"Cringing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Cathedral. A moment later the officers appeared, and they too stationed themselves near the doorway. Presently the girl came out on her father's arm. Her admirers stepped forward to greet Intelvi; and the cringing wretch stood there exchanging compliments with them, while their insolent stare devoured his daughter's beauty. She, poor thing, shook like a leaf, and her eyes, in avoiding theirs, suddenly encountered Roberto's. Her look was a wounded bird that ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... Lysimachus, last day, when we Took the pure air in its simplicity, And our own too, how the trimm'd gallants went Cringing, and pass'd each step some compliment? What strange, fantastic diagrams they drew With legs and arms; the like we never knew In Euclid, Archimede, nor all of those Whose learned lines are neither ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... gold!' exclaimed Rust, fiercely; 'what cared I for gold? Ho! ho! Michael Rust values gold but as dross; but it is the world; the cringing, obsequious, miser-hearted world, that kisses the very feet of wealth, which set Michael Rust on; it was this that lashed him forward; but not for himself. I married a woman whom I loved,' said he, in a quick, stern tone; 'she abandoned me and became an outcast, and paid the penalty by an outcast's ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... been instilled into my mind that God would strike one dead for mocking him. One day Ras Jenkins and I were crossing this field when it began to thunder. Ras turned up his lips to the clouds contemptuously. 'Oh, don't, you'll be struck,' I cried, cringing in expectation of the avenging thunderbolt. What a revelation it was when he was not struck! I immediately began to think, 'Now, maybe God isn't so easily offended as I thought'; but it seemed to me any God with dignity ought to have been ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... around, bewildered. The clear evening light fell on Holmes, as he stood there looking down at the dying little lamiter: a powerful figure, with a face supreme, masterful, but tender: you will find no higher type of manhood. Did God make him of the same blood as the vicious, cringing wretch crouching to hide his black face at the other side of the bed? Some such thought came into Lois's brain, and vexed her, bringing the tears to her eyes: he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... are eager, his teeth are keen, As he slips at night through the bush like a snake, Crouching and cringing, straight into the wind, To leap with a grin on the fawn ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... uppermost in his mind. Not from any feeling of personal pride, for of a truth vanity is a mortal sin, but because Mistress Charity had of late cast uncommonly kind eyes on that cringing worm, Master Courage Toogood, and the latter, emboldened by the minx's favors, had been more than usually insolent to ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... further, we can look upon our haughty imperious taskmasters, and all those who are sent here to aid and abet them, together with those sons of servility, who from very false notions of politeness, can seek and court opportunities of cringing and fawning at their feet, of whom, thro' favor, there are but few among us: we may look down upon all these, with that sovereign contempt and indignation, with which those who feel their own dignity and freedom, will for ever view the men, who ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... understand Bengali as well as Hindustani. I may mention here that as Hindoos regard an egg as defiling, and Mohammedans despise an eater of pork, our love for ham and eggs alienates us from both these classes; what beasts we must be! The Hindoos and the Bengal Mussulmans are characterized by cringing servility, open insolence, or rude indifference. Contrast with this the Burmese agreeableness and affability, or the bearing of the Rajput and the Sikh. In those days the natives cringed before the Sahib Log much more than they do now. Then all had to put their umbrellas ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... up to her and placed a chair in front of her. Then she shrank together, and crossed her slender arms, as if she were cringing ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... London, that the censures cast on the memory of Pitt ought to have been levelled at the defender of Ulm, the Czar Alexander and his equally presumptuous advisers at Austerlitz, and most of all at the cringing politicians of Berlin? ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... described by Baden-Powell as "the bully tribe" of the Gold Coast Hinterland. Instead of finding the bully as willing to fight as Cuff was willing to face dear old Dobbin, B.-P. found a cowering, cringing enemy, willing to lick the dust and abase himself in any manner the ingenious white man might suggest. So it was with no feelings of elation that the man who had received the pink flimsy ordering him on active service, who had raised and organised the ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... would I do if I were to occupy the Creator's position as supreme judge in a case of that kind? Would I not think far more of the man who would come forward courageously and take the punishment he deserved than the creeping, cringing and whining being who begged for mercy? Would God the Creator be more unreasonable about the matter than I, ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... was in Hangtown three days ago. I reckon I otter know, seein' I was one on 'em tew help run him out. Ay, Skoonly," and Ham jerked the cringing man around in front of the alcalde. "Now, what might be th' trouble with that arm?" and he glared down at the bandaged arm of Skoonly, who had submitted to all these indignities, almost without a protest. He knew ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... of guilty embarrassment upon their vis-a-vis' face had begun to swell into the cringing leer familiarly precedent to an appeal for leniency, when the fellow leaned forward, stared fearfully at the Judge, and, dropping the pullet with a ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... Dudley, and next day said she would never marry at all. But she never ceased to flirt with Dudley, who, when his intrigue with Spain fell through, cynically appealed to the French Protestants for support. They were in no position to help him, and by January 1562, he was cringing to Spain, and pretending to be Catholic. But English Catholics hated him, and he was now no ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... no, Sir; but they are, for the most part, what's as good, very proud and promising, Sir, most liberal of their Word to every fauning Suiter, to purchase the state of long Attendance, and cringing as they pass; but the Devil of a Performance, without you get the Knack of bribing in the right Place and Time; but yet they all ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... in their determination to make the unreal, real. He did not now desire to be a drivelling repentant; he wanted, God knew he really wanted, a chance to be decent and live; but in order to live he must go on acting a part and cringing and hiding. ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... piece in a pocket of his trousers was his total cash balance. But his heart was as light as the day. Had he not youth? Had he not health? Had he not looks to bewitch the women, brains to outwit the men? Feuerstein sniffed the delightful air and gazed round, like a king in the midst of cringing subjects. "I feel that this is one of my lucky days," said he to himself. An aristocrat, a patrician, a Hochwohlgeboren, ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... at my friend's infatuation. Her face was a little more flushed than usual, and she held in her hand a heavy dog-whip, with which she had been chastising a small Scotch terrier, whose cries we had heard in the street. The poor brute was cringing up against the wall, whining piteously, ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... "Be a good boy, Tom, and I'll befriend you. Tread in the steps of your father; he was an excellent man, and a great loss to the parish; he was a very civil, hard-working, well-behaved creature; knew his station;—mind, and do like him!" So perpetual hard labour and plenty of cringing make the ancestral virtues to be perpetuated to peasants till the day of judgment! Another insidious distillation of morality is conveyed through a general praise of the poor. You hear false friends of the people, who call themselves Liberals and Tories, who ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... meet with approval from few or many,—is accidental, is something which may happen to an ignorant, a heartless, a depraved, a vulgar man. The most vicious and brutal of men have, again and again, held the most exalted positions, and as a rule cringing and lying, trickery and robbery, or speculation and gambling, have been and are the means by which great fortunes are acquired. Position, then, and money are distinguishable from worth; and they may be and often are found where the life of thought and love, of faith and hope, of imagination ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... craven souls Of those who trembling stood, And would not—dare not—lend a hand To stay this feast of blood! Whose cringing spirits lowly bowed Before the despot-glance Of him whose star now pales before Brave England! Mighty France! Ring out, rejoice, and clap your hands, Shout, patriots, everyone! A burst of joy let rend the ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... melted. It never broke. Alvina felt that the very force of the sullen, silent fearlessness and fury in the Tawaras had prevented its bursting. Once there had been a weakening, a cringing, they would all have been lost. But their hearts hardened with black, indomitable anger. And the cloud melted, it passed away. There was ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... society; and if he had wit enough to support the character, he soon found himself facile princeps in a circle of the highest nobility in the land. Thus it is that in the clubs of the day we find title and wealth mingling with wit and genius; and the writer who had begun life by a cringing dedication, was now rewarded by the devotion and assiduity of the men he had once flattered. When Steele, Swift, Addison, Pope, and Congreve were the kings of their sets, it was time for authors to look and talk big. Eheu! ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... car down the roaring, crackling tunnel of flames, groaning and screeching like a mad thing. Tongues of fire began to lick over the sides of the car at the cringing boys within. ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... (for it struck the floor this time and broke) with the cry he gave—which was not exactly a cry either, but an odd sound between a moan and a shriek. He had caught sight of the men who were seeking to detain him, and his haggard look and cringing form showed that he realized at last the terrors of his position. Next minute he sought to escape, but Styles, gripping him more firmly, dragged him back to where Mr. Gryce stood beside the bearskin rug on which lay the ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... knocking and shouting for many minutes that the Indian porter condescended to come and open it. Being angry with the man for this unreasonable delay, I cuffed him as I passed in—for without some severities of this kind there is nothing to be done with the natives of Bengal. The fellow, instead of cringing before me as is the wont of these people, gave me a black ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... to that who slew him, and made me such as I am," returned Simon, turning from him, and gazing steadfastly down into the camp. Suddenly a gleam of fierce exultation lighted up his face, and again facing Richard he exclaimed, "Yes, go home, tame cringing spaniel, and see whether a Montfort is still in favour below there! See if proud Edward is still ready to meet thy fawning with his scornful patronage! See if the honour of a murdered father has not been left in ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not more than nine miles, which had taken them five hours to travel, they were agreeably accommodated for the night in a neat cottage; and the Albanian landlord, in whose demeanour they could discern none of that cringing, downcast, sinister look which marked the degraded Greek, received them ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... power of summarizing and balancing thoughts and sensations, he draws up arguments for and against this act. He is in the dawn of his days and in four months' time he will see "la patrie," which he has not seen since childhood. What joy! And yet—how men have fallen away from nature: how cringing are his compatriots to their conquerors: they are no longer the enemies of tyrants, of luxury, of vile courtiers: the French have corrupted their morals, and when "la patrie" no longer survives, a good patriot ought to die. Life among the French is odious: their modes of life differ ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... her head to speak, when suddenly a shadow fell upon them. It was that of the head eunuch, Mesrour, a fat, cunning-faced man, with a cringing air. Low he ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... company of Chaldaeans, sacrificers, and interpreters of the Sibyl's books, persuaded Octavius that things would turn out happily, and kept him at Rome. He was, indeed, of all the Romans the most upright and just, and maintained the honor of the consulate, without cringing or compliance, as strictly in accordance with ancient laws and usages, as though they had been immutable mathematical truths; and yet fell, I know not how, into some weaknesses, giving more observance to fortune-tellers ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... decent wages to live on. Everywhere I've been it's the same story, men out of work, women out of work, children who should be at school the only ones who can always get work. Everywhere men crawling for a job, sinking their manhood for the chance of work, cringing and sneaking and throat-cutting, even in their unionism. In every town an army of women like my Mary, women like ourselves, going down, down, down. Honesty and virtue and courage getting uncommon. We're all getting to steal and plunder when we get a chance, the work people do it, the employers ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... villain, has ruined us both," said Avdotya in a cringing voice, and tears flowed down her face. "You must not leave it like that, Akim Semyonitch, you must get the money back. Don't think of me. I am ready to take my oath that I only lent him the money. Lizaveta Prohorovna could sell our inn if she liked, but ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... lingering about the deck. He had evidently foresight enough to suspect what was to take place, and he appeared troubled and uneasy, and bewildered in thought. The poor fellow was quite an altered person; his habitual haughtiness had entirely forsaken him, and given place to a cringing and humble demeanor. A plate of meat was presented to him, of which he ate sparingly, and showed clearly that he was thinking more of his promised goods, than his appetite, and a quantity of rum that was given to him ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... Well, the change in him, from what he was before the operation, is shocking. Imagine a young dare-devil of twenty-two, who had no greater fear of danger or death than of a cold, now a cringing, cowering fellow; apparently an old man, nursing his life with pitiful tenderness, fearful that at any moment something may happen to break the hold of his aorta-walls on the stiletto-blade; a confirmed hypochondriac, peevish, melancholic, ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... for which it was instituted. It had become an oppressive social despotism; it had widened the distinction between the noble and ignoble classes; it had produced selfishness and arrogance among the nobles, and a mean and cringing sycophancy among the people; it had perpetuated privileges, among the aristocracy, exceedingly unjust, and ruinous to the general welfare of society. It therefore fell before the advancing spirit of the age, and monarchies ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... to it, in case the Trappist should repent of his present sincere intentions. Once again, then, I revisited this abhorred manor with the ancient chief of the brigands transformed into a Trappist. He showed himself so humble and cringing in my presence, he made so light of his brother's life, and expressed such abject submission that I was filled with disgust, and after a few moments begged him not to speak to me any more. Keeping in touch with the mounted police outside, we began our search for the secret chamber. At first ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... galleys, you may imagine from what you know of him. He played the 'repentant criminal,' overflowing with professions of sorrow for the past, and amendment in future, and cringing and crouching at the feet of the officials of the prison. He carried on this comedy so successfully, that, after three years and a half, he was pardoned. But he had not lost his time in prison. The contact with the vilest of criminals had sharpened ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... Harlowe, if you can be better, do, for my sake, be better; and send me word of it. Let the bearer bring me a line. Be sure you send me a line. If I lose you, my more than sister, and lose my mother, I shall distrust my own conduct, and will not marry. And why should I?—Creeping, cringing in courtship!—O my dear, these men are a vile race of reptiles in our day, and mere bears in their own. See in Lovelace all that is desirable in figure, in birth, and in fortune: but in his heart a devil!—See in Hickman—Indeed, my dear, I cannot tell what ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... Chapel) with the one here by Masaccio. Michelangelo's figures are more correct, but far less tangible and less powerful; and while he represents nothing but a man warding off a blow dealt from a sword, and a woman cringing with ignoble fear, Masaccio's Adam and Eve stride away from Eden heart-broken with shame and grief, hearing, perhaps, but not seeing, the angel hovering high overhead who ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson
... they get a cent or not, dad would go and hunt them up, and divide his roll with them. Dad is not what you would call a "tight wad," if you let him shed his money normally, when he feels the loosening coming on, but you try to work him by bowing and cringing, and his American spirit gets the better of him, and he looks upon the servant as pretty low down. I have told him that the tipping habit is just as bad in America as in France, but he says in America the servant acts as though he never had such a thought as getting a tip, and when ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... without knocking.—The baby was not deserted. Mag herself stood at the window in her nightdress, cringing from the lightning, and wringing her hands and weeping. The baby wept ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... not cringing even now. He was asking no pity, no mercy. When he had stepped across the room and had taken down that bottle, he had been clear-headed; he had been clear-headed when he had swallowed its contents. The only relief he craved for himself was to be allowed to remain clear-headed until he should ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... gave a start and turned very pale when he saw us, but endeavouring to put a bold face upon it, he came bowing and cringing towards us, smiling ...
— The Mysterious Shin Shira • George Edward Farrow
... In his dealings with his people the Emperor is neither arrogant—"high-nosed" is the elegant German expression: "arrogant" is no German word, Prince Buelow would doubtless say— towards his subjects, nor are they cringing towards him, though this statement does not exclude the excusable embarrassment an ordinary mortal may be expected to feel in the presence of a monarch. The Emperor himself desires no "tail-wagging" from his subjects, and though there is something of the autocrat in him, there ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... begrimed with coal; 'Dolph fawning towards her, cringing almost on his belly, but wagging his stump of a tail ecstatically. ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... his eagle eye down upon the cringing old man, as if he would rather welcome contradiction ...
— The Raid Of The Guerilla - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... dog has acquired all the qualities that make man base and unreliable: cringing flattery upward, and rudeness and contempt downward; the narrowest adhesion to his own, and distrust and hatred of all else. Indeed, the noble animal has proved such an apt pupil that he even understands the purely human art of judging people by their clothes. He lets ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... Seldom seen at large assemblies, she was eagerly sought after in the well winnowed soirees of the elect. Her wealth, great as it was, seemed the least prominent ingredient of her establishment. There was in it no uncalled for ostentation—no purse-proud vulgarity—no cringing to great, and no patronizing condescension to little people; even the Sunday newspapers could not find fault with her, and the querulous wives of younger brothers could only sneer and ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the genus homo in the editorial seat. What, expect to make a newspaper pay and not beg for patronage? Why the very idea was enough to make newspaperdom go to pieces with laughter. Begging for patronage, howling for subscribers, cringing, crawling, changing color like the chameleon, howling for Barabbas or bellowing against Jesus, all these things must your newspaper do to prosper. On them verily hang the whole law and all the profits of modern journalism. ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... The wolf does not mate with the jackal. Not all her beauty could atone for such spiritless cringing. Love would have pitied her, but passion is not moved by qualities opposite to those which ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... Prairie du Chien, two hundred miles from St. Etienne, he felt that he might comfort his inner man with hot food, and his weary legs with a bed and a pillow. He prowled along the streets of the country town looking for some cheap lodging-house where such as he, a humble, cringing, dog-like fellow, might find shelter. He looked through a dusty window and saw a shaggy-bearded, roughly-dressed man shoveling food with a knife, and he felt that he had found ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... nomadic, down-at-heel half-breed, John Sawyer, was an agent of the killer, but no proof could be brought to bear upon him and he was allowed to go his cringing way unmolested. Billie wondered now, with a cold, unaccustomed sense of dread, if rumor spoke truly. What if Sawyer were indeed the forerunner of a visitation from ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... state of things? Could I sustain it and retain my reason? No, I felt that the picture my fancy drew, if realized, would make me abject and submissive, change me to a cowardly, cringing slave. I was not made of the right stuff for martyrdom, only for battle, for resistance, and would put forth my last powers in the effort to save myself from the unendurable trials before me, even if destruction ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... false teachers, (2 Cor. xi. 13-15; Gal. i. 6, 7,) that "their folly may be made manifest to all men." (2 Tim. iii. 8, 9; 2 Peter ii. 1, 3.)—The cruel enemy, who in the day of prosperity boasts of his success, in the day of adversity becomes the most arrant coward and cringing suppliant,—whether it be Saul or Shimei. (1 Sam. xv. 30; 2 Sam. xix. 18.) Haughty persecutors have been changed to humble suitors for an interest in the prayers of their victims,—"to worship before their feet." "The ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... way in which he acted, did not appeal to me as natural. I could not deny his story—those approaching Indians alone were proof that he fled from a real danger; and yet—and yet, to my mind he could not represent anything but treachery. I possessed but one desire—to kick the cringing cur. ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... only that she must have fun. If they drive her out of here, she'll still want fun wherever she is; she'll go to a town and end up like those girls I saw in Bristol.' And the memory of those night girls, with their rouged faces and cringing boldness, came back to him ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Sylvia? Cringing at thy door Entreats with dolorous cry and clamoring, That mendicant who quits thee nevermore; Now winter chills the world, and no birds sing In any woods, yet as in wanton Spring He follows thee; and never will have done, ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... constitutional amendment and law of Congress I would stamp them with irrevocable power upon the political escutcheon of the new and regenerated republic. I would avoid the mistakes of the past, and I would spurn that cringing timidity by which, through all history, liberty has been sacrificed and ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... rule governing man's attitude toward man, the Senor Don should have been the bully, and the youngster the cringing sycophant. For since their very odd meeting two weeks before, the tyrant had been in the power of the tyrannized. It began on Murguia's own boat, where Murguia was absolute. Any time after leaving Mobile he had merely to follow his inclinations and order the fellow thrown overboard. Yet it was ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... of that hovel of death, preached to the cringing, terrified people, many of whom knelt and crouched in the down-trodden grass and quag. He threw up his arms, and turned his blind, anguished ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless
... did not listen to him. His quick brain was solving a strange problem—the problem of the price that these people, in their turn, should pay to Venice. When he had solved it, he turned to the cringing ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... the hopes of the Duke of Bavaria sank rapidly into despair. The hour of disaster revealed a meanness of spirit which prosperity had not developed. He sued for peace, writing a dishonorable and cringing letter, in which he protested that he was not to blame for the war, but that the whole guilt rested upon the French court, which had inveigled him to present his claim and commence hostilities. Maria Theresa made no other reply to this humiliating epistle than to ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... have been no Garibaldi. Italy would today probably be where she was when these young men conceived their patriotic dream: the Pope supreme temporal ruler of Rome, and the rest of Italy divided up into a dozen cringing provinces, each presided over by a princeling, who, on favor of some patron, Austria, Germany or France, the favor duly viseed by the Pope, was allowed to call himself king. The final authority of the Pope was undisputed in things both temporal and spiritual, and he who questioned or ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... neither their own position nor their own strength. Unable to do everything, they will think themselves unable to do anything. So many unusual obstacles dishearten them, so much contempt degrades them. They become base, cowardly, cringing, and sink as far below their real self as they had ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... of Gelon." On hearing these words, a shout arose from every part of the assembly, that "none of these women ought to live, and that not one of the royal family should be left alive." Such is the nature of the populace; they are either cringing slaves or haughty tyrants. They know not how with moderation to spurn or to enjoy that liberty which holds the middle place; nor are there generally wanting ministers, the panders to their resentment, who incite their eager and intemperate minds to blood and carnage. Thus, on ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... That kind of thing, with him, was evidently a vocation. I discovered suddenly in his cringing attitude a sort of assurance, as though he had been all his life dealing in certitudes. He must have thought I was dispassionately considering his proposal, because he became as sweet as honey. "Every gentleman made a provision when the time came to go home," ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... of those days, it must be remembered, was none of the cringing and effeminate chapmen who figure in the stories of the Middle Ages. A free Norse or Dane, himself often of noble blood, he fought as willingly as he bought; and held his own as an equal, whether at the court of a Cornish kinglet or at that of the ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... exasperation. He gave a feeble squeak and she pushed him roughly down. Animals to her were a nuisance. She disliked them if she had any feeling at all. But Fou-Chow was an adjunct to her toilet sometimes, and was a coveted possession, envied by her many female friends. His tiny, cringing body irritated her though extremely when she was not using him for effect, and he was often kicked and cuffed out of ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... gruesome spot, this Valley of the Ordeal, and Curly was by no means the first who had been conducted hither. But no one had ever come in a more cringing manner than did this latest victim. Some had shown the craven spirit, and had begged for mercy, while others had fought and cursed their captors. But Curly was different. Whatever spark of manhood he possessed deserted him the moment he left the big ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... that is almost as marked a characteristic in Richardson as his lack of humour, shows itself again and again. After all, Mr. B. would never have married Pamela if he could have persuaded her to live with him in any other way; so the cringing gratitude expressed by Pamela and her parents to the "good gentleman" and the "dear obliger" is only revolting. No woman with any delicacy of feeling could have sat complacently at her own table, ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... good people of the neighborhood, never accustomed to look below the externals of appearance and manner, saw in his shrinking face and awkward motions only the signs of a cringing, abject soul. ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... pretending Rita was hidden. He was cold and far away. His face walked like a dead man back and forth in the room. Goliath shuffled as fast as he could and hid himself in the curtains. She crouched in the chair, her knees drawn up, her eyes cringing with delight. ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... of Gladys now, though they had their fling at it with the rest of the folk when it was a nine days' wonder. But that is the way of the world mostly, to go with the crowd, which jumps on a man when he is down, and gives him a kindly pat or a cringing salute, as may seem most advisable, when ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... I have been writing just as I felt in those fervent days of my youth, when the quick blood would throb at my heart and burn in my cheek at any slight to the real manhood and worth I saw in him, and preference for the poor cringing courtiers I despised. The thought of those old days has brought me back to the story as all then seemed to me—the high-spirited, hot-tempered maiden, who had missed all her small chances of even being mild and meek in the troubles ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wild-dog puppy from the Ysabel bush, being taken back to Malaita by one of the Meringe return boys. In age they were the same, but their breeding was different. The wild-dog was what he was, a wild-dog, cringing and sneaking, his ears for ever down, his tail for ever between his legs, for ever apprehending fresh misfortune and ill-treatment to fall on him, for ever fearing and resentful, fending off threatened hurt with lips curling malignantly from his puppy fangs, cringing under a blow, squalling ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... much inward perturbation. The eating of humble pie—as Mrs. Roy had been kind enough to suggest—would not cost much to a man of his cringing nature; but he entertained a shrewd suspicion that no amount of humble pie would avail him with Mr. Verner; that, in short, he should be discarded entirely. While thus standing, the centre of a knot of gossipers, for the news had caused ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... one responded, and Denman, with a clear field, advanced forward, looking to the right and left, until he reached the engine-room hatch, down which he peered. Riley's anxious face looked up at him, and farther down was the cringing form of King, his mate of the starboard watch. Denman did not know their names, but he sternly ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... his servants until he has heard the message," he said, not in the cringing tone of the servant, but in the straight-spoken words of the soldier. Meanwhile, the fingers of his left hand were almost imperceptibly drawing the blue ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... they encountered, and the teachings of their Eagleswood mentors, was forced upon them. Forgotten lessons of truth and honesty and purity were remembered, and the wavering resolve was stayed and strengthened; worldly expediency gave way before the magnanimous purpose, cringing subserviency before independent manliness. The letters of affection, gratitude, and appreciation of what had been done to make true men and women of them, which were received by the Welds, in many cases, years after they ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... a pedestrian light, and a sports model bounced jauntily to a stop beside it. The driver cocked an eyebrow at Marlowe and chuckled. "Say, Fatso, which one of you's the Buick?" Then the light changed, the car spurted away, and left Marlowe cringing. ...
— Citadel • Algirdas Jonas Budrys
... parlour-window, as if he wished you were a pauper, just to give you a specimen of his power. He is an admirable specimen of a small tyrant: morose, brutish, and ill-tempered; bullying to his inferiors, cringing to his superiors, and jealous of the influence ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... it known that ambition can creep as well as soar. The pride of no person in a flourishing condition is more justly to be dreaded than that of him who is mean and cringing under a doubtful ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... opinions, thirty years of age, and a married man. By trade he was a gentleman's outfitter in the New North Road, and the competition of business squeezed out of him the little character that was left. In his hope of conciliating customers he had become cringing and pliable, until working ever in the same routine from day to day he seemed to have sunk into a soulless machine rather than a man. No great question had ever stirred him. At the end of this snug century, self-contained in his own narrow circle, it seemed impossible ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... would be respected must respect himself. The best friend of the Negro is he who would rather see, within the borders of this republic one million free citizens of that race, equal before the law, than ten million cringing serfs existing by a contemptuous sufferance. A race that is willing to survive upon any other terms is ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.
