"Shrug" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... clenched until the knuckles showed white; his face was a dull crimson. Vainly he sought for words in which to vent some of the malicious chagrin that filled his soul almost to bursting-point. Then, despairing, with a shrug and an inarticulate mutter, he flung past the Parisian, obeying him as the cur obeys, with ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... contraire, monsieur, les bains are most excellent—primitive, of course, simple, and quite of ze people. But, monsieur le gouverneur is no more young. When one is no more young,"—with a deprecating shrug,—"parbleu, it is imposseeble to enjoy everything. Monsieur le gouverneur, I do assure you, make ze conclusion most regretfully to return ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... with a listless shrug. "My ambition is to visit the country of the Franks and gain the honour of ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... movement of exasperation, too controlled for a shrug. "Ask him, why don't you. Look, Forth, I don't much care to see him. I didn't do it for Darkover; I did it because it was my job. I'd prefer to forget the whole thing. Why don't ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... one spoke. Sigurd questioned with his eyes, and Rolf answered by a shrug. Once, as Helga offered to approach the Black One, Sigurd made a warning gesture. They waited in dead silence. While the voices of the other men came to them faintly, and the insects chirped about their feet, and the birds called in the trees ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... be left for her to wind up the interview and get out of the place without arousing too much attention. With a self-possession which astonished both men, knowing her immense interest in this matter, she laid down the stick, and, with a gentle shrug of her shoulders, ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... got up from his chair and stood for a little while looking out of the window. He was clearly troubled by her words. He turned away with a shrug of ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... looks so pretty. Jacky, that's exactly the material I wanted for our curtains. You have beautiful china. I'm collecting, too; but"—she gave an expressive shrug. "Of course, this room lends itself; it is so big, and get's all the sun. You remember, Jacky"—she looked at her husband with widened eyes—"Mr Maplestone ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... pope finally resolved to have the cardinal near his person, that he might attempt by mild and gentle persuasion to soften his stubborn disposition; but the cardinal had replied to all his gentle words only with a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders, with low murmured words, with ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... Hollister was tempted to turn the man away when he went back up there in the morning. But that, he concluded with a shrug of his shoulders, was carrying a ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... he wasn't,"—with a shrug of his shoulders,— "Lady Joan Fayre would be Lady Joan Temple Barholm, and the pair would be bringing up an interesting family here." He looked about the room, and then, as if suddenly recalling the fact, added, "By George! you'd be selling newspapers, ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... unexpected quarter. Mr Hardy and Mr Blackmore I read because I had heard that they were distinguished novelists; neither touched me, I might just as well have bought a daily paper; neither like nor dislike, a shrug of the shoulders—that is all. Hardy seems to me to bear about the same relation to George Eliot as Jules Breton does to Millet—a vulgarisation never offensive, and executed with ability. The story of an art is always the same,...a succession of abortive ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... frowned and glanced at the two midshipmen, who were exchanging glances which meant a great deal. Then with a shrug of his shoulders he made a sign to the black guide to go on, a sign which was grasped at once, and the fellow stepped out with his heavy hoe shouldered and a grin at ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... wince or kick with impatience. "Shuck"; to shrug up the shoulders, expressive of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... agencies you can be hastened towards the Unknown. As far as I am personally concerned, it is largely a matter of food whether this affects one acutely or not. If you have a full stomach you do not mind so much, and even shrug your shoulders should the man next to you be hit; but at four or five in the morning, when everything is pale and damp, and you are stomach-sick, it is nerve-shaking to see a man brutally struck and gasping ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... was the reply, accompanied by a compassionate shrug which spoke volumes. "And I am quite sure she means it," he added, with kindly emphasis. "But ask Jake, who was in the office all the evening. Ask my wife, who saw the young lady to her room. Ask anybody and everybody ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... that I can gather. I am grown most insufferably national, you see. I fancy it is a punishment for my want of it at