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Faint-hearted   /feɪnt-hˈɑrtəd/   Listen
Faint-hearted

adjective
1.
Lacking conviction or boldness or courage.  Synonyms: faint, fainthearted, timid.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Faint-hearted" Quotes from Famous Books



... way, lest I forget, I shall mention the fact that I destroyed my "Diary of a Prisoner" that night. I had long wished to do it, but the natural pity and faint-hearted love which we feel for our blunders and our shortcomings restrained me; besides, there was nothing in my "Diary" that could have compromised me in any way. And if I have destroyed it now it is due solely to my desire to throw my past into oblivion and to save my reader from the ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev

... have none of the old customs of the island put in practice, understand that. We want to save the ship if we can, or the lives of those on board. Come, lads, they are fellow-creatures— seamen like ourselves, in distress. Where is the faint-hearted coward who would leave them to perish without lifting a hand to save them. Such a fellow is not to be found among ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston

... backwards and a deep sleep took hold upon him. Presently he turned sick, and threw up both wine and the gobbets of human flesh on which he had been gorging, for he was very drunk. Then I thrust the beam of wood far into the embers to heat it, and encouraged my men lest any of them should turn faint-hearted. When the wood, green though it was, was about to blaze, I drew it out of the fire glowing with heat, and my men gathered round me, for heaven had filled their hearts with courage. We drove the sharp end of the beam ...
— The Odyssey • Homer

... comparison with the might of the majesty of Jehovah? He who laid the strong foundations of the earth, and led forth the marshalled millions of the stars in their wonderful order, can mould and fashion the soul of man at his will. Let us not stand doubting, timid, and faint-hearted, discouraged by the foul sins which blot and efface in man the fair image of his Maker. Let us rather "come boldly to the throne of grace," and plead through the great Intercessor for every wanderer from the right ...
— The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... of the reach of storms." That is brave sailing, I thought, though I would not have gone if I could have helped it. We struggled on in this way for a day and a night, and then he said we were beyond the region of storms from land. I am afraid I should, if left to myself, linger always with the faint-hearted mariners who hug the shore, notwithstanding this great experience of finding our safety by steering boldly off from every thing wherein we had before considered our only security lay. After this, I performed every day the great ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton

... Grounds you'll scarce know one from t'other; We are as like, as Brother is to Brother. To judge against me then wou'd be Ill-Nature, For Men are kind to those they're like in Feature. For Judges therefore I accept you all; By you, Sir Timothy will stand or fall. He's too faint-hearted that his Sentence fears, Who has the Honour to ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn

... faint-hearted thing,' exclaimed the insect, quite forgetting even to be commonly polite, so elated was he with pride. 'Just compare the difference in our lives! I fly here, I fly there, now on this flower, now ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer

... curling, if it be of a fair complexion, thin and soft withal, signifies a man to be naturally faint-hearted, and of a weak body, but of a quiet and harmless disposition. Hair that is big, and thick and short withal, denotes a man to be of a strong constitution, secure, bold, deceitful and for the most part, unquiet and vain, lusting after ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous

... there all the same, albeit in a different spirit. Timorous and trembling, our faint-hearted modern lovers gird on their new frock-coats and step shrinkingly into the arena where awaits them—radiant and triumphant—the determined being whose will has brought them thither. No, not her ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby

... made at Worms by England, Austria, and Holland. So they have troops, gold, and powerful allies. We have nothing but our honor, our swords, and our good cause. We are the allies of a land poor in itself, and, what is still worse, governed by a weak and faint-hearted emperor; and of France, whose king is the plaything of courtiers and mistresses. Our adversaries know their strength, and are acquainted with our weakness. Look, messieurs, at this letter of George of England to our godmother, Maria Theresa of Hungary; an ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... secret was to be found. Ruth Devlin was a tall girl of sensitive features, beautiful eyes, and rare personality. Her life, as I came to know, had been one of great devotion and self-denial. Before her father had made his fortune, she had nursed a frail-bodied, faint-hearted mother, and had cared for, and been a mother to, her younger sisters. With wealth and ease came a brighter bloom to her cheek, but it had a touch of care which would never quite disappear, though it became in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... have been this virulent feeling against them, so foreign to the easy-going and tolerant British nature, I would confess that I think the real reason was fear. Not fear of them individually, of course- -our foulest detractors have never called us faint-hearted—but fear of their star, fear of their future, fear of the subtle brain whose plans always seemed to go aright, and of the heavy hand which had struck nation after nation to the ground. We were but a small country, with a population which, when the ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... precisely because of my want of theatrical experience, which left me rather in the position of one of the public than one of the players, and there was much grave head-shaking over it, especially on the part of our excellent stage-manager, Mr. Bartley, who was exceedingly faint-hearted ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... rigging, past the defenses of the enemy in Mobile Bay; it led Nelson and Grant to victory; it has been the great tonic in the world of invention, discovery, and art; it has won a thousand triumphs in war and science which were deemed impossible by doubters and the faint-hearted. ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... going down in the world for some time, and biology, if no conclusions be drawn, serves the clerical purpose almost as well. "The origins of existence are humble enough, my son, but think of the glorious heritage," and the faint-hearted sheep is folded again.... The tree of life is more abundant; whenever a fruit is plucked another instantly takes its place, and all the efforts of the clerics are now directed to keep their flocks from this tree. "Back to the tree of knowledge!" they cry. "Hu! Hu! Hu! Both trees," ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... process may reduce the enrollment, yet it mightily strengthens the ranks. The Lord Jesus would rather have one of ten if true, than all the ten yea, ten times ten if untrue. Christ Jesus prefers 300 who can wield the sword of the Lord and of Gideon, to 30,000 who are indifferent or faint-hearted. ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters

... queen, "you are faint-hearted enough to deny him. You have not the courage to be proud of his love; you ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... approach of the pedestrian from the north, and did not see him until she had opened the gate and he was almost beside her. Then she looked up, and as she saw him she started visibly. And if this thing had happened to Robert Lamhorn, he would have had a thought far beyond the horizon of faint-hearted Bibbs's thoughts. Lamhorn, indeed, would have spoken his thought. He would have said: "You jumped because you were thinking ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington

... a long one it was, had passed away; Fleda had just finished packing her trunk, and was sitting with a faint-hearted feeling of body and mind, trying to rest before being called to her early dinner, when Florence came to ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... knees together. It is a military fact that lines of combatants as they go into position are not made up of heroes, and regiments which won renown in such scenes of carnage as Fredericksburg, or Gettysburg, or the Wilderness, were composed of plain, quiet men, who were faint-hearted and homesick when forming in front of flashing batteries or heavy bodies of opposing troops. It was only when completely involved in the struggle, after the madness of excitement had overcome the real man, that they proved themselves ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various

... who endure and protect them and do not order them about. This is the kind of dato that they now prefer, not him who has the spirit to command. There is a great need of reform in this, for the chiefs are spiritless and faint-hearted. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair

... considerably lower: Russian is quoted at from 31s. to 33s.; whilst Egyptian and Turkish are marked from 24s. to 26s. per quarter; and fine American flour is quoted at a price considerably under 'English Households.' These are not signs of decrepit or faint-hearted farming. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various

... good sense. Taking the lead in the bitter journey, through swamps and snows, threading the tangled forests, climbing cliffs, and fording half-frozen creeks,—day after day the heroic woman pushed her faint-hearted husband on, feeding him from her own little store of ember-baked cakes, and eating almost nothing herself till they were more than half way to Sertigan on the Chaudiere ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... to whom the secret was known must have died without revealing it to anybody. Had it not been so, the Spaniards would sooner or later have learned it, for although hundreds have died under torture rather than reveal any of the hiding-places, surely one more faint-hearted than the rest would have disclosed them. Certain it is that at Cuzco and other places they succeeded in obtaining almost all the treasures buried there, though they failed in discovering the still greater treasures that had been ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty

... of Maria Antoinette on a similar occasion, said to her faint-hearted husband, "Go, show yourself to the discouraged troops, to the wavering National Guard. I will come out on the balcony with my grandchildren and the princesses, and I will see you die worthy of yourself, of your throne, and ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... he exclaimed, in faint-hearted irony. Then, remembering his advantage, he stepped close ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... pettiness, and sportiveness. It lacks courage and force, and the rare delicacy of the thought is not entirely able to compensate for this defect. In its fear of one-sidedness it takes refuge in the arms of an often faint-hearted policy of reconciliation. ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... have no hope of stemming the torrent which must rise against them in their progress - for the country was becoming more and more thickly settled, and towns and hamlets started into view at every new headland which they doubled. It was better, in the opinion of some, - the faint-hearted, - to abandon the enterprise at once, as beyond their strength. But Almagro took a different view of the affair. "To go home," he said, "with nothing done, would be ruin, as well as disgrace. There was scarcely one but had left creditors at Panama, who looked ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... a certain author, whose name, for fear of the Sex's resentment I conceal, brings her in, calling to Adam at a great distance, in an imperious haughty manner, beckoning to him with her hand, thus; Here, says she, you cowardly faint-hearted wretch, take this branch of heavenly fruit, eat and be a stupid fool no longer; eat and be wise; eat and be a God; and know, to your eternal shame, that your wife has been made an enlightn'd Goddess ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... through the greenwood, admired and trembled; and Dankwart whispered a word of caution to his dark-browed brother. But the old chief's face grew gloomier than before; and he scowled fiercely upon the faint-hearted Dankwart, as he ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin

... utter faith in God. I do not mean to say that David had not his sad days, when he gave himself up for lost, and when God seemed to have forsaken him, and forgotten his promise. He was a man of like passions with ourselves; and therefore he was, as we should have been, terrified and faint-hearted at times. But exactly what God was teaching and training him to be, was not to be fainthearted— not to be terrified. He began in his youth by trusting God. That made him the man after God's own heart, just as it was the want of trust in God which made Saul ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley

... by the enemy, since, as we have already seen, it was the Greek belief that the spirits of the dead found no rest till their obsequies had been performed. Such preparations did not daunt the spirits of Leonidas and his men, and his wife, Gorgo, not a woman to be faint-hearted or hold him back. Long before, when she was a very little girl, a word of hers had saved her father from listening to a traitorous message from the King of Persia; and every Spartan lady was bred up to be able ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... much progress she had made that even this shock did not set her to express any more faint-hearted doubts, and, when Lord Northmoor arrived the next day, the involuntary radiance on both their faces was token enough that they were all the world to each other. Mary allowed herself to venture on getting Lady Kenton's counsel ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge

... renewed life came the fatal news that Mars was undoubtedly preparing to deal us a death blow. The sudden revulsion of feeling flitted like the shadow of an eclipse over the earth. The scenes that followed were indescribable. Men lost their reason. The faint-hearted ended the suspense with self-destruction, the stout-hearted remained steadfast, but without hope and knowing ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss

... on saying; "what do I want with luxuries? Ask Deborah if I care what I eat and drink; we shall do very well, if you and Esther are not so faint-hearted." And when we found out how our protests seemed to hurt him, we let him have his own way; only Allan and I exchanged looks, which said as plainly as looks could, "Is he not the best uncle that ever lived, and will we not work our ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... his wives, 'Adah and Zillah, what tell you me of any dangers and fears? Hear my voice, oh ye faint-hearted wives of Lamech, and hearken unto my speech; I pass not of the strength of my adversary: for I know my own valour and power to revenge; if any man give me but a wound or a stroke, though he be never so young and lusty, I can and will ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 185, May 14, 1853 • Various

... and Dot, and "Cut it out, Tom Jonah!" from Sammy, were all that saved the day. The dog had never yet been cowed of spirit and, old as he was, he would have attacked a lion, let alone a pair of faint-hearted rowdies. ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill

... vows with cool complacency, but would only stay a minute, and would only talk of her master and mistress, toward whom her heart was really warming in their trouble. She spoke hopefully, and said: "'Tisn't as if he was one of your faint-hearted ones as meet death half-way. Why, the second day, when he could scarce speak, he sees me crying by the bed, and says he, almost in a whisper, 'What are you crying for?' 'Sir,' says I, ''tis for you—to see you ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... them looked discouraged and broken-spirited. The heart had been taken from them by their arrest, and Wittrock's boldness and defiant manner began to melt as he saw his faint-hearted accomplices. ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton

... What will he think of us? At our request, he went out of his way to visit our village. We promised to conduct him to the Mandans, and to bring him safely back to his fort. And now you talk of {58} abandoning him, because you fear the Sioux. This must never be. Let those of you who are faint-hearted remain here in camp with the women; but let those who are without fear follow our father.' After this scornful eloquence there was no further talk of ...
— Pathfinders of the Great Plains - A Chronicle of La Verendrye and his Sons • Lawrence J. Burpee

... Arbuthnot and Graves, captains when Byng was tried, followed his plan in 1781, with like demonstration of practical disaster attending false theory; but, while the tactical inefficiency was little less, the evidence of faint-hearted professional incompetency, of utter personal inadequacy, was at least not so glaring. It is the combination of the two in the person of the same commander that has given to this action its pitiful pre-eminence in the ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan

... trade; it had never been so bad, they said, while Mr. Polly wondered if "De-juiced" was a permissible epithet. There were men with an overweening sense of their importance, manifestly annoyed and angry to find themselves still disengaged, and inclined to suspect a plot, and men so faint-hearted one was terrified to imagine their behaviour when it came to an interview. There was a fresh-faced young man with an unintelligent face who seemed to think himself equipped against the world beyond all misadventure by a collar ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... flattery residing in devotion and affection makes such an impelling appeal to all vain people, that the superior animal is discarded for the inferior? The dog is grossly and offensively obscene; he is dirty, he pollutes our streets; he is a coward, and has the pusillanimous spirit of a rather faint-hearted lackey. The cat, on the other hand, is decent, clean, consistently sanitary, brave, and possessed of the great-hearted self-reliant spirit of a born warrior. The cat, however, does not fawn, it does not flatter, it shows no devotion, it knows none ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici

... the commencement of October. On the 8th of that month Balbi wrote to Casanova that a whole night devoted to labour had resulted merely in the displacing of a single brick, which so discouraged the faint-hearted monk that he was for abandoning an attempt whose only result must be to increase in the future the ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini

... cauld, faint-hearted doubtings tease him; Death comes, wi' fearless eye he sees him; Wi'bluidy hand a welcome gies him; An' when he fa's, His latest draught o' breathin lea'es him In ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... Redburn down as a faint-hearted, dubious-couraged counter-jumper from the East; he saw now that there was ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler

... of the greatness of Sparta, was admiral of the Greek fleet, but yet was faint-hearted in time of danger, and willing to weigh anchor and set sail for the isthmus of Corinth, near which the land army lay encamped; which Themistocles resisted; and this was the occasion of the well-known ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... truckling or apologetic in character. This plan was finally agreed upon. In the very beginning of his speech, in the most tactful way, Governor Wilson paid a tribute to the Great Commoner by saying, as he turned to Mr. Bryan: "When others were faint-hearted, Colonel Bryan carried the Democratic standard. He kept the 'fires burning' which have heartened and encouraged the democracy of ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty

... before, for I will shift for one, [Push AVARICE backward. So long as strength remaineth in this arm: And pluck up thy heart, thou faint-hearted mome: As long as I live thou shalt take no harm. Such as control us, I will their tongues charm By fire or sword, or other like torment, So that ever they did it, they shall it repent. Hast thou forgotten ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... comprehensive organizations officered by women of untiring energy, and the most exalted patriotic devotion; and that the events of the war constantly kept alive the zeal of a few in each society, who spurred on the laggards, and encouraged the faint-hearted. These Soldiers' Aid Societies, Ladies' Aid Associations, Alert Clubs, Soldiers' Relief Societies, or by whatever other name they were called, were usually auxiliary to some Society in the larger cities, ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... Stutely cried, "Faint-hearted peasant slave! If ever my master do thee meet, Thou shalt ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... nothing for power—they would surrender, not sacrifice it, at any time cheerfully—most of all at a crisis when its retention might subject them to the reproach of a broken pledge. Neither do we believe that this is a faint-hearted Cabinet, or that its members are capable of yielding their opinions to the brutum fulmen of the League. That body is by no means popular. The great bulk of the manufacturing artisans are totally indifferent to its proceedings; for they know well that self-interest, and ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various

... oranges, with a crazy wooden verandah impending over the water; indeed the whole house, inclusive of the complaining flag-staff on the roof, impended over the water, but seemed to have got into the condition of a faint-hearted diver who has paused so long on the brink that he will never ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... faint-hearted!" exclaimed the baroness. "To be sure these men that storm cities, and fire cannon, and cut and hack one another with so much spirit, are poor creatures compared with us when they have ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade

... fall sick and faint-hearted—whereupon, very orderly, with good discretion, they entreated me to regard the safety of mine own life, as well as the preservation of theirs; and that I should not, through overbouldness, leave their widows and fatherless children to ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... not a pleasant predicament for a nervous or a faint-hearted man to be placed in. But then Mr. Chase is neither nervous nor faint-hearted, and when Congress came together he not only told his wants frankly, but proposed a neat little plan for supplying them without selling ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... the poison begins to work she cries out pitifully for help. The son is a student, and has been expelled from the university. He hangs about at home, and cannot find energy to plot out a new career for himself. The weariness of a whole generation is expressed in his faint-hearted, listless words, as also in the blustering but ineffective rhodomontades of the tipsy choir-singer Teterev. All cordial relations between parents and children are ...
— Maxim Gorki • Hans Ostwald

... much bloud, his heart will beat very faintly, and then the impulse {356} of bloud being weaker, it will be apt to congeal the sooner, so that at the latter end of the work you must draw out the Quill ofter, and clear the passage; if the Dog be faint-hearted, as many are, though some stout fierce Dogs will bleed freely and uninterruptedly, till they are convuls'd and dye. But to prevent this trouble, and make the experiment certain, you must bleed a great Dog into a little one, or a Mastive into a Curr, as I once try'd, and ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... before noon the public vote was taken; one or two faint-hearted members sought a craven's refuge and slunk quietly from the chamber. As each name was called, the deputy rose in his place and gave his vote, there was no ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... his gift. He was dealing, not with a private individual, but with a national hero. In his small official capacity as Mayor of Wellingsford, he was but the mouthpiece of a national sentiment. And more than that. This ceremony was an appeal to the unimaginative, the sluggish, the faint-hearted. In its little way—and please remember that all tremendous enthusiasms are fit by these little fires—it was a proclamation of the undying glory of England. It was impersonal, it was national, it was Imperial. In its little way it ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... smirched. Queen Honor is the spotless. We slept thro' wars where Honor could not sleep. We were faint-hearted. Honor was full-valiant. We kept a ...
— General William Booth enters into Heaven and other Poems • Vachel Lindsay

... down, and kneel before the Lord our Maker'—it's that exactly—a sense of joyful abasement in the presence of something great and infinitely beautiful. I do wish that were more clearly stated and understood and believed. Religion, as we know it in its technical sense, is so faint-hearted about it all! It has limited worship to things beautiful enough, arches and music and ceremony: and it is so afraid of vagueness, so considerate of man's feeble grasp and small outlook, that it is afraid of recognising all the channels by which that sense is communicated, for fear of ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... may say what they will, but a poor innocent fellow had need to take great care of himself, when he dances upon the edge of the matrimonial precipice. Many a faint-hearted man, when he began to jest, or only designed to ape gallantry, has been forced into earnest, by being over-prompt, and taken at his word, not knowing how to own that he meant less than the lady supposed he meant. I am the ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... had still seven more to go. They were ordered to do the twenty-five miles in eight hours. Nobody had fallen out yet, but some of the boys looked pretty well wilted. Nifty Jones said he was done for. Sergeant Hicks was expostulating with the faint-hearted. He knew that if one man fell out, ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather

... certainty of great happiness, she was possessed by a gloomy sadness that came of dark forebodings in her mind. The very greatness and sureness of this happiness awed her into doubt. She knew that to take her good fortune in this faint-hearted way was not wise in itself, and was not what Pepe would approve; and that she might please Pepe she berated herself roundly and tried to laugh away her fears—though they scarcely amounted to fears, being but shadowy doubts and unshaped thoughts in which ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various

... the account we have to make to him, who subjects the standing or falling of his crown in this island to our debate. I speak humaniter, for diviniter I know it is impossible, and albeit we should all prove false and faint-hearted, he can, and will soon raise up other instruments to assert, publish, and propagate his right to a forum consistorii. He will have it thoroughly pled and judged betwixt his kingdom and the kingdoms of the earth. And seeing he has begun ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... faint-hearted, Mr. Charles. 'Faint heart,'—you know the proverb. You must stay and dine with us. We return to-morrow to town. I should tell you, that I received this morning a letter from my son Arthur, announcing his return from Baden, so we must give him the meeting—a very joyful one you may guess. ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... weep I am lost," she said, lifting up her head. "I have a difficult task to perform, and tears make one faint-hearted and cowardly. I shall not weep, at least not now. When my work of expiation is accomplished, when it has succeeded, then I shall weep. And they will be tears of joy! Jehovah! Almighty! stand by me, that I may weep such tears to-morrow night! And ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... wife, the child, the home, the church, the great mass of the common thinking, feeling, suffering, praying, hoping people of America. If these fail, all fails. If these lose faith and courage and hope, all lose faith and courage and hope. If these grow faint-hearted, all before them lose heart. These are they who furnish the real sinews of war. These are they who must furnish the morale, the love, the letters, the prayers, the support to both government and soldier. Yes, the common folks over here at home, ...
— Soldier Silhouettes on our Front • William L. Stidger

... Trieste lay in a blaze of colour under the June sunlight. The scent of fruits and flowers was heavy on the air. A faint-hearted breeze which scarcely dared to blow came up from the harbour now and again, and made the heat just bearable. Mr. William Holmes Barndale, of Barndale in the county of Surrey, and King's Bench Walk-, Temple, sat in shadow in front of a restaurant with his legs comfortably thrust forth and his hat ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray

... proffer," said the prince, "the provost of the lists shall cut thy bowstring, break thy bow and arrows, and expel thee from the presence as a faint-hearted craven." ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin

... gold—which only a legend of late and wretched invention represents the hero Camillus as having recovered for Rome—and when the fugitives had again made their way home, the foolish idea suggested by some faint-hearted prudential politicians, that the citizens should migrate to Veii, was set aside by a spirited speech of Camillus; houses arose out of the ruins hastily and irregularly—the narrow and crooked streets of Rome owed their origin to ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... so much warmth, and yet with so much assurance of our fate, that I began to think a little of the risk I was going to run. I had no more mind to be murdered than he; and yet I could not for my life be so faint-hearted in the thing as he. Upon which I asked him if he had any knowledge of the place, or had ever been there. He said, No. Then I asked him if he had heard or read anything about the people of this island, and of their way of treating any Christians that had fallen into their ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe

... "Thou faint-hearted fool!" said Stagman, "knowest thou not thy wares were well worth a hundred crowns, which, I warrant thee, Plausible will make of them before the market is over. Out upon thee for a crazed coxcomb! get thee gone, and trouble us ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... wonderful bravery; nothing daunted him; beset by death on every hand he remained cool and resolute, rallying us after every onset, rousing the faint-hearted ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx

... was cut short at this point. Both the young men went away immediately after supper. They were pursued by a nervously malicious, but somewhat faint-hearted laugh from Madame Kukshin; her vanity had been deeply wounded by neither of them having paid any attention to her. She stayed later than any one at the ball, and at four o'clock in the morning she was dancing a polka-mazurka with Sitnikov ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... amongst you is so faint-hearted as not to serve with the resolution of conquering or dying, this is the time for such ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... be shovelled into bags and carted to Sydney. But when they came upon the scene, and saw that in the case of most of them it would only be after weeks and months of severe and constant toil that they could be rich, they grew faint-hearted, lounged for a week or two on the diggings, and then started for home again; so that, for some time, there was a counter-current of grumbling and discontented men passing back to Sydney by the road. These men thought themselves befooled by Hargraves, and it might, perhaps, have cost him his life ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland

... small dungeon and held up his candle. This was the last resting-place of a good man, a warm-hearted, unselfish man; a man whose whole life was given to succoring the poor, encouraging the faint-hearted, visiting the sick; in relieving distress, whenever and wherever he found it. His heart, his hand, and his purse were always open. With his story in one's mind he can almost see his benignant countenance moving calmly among the haggard faces of Milan in the days when the plague swept the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... high-souled wife. She whom I choose must not rest content with a humble lot; no honour must seem to high for her to strive for; she must go with me gladly a-viking; war-weed must she wear; she must egg me on to strife, and never wink her eyes where sword-blades lighten; for if she be faint-hearted, scant honour will befall me." Is it not true, ...
— The Vikings of Helgeland - The Prose Dramas Of Henrik Ibsen, Vol. III. • Henrik Ibsen

... independence. Fidelity to our principles and institutions demands that we PREVENT such interference by solemnly proclaiming that the laws of nations and humanity SHALL BE PRESERVED inviolate and sacred. In the performance of this duty the faint-hearted may falter; the domestic despot and cold diplomatist may linger behind; the man of world-extended and fearful traffic may hesitate; but the warm and great heart of the American masses will feel no moment of hesitation and doubt in defence of truth. The great Author of nations will find the means ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth

... particular prize, sir, by your gracious leave," said Joe Hawkridge, addressing Captain Wellsby. "This is Mr. Peter Tobey, a poor, faint-hearted pirate like me. May I have ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine

... than in the comparative comfort of billets or 'cushy jobs.'" Tommy gave Mr. Punch his cue, and his high example was not thrown away on those at home, where, when all allowance is made for shirkers and slackers and scaremongers, callous pleasure-seekers, faint-hearted pacificists, rebels and traitors, the great majority so bore themselves as to convince Mr. Punch that it was not only a privilege but a duty to minister to mirth even at times when one hastened to laugh for fear ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch

... true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even the walkers, nowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-ending enterprises. Our expeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old hearth-side from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing our steps. We should go ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau

... intelligent, good, and interesting, you have to eat a hundredweight of salt with him. . . . And what's the use of his goodness and intelligence? He can fork out money as much as you want, but when character is needed to resist insolence or aggressiveness, he is faint-hearted and overcome with nervousness. People like your amiable Alyosha are splendid people, but they are no use at all for fighting. In fact, they ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... believers shall he who is of my type among men not bind his heart; in those spring-times and many-hued meadows shall he not believe, who knoweth the fickly faint-hearted human species! ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche

... this thing like men," he cries, in that deep, din- conquering voice that has served the Ingerfields in good stead on many a steel-swept field, on many a storm-struck sea; "there must be no cowardly selfishness, no faint-hearted despair. If we've got to die we'll die; but please God we'll live. Anyhow, we will stick together, and help each other. I mean to stop here with you, and do what I can for you. None of my people ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome

... said the elder of the two hedgehogs respectfully. "Me and little Billy here, we was trying to find our way to school—mother would have us go, was the weather ever so—and of course we lost ourselves, sir, and Billy he got frightened and took and cried, being young and faint-hearted. And at last we happened up against Mr. Badger's back door, and made so bold as to knock, sir, for Mr. Badger he's a kind-hearted ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame

... behalf of the emperor's cause, if, indeed, you are again his slaves, or in behalf of your own selves, if you preserve this present liberty. And whichever of the two is preferable, this it is in your power to choose, either by becoming faint-hearted at this time, or by preferring to play the part of brave men. Furthermore, this thought also should come to your minds,—that if, having taken up arms against the Romans, you come under their power, you will have experience of no moderate or indulgent ...
— History of the Wars, Books III and IV (of 8) - The Vandalic War • Procopius

