so. His associates and their parents called him so. There could be no hard words or quarrels among his schoolmates with his consent. Sometimes an angry boy would charge him with being a "coward" because he always pleaded for peace; but his accuser knew full well that George was no "coward." There was not a braver boy in that "field-school" than he. He proved his bravery by rebuking falsehood and fighting among his class-mates. A cowardly boy yields to the ruling ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... me any more; I've given in; I'm not going to meet Dick to-night. But I had to tell you about his gang, if I can't about him. And listen, Mr. Stretton. I've tried every possible way to get it out of him, but Dick won't even answer when I taunt him for a coward who has to be backed up. I know he has men somewhere, but he won't tell me where they are, or who they are—now. I believe——" but her voice changed sharply. "Those two boys, Dunn and Collins! You ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... surprised as pleased at this change in the young man's character, and he the more regretted having to tell the whole of the narrative, which was sure to cause further pain to the lad. However, it had to be done, and Jim, who was no coward, took it all better ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare
... looking on the waste. And there was nothing but the azure breast Of ocean and the sky—the sea and sky, And the lone bark; no clouds were floating by Where the sun set, but his great seraph light, Went down alone, in majesty and might; And the stars came again, a silver troop, Until, in shame, the coward shadows droop Before the radiance of these holy gems, That ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart
... when they to a certainty would become its prey. Dick grasped his pole to do battle, should the creature come nearer, and he at once began beating the water on every side and shouting at the top of his voice. The shark, an arrant coward by nature, kept at a distance, but his dark fin could still be seen as he circled round and round the raft, waiting, Dick feared, for an opportunity to rush in and make ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... voice, but equally near me, was heard whispering in answer, "Why not? I will draw a trigger in this business; but perdition be my lot if I do more!" To this the first voice returned, in a tone which rage had heightened in a small degree above a whisper, "Coward! stand aside, and see me do it. I will grasp her throat; I will do her business in an instant; she shall not have time so much as to groan." What wonder that I was petrified by sounds so dreadful! Murderers lurked in my closet. They were planning the means of ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... look at it,' said Ruggles, as red as beetroot. 'But I bet the Sergeant's glad she's changed her mind. I never knew your equal for a clammy coward, Jim, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 30, 1917 • Various
... there, In aspect like the spectral shapes of dreams? Meseems they by a kinsman's sword were slain. See, in their hands they bear a loathsome feast, The piteous flesh of which their father ate. Vengeance is coming, yonder in the lair A lion lurks, a coward skulking beast, Plotting against my late returned lord. My lord, I say, for slavery is my doom. The army's chief that o'erthrew Ilium Knows little what yon shameless paramour, After her long and so fair-seeming speech, Is bent to do in an accursed hour, ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... the habits of perfected Self-Mastery and Courage and the rest of the Virtues: for the man who flies from and fears all things, and never stands up against anything, comes to be a coward; and he who fears nothing, but goes at everything, comes to be rash. In like manner too, he that tastes of every pleasure and abstains from none comes to lose all self-control; while he who avoids all, ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... coming to the Ottawa he had heard of the big Macdonald, and he sought to meet him. But Macdonald avoided him once and again till LeNoir, having never known any one avoiding a fight for any reason other than fear, proclaimed Macdonald a coward, and himself "de boss on de reever." Now there was a chance of meeting his rival and of forcing a fight, for the Glengarry camp could not be far away where the big Macdonald himself would be. So Dan Murphy, backed up with numbers, and the boss bully LeNoir, ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... And then the "coward" did. The whip was whirring in the air again; but it never fell. A jagged stone in the boy's hand struck true, and the overseer plunged with a grunt into the black furrow. In blank dismay, Zora came back to ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... attack, or, as easily, a panic of flight. Wild beasts are creatures of nerves. It is a relatively simple thing to throw them into a species of hysteria which may induce either a mania for murder, or symptoms of apparent abject cowardice—it is a question, however, if a wild animal ever is actually a coward. ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... they remonstrated with her: "O Lady, you are not dealing justly with us, nor doing what is best for the nation when you thus educate your son. Letters and book-learning are different from courage and fortitude, and to permit a boy to be trained by old men is the way to make him a coward and a fool. He who is to dare and to win glory, and fame, must not be subjected to the fear of a pedagogue, but must spend his time in martial exercise. Your father, Theodoric, would never suffer his Goths to send their sons to the grammarians, for he used to say: 'If they fear ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... "Thief! Sneak! Coward!" snarled Reddy. Once more Old Man Coyote grinned. When that dinner had disappeared down his throat to the last and smallest crumb, he licked his chops and ...