ordinary times. Now, what do you think, there was a waiter in this very hotel, but, alas! he is now gone, who sang (from morning to night, as my informant said with a shrug at the recollection) what but 's ist lange her, the German version of Auld Lang Syne; so you see, madame, the finest lyric ever written will make its way out of whatsoever corner of patois ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of mine," replied Frank, with a slight shrug of his shoulders. "He's out there," and the lad waved an arm ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... solicitous!" laughed Sonia Turgeinov as the young man strode off. "That was intended especially for you, Mademoiselle. As for me, it does not matter." With a shrug. "I might stroll into the wood, be devoured by wild beasts, and ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... Those things are not our forte at Covent Garden.' 20 Our Author's friends, thus plac'd at happy distance, Give him good words indeed, but no assistance. As some unhappy wight, at some new play, At the Pit door stands elbowing a way, While oft, with many a smile, and many a shrug, 25 He eyes the centre, where his friends sit snug; His simp'ring friends, with pleasure in their eyes, Sink as he sinks, and as he rises rise; He nods, they nod; he cringes, they grimace; But not ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... upon which, while flying in the breeze, he looked with a degree of professional philosophy that could express itself only by thrashing the cooper. Crumpled would be a mild expression for our linen. We remonstrated, but were met with a shrug of the shoulders and a deprecatory but imperturbable smile—"Yes; Johanna wash!" And "Johanna" we found we were expected to receive as a sufficient explanation for any deficiencies in any line. If not satisfactory to us, it was at ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... thin-lipped; and those eyes! sunken and rimmed with purple; eyes that told tales of sorrow and, yes! of degradation. The crowd stood round her, sullen and apathetic; poor, miserable wretches like herself, staring at her antics with lack-lustre eyes and an ever-recurrent contemptuous shrug of the shoulders. ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... as I have said, I have nothing to do—a secret, harassing, and unwelcome doubt respecting the divine government of the world. It is a question which the very philosophers are not likely to settle even among themselves, but it has become very obtrusive and important. Men raise their eyebrows and shrug their shoulders when it is alluded to, instead, as of old, of pulverising the audacious questioner on the spot, or even (as would have happened at a later date) putting him into Coventry; they have no opinion ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... greatest abominator of Episcopacy could well desire, have deigned, while partaking of the humble cheer of the Wallace Inn, to furnish me with information corrective of the facts which I learned from others. There are also here and there a laird or two, who, though they shrug their shoulders, profess no great shame in their fathers having served in the persecuting squadrons of Earlshall and Claverhouse. From the gamekeepers of these gentlemen, an office the most apt of any other to become hereditary in ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... laid a demonstrative finger on his chest; but there his ideas or his courage failed him; he would shufflingly excuse himself and return to his position by the fire without a word of explanation. "The good man was growing old," said Mr. Archer with a suspicion of a shrug. But the good man had his idea, and even when he was alone the name of Mr. Archer fell from his lips continually in the course of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... care in the least about the fact," retorted Molly, with her pretty rustic attempt at a shrug, which implied, in this case, that the government of nature, like that of society, rested solely on the consent of the governed. What was clear to Kesiah was that this rebellion against the injustice of the universe, as well as against the expiation of Mr. Jonathan, was the outcome of a strong, ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... The witch gave a shrug of the shoulders. "I merely tell you what I read in your hand. Good afternoon. That will be sixpence. Yes, I have change. Thank ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... dresses in it?" Justine's slight shrug might have seemed theatrical, had it not been a part of the ceaseless dramatic play of her flexible person. "There might be, perhaps...only I'm not sure—" She broke ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... not behoove a Jew to become so intimate with a goy, and a Governor at that. They claimed that the Rabbi labored only to promote his own private ends; but, as these malcontents were among the first to seize the opportunity of bettering their condition, Mendel could afford to shrug his shoulders and ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... espousing the game of ridicule, as it played away a few minutes, to join in a laugh with the "witty Diana." These gracious beings thought their sex gave them privilege to offend; but it was not always that the gentlemen durst venture