... this crippled queen, and treated her more as they are wont to treat a fertile one. In the course of a week, there were not more than a dozen left in the hive, and in a few days more, I missed the queen, and saw only a few disconsolate wretches crawling over the deserted comb! Shame upon the faint-hearted and cowardly of our own race, who, if overtaken by calamity, instead of nobly breasting the dark waters of affliction, and manfully buffetting with their tumultuous waves, meanly resign themselves to their ignoble fate, and sink and perish where they might have lived and triumphed; and double ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... must have a God, who is both irritable, and placable. If his anger frightens some timorous souls, his clemency encourages the resolutely wicked, who depend upon recurring, sooner or later, to the means of accommodation. If the judgments of God terrify some faint-hearted pious persons, who by constitution and habit are not prone to evil, the treasures of divine mercy encourage the greatest criminals, who have reason to hope they participate ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach

... such virgins as you describe, but none are of steadfast enough heart to brave the great danger with which your Highness says they are menaced; for we have a nature like all women, and are weak and faint-hearted. But, methinks, there is one brave enough, and in all things pure, who would be of the service your Grace demands—I mean Diliana Bork, daughter of Jobst Bork of Saatzig; I counsel your ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... numbered three thousand. They used lots of meat. The buffalo were being frightened by so much travel of soldiers, and for the band to stay long in one spot was dangerous. Some of the women and men got faint-hearted, and deserted. They carried word to the soldiers, and asked to be sent to the reservation. Sitting Bull's medicine did not prevent them from ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin

... of this island were in general a brisk, slender, active, well-made people, very swift of foot, and seemed of sweet tempers, and modest dispositions, but timorous and faint-hearted; for whenever they brought fowls or other provisions to the Dutch, they threw themselves on their knees, and immediately on delivering their presents retired in all haste. They were mostly as brown-complexioned as Spaniards, some ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... the path for the faint-hearted, for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures ...
— Inaugural Presidential Address - Contributed Transcripts • Barack Hussein Obama

... uniformity revealed by statistics may be reversed when resolute men and women, possessed of higher ideals, unite to resist it. Jacob A. Riis holds that these evils are not by a decree of fate, but are the result of positive wrong, and he dedicates his "Ten Years' War" as follows—"to the faint-hearted and those ...
— Euthenics, the science of controllable environment • Ellen H. Richards

... faint-hearted, and every day invented some new excuse for not leaving. One day it was that there were not enough camels and horses to carry the necessary provision; the next, that the country through which they must pass was infested by blacks; ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... to Mrs. O'Flanagan's party, that it was time to wash off the dust of the battle-field from their faces, and mount fresh linen and cambric. Those who were pleased to call themselves "good fellows" declared for "another bottle;" the faint-hearted swore that an autograph invitation from Venus herself to the heathen Olympus, with nectar and ambrosia for tea and bread-and-butter, could not tempt them from the Christian enjoyment of a feather-bed after the fag of such a day; but the preux chevaliers—those who did deserve to win ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover

... by an ex-judge, who had written a book on the rules of evidence, would have quieted almost any one else, and the members' faces expressed a sense of relief as they thought that Mr. Jodderel was not one of the faint-hearted, and in his opinion faint-heartedness and quietness were one and ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton

... American citizenship was not yet deeply rooted. However indignant the better elements may have felt at first over this cowardly desertion of the flag, the continual repetition of such arguments evoked faint-hearted considerations of the desirability of peace in ever ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff

... men to overcome, according to the maxim which had hitherto guided Mr Rawlings and Seth Allport, and which they had preached to the more faint-hearted members of their party; and, Ernest Wilton was a thorough disciple of their creed, for he was not one to be daunted by obstacles, no matter how grievous and apparently insurmountable they ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson

... the wheat position for this country in the view of our most brilliant practical expert. I commend it to the notice of those who are faint-hearted about the future ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy

... that takes place in their heads, and such natures as these will remain for a long while in the position that I have described. This was my own case. I became the plaything of two contending impulses; the desires of youth were always held in check by a faint-hearted sentimentality. Life in Paris is a cruel ordeal for impressionable natures, the great inequalities of fortune or of position inflame their souls and stir up bitter feelings. In that world of magnificence and pettiness envy is more apt to be ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... Adieu! faint-hearted instrument of lust; That falselie hath betrayde our equale trust. Hence-forth no more will I implore thine ayde, Or thee, or man of ...
— The Choise of Valentines - Or the Merie Ballad of Nash His Dildo • Thomas Nash

... dames! no longer Grecian men! certainly will these things be a disgrace, most grievously grievous, if none of the Greeks will now go against Hector. But may ye all become water and earth, sitting there each of you, faint-hearted; utterly inglorious: but I myself will be armed against him. But the issues of victory are rested in ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... hold the election resulted in such mobs and tumult that it was forbidden to be held by a faint-hearted Free State mayor, and was consequently adjourned to Easton. The Free State printing press of Mark Delahay was, during these troubles, destroyed. At Easton, a mob undertook to break up the election, but was driven ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler

... forsooth, keep themselves alive for twelve months; so that Drake, coming back from his last West Indian voyage, after giving them all the help he could, had to bring the whole party home. And if you will believe it, the faint-hearted fellows had not been gone a fortnight, before I was back again with three ships and all that they could want. And never was I more wroth in my life, when all I found was the ruins of their huts, which (so rich is the ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... girl was not faint-hearted, but lifted her little feet as well as she could and followed him. He led her on in the white, bright, living, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... tenderly; "I know all you suffer, but try and be stout-hearted. Some one must act as a pioneer in a new country. I am trying to be one, and I want your help. Don't discourage me by being faint-hearted about trifles, and fancying dangers that ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn

... place, and perhaps the next day some twenty miles across the mountains in another, with almost invariable success, seems little short of a miracle. But flesh and blood could not endure such toil and privations much longer. No wonder that the faint-hearted began to despair. Turrel, the military commander, seeing no chance of a prosperous issue, withdrew across the French frontier, followed by the greater number of the Vaudois from Dauphiny;[110] and there remained only the Italian Vaudois, still unconquered in spirit, under the leadership of their ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... that Leonidas sent away them that departed, having a care for their safety; but it did not become him and the Spartans that were with him, he said, to leave their post that they had come to keep at the first. And indeed it seems fit to be believed that Leonidas, seeing that the others were faint-hearted and would not willingly abide the peril, bade them go, but that he himself held it to be a shameful thing to depart. For he knew that he should get for himself great glory by abiding at his post, and that the prosperity of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... next day such certain signs of land were seen that the most faint-hearted took courage. The men had already noticed great flocks of land-birds flying toward the west, as if to guide them. Now some of the men on one vessel saw a branch of a thorn-bush float by. It was plain that it had not long been broken off from ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery

... that we are but faint-hearted crusaders, who undertake no persevering, never-ending enterprises. Our expeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old hearthside from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing our steps. ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan

... are right," she said, slowly, at last. And then, with a queer little laugh which jarred upon Conniston strangely: "I am getting fanciful, I suppose, and faint-hearted! Never has our undertaking seemed so big to me; never have the obstacles loomed so high. I find myself waking up with a start night after night from some horrible dream that the water has failed in the mountains, or that Oliver Swinnerton has stolen all of our men, or that ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory

... cheers and demonstrations of applause, somewhat tempered by the gravity of the occasion; nay, a few faint-hearted churls said, "Let us hear what he has to propose before ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... capable of leading others toward the goal of a regenerated humanity. To know the right and to maintain it, to fight against the wrong, to impart courage to the timid, strength to the weak, and hope to the faint-hearted; to forget self in the service of others and extend a human sympathy to the ends of the earth, this is your vocation. It is the call of the world, it is the voice of one calling to you out of a distant past across the nineteen Christian centuries; it is the "spirit of the years to come," summoning ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... into the hands of his new master. In putting into execution his bold resolve, he secreted himself, and so remained for three weeks. In the meantime his mother, who was a slave, resolved to escape also, but after one week's gloomy foreboding, she became "faint-hearted and gave the struggle over." But Joseph did not know what surrender meant. His sole thought was to procure a ticket on the U.G.R.R. for Canada, which by persistent effort he succeeded in doing. ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... and readers will want the whole of Crabbe's works in which to dig for themselves. Crabbe's place in English Literature needed not such a gathering as this to make it secure, but we want celebrations of our literary heroes to keep alive enthusiasm, and to encourage the faint-hearted. ...
— Immortal Memories • Clement Shorter

... anything" under trusted leaders; and they restored the military reputation of their country before the eyes of Europe. To have forged such an instrument of war was no mean administrative exploit. To have maintained its efficiency steadily on the whole, though sometimes with a faint-hearted parsimony, and to have loyally supported its commander against the cavils of a factious opposition superior in parliamentary ability, for a period of seven years, must be held to redeem the tory government from the ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... down before Nankin. The siege continued for a fortnight, but notwithstanding that there was a large Manchu force in the Tartar city, which might easily have been defended against an enemy without artillery, the resistance offered was singularly and unexpectedly faint-hearted. The Taepings succeeded in blowing in one of the gates, the townspeople fraternized with the assailants, and the very Manchus who had defied Sir Hugh Gough in 1842 surrendered their lives and their honor to a force which was nothing more than an armed rabble. The Tartar colony at ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... land of the impossible. He was constantly tormented by the suspicion that she secretly disapproved of him, and that from a mere moral interest in his welfare she was conscientiously laboring to make him a better man. Day after day he parted from her feeling humiliated, faint-hearted, and secretly indignant both at himself and her, and day after day he returned only to renew the same experience. At last it became too intolerable, he could endure it no longer. Let it make or break, certainty, at all ...
— A Good-For-Nothing - 1876 • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... Dragon!' echoed Mark, cheerfully, 'if there warn't any water between you and me, and nothing faint-hearted-like in going back, I don't know that I mightn't say the same. But here am I, Dragon, in New York, America; and there are you in Wiltshire, Europe; and there's a fortune to make, Dragon, and a beautiful young lady to make it for; and whenever you go to ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... body-guard, boisterously laughing, with their hands on their sides, or kicking over the mock throne covered with white cloth, the coils of rope, the axes of painted wood, and the other properties of this very faint-hearted Fehmgericht. ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... scene we find the Walkyries, arriving through the clouds on horseback one after the other. Every-one has a hero lying before her in the saddle. It is their office to carry these into Walhalla, while the faint-hearted, or those of mankind, not happy enough to fall in battle, are doomed to go to "Hel" after ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... torn mantle had said that help would certainly come, and many of the faint-hearted were clinging more to their faith in the Frate's word, than to their faith in the virtues of the unseen Image. But there were not a few of the fierce-hearted who thought with secret rejoicing that the Frate's word ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... frightened; timid, timorous, faint-hearted, cowardly, craven, pusillanimous, meticulous; terrible, frightful, dreadful, grim, awful, dire, fell, atrocious, ghastly, terrifying, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... great disorder. As Pyrrhus, however, marched in by the street called Kylarabis, his soldiers raised a warlike shout: and he, noticing that the shout was echoed by the Gauls in the market-place in an undecided, faint-hearted fashion, at once guessed that they were being hard pressed. He instantly pressed the horsemen with him to charge, which they did with great difficulty, as the horses kept falling into the water-courses with which the whole city is intersected. The night was spent ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... was not the good nature of the faint-hearted or weak-kneed. She was never at loss for words, nor the spirit to back them when she considered conditions demanded them. Subsequently, when his wife retired, the major, very red in the face, ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson

... Prometheus, wiser grown 95 By years of solitude,—that holds apart The past and future, giving the soul room To search into itself,—and long commune With this eternal silence;—more a god, In my long-suffering and strength to meet 100 With equal front the direst shafts of fate, Than thou in thy faint-hearted despotism, Girt with thy baby-toys of force and wrath. Yes, I am that Prometheus who brought down The light to man, which thou, in selfish fear, 105 Hadst to thyself usurped,—his by sole right, For Man hath right to all save Tyranny,— ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell

... arms, then! to arms! Let the battle-cry rise, Like the raven's hoarse croak, through their ranks let it sound; Set their knell on the wing of each arrow that flies, Till the shouts of the free shake the mountains around; Let the cold-blooded, faint-hearted changeling now tremble, For the war-shock shall reach to his dark-centered cave, While the laurels that twine round the brows of the victors Shall with rev'rence be strew'd o'er the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... hope work wonders. They nerved the courage of these distressed Freibergers, until the most faint-hearted among them rose into a hero. Let the Swedes renew their assault on the next day as fiercely as they pleased; let them summon the town three times over to surrender, and make all their preparations for a final attack; nothing could now take away the joyful assurance of immediate relief. ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous

... absurd craft, that rolled from side to side in the most gentle sea. She would start out courageously to cross the bay along the strip of Moro coast in Northern Mindanao; but the throbbing of her engines growing weaker and weaker, she would presently turn back faint-hearted, unable to make headway, at the mercy of a sudden storm, and with the possibility of being swept up on a hostile shore among bloodthirsty and unreasonable Moros. Another time, and we were caught in a typhoon off the north coast. We thought, of course, our little ship was stanch, until we ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert

... the grass, the trees, the babbling brooks and the singing birds. Interpret the lesson for yourself, then teach it to others. Always be in earnest in your writing; go about it in a determined kind of way, don't be faint-hearted or backward, be brave, be brave, and ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin

... Elias, stepping back and staring at him. "You would appear as a traitor and coward in the eyes of the plotters and faint-hearted in the eyes of others. They would say that you planned the whole thing to curry ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... thought Harold Quaritch on that night of the farewell scene with Ida in the churchyard, and so he continued to think for some time to come. A man's life is always more or less a struggle; he is a swimmer upon an adverse sea, and to live at all he must keep his limbs in motion. If he grows faint-hearted or weary and no longer strives, for a little while he floats, and then at last, morally or physically, he vanishes. We struggle for our livelihoods, and for all that makes life worth living in the material sense, and not the less are we called upon to struggle with an army of spiritual woes and ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard

... exist for the sake of the drama, but an attempt to combine the songs with the continuous working out of a dramatic impulse in the modern manner. But the attempt is far less successful than in "Romeo"; and indeed it is a faint-hearted one. Whenever a song occurs, the action is suspended, and all the actors save the lucky vocalist of the minute are at their wits' end to know where to look, and what to do with their hands, feet—their whole persons in fact—and the ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman

... the first attack proved fruitless, And with bloody heads drew back now The assaulters, seeking shelter, 'Midst the chestnut-trees' dense thicket. Scornful words now reach the castle: "Coward knights, faint-hearted servants, Keep behind the walls, protected. Just come out to honest combat If you've courage." "Death and Devil!" Werner shouted. "Let the bridge down! Spears at rest! Now onward!—Mock us? In the ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel

... Eustache, on Sunday, November 26, came the news of Wolfred Nelson's victory at St Denis. On Monday and Tuesday bands of Patriotes went about the countryside, terrorizing and disarming the loyalists and compelling the faint-hearted to join in the rising. On Wednesday night the rebels gathered to the number of about four hundred {94} in St Eustache, and got noisily drunk (s'y enivrerent bruyamment). They then proceeded, under the command of Girod and Chenier, to the Indian mission settlement at the Lake of Two Mountains. ...
— The 'Patriotes' of '37 - A Chronicle of the Lower Canada Rebellion • Alfred D. Decelles

... thus far, a faint-hearted look, which had begun to show itself several sentences earlier, became pronounced. She threw the writing into the dull fire, poked and stirred it till a red inflammation crept over the sheet, ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... in Austria, our ally, is gravely menaced by the Slavs; Germany herself is exposed to a perpetual peaceful invasion of Slavonic workmen. Many Poles are firmly established in the heart of Westphalia. Only faint-hearted measures are taken to-day to stem this Slavonic flood. And yet to check this onrush of Slavism is not merely an obligation inherited from our fathers, but a duty in the interests of self-preservation and European civilization. It cannot yet be determined whether we can keep ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi

... the whole world who can defeat you, and that person is yourself; and no man can finish a task before he begins it. We'll grant there's a chance for failure—a million chances; but don't try to count them. Count the chances for success. Don't be faint-hearted, for there's no such thing as fear. It doesn't exist. It's merely an absence of courage, just as indecision is merely a lack of decision. I never saw anything yet of which I was afraid—and you're a man. The deity of success is a woman, and she insists on being won, not courted. You've got ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach



Words linked to "Faint-hearted" :   faint, cowardly, fearful



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