— Old Granny Fox • Thornton W. Burgess
... thought of that. Certainly, I shall leave it to Pete himself to open hostilities. I hadn't thought of it because I have been too busy thinking out how I was going to break a piece of news to Firio. I have been an awful coward about it, putting it off and putting it off. I had planned to do it on my birthday two weeks ago, and then he gave me these big silver spurs—spent a whole month's wages on them, think of that! I bought this cowboy regalia to go with them. You ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... him to achieve it. Not long after his appointment to the agency, he began to experience some of these uneasy sensations which a consciousness of not having deserved well at the hands of the people will occasion. The man, as we have said, was a coward at heart; but like many others of the same class, he contrived on most occasions to conceal it. He now considered that it would, at all events, be a safe and prudent act on his part to raise a corps of yeomanry, securing a commission in it for himself and Phil. In this ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Dinmont" terrier, and with a heart as big as Massanutten, she was seated in a nondescript trap, drawn by two mules, driven by a negro. One look from the great, tearful eyes made of me an abject coward, and I basely shuffled the refusal to let her pass on to Jackson. The Parthian glance of contempt that reached me through her tears showed that the lady understood and despised my paltering. Nicholls was speedily exchanged, became a general ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... regard me, who have lied to him and who have preached to him, coward and hypocrite? For still the egoism was in Uniacke's heart. There is no greater egoist than the good man who has sinned against his nature. He sits down eternally to contemplate his own soul. When the hymn was over ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... change in Horace Lansing's demeanour. From a blustering braggart, he became a pale and cringing coward. But with a desperate attempt to bluff it out, he exclaimed, "What do you mean?" but even as he spoke, he shivered and staggered backward, as ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... said, "I don't like revolutions. I am a man of peace and a bit of a coward"—here Umbopa smiled—"but, on the other hand, I stick up for my friends, Ignosi. You have stuck to us and played the part of a man, and I will stick by you. But mind you, I am a trader, and have to make my living, so I accept your offer ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... he said, "I have one son who is not a coward! I have been waiting these many years to have my sons ask me this very question. My right eye laughs because God has blessed me and made me rich and has allowed my three sons to grow to manhood, strong and healthy. My left eye weeps because I can never forget a Magic Grape-Vine which ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... my life; you have just left me, to go to your caller, after having probed my heart to its very core. I can never make you know the bitterness of spirit that I experience, as I write these lines, for the questions you have just asked me have completely unmanned me—have made a veritable coward of me when I should have boldly told you the truth, let the consequence be what it would; whether it would have touched your heart with pity and fresh love for a sorrowing and repentant man, or driven you away from me in hate and scorn such as ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... springing up would overpower the extinct public opinion which permitted and justified acts of violence. People need only come to be as much ashamed to do deeds of violence, to assist in them or to profit by them, as they now are of being, or being reputed a swindler, a thief, a coward, or a beggar. And already this change is beginning to take place. We do not notice it just as we do not notice the movement of the earth, because we are moved together ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... accounts for action, but not for such varied action; it is a condition, but not a motive; it is too universal to be useful. Certainly a soldier wins the Victoria Cross on two legs; he also runs away on two legs. But if our object is to discover whether he will become a V.C. or a coward the most careful inspection of his legs will yield us little or no information. In the same way a man will want food if he is a dreamy romantic tramp, and will want food if he is a toiling and sweating millionaire. ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... irritation of a nervous center, a slight congestion, a small disturbance in the imperfect and delicate functions of our living machinery, can turn the most light-hearted of men into a melancholy one, and make a coward of the bravest? Then, I go to bed, and I wait for sleep as a man might wait for the executioner. I wait for its coming with dread, and my heart beats and my legs tremble, while my whole body shivers beneath the warmth of the ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... fully satisfied. Nor is it easy, perhaps hardly possible, to call up with complete vividness the feeling, for instance, of hunger; nor indeed, as has often been remarked, of any suffering. The instinct of self- preservation is not felt except in the presence of danger; and many a coward has thought himself brave until he has met his enemy face to face. The wish for another man's property is perhaps as persistent a desire as any that can be named; but even in this case the satisfaction of actual possession is generally a weaker feeling than ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... who threw that rope? If he isn't too big a coward, he'll tell me. I guess Mr. Simms will ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... coarse and vivid description of her badness and the manner of it. "That kinder thing no man can let pass by in his wife. I found her"—again the rude details of his discovery—"an' I found him, an' I let him go fer the white-livered coward he was, but her I killed. I shot her dead after she'd said her prayers an' asked God's mercy on her soul. Then I walked off, but they kotched me an' I was tried. They didn't swing me. Out in them parts they knowed I was in my rights; so the boys held, but ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... frail bush at which the hand clutches uprooted; hard, when alone in the crowded thoroughfare of travel, to have one's last bank-note declared a counterfeit. I knew I should not be able to see her face, under the shade of this disappointment; and so, coward that I was, I turned this trouble, where I have turned so many ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... to tell his father news which he knew would shake the foundations of love and life; and he felt like a coward and a thief in delaying the explanation. "What right have I to this one day's more love?" he asked himself; and yet he could not endure to mar the holy, unselfish festival with the revelation of his own selfishness. As the ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... "Sandlot's coward!" he said, and threw down the empty bottle with a motion of disgust at the cowardice of Sandlot. The bottle burst with ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... go, Jack. I'll play my hand alone and take the consequences, but I won't beg of my friends; not a friend like Mr. Morris; any coward can do that. Mr. Morris believes in me,—I want him to continue to believe in me. That's worth twenty times ten thousand dollars." His eyes flashed for the first time. Again the old Garry ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Heaven," said he, in answer to her query. "They come every night, but I wouldn't listen, till one day my boy was took. Then I heard another voice, demandin' me to tell folks what was what about God. But I was afraid an' a—coward." ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... came to him in swearing to himself that he would stand by that boy through thick and thin, and cheer him, and help him, and bear his burdens, for the good deed done that night. Then he resolved to write home next day and tell his mother all, and what a coward her son had been. And then peace came to him as he resolved, lastly, to bear his testimony next morning. The morning would be harder than the night to begin with, but he felt that he could not afford to let one chance ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... no swimmer; he had no temptation to risk his life—you see it wasn't as in war with a lot of comrades watching ready to advertise a man as a coward for staying alive—so he argued with Bogan and tried to get him to listen to reason, and swore at him. 'I'll make it damned hot for you, Bogan,' he said, 'if I have ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... in active service, and I think I may say I have a fair amount of courage, but it had all oozed away before the grieving tones and melting eyes of beauty in distress; and in another moment I should have cut and run like the rankest coward. For, what would you? A handsome woman (none I had ever seen, not even the Princess, surpassed her) almost in tears beside you—and all because of your own clumsy tongue and ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... any reason to believe myself a coward, I took boldly enough the few steps necessary to carry me inside its dismal precincts; and meeting with nothing but darkness and silence, began to whistle again for the dog I had certainly ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... beseeching him recompence of seruice done at the siege of Renty, against Henry the French king, where the Duke was taken prisoner, and afterward escaped clad like a Colliar. Thou wert taken, quoth the Emperour, like a coward, and scapedst like a Colliar, wherefore get thee home and liue vpon thine owne. Or as king Henry the eight said to one of his priuy chamber, who sued for Sir Anthony Rowse, knight of Norfolke, that ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... Heaven's name, summon up your courage. To horse! Great God!" he exclaimed, wringing his hands, "the prince will not listen to me; we are lost. Come!" said he, taking hold of Charming's cloak; "up, sire; to horse, unhappy prince! Save your kingdom—save your people—save all that love you. Coward! look at me; I am nothing but a child, yet I am about to die for you. Fight! do not disgrace yourself. If you do not rise I will insult you—I, your servant. You are a coward—do ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... things: 1. He must assist in the maintenance of roads and bridges. 2. He must aid in the repair of forts. 3. He must serve in case of war. Whoever neglected or refused to perform this last and most important of all duties was dclard to be a "nithing," or infamous coward.