beyond a shrug of the shoulder, a drop of the lip, a wink of the eye, or a raising of the brows. Mary observed with contempt that they were prudent enough not to exercise even these specimens of a mean hostility except when its noble object had turned his back, and ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... and murmured with a shrug to the acquiescent lady beside him: 'Irishmen!' implying that the race could not be brought to treat serious themes as befitted the seriousness of the sentiments they stir in their bosoms. He was personally a little hurt, having unfolded a shy secret of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... generously conceded. They are often men of a certain cultivation. They have travelled, many of them,—spending a year or two in Paris, and a month or two in the rest of Europe. Consequently they endure society at home, with a smile, and a shrug, and a graceful superciliousness, which is very engaging. They are perfectly at home, and they rather despise Young America, which, in the next room, is diligently earning its invitation. They prefer to hover about the ladies who did not come out this season, ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... room was Morelos. He had remained, seated at a table, biting a pen, fingering some papers, gazing abstractedly at the vacant bench. The whoop of a barefooted, black-faced urchin in the corridor roused him. With a scowl and a shrug he slowly resumed his hat and went to his home ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... shrug. "Since you admire her so much," she said, "I rather hesitate telling you. But the girl is of common origin—a grocer's daughter, and her mother quite an inferior person. I hardly think it a suitable ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... looked from one cousin to the other, and then turned an inquiring glance on Mademoiselle Viefville. The latter gave a slight shrug, and seemed to ask an explanation of the young ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... eyes that warned against jesting on that subject, and Little stepped aside with a shrug and watched Vandersee as that stolid worthy piloted the ship up to the crazy wharf with ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... bloodvessel, but from a broken heart. She was buried at the expense of the woman of whom her destroyer had rented the little apartment on Sixth Avenue, where she had passed her happiest days and her last. The rich merchant's son heard of her death with a half sigh and then a shrug; but if ever the blood of a human being lay upon the head of another, that of poor Mary R—lies upon the head of the rich merchant's son, and will be ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... nightfall, with luck, he would be across the Danube and well within the borders of Hungary, mingling in crowds where all trace of his identity would be lost. He spent most of his afternoon on the train trying to recall the mannerisms of the man Moyer, a trick of gesture, a drawl and a shrug which he thought he could manage. Carl Moyer he now was, on a mission from Bosnia to the North, in which the better to disguise himself he was permitting his hair and beard ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... impatience when the name of Eugene Valmont is mentioned. I recognise this as quite in the order of things to be expected, and am honest enough to confess that in my own time I often hearkened to narratives regarding the performances of Lecocq with a doubting shrug of the shoulders. ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... great teacher, but he has the power to ask awkward questions so characteristic of Andreev, Artsybashev, and indeed of all Russian novelists. We cannot answer him with a shrug of the shoulders or a sceptical smile. He shakes the foundations of our fancied security by boldly questioning what we had come to regard as axioms. As the late M. de Vogue remarked, when little children sit on our knee and pelt us ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... chid me for Ingratitude to God in that I stamp'd my foot and said No! But Richard laugh'd at the idea of Jessamine wedding yon tun. Quoth Richard, "Let Jessamine be, all of ye! she is meat for his masters." Freeman smil'd sourly, & shrug'd. I love not Freeman, nor do I hate him overmuch though he call'd me ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... the ocean. She directed upon me for a moment the uncomprehending glance of her narrowed eyes and then would turn her scornful powdered face away without a word. She would not even take the trouble to shrug her shoulders. ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... to speak unwelcome truths. But if a Sawtooth man were known to have committed violence, the Sawtooth itself was the first to put the sheriff on his trail. If the man successfully dodged the sheriff and made his way to parts unknown, the Sawtooth could shrug its shoulders and ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... beautiful boy, Olaf, that young-eyed cherub, who developed into a musty old man who wrote musty old books, and lived a musty, dusty life all by himself, and never married or had any fun at all! How horrid, Olaf!" she cried, with a queer shrug of distaste. ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... he cried, accompanying the words with a shrug of his shoulders. "I explain it all to my own mind, and I do not respect you less. You now have to gather the fruits of your sin, and I will help you. Celeste will be very rich, and in that lies your own future. You can have only one son-in-law; chose him wisely. An ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... schooner from Sydney called at the "town" about ten miles away, where the viceroy's house was, and at the present time of speaking one of Godeffroi's Hamburg ships was at anchor there, taking in an accumulation of copra from her agent's store. But the natives all spoke of her with a shrug—"No like Tashman. Tashman no good." Why, ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... composed of hardships and insults. She felt instant admiration for a man who openly defied it. She thought that if the grim angel of death should clutch his heart, Pete would shrug his shoulders and say: "Oh, ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... Hadden, with a shrug of his shoulders; "then I hope that Sompseu, or the Queen's Induna, or both of them, will pay me when I return to my own country. Meanwhile I will obey you because I must, but I should first like to make ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard
... taken for thieves," he said with a shrug of his shoulders. "Look here, Auguste, just run down to the corner of the street and bring back a gendarme. The gentleman can explain to the concierge in his presence, and then we shall be at liberty to get ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... a shrug of her shoulders and a comic look in her eyes which nearly upset the gravity of ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... get another driver, San Pedro," directed our hero, and with another shrug of his shoulders the man accepted the revolver, and walked slowly off. Another driver was not hard to engage, as several had been hanging about, hoping for employment at the last minute, ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... tell you nothing certain yet. I begin to be rather tired of this joke; I am only curious to know the result. Count Savioli has spoken three times to the Elector, and the answer was invariably a shrug of the shoulders, and "I will give you an answer presently, but—I have not yet made up my mind." My kind friends here quite agree with me in thinking that this hesitation and reserve are rather a favorable omen than the reverse. ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... and for some moments regarded intently the blue spiral of smoke from his cigar curl lazily past his nose; then with a smile of ill-concealed triumph and a slight shrug of acquiescence, ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... purpose by the pompous airs of the Vicar and the tears of his aunt. But as the result of he knew not what conversations between the couple another letter was written to the headmaster. Mr. Perkins read it with an impatient shrug of the shoulders. He showed it to ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... very realising sense of it, sister Jane," answered Dr. Alec, with a comical shrug of the shoulders and a glance at Rose's ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... had opened the door. Lieut. Feraud brushed past her brusquely, and she raised her scared and questioning eyes to Lieut. D'Hubert, who could do nothing but shrug his shoulders slightly as he ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... held up her head,—held it perhaps a little higher than was usual with her. And when that grievous accusation was made against her,—made and repeated,—an accusation the very thought and sound of which would almost have annihilated her had there been a decent feeling in her bosom, she would simply shrug her shoulders and walk away. "Camilla," she had once said, "you will drive that man mad before you have done." "What is it to you how I drive him?" Camilla had answered in her fury. Then Arabella had again shrugged her shoulders and walked away. ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... friends could not understand the feeling, therefore explanation was next to useless. They would listen with impatience, and remark at the close, with a shrug of the shoulders, "You have some ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... do it?" said the judge. "Well, I guess you're right. He ought to have had it long ago, only I've never had a chance to do anything like that to him. His mother would have interfered. You know how it is." He broke off with a shrug ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... are," she said softly. "You accept defeat with the grace of a victor. I believe that you would triumph as easily with a shrug of the shoulders. Haven't you any feeling at all? Don't you know what it is like ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... man, this merchant of the old stamp and true son of Berlin, had not had the joy of seeing what his partners now saw with unbounded astonishment. They had no need to shrug their shoulders at the man's lack of interest in the business any longer, and make pointed remarks about the wife who took up his attention so entirely; now he felt the interest they wished him to have. He was pleased to fall in with their plans now. He himself seemed to want, nay, even ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... made no answer. His temper is awful, to judge from the working of his features, as he sees this vast length of ocean unrolling before him to an indefinite extent. He can only spare time to shrug his ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... pity he did not write in pencil," said he, throwing them down again with a shrug of disappointment. "As you have no doubt frequently observed, Watson, the impression usually goes through—a fact which has dissolved many a happy marriage. However, I can find no trace here. I rejoice, however, to perceive that he wrote with a broad-pointed quill pen, and I can hardly doubt ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... trader with a shrug of his shoulders; "it seems to me that some of us don't avail ourselves much of ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... replied Korak, with a shrug. If the man wanted to be killed it was none of his affair. He wanted to kill him himself, but for Meriem's sake he would not. If she loved him then he must do what he could to preserve him, but he could not ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... been to the Embassy, to the police, and to the Morgue. Nowhere have I found the slightest trace of him. No one seems to take the least interest in his disappearance. The police shrug their shoulders, and look at me as though I ought to understand—he will return very shortly they are quite sure. At the Embassy they have begun to look upon me as a nuisance. The Morgue—Heaven send that I may one day forget the horror of my hasty visits there. I have come to the ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... exclaimed, with a slight shrug of the shoulders. "I cannot accept any responsibility for that. How ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... glowing as stars might glow could they be angry—and their owner turned away from the sea with a fine shrug of her shoulders—her thoughts were raging. So that is how Michael looked upon the affaire! He was just the dog in the manger, and she was the hay! But never, never would she submit to that! She would speak to him ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... and with a contemptuous shrug of his shoulders proceeded on his journey round the room, still carrying the Italian rapier in his hand. Under his tan Halfman's face blazed and his eyes glittered, but he spoke with a forced ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... attendance of public and private instructors with their pupils of both sexes at civic ceremonies, an obligatory liturgy with catechisms and programmes sent from Paris, rules for scenic display and for singings, readings, postures, acclamations and imprecations. One might shrug his shoulders at these prescriptions of cuistres and these parades of puppets, if, behind the apostles who compose moral allegories, we did not detect the persecutor who imprisons, tortures and murders.—By the decree of Fructidor 19, not only were all the laws of the reign ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... not courage, however deeply in vanity and affectation he had buried common sense, stood suspended, upon the request of Cecilia, that he would not go, and, with a shrug of distress, said, "Give me leave to own I am parfaitment in a state the most accablant in the world: nothing could give me greater pleasure than to profit of the occasion to accommodate either of these ladies; but as they proceed upon different ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... the ordinar'," the little man replied, giggling. "Only David set on me, and me sleepin'. And," with a shrug, "here I am noo." He sat down, wagging his bandaged head and grinning. "Ye see he's sae playfu', is Davie. He wangs ye o'er the head wi' a chair, kicks ye in the jaw, stamps on yer wame, and all as merry as May." ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... to keep quiet about it, though. What could he prove? what could any one prove? Where knives are sharp and people mind their own business, or express their opinions only by a shrug of the shoulders and a grimace, how is a poor boy, how is even a rich man or a rich woman, to come at the truth in such a case? Besides, the truth would not have brought her ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... and this rural popularity, his friends began to shake their heads and shrug their shoulders when they spoke of him; and his brother Henry noted with anything but satisfaction his frequent visits to the club at Ballymahon. He emerged, however, unscathed from this dangerous ordeal, more fortunate ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... to set eyes on Sobber again," said Dick, with a shrug of his broad shoulders. "The idea of introducing that deadly snake into the school was the limit. Why, half a dozen of us might have been bitten ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... impervious to their flustered anxiety, also to the tributes to her importance betrayed therein. In vain they argued no fewer than two emperors to dissuade her. She meant to have a walk on the shore and—a demure Parisian shrug settled it. ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... properly belonged to them; even as it was, however, they cut Mark for the moment; he half offered to embrace his mother, but she made no response, and after waiting for a while, and finding that she made no sign, he went out with a slight shrug of expostulation. ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... Thyrza, with a shrug. Then she looked round her with a toss of her decidedly graceful head. "But it's a creepy old place howivver. I'd not live here if I was paid. What does Muster Melrose want wi' coomin' here? He's got lots o' money, ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Augustine Smith's daughter, myself, Mr. Galliher, Mr. Rainsford, Mr. Bannister and Mr. Pendleton [John Pendleton of Fredericksburg, Virginia]. I was introduced to the latter and liked him quite well. I had a long talk with him. His manners are entirely too coquettish to suit me; he does nothing but shrug his shoulders and roll up his eyes—perhaps it is a Virginia custom. He seems to think Miss Gerard [Julia, daughter of James W. Gerard] his belle ideal or beau ideal of everything lovely, etc. I told him that I thought her ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... "Oh," with a shrug. "I don't know that he was calling on me. He did not ask for me when he came. And you and Daddy were here all the time. Besides, merely because I am engaged isn't any reason why I should retire from the world altogether, is ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... refugees," the Times correspondent said with a shrug. For he had no opinion of these people, and believed them to be engaged in a continuous plot against the peace of the world, in combination with the Germans. The Morning Post was inclined to agree, but held that O'Shane, ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... a confirmed toper. The people in Pinchbrook said he was a good man, but, they used to add, with a shrug of the shoulders, "pity he drinks." It was a sad pity, but he seemed to have no power over his appetite. The allusion of Ben to his besetting sin was cruel and mortifying, for the old man had certainly tried to reform, and since the regiment ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... very wettest days, because he would send me up to my room with a book instead of letting me stay out of doors. "That is not the way to make him strong and active," she would say sadly, "especially this little man, who needs all the strength and character that he can get." My father would shrug his shoulders and study the barometer, for he took an interest in meteorology, while my mother, keeping very quiet so as not to disturb him, looked at him with tender respect, but not too hard, not wishing to penetrate the mysteries of his superior mind. But my grandmother, in all weathers, even ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... both its poetic inspiration and its faculty of humour; and I fear that these marvellous letters were read by the officials to whom they were addressed with a kind of stolid admiration, provoking neither the smile of amusement nor the shrug of impatience which are their ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... replied, with a shrug. "About every grotesque, horrible act ever committed in this world has been sanctioned by conscience. Delicate women have worn hair-cloth and walked barefooted on cold pavements in midnight penance. ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... with spirit, talked, jested, quoted poetry, paid compliments right and left, and now and then passed the salt, filled a glass, or offered a napkin to his fiancee with a French shrug and a ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... gloom of the place, Bard stepped with a shrug of the shoulders, like one who shakes off the spell of a nightmare. He strode through the doorway and took the slant, warm sun of the afternoon full ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... nobody had an interest in doing Carboys some sort of mischief in order to prevent that wedding from being consummated, Mr. Narkom," said Cleek with a shrug of the shoulders. "Certainly, Van Nant would have been glad to see a spoke put in that particular wheel; though I freely confess I do not see what good could come of preventing it by doing away with Carboys, as he would then be in as bad a position as if the marriage had been allowed ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... read the letter, I handed it up to Gabord without a word. A show of trust in him was the only thing, for he had enough knowledge of our secret to ruin us, if he chose. He took the letter, turned it over, looking at it curiously, and at last, with a shrug of the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the fires, not omitting the Roman candle, and, you may take it from me, all was visible. Persimmon shone out in his naked splendour, red to port, green to starboard, and one white light at his bows, as per Board o' Trade regulations. Only he didn't so much rock, you might say, as shrug himself, in a manner of speaking, every time the candle went off. One can't have everything. But the rest surpassed our highest expectations. I think Persimmon was noblest on the starboard or green side—more like when a man ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... was for the ensuing twenty years pictured as a noisy disturber, but he was shrewd, very shrewd. He could call a man "liar," "thief," "scoundrel," "impostor," in virile speechmaking, or could pass him up with a shrug, all the while keeping a cold eye on the main chance, and in the end getting his own way because he was strong enough to get his way—and that is all the logic ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... adjusted it to his satisfaction he tested it. It still struck five. He continued to fuss over it for half an hour, testing it at intervals, but it always struck five times, and finally he gave up his attempts with a shrug of annoyance. ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... aching, danced to bells. The row of twenty-four, pink and white as if the cradle had just yielded them up, shivered suddenly into an ecstasy of sound, the jerked-up shoulder of one, the tossing curls of another, the naughty shrug of a third, eking ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... possible shrug of his square shoulders. "Oh, I guess she's all right," he said. "It amuses her. But won't you give me some flowers ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... inexorable law of the land to her own detriment, and, with a sob in the breath, sits down to her spinning again, her mouldy crust and cup of cold water, or worse fare than that. Joy is not for the poor, she says—and then, with a shrug, Lo que ha ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... contemptuous shrug: "Wait until I give you an opportunity. Floyd and I don't make fools ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... citizens, poor and rich, plebeian and patrician, confess that faith. Dost thou know that the Cornelii are Christians, that Pomponia Graecina is a Christian, that likely Octavia was, and Acte is? Yes, that teaching will embrace the world, and it alone is able to renew it. Do not shrug thy shoulders, for who knows whether in a month or a year thou wilt ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... be seated!" Ree exclaimed as he noticed this. There was irony in his voice which made the older Indian shrug his shoulders, but the young white man led the Indian brave, a chap but little older than himself, away from the cart. With some force he drew the buck to a blanket and motioned to him ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... a resigned shrug. "You are always right in your calculations, my dear Harrison," he said; adding, with an ambiguous intonation, "And I suppose I am to salute in you the American ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... a little shrug of her shoulders, which made her pearls and velvet shimmer in the moonlight. She looked so white and cool and perfect, so apart from common clay, that all at once Queen Guinevere ceased to be my type of her, and I thought of "Lilith, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... a notion to come home and claim that legacy left by our eccentric Uncle Joshua," Jack told him, with a shrug of his shoulders, as though miracles were an every-day occurrence ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... impossible; they are doing all in their power to make it impossible for us to have in the nation, in the home, or in the individual life, purity at all. Those who look out upon scenes which disgrace our social system, and our city, and, with a shrug of the shoulders, lead people to believe they constitute a necessary evil which cannot be faced, are not only unconsciously believing in the blasphemy that God made His physical laws so that they could not obey His moral laws; they are not only condoning the ...
— The After-glow of a Great Reign - Four Addresses Delivered in St. Paul's Cathedral • A. F. Winnington Ingram
... says with a slight shrug. It isn't so much what she says—it's the way she says it, the tone and all that, which makes you feel smaller and smaller until you could crawl into your own watch pocket and live happily there ever after. There'd be slews of room and when you wanted the air of an ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... French outfit," he said with a shrug. "I suppose he wanted Mahooley to know he's a man of means. He can't have spent any of it. I'll probably get it ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... "In pleasing her you are pleasing me," she answered, and with a shrug of his shoulders he ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... insisted, with an ugly shrug. "I tell you, Molly, I've always been impressed with the idea mothers cared more for their children than fathers, but I'm over that now ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... conceived a dozen new schemes; every instant of his time he seemed to be devising how to plunder, until I was fairly at my wits' end how to thwart him. Exposure before a crowd of his fellows brought no blush of shame to his sallow cheeks; he would listen with a mere shrug of the shoulders and that was all, which I might interpret any way it pleased me. A threat to reduce his present had no effect; a bird in the hand was certainly worth two in the bush for him, so ten ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... fellow, with a shrug, "it might be carrots, and still I could not tell you. How should I know? The house is kept like ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson |
