"Coward" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... 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 ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... 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
... a coward. There's something about the Law that makes people cowards. It's so—what's the word? It goes on. You can't stop it, you can't explain to it, you can't ...
— First Plays • A. A. Milne
... 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
... such a coward, Mr. Hopkins," said his wife, contemptuously. When she indulged in severe sarcasm, she was accustomed to omit ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger
... 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
... coward core And fear'd to venter vrom the shore; While to an vro, an vur an near, And now an tan did Cox appear In dalliance with the wActers bland, Or zwimmin wi' a maA"ster hand. We youngsters dree, the youngest I, To zee the zwimmers Acll stood by ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings
... '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
... a coward," Terence said to himself. "He may profess absolute confidence, but I don't think he feels it, and I will bet odds that he won't be in the front when ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... "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
... a coward, Take out the knife, get to the Duke's chamber, And bring me back his heart upon the blade. When he is dead, then you can talk to me ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde
... 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
... "Coward!" muttered Grossman, as he left the counting-house. Mr. Noble did not hear him; and if he had, it would not have altered his course. He could see nothing enviable in the reputation of being ever ready for brawls, and a dead-shot in duels; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... 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
... "Coward!" shouted CODLINGSBY. "The sight makes me feel quite Dizzy. A CODLINGSBY to the rescue!" and to fling open the window, amidst a shower of malodorous missiles, to vault over the balcony, and slide down one of the pillars to the ground, baring his steely biceps in the process, and shying the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 30, 1891 • Various
... coward, whatever else she may have been, but as night began to close down around her she could not shut out from her mind entirely contemplation of the terrors of the long hours ahead before the rising sun should dissipate the Stygian gloom—the horrid jungle night—that ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... 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
... "Coward," cried Claude, "coward and villain! you must fight. My Indians are faithful to me. You hate to fight,—you are afraid,—but you must, or I will beat you to death with the blade of ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... 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
... coward," he muttered, "and I suppose I am; but I won't show it;" and shouting a cheery order to the fisherman to lower away, the lad descended farther and farther, with the right of his candle flashing now from the walls, which were wet and shining ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... 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
... "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 ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... 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 |