[4] ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... lazy dog? I might kick him for my football this half hour before I should get him awake. This lank jawed harlequin beside him is a handy fellow, to be sure; but, then, if he has hands, he has no head—and he'd be afraid of his own shadow too, by this light, he is such a coward! And Townsend, why, he has puns in plenty; but, when there's any work to be done, he's the worst fellow to be near one in the world—he can do nothing but laugh at his own puns. This poor little fellow that we hunted into the corner ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... warning. Confess to her that he had brought to her a woman with whom scandal had been busy, that he had introduced to her as his friend, and recommended to honour and kindness, one whose name had been in all men's mouths! Sir Tom ran away morally from this suggestion as if he had been the veriest coward; he could not breathe a word of it in Lucy's ear. How could he explain to her that mixture of amazement at the woman's boldness, and humorous sense of the incongruity of her appearance in the absolute ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... four years against him in the last war. But I was on the same side with him in Mexico, I saw him head the charge of the Mississippi rifles, and drive back the Mexican lancers after McKee and Clay and Hardin had been killed at Buena Vista, and I know he was no coward. Well, after he was in prison and as helpless as a child, what did they do with him? Why, they just took him out, and without even giving him a drumhead trial, tied him up and burned him to ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... Coward, can she reign and conquer If we thus her glory dim? Let us fight for her as nobly As our fathers fought for him. God, who crowns the dying ages, Bids her rule, and us obey— Bids us cast our lives before her, Bids us serve ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... what to do," mourned the young man. "I'm all in a whirl. I'm no coward, Captain Wass. I'm willing to face the music. But ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... to hear a word on that?" demanded the Cap'n, grimly. He came close up, whirling the cudgel. "You're an old, cheap, ploughed-land blowhard, that's what you are! You've cuffed 'round hired men and abused weak wimmen-folks. I knowed you was a coward when I got that line on ye. You don't dast to stand up to a man like me. I'll split your head for a cent." He kept advancing step by step, his mien absolutely demoniac. "I've married your sister because she wanted me. Now I'm goin' to take care of her. I've got thutty thousand dollars of my own, ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... the arguments of Frank Helper, refused, on the ground that he held New England opinions on the subject of duelling. The Kentuckian could not understand that it required a far higher kind of courage to refuse than it would have done to accept. The bully proclaimed him a coward, and shot at him in the street, but without inflicting a very serious wound. Thenceforth he went armed, and his friends kept him in sight. But he probably owed his life to the fact that Mr. Grossman was compelled to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... was this man, so eager to live—this drunkard and liar and coward! What could life hold for him that he should so desire to prolong it? And what would life with such a man be to such a woman as ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... patiently. "No," he said in the tone of acknowledged defeat, "we ain't cowards, Raine. A man ain't a coward when he stands with his hands over his head. Most generally it's because some one's got the ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... sling, because of a recent injury. To render his condition yet more deplorable, his thigh had just been broken, as he rode up, by a kick from the unmanageable horse of his brother-in-law, La Rochefoucauld. The prince was no coward. Turning to his little company of followers, he exclaimed: "My friends, true noblesse of France, here is the opportunity we have long wished for in vain! Our God is the God of Battles. He loves to be so called. He always declares Himself for the ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... originally, it was used by Homer to express the few, rapid, and significant words which conveyed some hasty order, counsel, or notice, suited to any sudden occasion or emergency: e. g. 'To him flying from the field the hero addressed these winged words—"Stop, coward, or I will transfix thee with my spear."' But by Horne Tooke, the phrase was adopted on the title-page of his Diversions of Purley, as a pleasant symbolic expression for all the non-significant particles, the articuli or joints of language, which in his well-known theory are resolved ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... "if you are not a coward, which I strongly suspect you are;" and when was a spirited boy of thirteen so urged on that had the prudence to know where to stop with propriety to himself. Marten, choking with rage, did advance to the door pointed out, and put ...
— Brotherly Love - Shewing That As Merely Human It May Not Always Be Depended Upon • Mrs. Sherwood
... that, I think," replied von Schalckenberg. "He is a cruel, unscrupulous, and absolutely selfish man, but, if I have read his character aright, we shall also find that he is far too much of a coward to attempt to ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... barley, and sell it clandestinely in small quantities; nor does she inherit the smallest trifle of her husband's property. The Kerekein never sleep under the same blanket with their wives; and to be accused of doing so, is considered as great an insult as to be called a coward. ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
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