... Toward the veriest end of the banquet, we seemed to feel that there had been a slight sameness in its courses. The Bill of Fare, however, proved the freest variety. And at the close we sat and sipped our chocolate with uttermost content. No garcon, cringing, but firm, would here intrude with the unhandsome bill. Nothing to pay is the rarest of pleasures. This dinner we had caught ourselves, we had cooked ourselves, and had eaten for the benefit of ourselves and no other. There was nothing to repent of afterwards in the way of extravagance, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... afternoon. A boy crawled underneath and dragged him forth. He who had started life favoured of the gods, who that morning had been full of high spirit and pride, who had circled his first field like a champion, was a shrinking, cringing creature, like a ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... but not to send a murderer into my family. I am in my rights, and I will have justice. We shall see if they are too grand to have a nephew hung! My poor lovely innocent! I will have justice on the foul villain. Cringing shall not turn me." ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... all their disposition to be submissive and cringing, circumstances occurred which compelled these Phoenicians to adopt a more energetic policy. The stream of Hellenic migration was pouring ceaselessly towards the west: it had already dislodged the Phoenicians from Greece proper ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... perceived that though brown and weather-beaten, there was a certain Northern ruddiness inherent in his complexion; that his eyes were gray, so far as they were visible between the surrounding puckers; and his eyebrows, moustache, and beard not nearly so dark as the hair of the Genoese who stood cringing beside him as interpreter. She formed her own conclusions and adhered to them, though he spoke in bad Arabic to the skipper, who proceeded to explain that El Reis Hamed would offer no injury to Madame la Comtesse, her suite or property, being bound by treaty between the Dey and the King ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hegira to our lines. Then we had exchanged prisoners recently, sending back eight wounded men, one having but one leg. On reaching the Turco lines, when we offered to give these wounded a further lift of some miles, the offer was accepted with cringing gratitude. 'Intelligence' surmised that these wounded might have to walk to Mosul, another hundred and forty miles, and went into reverie on the situation's possibilities. 'If the one-legged man has any ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... They knew the power of the "Friend of the People," and feared him accordingly. Chauvelin's scarf of office, his curt, authoritative manner, had an equally awe- inspiring effect upon the two miserable creatures. They became absolutely abject, cringing, maudlin in their protestations of good-will and loyalty. No one, they vowed, should as much as see the child—ring or no ring—save the citizen Representative himself. Chauvelin, however, had no wish to see the child. He was satisfied that its name was Lannoy— for the child ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... domestics the morning and evening prayer; he bullied his daughters, seemed to bully his wife, who led him whither she chose; gave grand entertainments, and never asked a friend by chance; had splendid liveries, and starved his people; and was as dull, stingy, pompous, insolent, cringing, ill-tempered a little creature ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of his retainers led up a poor, cringing old man, as pale as a candle, and all shaking ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... good as anybody till you show up diferent. There ain't any big folks nor any little ones. Of course, there are rich folks and poor ones, but the poor are just as respectable as the rich, feel just as big, and take up just as much of the road. There ain't any crawling nor cringing here. Everybody stands up straight, and don't give nor take any sass from anybody else. The West takes right hold of every one that comes into it and makes him a part of itself, instead of keeping him outside in the ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... "Gentlemen" is the accepted salutation, at least until long correspondence and cordial relations justify a more intimate greeting. The ideal opening, of course, strikes a happy medium between too great formality on the one hand and a cringing servility or undue familiarity ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... lives, modest and contented, dignified and independent, trusting in God and not in man; and then, grace in the eyes of their fellow-men, for what is more graceful, what is more gracious, pleasant to see, pleasant to deal with, than the humble man, the modest man? I do not mean the cringing man, the flattering man, the man who apes humility for his own ends, because he wants to climb high, by pretending to be lowly. He is neither graceful or gracious. He is only contemptible, and he punishes himself. He ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... bodily into the face of the city boxer. Sim Hicks sprang at the Captain's throat with a fierce leap and an angry growl. But Sim picked himself up from a corner and rubbed the blood from his streaming nose. The sight of the cringing Innkeeper seemed to have a temporary effect upon the pugilist, but he quickly ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... clear as Swift's; with his sturdy, peasant nature showing itself in the roundness and directness of his utterance, how little has he of their coarseness. He was not, on the one hand, like Cobbett, an anarchist, or libeller; but yet, on the other hand, as little was he ever a lackey, cringing at the gates of Power, or a train-bearer in the retinue of Fashion. Still less was he, like Swift, the satirist of his times and of his kind, snarling at his rulers, and turning at last to gnaw, in venomous rage, his own heart. And yet ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... cringing Judas!" interrupted the stern command of the count; "open the door and set me as free as your villainy found me. I hold no parley ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... four at a time and as each lot reached the deck they kow-towed to the girl and then trotted forward to the fo'c'sle, disappearing like rats, their teeth chattering from exposure during the night, stripped to the waist as they were, and never could one have imagined these little cringing harmless looking men the jackals of ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... looked at the cringing jury and uttered a short, stabbing laugh. "Yet in spite of ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... he, aiming a kick at my great friend, who drew cringing up, and avoiding the heavy shoe with more agility than dignity, and, watching his master's eye, slunk dismayed under the cart—his ears down, and as much as he had of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... Contentment is of a kind with meekness. The greatest riches are contentment and patience. He who esteems his rank but lightly enhances man's estimation of his dignity. A wise man has said, "Be humble without cringing, and manly without being arrogant. Arrogance is a wilderness and haughtiness a taking refuge therein, and ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... intercourse of life subjected to vexations, affronts, and exactions, from Mahometans of every rank. Spoiled of their goods, insulted in their religion and domestic honor, they could rarely obtain justice. The slightest flash of courageous resentment brought down swift destruction on their heads; and cringing humility alone enabled them to live in ease, or even in safety." Stooping under this iron yoke of humiliation, we have reason to wonder that the Greeks preserved sufficient nobility of mind to raise so much as their wishes in the direction of independence. ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... balsam and spruce was only the rock behind which he was cringing like a rabbit afraid to take to the open. And his rock was a mere up-jutting of the solid floor of shale that was under him. The wash sand that covered it like a carpet was not more than four or five inches deep. He could not dig in. There was not enough of it within reach to scrape ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... tensely. "Is it for want of something better that you give so much affection to that cringing beast"—he pointed to the poodle who was crawling abjectly on his stomach toward her from the bureau where he had taken refuge—"is it a child that your arms are wanting—not a dog?" His face was drawn, and he stared at her with ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... replied by laying his hand upon the shoulder of his cringing secretary, and viewing him with ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... forest, young Siegfried grew up to manhood, knowing nothing of his parentage except the lie which Mime, the wily dwarf, chose to tell him, that he was his own son. Strong, fearless, and unruly, the youth soon felt the utmost contempt for the cringing dwarf, and, instead of bending over the anvil and swinging the heavy hammer, he preferred to range the forest, hunting the wild beasts, climbing the tallest trees, and scaling the ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... he was compelled in writing to be his own worst detractor. The combination, which the autobiographical account reveals, of egoism and self-seeking, of cowardice and vanity, of pious profession and cringing obsequiousness, of vaunted magnanimity and spiteful malice to his foes, of religious scruples and selfish cunning, points to a meanness of conduct which he was forced to assume by circumstances, but which, it is suggested, was not an expression of his true character. The document of ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... ourselves from the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, it affords an opportunity never given to man before of carrying their favourite principle of peace into general practice, by establishing governments that shall hereafter exist without wars. O! ye fallen, cringing, priest-and-Pemberton-ridden people! What more can we say of ye than that a religious Quaker is a valuable character, and a political ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... Month, a Little Month—the Dudish Roderick Dhu was a cringing devotee at the Vestal Shrine of the Maiden Priestess, Praying that she should receive all his Suppliant Love, and "right smart" of his devotion. He would never leave Her Side. He would Never, never Smile on other Maidens. He ...
— Love Instigated - The Story of a Carved Ivory Umbrella Handle • Douglass Sherley
... the confederated whole? In whatever situation we are placed, our greater or less degree of happiness must be derived from ourselves. Happiness is in a great measure the result of our own dispositions and actions. Let us conduct uprightly and justly; with propriety and steadiness; not servilely cringing for favor, nor arrogantly claiming more attention and respect than our due; let us bear with fortitude the providential and unavoidable evils of life, and we shall spend our days with respectability and ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... mien as he entered and reluctantly showed himself were more than enough to dissipate any doubts which the courtiers had hitherto entertained; the former being as gloomy and downcast as the latter was timid and cringing. It is true he made some attempt at first, and for a time, to face the matter out; stammering and stuttering, and looking piteously to the Queen for help. But he could not long delay the crisis, nor deny ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... at sword and crown, Or panic-blinded stabs and slays: Blatant he bids the world bow down, Or cringing begs a crumb ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... domesticated, though placed there for that purpose; for, after a silent dinner, they swallow a hasty glass of wine, and retire to plan some mischievous trick, or to ridicule the person or manners of the very people they have just been cringing to, and whom they ought to consider as ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... perpetual driblets is sure to create the absurd and immoral system which one sees throughout Russia,—hordes of men and women who are able to take care of themselves, and who ought to be far above beggary, cringing and whining to the passers-by for alms; but I had come to know the man well enough to feel sure that a politico-economical argument would slide off him like water from a duck's back, so I attempted to ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... be apt to judge from what thou hast seen, thou already expectest a scene of riot and debauchery; to see the candidates servilely cringing, meanly suing, and basely bribing the electors, depriving themselves of sense and reason, and selling more than Esau did for a mess of pottage; for, what is birthright, what is inheritance, when put in the scale against ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown |
