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More "Cowardice" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... worst in unforeseen collision with the rougher realities of life. But give him time, and he was not the man to run away because his equipment for battle was as short as his confidence in himself; and perhaps such courage as he possessed was not less courageous for the crust of cowardice (mostly moral) through which it always had to break. Langholm had one other qualification for the quest to which he had committed himself, but for which he was as thoroughly unsuited by temperament as by the whole tenor of his solitary life. In addition to an ingenious imagination (a ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... London by his neck. At another time I saw the master of a frigate towed to shore on a grating, by several of the men of war's boats, and discharged the fleet, which I understood was a mark of disgrace for cowardice. On board the same ship there was also a sailor ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... pretend to a courage that they haven't," said Vernon. "A consistent pose of cowardice, that would be novel and—I see the ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... the Dutch is pressed. Often, dear Painter, have I sat and mused Why he should be on all adventures used. Whether his valour they so much admire, Or that for cowardice they all retire, As heaven in storms, they call, in gusts of state, On Monk and Parliament—yet both do hate. ... Ruyter, the while, that had our ocean curbed, Sailed now amongst our rivers undisturbed; Surveyed ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... that sombre little study of a miserable passion, may sometimes be reminded of Helvetius. It begins with the dry surprise of youth at the opening world, for we need time, he says, to accustom ourselves to the human race, such as affectation, vanity, cowardice, interest have made it. Then we soon learn only to be surprised at our old surprise; we find ourselves very well off in our new conditions, just as we come to breathe freely in a crowded theatre, though on entering it we were almost stifled. Yet the author of this parching sketch ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... between them. I took it while they went to make some tea, and it kicked, roared, and fought until they came back. By that time I had prepared a neat little speech, saying that I was not the least tired, and would only trouble them for a glass of water; and, having covered my cowardice successfully, I went on, having been urged by the hospitable ranchman to be sure to stay for the night at his father-in-law's house, a few miles further on. I saw that the wishes of the native went in the same direction, but after ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... stormy councils of war held, wherein were some who proposed to return at once to Unyanyembe, and keep within their own houses; and Khamis bin Abdullah raved, like an insulted monarch, against the abject cowardice of his compatriots. These stormy meetings and propositions to retreat were soon known throughout the camp, and assisted more than anything else to demoralize completely the combined forces of Wanyamwezi and slaves. I sent Bombay to Sayd bin Salim to advise ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... arms laden, she turned her face toward me; her sorrowful eyes looked as if she could never again know sleep or forgetfulness. "I am a coward," she said, "yet I thought that cowardice and my desire for life had both died together. I did not draw back from the knives of the Indians, but now I am afraid of a loveless marriage. We are young. We may live many years. Oh, monsieur, ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... the disillusion and the scorn of the man to whom she has given herself. Was any of this scorn lacking in the book? Oh, no! and you cannot deny it, for the book is under your eyes. Rodolphe, who has shown himself so vile, gives to her a last proof of egoism and cowardice. She has said to him: "Take me! Carry me away! I am stifling; I can no longer breathe in my husband's house, to which I have brought shame and misfortune." He hesitates; she insists. Finally, he promises, and the next day she receives a terrible letter under which ...
— The Public vs. M. Gustave Flaubert • Various
... that while I can readily understand the abject cowardice and selfishness which prompt men and political tricksters to urge the abandonment of the plank, I can not understand how you or any other woman with a grain of sense can listen to such proposals for a moment. That endorsement is our only hope. If that fail us, our cause is lost in advance; for it ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... had commanded." But when this would not satisfy them, but that still they urged him with words and supposals: "If you will needs," said he, "adventure! It shall never be said that I will be hindmost, neither shall you report to my brother, that you lost your voyage by any cowardice ...
— Sir Francis Drake Revived • Philip Nichols
... prophecy of the revered founders of the Union! Our struggle would be no short, sharp struggle. Law, and even religion herself, would become false to their divine purpose. Their voice would no longer be the voice of God, but of his enemy. Poverty, ignorance, oppression, and its hand-maid, cowardice, breaking out into merciless cruelty; slaves false; freemen slaves, and society itself poisoned at the cradle and dishonored at the grave;—its life, now so full of blessings, would be gone with the life of a fraternal and united Statehood. What sacrifice is too great to prevent such a calamity? ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... one!!! My opinion is that not a gun of ours was fired upon Stonewall Jackson's force until he had passed nearly into the centre of my army. Judge, if you can, of the consternation throughout that army caused by this exhibition of negligence and cowardice. One word more, in regard to the cavalry. I had to have, under the seniority rule of the service, a wooden man for its commander. If you will turn to the first volume of the Report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, you will find my instructions to General ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... searchingly at Madge, and Madge returned her gaze without lowering her eyes. Mrs. Curtis's face softened. She found it hard to scold her favorite, but she had been very much vexed at the story that Philip Holt had repeated to her of Madge's escapades at Cape May, and how she accused Roy Dennis of cowardice when he had taken her and her friends on his boat after Madge's and Phil's own heedlessness had caused their skiff to be overturned. Somehow, the tale of the throwing of the ball on board Roy Dennis's yacht and of frightening Mabel Farrar had also gone abroad in Cape May. Lillian had confided ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... variety of other mishaps proved destined to blight his military career. Unfortunate in the choice of his subordinates and unable to retain their confidence; accused of irresolution and even of cowardice; abandoned by Cochrane, who sailed off to Chile and left the army stranded; incapable of restraining his soldiers from indulgence in the pleasures of Lima; now severe, now lax in an administration that alienated the sympathies of the influential class, San Martin was indeed an ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... of the affair. This proposition was agreed to by Monsieur de Montferrand, but the vicomte firmly opposed it. We tried in vain to change his determination. He became angry, accused his seconds of cowardice, and threatened to horsewhip them. Under such circumstances nothing could be done. The distance was measured off and the duel began. The vicomte was already lost after the first tourney. In his passion he ran upon his opponent's sword, ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... he was struck with a spent ball on the knee, which made any walking somewhat troublesome to him in after life. At Tarragona he was so mortified with Sir John Murray's conduct, that he almost forgot that he himself was only second in command, and charged Sir John with incapacity and cowardice, for which the latter was tried by Court Martial - General Mackenzie being one of the principal witnesses against him. Full of vigour of mind and body, he took a lively interest in everything in which he engaged, from fishing and shooting to farming, gardening, ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... she cried, and seemed to tower above her common height, as she stood erect, tearless, fiery-eyed, and clarion-voiced. "Your cowardice outweighs your love! Go from my sight and from my father's house, you cautious lover, with your prudent scruples about the rights of your rival! Heavens, that I should have listened to such a coward! Go, I say! Spend no more time under this roof than you need to get your belongings from ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... enemy would provoke me to combat, I behave as a gallant soldier. I know that a duel is an act of cowardice, and so, without once looking him in the face, I turn my back on the foe, then I hasten to my Saviour, and vow that I am ready to shed my blood in witness of my belief in Heaven. I tell him, if only He will deign to open it to ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... and stupid belief that children are born naturally good accounts for the brutality of many fathers and the ruin of many young lives, making cowards of children, accentuating their untruthfulness and cowardice and their cruelty through a ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... concerning the Tolerating of all sorts of Religion." [Footnote: Commons Journals, Aug. 9, 1644.] This "one Mr. Williams," as the reader will be aware, was Roger Williams, then on his way back to America; and "his book" was The Bloody Tenent. There must have been much hypocrisy, and much cowardice, in the English House of Commons on that day. Where was the younger Sir Harry Vane? Probably he was in the House while they passed the order, and wondering how far Roger Williams had got on his voyage, and meditatively twirling ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... Dugald Dalgetty, Sir James Turner, who records examples of Leslie's senile incompetency. Leslie, at least, forced the Marquis of Newcastle to a retreat, and a movement of Montrose on Dumfries was paralysed by the cowardice or imbecility of the Scottish magnates on the western Border. He returned, took Morpeth, was summoned by Prince Rupert, and reached him the day after the disaster of Marston Moor (July 2, 1644), from which Buccleuch's Covenanting regiment ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... 3rd of Epiphi (May 18), and a desperate engagement took place, in which, after six hours of hard fighting, the Egyptians were victorious, and the confederates suffered a severe defeat. Menephthah charges the Libyan chief with cowardice, but only because, after the battle was lost, he precipitately quitted the field, leaving behind him, not only his camp-equipage, but his throne, the ornaments of his wives, his bow, his quiver, and ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... invitation; but Petrarch excused himself on account of the state of his health, the insecurity of the highways, and the severity of the weather. Besides, he said that it would be disgraceful to him to leave Padua in the present circumstances, and that it would expose him to the suspicion of cowardice, which he ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... honor, that during the week preceding their departure from Aldershot breaches of discipline were unknown, for over their heads hung the fear that they would be punished by being kept back from active service. To break a rule that week carried with it the suspicion of cowardice. This was the more remarkable because many of the men were fishermen, trappers, hunters, and lumbermen who until their enlistment had said "Sir" to no man, and who gloried in the reputation given them by one ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... plebeian merchant in a somewhat obscure street, he would, no doubt, have been more chary of his praise. But the Colonel suspected nothing, and it was well for the peace of the family that he did not. It may have been cowardice in Ralph that he never mentioned Bertha's name to his family or to his aristocratic acquaintances; for, to be candid, he himself felt ashamed of the power she exerted over him, and by turns pitied and ridiculed himself for pursuing so inglorious a ...
— A Good-For-Nothing - 1876 • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... my people relapse into barbarism again. I am not afraid of this man, or of anything that he can do to my body, but if I ran away from him it would be injuring my soul, and what account should I give of my cowardice when my time comes? Do you go, my love, and take Rachel with you if you wish, leaving me to finish ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... forgotten. Anthony found that he was living with a girl of tremendous nervous tension and of the most high-handed selfishness. Gloria knew within a month that her husband was an utter coward toward any one of a million phantasms created by his imagination. Her perception was intermittent, for this cowardice sprang out, became almost obscenely evident, then faded and vanished as though it had been only a creation of her own mind. Her reactions to it were not those attributed to her sex—it roused her neither to disgust nor to ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... opposed to the president politically, thought we were carrying the principle of neutrality too far; that the violation of Belgium was a crime against humanity in general and that if we did not at least protest against it, we would be guilty of national stultification if not downright cowardice. Against this view was invoked the time-honored principles of the Monroe Doctrine and its great corollary, Washington's advice against becoming entangled in European affairs. Our first president, in his farewell address, established a precept ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... world, being the richest spots, have been generally the soonest conquered, the soonest civilized, and therefore the soonest taken out of the sphere of romance and wild adventure, into that of order and law, hard work and common sense, as well as—too often—into the sphere of slavery, cowardice, luxury, and ignoble greed. The lowland populations, for the same reasons, have been generally the first to deteriorate, though not on account of the vices of civilization. The vices of incivilization are far worse, and far more destructive of human life; ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... for some such answer, but I shall be just to you in my thoughts, Viscount Medenham. I know you are a brave man. It is not cowardice, but your insular convention that restrains you from facing me on the ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... that brief pulsation is over, how bald is the earth, how black is life! It is because I know not whither I am going, or whether I am going, or whether there be a whither, that the act is so alluring. Only men will not confess this, but give the name of cowardice and of courage to what is neither the one nor the other. In dissipation, in thoughtlessness, in indifference, the poor wretches ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... you did," I cried indignantly. "You were all three alike: always teaching me to bear pain and be courageous, and master my natural cowardice and be ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... the savage principles adopted by a few gambling ruffians on the Continent, (of which a good description is given in the novel of The most unfortunate Man in the World,) or by old buccaneering soldiers of Napoleon, at war with all the world, and in the desperation of cowardice, demanding to fight in a saw-pit or across a table,—this sort of duels is as little recognised by the indulgence of English law, as, in the other extreme, the mock duels of German Burschen are recognised by the gallantry of English society. Duels of the ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... on Captain Puffin's table to his housekeeper said he was called away suddenly. What called him away? Cowardice, dear! How ignoble it all is. And we've all been thinking how brave and wonderful they were. They fled from each other, and came back together and played golf. I never thought it was a game for men. ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... Allen out and bore him toward the house, his limp fingers, David saw, trailing through the grass. At first the latter involuntarily turned away; but, objurgating such cowardice, he forced himself to gaze at Allen. He recognized at once that his brother had not been shot; his hip was too smeared and muddy for that. It was, he decided, an accident, as Arbogast and the drummer lead Hunter Kinemon aside. David Kinemon walked resolutely up to the little ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... refusal would not be interpreted as a reflection on the misfortunes of Judge Tait. This reply made Judge Tait more indignant than ever. He wrote a severe reply, suggesting to Judge Dooly that his refusal to fight was the result of cowardice rather than a desire not to shed the blood of an unfortunate cripple. In answer to this insinuation, Judge Dooly declared boldly that he was ready to fight his adversary on anything like equal terms. He announced that he would meet Judge Tait anywhere, on any day, ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... in the town and neighborhood in which I lived, and I undoubtedly could have had sexual relations with them if I had only been able to overcome my shyness. The desire was not wanting. I really craved intercourse with them. It was simply a matter of cowardice. There was one girl whom I knew very well, with whom I was on friendly terms, who I knew had had sexual relations with other boys. She showed, at times, a marked preference for me, and I am sure would have welcomed any advances that I should have made. A number of times ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... bundle that she might appear to carry as much as they, yet carry nothing; she is as old as the first man who threw away his shield in battle, and yet, when it was over, gathered with the victors to share the spoils, as old as cowardice and lust in the human and animal world; only to cease from being when, perhaps, an enlarged and expanded humanity shall have cast the last slough of its ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... I the dictates of high heaven obey. Without a sigh his sword the brave man draws, And asks no omen but his country's cause. But why should'st thou suspect the war's success? None fears it more, as none promotes it less. Tho' all our ships amid yon ships expire, Trust thy own cowardice to escape the fire. Troy and her sons may find a general grave, But thou canst live, for thou canst be a slave. Yet should the fears that wary mind suggests Spread their cold poison through our soldiers' breasts, My javelin can revenge so base a part, And free the soul that ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... massacre of St. Bartholomew. When contemplated in all its aspects of perfidy, cruelty, and cowardice, it must be pronounced the greatest crime recorded in history. The victims were invited under the guise of friendship to Paris. They were received with solemn oaths of peace and protection. The leading men in the nation placed the dagger in the hands of an ignorant and degraded people. ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... Thirdly, there is the tendency of the press, which is now the great moulder of public opinion, to take what we may call the pugilist's view of international controversies. The habit of taunting foreign disputants, sneering at the cowardice or weakness of the one who shows any sign of reluctance in drawing the sword, and counting up the possible profit to its own country of one or other being well thrashed, in which it so frequently indulges, has inevitably the effect ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... sort of moralization. The craving for action, which is the natural result of abundant nervous and muscular energy, the combative instinct, the joy of conquest and achievement, and the sexual impulse, go far in counteracting cowardice and inertia. The artistic impulse, when it emerges in man, long before the dawn of history, makes against caprice for orderliness, self-control, and patience. Ambition is a potent force in human affairs. ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... at the threshold to catch my breath, as I took in the terrific figure. Had Bob Brownley been an enemy of mine I should have backed out in fear, and I do not confess to more than my fair share of cowardice. Inwardly I thanked God that Bob was in his office instead of on the floor of the Exchange. His whole appearance was frightful. He showed in every line and lineament that he was a man who would hesitate at nothing, even at killing, if he should find ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... answer to mine. It appears they are uneasy at the state of matters here in the north; they especially condemn the supineness and pusillanimity of the mill-owners. They say, as I have always said, that inaction, under present circumstances, is criminal, and that cowardice is cruelty, since both can only encourage disorder, and lead finally to sanguinary outbreaks. There is the note—I brought it for your perusal; and there is a batch of newspapers, containing further accounts of proceedings in Nottingham, ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... Chief of Police. The chained men were mostly murderers, if we may use such a harsh term for those who are compelled to kill their enemies by the relentless laws of the vendetta, and who would be punished by the laws of man should they prove themselves guilty of cowardice. ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... but the text. But it was borne in upon him that his purpose of flight was 'the old story,'—cowardice and virtual distrust of the Lord, as well as absolute cruelty to us ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... country is in a healthy state which has separated, even in a small degree, her civil from her military power. All states of the world, however great, fall at once when they use mercenary armies; and although it is a less instant form of error (because involving no national taint of cowardice), it is yet an error no less ultimately fatal—it is the error especially of modern times, of which we cannot yet know all the calamitous consequences—to take away the best blood and strength of the nation, all the soul-substance of it that is brave, and careless of reward, and scornful ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... morning on which Bismarck's telegram appeared in the official North German Gazette, saw a host of violent articles against France, and gleeful accounts of imaginary insults inflicted by the King on Benedetti. All this was to be expected after the taunts of cowardice freely levelled by the Parisian papers against Prussia for the last two days; but whether Bismarck directly inspired the many sensational versions of the Ems affair that appeared in North German papers on July 14 ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... with which Butler was treated on this occasion must always remain an almost solitary stain upon the memory of Abraham Lincoln. On the memory of Benjamin Butler stains hardly show. At a later stage of the war Butler showed such abject cowardice that Grant begged that if his political importance required that he should have some military command he should be placed somewhere where there was no fighting. This time Butler saved himself by blackmailing his commanding officer. ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... all the ridiculous traits—the whims, silly pride, foibles, hopes founded on nothing and dreams touched with moonshine—and you make a Micawber. Put in a dash of assurance and a good thimbleful of hypocrisy, and Pecksniff is the product. Leave out the assurance, replacing it with cowardice, and the result is Doctor Chillip or Uriah Heap. Muddle the whole with stupidity, and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... be happy," said Marshby, with a simple humility afar from cowardice. "I want her to be safe. I don't see how anybody ...
— Different Girls • Various
... all other considerations to their proper values. The actual fear of death is always present, but this fear itself cannot be sordid when men can meet it of their own free will and with the most total absence of cringing or of cowardice. ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... far more courage than you think," said his mother gravely, "and I hope you will never again jibe at the cowardice of girls; it only shows that you do not know what real courage is. Good muscles do not always mean true courage. You must learn that it is often far more brave to stand by and not do a thing, knowing all the time you will be called a coward for it, than it is to be daring ...
— Paul the Courageous • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... and to draw the lightning harmless to the ground. The most heroic thing he did in Canada was to refrain from entering Montreal at a time when his entrance must have meant insult, resistance, and bloodshed, and he bore quietly the taunts of cowardice which his enemies flung at ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... watches of the night. And this woman's heart, even while from day to day she was meditating murder,—while she was telling herself that it would be a worthy deed to cut off from life one whose life was a bar to her own success,—even then revolted from the shrinking stealthy step, from the low cowardice of the hidden murderer. To look him in the face and then to slay him,—when no escape for herself would be possible, that would have in it something that was almost noble; something at any rate bold,—something that would ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... will digress for the moment to relate an incident of the Federal march, to show the brutal cowardice and baseness of the Federals in making war upon the non-combatants—women and children—and also the unyielding spirit and inflexible courage of our Southern people. Those dispositions were manifested on both sides throughout the whole war. It is unnecessary to say ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... of waiting, an attack of mere physical cowardice seized him, and he found himself imagining the mutilation and torture that perhaps awaited him personally in those deathly ditches. He tried to busy himself with the preparation of the few things ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... slumber broken in upon, by successive troops of children, crying "Monsieur Galland if you are not asleep, get up—come and tell us one of those pretty stories." Keep your secret. Now, the mention of the Arabian Tales reminds me of Sinbad—there is a true picture of man's cowardice; what loathsome holes did he not creep into to make his escape when the wife of his bosom was sick, and he understood the law that he was to be buried with her. It is all very well, in the sick chamber, for the husband to say to his departing partner ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... wielding thunderbolts, as in all other operations of skill, a man must first try his 'prentice hand with some reticence; and thus he reconciled himself to prudence, not without some pangs of conscience which accused him inwardly of cowardice. ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... which might be but the suggestion of the disease that was slowly gnawing him to death: as often as the sickness returned, he received the suggestion afresh, whatever might be its source, and trembled as before. In vain he accused himself of cowardice— the thing was there—in him—nothing could drive it out. And, verily, even a madman may be wiser than the prudent of this world; and the courage of not a few would forsake them if they dared but look the danger in the face. I pity the poor ostrich, and must I ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... no need to be such a vast army of poverty marching on to the almshouse and grave, if it wuzn't for the dram-shop temptin' poor human nater, and the greed of the world, and the cowardice and indifference of the Church of Christ. Enough money is squandered for stuff that degrades and destroys to feed and clothe all the hungry and naked ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... bold. In a moment she is changed from timidity to courage; a tremulous invalid ready to creep into any corner to escape notice, she stretched out her hand—the instant after, she knelt at His feet in the spirit of a confessor. This is Christ's most merciful fashion of curing our cowardice—not by rebukes, but by giving us, faint-hearted though we be, the gift which out of weakness makes us strong. He would have us testify to Him before men, and that for our own sakes, since faith unacknowledged, like a plant in the dark, is apt to become pale and sickly, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... erway from dat dar door!" bawled Washington. The black man was as timid as a fawn as a usual thing; but he was devoted to the old professor and he had that feeling of gratitude for Mr. Henderson that overcame his natural cowardice. When the Indians, without giving him a glance, rushed at the door, and a single shot from the half-opened window missed them by ten feet, Wash uttered another yell and sprang to ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... from the right expression," she answered gently. "Social subjects seem to be forcing themselves on the attention of every thoughtful and right-minded person just now, and it would be culpable cowardice to shun them while there is the shadow of a hope that some means may be devised to put right what is so very wrong. Ignoring an evil is tantamount to giving it full licence to spread. But I am thankful to say I have never known anyone who found the knowledge of evil ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... sympathies with Adam. Not that I ever blamed him for his weakness in the apple incident; but I do blame him for his garrulity, and his paltry cowardice in exposing Eve. Eve was an instinctive agnostic—and she didn't purpose to be anybody's slave. If Adam decided to keep up with the procession, as he at first did decide to do, he had no business to whine over the outcome. ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... broke off there and stood a pitiable picture of rage and cowardice, shaken with tearless sobs ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... Between ourselves, your wife has absolute power over you only because of your own cowardice. Her authority is founded upon your own weakness; it is from you she takes the name of mistress. You give way to her haughty manners, and suffer yourself to be led by the nose like a fool. What! you call yourself a man, and cannot for once make your wife obey you, and have ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)
... groves, which were dense with lofty trees, and there would be waited on by those young ladies. And thus he passed his life in this constant dalliance with women, without so much as knowing what arms meant! And the result of all this cowardice and effeminacy was that he lost his dominion to the Great Kaan in that base and shameful way that ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... our shoulders, they put spurs to their horses, and galloped away to a distance of some five hundred yards. There they halted, and set up such a screeching as almost deafened us, fired off some of their old rusty guns, and then rode away. We all laughed at their bragging and cowardice, except Asa, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... Partridge," cries Jones; "I am now so well convinced of thy cowardice, that thou couldst not provoke me on any account." "Your honour," answered he, "may call me coward, or anything else you please. If loving to sleep in a whole skin makes a man a coward, non immunes ab illis malis sumus. I never read in my grammar that a man ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... The place could not be held, there was no hope of that, even if it were properly provisioned, and the letter was dated two days ago. If Sher Singh were indeed a traitor—and his conduct would need a good deal of explanation if it was to be ascribed to mere cowardice—Nisbet and Cowper's position was more than serious, it was desperate. And there sat Charteris, listening with knitted brows to the lucubrations of the witnesses in this dispute over stolen cattle, pulling ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... absolute necessity of always putting religion in the first place. If you really believe what you profess to believe, do not hesitate as to shewing it in your conduct. Never be so weak as to be ashamed of doing what you know to be your duty. Never be guilty of such unmanly cowardice as to be ashamed of avowing your allegiance to your Creator and ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... we find in Virgil that is not superstition, nor inconstancy, nor cowardice. A child-like faith in the old creed is no longer possible, but it is equally impossible to surrender it. I refer now not to those who select from it what they think to be in accordance with their reason, and throw overboard the remainder with no remorse, but rather to those ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... in his cradle. He often stretches forth his hands to get at his higher ideal, yet is still satisfied with worthless playthings. It is too glaring a fact to be overlooked by us that faith in religion is dying out in the educated circles of society, that insincerity, cowardice, and double-tongue are found holding high positions in almost ever community, that Lucrese and Ezzeling are looking down upon the starving multitude from their luxurious palace, that Mammon and Bacchus are sometimes preying on their living ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... to China—he was leader, with Corton as his associate. The sandalwooder, however, carried a large and well-armed crew, and the treacherous surprise so elaborately planned came to ignominious failure. Deschard accused his fellow-beachcomber of cowardice at a critical moment. The two men became bitter enemies, and for years never ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... honourable name. Paris could have held out easily for another four and twenty hours, and by that time the Emperor would have been back. But de Marmont gave her over wilfully, scurvily to the allies. But for his abominable act of cowardice the Emperor never would have had to endure the shame of his temporary exile at Elba, and Louis de Bourbon would never have had the chance of wallowing for twelve months upon the throne of France. But that which is a source of irreparable shame to me is a virtue in the eyes of all these ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... of the so-called moral order of things:—the more important point is that Zarathustra was more truthful than any other thinker. In his teaching alone do we meet with truthfulness upheld as the highest virtue—i.e.: the reverse of the COWARDICE of the 'idealist' who flees from reality. Zarathustra had more courage in his body than any other thinker before or after him. To tell the truth and TO AIM STRAIGHT: that is the first Persian virtue. Am I understood?... The overcoming of morality through itself—through truthfulness, the overcoming ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... victory by any other general but the king himself. Nuniz also gives us a graphic description from personal knowledge of the character of Krishna's degenerate successor Achyuta, whose feebleness, selfishness, cowardice, and cruelty paved the way for the final destruction ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... a way to the extirpation of leprosy, or consumption, or locomotor ataxy, or of suicidal melancholia among human beings, dare you refuse to inflict that pain? Now I am quite unable to say that I dare. That sort of daring would seem to me to be extreme moral cowardice, to involve gross inconsistency. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... might, or might not, have done to Miss Gilby, but the idea of sitting in judgement on such a matter at such a time! I should have refused to damp the spirit which prompted young Noren to defy the Englishwoman. I could not but look upon it as a sign of cowardice in my husband, that he should fail to understand this simple thing. And so I ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... the air. Beyond the colonnaded arcade in the corridors and the peristyle could be seen groups of slaves—men and women—squatting together with head meeting head in eager gossip, or clinging to one another in a state of abject cowardice. ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... spirits, this venerable inhabitant of Vanity Fair had as free notions about religion and morals as Monsieur de Voltaire himself could desire, but when illness overtook her, it was aggravated by the most dreadful terrors of death, and an utter cowardice took possession of the ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... enable an experienced observer at once to detect the cause. In the case of onanists especially there is a peculiar rank odor emitted from the body, by which they may be readily distinguished. One striking peculiarity of all these patients is, that they cannot look a man in the face! Cowardice is ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... and to have acquired a dyslogistic one. It is a term of reproach, and means, as nearly as may be, "characterless." That any one should submit to have it applied to him is proof of the essential cowardice of Virtue. ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... brother, devoted herself to the ghastly and terrible task of nursing him through his illnesses. The children behaved with the same straightforward affection and goodness. None of the circle ever complained, ever said a word which would lead one to suppose that they had any feeling of resentment or cowardice. They simply received the blows of fate humbly, resignedly, and cheerfully, and made the ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... moment. "If there's anything I hate and despise, it's cowardice," she cried. "I think I could forgive anything but that. It's—it's beneath even contempt. Hark, ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... My daring to reappear in your presence will be a token that your commands have been executed. Should the fates deny my hopes, never again shall you see me, never again shall the sun shine upon me. If the enemy deny me death, I will inflict upon myself the punishment my cowardice or evil fortune ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... tilt and tournament, with the complete suits of knightly armor, and the perilous feats of knight-errantry, the fire of chivalrous courtesy and chivalrous adventure never blazed more brightly, than at the very moment when it was about to expire amid the pedantry and cowardice, the low gluttony and shameless drunkenness, which disgraced the accession of the first James to the throne of England. Nor will the brightest and most glorious names of fabulous or historic chivalry, the Tancreds and Godfreys ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... thought us false to the cause; if we went on with them, we ran directly upon rocks, which we saw, but could not avoid. Nor could we take shelter in a philosophical retreat from business. Inaction would in us have been cowardice and desertion. To complete the public calamities, a religious fury, on both sides, mingled itself with the rage of our civil dissensions, more frantic than that, more implacable, more averse to all healing measures. The most intemperate counsels were thought the most ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... Everybody is called 'insane' who gets out of the world when it's too difficult to live in. Some people would call it sane. I call it just—cowardice! Jack had lost his last chance, you see. Morgana ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... ways, the consuls at length said, "Conscript fathers, lest you may say that you were not forewarned, a great disturbance is at hand. We require that they who accuse us most severely of cowardice, would assist us in raising the levies; we shall proceed according to the resolution of the most intrepid amongst you, since it so pleases you." They return to their tribunal, and on purpose commanded one of the most factious of the people, who stood in ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... motherhood by having children without the sanction of a man, that is, without regard for so-called honour. In this lies woman's strength, but only if she takes pride in her child, instead of bearing it with a troubled conscience, in cowardice, concealment, and fear. Reacquire your proud, instinctive consciousness, which you are fully justified in having, of being the mothers of humanity; and having that ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... torture he describes with such harshness at the beginning of L'Affaire Clemenceau. He was exposed to all kinds of insults and blows. His first contact with society taught him that this society was unjust, and that it made the innocent suffer. The first experience he had was that of the cruelty and cowardice of men. His mind was deeply impressed by this, and he never lost the impression. He did not forgive, but made it his mission to denounce the pharisaical attitude of society. His idea was to treat men according to their merits, and to pay them back for the blows he had ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... from the enemy involves cowardice. "He who fights and runs away may live to fight another day," and so it may be the part of wisdom in the weak creature to escape from his enemy by flight. It is a far more estimable process, from our standpoint at least, to stand against the onslaught of the enemy and beat him upon his own ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... had the Anglo-Saxons remained its undisturbed possessors. "In the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries," says Mr. Worsaae, "the Anglo-Saxons had greatly degenerated from their forefathers. Relatives sold one another into thraldom; lewdness and ungodliness were become habitual; and cowardice had increased to such a degree that, according to the old chroniclers, one Dane would often put ten Anglo-Saxons to flight. Before such a people could be conducted to true freedom and greatness it was necessary that an entirely new vigor should be infused into the decayed stock. This ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... more of Peace— 'Tis cowardice disguised; The child of Fear and heartless Ease, A thing to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 33, June 15, 1850 • Various
... an opportunity of judging of the estimation in which his mother and his family were held by certain leaders of the ton, of whom, in her letters, she had spoken so much, and into whose society, or rather into whose parties, she had been admitted. He saw that the renegade cowardice, with which she denied, abjured, and reviled her own country, gained nothing but ridicule and contempt. He loved his mother; and, whilst he endeavoured to conceal her faults and foibles as much as possible from his own heart, he could not endure those ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... there are great discordances between the Life, and its expression in the Church. We believe that there are such discordances now because—once more—of a New Learning. And we believe that to withdraw from the struggle to make the Church more fully represent the Life would be sheer disloyalty and cowardice. We must stay it out, and do our best. We are not dishonest, for, unlike many Liberals of the past and the present—we speak out! We are inconsistent indeed with a past pledge; but are we any more inconsistent ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... character in which a man can appear before the world, and it is unworthy of you, Carlo. Hold up your head and look this phantom of dancer in the face. It is but a phantom. The bright, beautiful reality of our luxurious life is substantially before us. Away with cowardice! He who treads the path which we have trodden, must cast all fear behind him. Had we been scrupulous, or faint-hearted, you would have been to-day a ruined nobleman, dependent upon the pittance doled out to you from parental hands, or upon some little office pompously bestowed ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... injuries. Had it been a fair fight, or had the South repudiated the act, the North might have made little of it, for Sumner was too advanced in his views to be politically popular. But, although the onslaught was even more offensive for its cowardice than for its brutality, nevertheless the South overwhelmed Brooks with laudation, and by so doing made thousands upon thousands of Republican votes at the North. The deed, the enthusiastic greeting, and the angry ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... the baron thought that he said this out of fear, or cowardice, he changed his tone, and hurried him up to his house to partake of some refreshment after his ride, while he gave orders to his seamen to get ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... Trott, in an agony of apprehension, 'can such things happen in a country like this? Such unrelenting and cold-blooded hostility!' He wiped off the concentrated essence of cowardice that was oozing fast down his forehead, and looked aghast at ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... soon as he was on his legs, taking him for one of the pages abused him heartily for not coming sooner, and threatened him with dismissal from the king's service for cowardice and neglect. He began indeed what bade fair to be a sermon on the duties of a page, but catching sight of the man who lay at his door, and seeing it was the doctor, he fell upon Curdie afresh for standing there doing nothing, and ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... all mankind?" Christians! wonder at this heathen, and profit by his example! in his last days he enlarged upon the wicked crime of suicide, which he reprobated with an acrimony not usual with him, declaring it to be an inexpiable offence to the gods, and degrading to man because the basest cowardice. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... his two companions were more than half inclined to follow this suggestion; but there is a form of cowardice to which even the bravest are subject—namely, the fear of being thought afraid— and it was this, perhaps, which decided them to advance ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... if the story were generally known he would appear in the same light to the world. To his intensely proud nature this would be intolerable. And why should it not be known? If Miss Walton chose to regard his choice as one of cowardice, how could he prove, even to ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... proved herself capable of holding by her leagues the foreigner at bay. As it was, the battle of Fornovo, in spite of Venetian bonfires and Mantuan Madonnas of Victory, made her conscious of incompetence and convicted her of cowardice. After Fornovo, her sons scarcely dared to hold their heads up in the field against invaders; and the battles fought upon her soil were duels among aliens for ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... calm face and quivering heart, given him an opening. That was a concession to her essential womanhood and a cowardice on her part; and, lest she turn utterly traitor to herself, she faced him again, cool, quiet, ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... prince could raise no army capable of cutting its way through the great beleaguering force. In vain did they attempt to provoke or anger the Spaniards into renewing their attacks. Sorties were constantly made. The citizens gathered on the walls, and with shouts and taunts of cowardice challenged the Spaniards to come on; they even went to the length of dressing themselves in the vestments of the churches, and contemptuously carrying the sacred vessels in procession, in hopes of infuriating the Spaniards into an attack. But Don ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... schemer, resolute to make the war serve his ends, appeared everywhere. From the morrow of those first days of high exaltation the two currents ran side by side in Canada: the clear tide of valor and self-sacrifice, the muddy stream of cowardice and self-seeking. There was an influential element in the dominant party which was determined to exploit the war to the limit for political and personal interests. The war meant patronage; it must be placed ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... which her mind dwelt constantly whenever she was alone; hence she managed to be alone as little as possible. The realization that he was a coward, as she had more than once suspected—afraid to face the consequences of his own act; afraid (the weakest cowardice of all!) of what people might say—had done much to help her pride through the humiliation of desertion, had done much, indeed, to banish him ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... of the girl who drove him off without a kind word—heaping upon him reproaches and wounding his noble heart to the core? If he did, it was I. Oh, how I have suffered since! Even when I accused him of cowardice and treachery, in my heart I was proud of him. Oh! tell me where he is, that I may go to him. I have been looking for him every moment since ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... enhance its authority by the use of the secular arm when it had none of its own, or by its own secular arm when it could command one. The disturbed conditions in the East, together with the decay of Greek influence and the cowardice and helplessness of the Byzantine emperors, had led Michael Ducas to appeal to Pope Gregory for help. The prize offered Gregory was the submission of the Greek to the Roman Church and the removal of all barriers. From the standpoint of ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell
... over them. And now I call on any man here," he added, "to stand up and say whether he believes that virtue will best be nourished among us if he who bears the greatest toil and takes the heaviest risk shall receive the highest honours. Or whether we should hold that cowardice makes no difference in the end, seeing that we ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... of Galway, seeing that the battle was lost, through the cowardice of the Portuguese, was preparing to withdraw his men, and had only despatched Pierce's brigade to check the advance of the enemy while he did so. Seeing that these, by their ardour, were irretrievably cut off, he gave the order to the Marquis ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... rights are held so sacred that a property owner may commit any kind of an architectural nuisance so long as he confines it to his own front yard. The strength of IS, the weakness of should be, conflicting interests and legislative cowardice are responsible for the highly irrational manner in which our cities ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... a serious emergency, was not to be thought of! Yet, where could he go? How could he be near enough to assist HER without again openly casting his lot among them? And would they not consider his return an act of cowardice? He could not restrain a gesture of irritation as he rose ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... live with his daughter Mrs. Bache. The battle of Lexington had been fought while he was at sea, and the whole country was in a ferment of excitement. It was in regard to this battle, it may be remembered, that he uttered one of his famous witticisms. To a critic who accused the Americans of cowardice for firing from behind stone walls, he replied: "I beg to inquire if those same walls had not ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More
... tried to dissuade them from that attempt, but with great difficulty could obtain of them to delay a little time; they thinking it argued cowardice. At last they got up and resolved to go in spite of all his endeavors; on which he told them, 'You certainly go to kill them in the night, because you are afraid of seeing them by day. Now, I do not fear ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... glances of the public! He shuddered at the thought!... And there was worse to come! This was but the commencement of his purgatory.... As he had not known how to die at the right moment, he must arm himself with courage to expiate his cowardice!... He must leave the shelter of his cell!... With an intense effort of will he stretched out his arms, was handcuffed without a murmur, and, marching between his two jailors, ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... part of America he came from?' 'Near to Bunker Hill, sir, if you ever heard of that place,' was the answer." On another occasion, a Yankee and a slightly wounded British marine got into a dispute, and came to blows. The British captain saw the occurrence, and accused the American of cowardice in striking a wounded man. "I am no coward, sir," said the Yankee. "I was captain of a gun on board the 'Constitution' when she captured the 'Guerriere,' and afterward when she took the 'Java.' Had I been a coward, I should ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... of the conversation I had had glimpses, vivid as lightning flashes, of the horror of strangeness that was waiting to be faced when I could no longer command diversion. I knew I could not sleep that night, and as for lying awake and thinking, it argues no cowardice, I am sure, to confess that I was afraid of it. When, in reply to my host's question, I frankly told him this, he replied that it would be strange if I did not feel just so, but that I need have no anxiety about sleeping; whenever I wanted to go to bed, he would give me a dose which would insure ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... deemed herself deserted, for succour in her extremity. Tortured by these and similar imaginings, Herrera paced wildly up and down in the gloom and silence of the forest, and accused himself of indifference and cowardice for yielding to the representations of the Mochuelo, plausible and weighty though they were, and for not proceeding at once, alone even, and unaided, to the assistance of the defenceless and beloved being, the uncertainty of whose fate thus racked his soul. Cooler reflection, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... more cruel character. This was chiefly due to the influence of Lord George Germaine, the secretary of state for the colonies. He was a contemptible creature, weak and cruel. He had been dismissed from the army in 1759 for cowardice at the battle of Minden, and he was so generally despised that when in 1782 the king was obliged to turn him out of office and tried to console him by raising him to the peerage as Viscount Sackville, the House of Lords ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... see his extravagance, is of all rebukes the severest. Such forms of speech are used on many occasions, and are never understood to import that the thing proposed is proper, or always practicable. When the Grecian women reproached their sons with cowardice, and called to them as they were flying from the enemy, to come and hide themselves, like children as they were, in their mothers' wombs; he would be ridiculous who had asked the question, Whether the women really thought they could take their sons ...
— The Trial of the Witnessses of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ • Thomas Sherlock
... Quintin to tell the Commander that possession of the Islands had been taken in the name of the Emperor of Germany. Neither Capriles, the appointed Governor, nor Espana, the Commander of the San Quintin, made any resistance; and as we can hardly attribute their inactivity to cowardice, presumably they followed their Government's instructions. Capriles and Espana returned to Manila, and were both rewarded for their inaction; the former being appointed to the Government of Mindoro Island. In Manila ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... railing against the king for sending them on such a voyage; while he sometimes endeavoured to sooth them with hopes, and at other times threatened them with the punishment they might look for from the king, for their cowardice and disobedience. On the 23d, the wind sprung up at W. N.W. with a rough sea, which pleased every one; at nine in the morning a turtle-dove flew athwart the admiral; in the afternoon a gull and other white birds, and grasshoppers were seen among ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... party. It is not too late to check and neutralize it now. A decisively national and patriotic policy is all that can prevent excited men from involving themselves so deeply that they will find "returning as tedious as go o'er," and be more afraid of cowardice ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... believed he was nearly related to Captain Steel, governor of Beeston Castle, who suffered death by military execution in 1643 on a charge of cowardice. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853 • Various
... and listened to the mutterings which warned him of the pent-up wrath and power of the mighty volcano. They knew that at any moment flame and stifling sulphurous vapor might be belched forth, but now no cowardice was shown. They had come provided with ropes and baskets, and it only remained to see who should descend. Lots were therefore drawn, and it fell to Montano, who was accordingly lowered by his followers in a basket 400 feet into the ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... the yaller pups he could think of, but staying strictly within the safe limits of the barn. It was a revelation to the big man, and not a pleasant one. How was he to know that the most salient point of his apparent cowardice was nothing less worthy than respect for the woman's purity? That if he would stop swearing long enough to get at the springs of his action, he would find that he hesitated because the new light on the matter made huge shadows of the slips in the career of a ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... revolutionists, who, a few hours before paraded through the streets of Torato, cheered by fair women, and shouting "Viva Pierola," had won a battle by natural surroundings and lost it by their cowardice. I, too, thought it was time to retreat, as my escort of twenty soldiers had long since disappeared. I rode ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... counsel on both sides is like weapons put into men's hands by a fencer, whereby they get blows, he money. His honesty and learning bring him to Under-Shrieveship, which, having thrice run through, he does not fear the Lieutenant of the Shire; nay more, he fears not God. Cowardice holds him a good commonwealth's-man; his pen is the plough and parchment the soil whence he reaps both coin and curses. He is an earthquake that willingly will let no ground lie in quiet. Broken titles makes him whole; to have half in the country break their bonds were the only liberty of conscience. ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... ridiculous figure he made in the false light with which he had invested himself. But when he was gone, with his threat still echoing through their brains, they began to doubt their first impression of his cowardice. ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... of mirrors arranged (during the providential absence of those in authority) from the night nursery, down two flights of stairs, to the store-room in the basement? I know a reviewer whom nothing, but moral cowardice restrained from testing the possibility of this delightful plan by personal experiment. Fireworks too—Mr. SMITH has remembered them with a proper regard that is, of course, wholly different from that of those who understand them only in their pyrotechnic aspect, not as objects loved for themselves ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... you two," replied the other. "I have no thirst for Monsieur de Gorka's blood.... But that gentleman must not accuse the grandson of Colonel Chapron of cowardice.... For that I rely upon the relative of General Dorsenne and on ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... be very complaisant to his superiors. Sternly the young captain rebuked Espinosa as a kidnapper, stealing the defenceless; and he demanded that the prisoners should be set at liberty. An angry controversy ensued. De Soto accused Espinosa of cowardice and imbecility, in ordering the troops of Spain to retreat before naked savages. Espinosa, whose domineering spirit could brook no opposition, accused De Soto of mutinous conduct, and threatened to report ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... "That's too much like cowardice, and we're bound to go to the rescue of a comrade!" muttered Dave Darrin, his eyes blazing. "Come on, fellows—and be sure not to ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... largely; with great eagerness and bitterness by both mamma and Aunt Gary; with triumphs over the disasters of the Union army before Richmond, and other lesser affairs in which the North had gained no advantage; invectives against the President's July proclamation, his impudence and his cowardice; and prophecies of ruin to him and his cause. Papa listened and said little. I heard and was silent; with ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... a delightful change to Florozonde to meet a man who was not alarmed by her; and it pleased her to show de Fronsac that his cowardice had not left her inconsolable. She laughed loud ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... so brave to-night, would not have me show cowardice," he said softly. "These scoundrels must not remain at large a moment longer than we can help. There is more now at stake than the bank's money—I shall not rest till they are captured, for only then shall I feel ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... We are come to England to make Our Fortune by Our parts, And you Advise to begin with Morality and Flattery. You might as well Advise a Soldier to make his Fortune by Cowardice. No Sir, he, who wou'd gain the Esteem of a Brave, a wise, and a free people, must lash their Vices, and laugh ...
— The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir • Charles Macklin
... interrupting her aunt, "I never speak false—but neither do I speak more than I choose; and then again, it were cowardice to defend myself from a revolting accusation. Let us say no more about it: your importunities on this head will be altogether vain. To resume: you wish to impose upon me a harsh and humiliating restraint; I wish to quit the house I inhabit, to ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... interest in our welfare, in order to rub gall into our wounds. The man who boasts of his frankness and of his hatred of flattery, is usually not frank—but only brutal. A true friend will never needlessly hurt, but also will never let slip occasions through cowardice. To speak the truth in love takes off the edge of unpleasantness, which so often is found in truth-speaking. And however the wound may smart, in the end we are thankful for the faithfulness which caused it. "Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... you men enough. Tell your churls, if the money is not forthcoming they are lost men; yourself especially—you shall die. I have had enough of you: you have the heart of a woman; you are slack and sluggish. You shall die—you shall pay for your cowardice, your effeminacy. Stay; it makes but very small difference whether you go down now, or whether I keep you here. This is Sunday: right loudly would the folk yonder laugh to see you dangling your legs from ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... against us; and here it becomes us to terminate a strife, which would degenerate into the ridiculous, if prosecuted against impossibilities." On the contrary, the zeal which could begin so onerous a work, and prosecute it thus far, could not now remit without convicting its past ardor of cowardice lurking under its temporary semblance of bravery. Is it for the projectors of a noble edifice of public utility, to abandon the undertaking when it has risen from its foundation to be seen above the ground; or is just come to be level with the surface of the waters, in defiance of which it has ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... collapse and the world would crash over her head. But she had known, when she took this business in hand, that as success would open Elysium to her, so would failure involve her in absolute ruin. She was determined that she would mar nothing now by cowardice, and having so resolved, and having fortified herself with perhaps two glasses of sherry, she went down to the drawing-room a little before nine, and laid herself out upon a sofa till the ladies ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... task which is now left to us, is no doubt arduous and difficult. It would not be in the least so with a country united, and feeling its own strength: but to contend against dejection, cowardice and disaffection at home, aiding a powerful enemy from without, is not a light or easy matter. It must, however, be tried; for I have no conception that any other use can be made of this event ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... utterly helpless, and had to be carried in the arms of their friends. Twenty others were also so disabled that, though they could with difficulty hobble along, they were unable to bear the burden of their own weapons. Nearly all the Narraganset Indians had now abandoned the English, and, with cowardice which it is difficult to explain, had retired precipitately through the woods to their own country. But the Mohegans had no place of refuge; their only safety was in clinging to the English. Captain Mason, that he might avail himself of the energies of all his men who were able ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... make-up cowardice had been omitted, laughed sneeringly at her and did not stand back. His two hands out before him, his face crimson, he ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... canteens, belts; and McDunn, white with rage, whipped out his revolver and fired into them as they rushed by in a torrent of red dust. From his distorted mouth vile epithets poured; he cursed and damned their cowardice, and, standing up in his stirrups, riding like a cossack at full speed, attempted to use his sabre on the fugitives from the front. But there was no stopping them, for the poor fellows had been sent into fire ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... these pleas, and scores of others, are bruited in every corner of the free States; and who that hath eyes to see, has not sickened at the blindness that saw not, at the palsy of heart that felt not, or at the cowardice and sycophancy that dared not expose such shallow fallacies. We are not to be turned from our purpose by such vapid babblings. In their appropriate places, we propose to consider these objections and various others, and to show ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... history, narrative, or memoir can be so disgusting as those of Spain and its court under the dominion of the House of Bourbon. The imagination of no novelist has ever attained that acme of duplicity, cruelty, villany, and cowardice, which made up the character of Ferdinand. The general opinion of PRINCE METTERNICH, since he has become familiar to London circles, has been rather to diminish former opinion of his superior wisdom. Lord Holland's early opinion of ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... over innocent jokes. But how's this? Boys as they are, they showed a "poisonous temper." Silently erasing off "tempura" from the board, I questioned them if they thought such mischief interesting, that this was a cowardly joke and if they knew the meaning of "cowardice." Some of them answered that to get angry on being laughed at over one's own doing, was cowardice. What made them so disgusting as this? I pitied myself for coming from far off Tokyo ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... or later. They may gain a few little advantages by surprise, or the cowardice of the troops; but those successes can't last, and when the defeat comes it will be the greater, and mean a complete end to ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... my name." When he remained quiet at Monklands and decided not to give his enemies further opportunities for outbursts of passion by paying visits to the city, even if protected by a military force, he was taunted by the papers of the opposition with cowardice for pursuing a course which, we can all now clearly see, was in the interests of peace and order. When at a later time LaFontaine's house was again attacked after the arrest of certain persons implicated in the destruction of the parliament house, and one ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... "Then," cried he, fiercely, "it is shame and attaint upon my Lord the Earl, and cowardice as well, and never will I ask favor of him who is so untrue a friend as to turn his back upon a comrade in trouble as he turneth ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... that some knyghts used in those days, by which they came to honour, and how they that were vicious were punished and put oft to shame and rebuke.... For herein may be seen noble chivalry, courtesy, humanity, hardness, love, friendship, cowardice, murder, hate, virtue and sin. Do after the good, and leave the evil, and it shall bring you ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... result of cowardice; navigation in unknown waters and with armed vessels requires brave hearts, and that such were to be found among the Phoenicians, they often showed. Still less was it the result of any lack of tenacity and idiosyncrasy of national ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... where you like," answered my father, amused at the stranger's cowardice, of which he did not seem at all ashamed; "we shall look to you, however, to help us in driving back the redskins if they ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... Media as this redoubtable withdrew, Fofi is a cunning knave; a braggart, driven forth, by King Piko for his cowardice. He has blent his tattooing into one mass of blue, and thus disguised, must have palmed himself off here in Pimminee, for the man he is not. But I see many ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... red-sleeved waistcoat and a pair of gray tweed trousers. I would have run to him, only I was a coward in the presence of such a mob,—would have embraced him, only he, being an Englishman, I did not know how he would receive me; so I did what cowardice and false pride suggested was the best thing—walked deliberately to him, took off my hat and said, 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume?' 'Yes,' said he, with a kind smile, lifting his cap slightly. I replace my hat on my head, and he puts on his cap, and we both grasp hands, and ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... does not appear to be known, and of this I witnessed some very singular proofs. Though it is a curious fact, I was universally told that the character of the convict population is one of arrant cowardice: not unfrequently some become desperate, and quite indifferent as to life, yet a plan requiring cool or continued courage is seldom put into execution. The worst feature in the whole case is, that although there exists what may be called a legal reform, and comparatively ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... many men and women do mark and abhor the foulness and cowardice of these aforesaid untrue men, how that they are overcome, and stopped with benefices, and withdrawn from the truth of GOD's Word, forsaking utterly to suffer therefore bodily persecution. For by this unfaithful doing and apostasy, of them specially that are great lettered men, and have [ac]knowledged ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... longer a father-in-law," I replied. "Hitherto, my conscience has spoken plainly enough to make your verdict superfluous. If to-day its voice is weakened, here is the cause of my cowardice. I received, about two ...
— The Red Inn • Honore de Balzac
... am a lover of peace. Not of that hysterical, sentimental horror of bloodshed which would place a great civilized nation at the mercy of more barbarous powers, which would stay the wheels of progress, and be indistinguishable from cowardice ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... hour in the evening, Brother Peter, son of Simon, who was born in Liege, died of the plague; now he had lived with us in the Religious Life for nine years and a half. By nature he was very timid and modest, and at the beginning of his conversion he had suffered many temptations to cowardice, albeit he was afterwards delivered from these by the grace of God. So he yearned for death with great desire, longing to be released and to be with Christ, and he was laid ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis
... currents of this dangerous place. Alarcon was looking for and expecting to meet Coronado at any time. He knew that Coronado was depending on the supplies carried by the San Gabriel, and it would have been rank cowardice on the part of Alarcon to have backed out at the first difficulty. But he had no intention of retiring from the ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... done the people of Kentucky, because of their conduct during the retreat. Baseless charges of their cowardice and treachery had been bandied about in the mouths of the unreflecting; the many had been made to suffer for the baseness of the few; and the shield of the state had been tarnished because of an inaction her ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... into the willing ears of the sympathetic woman the details of her gradual awakening from Dalton's spell as his irritability, cowardice, and selfishness became more and more apparent. Nor yet of her growing anxiety as their resources declined; an anxiety which had so weighed upon her mind that she could neither sleep nor rest, despite his continued promises of daily remittances that never came and his ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... for Banbury. In the Parliament of 1654 he represented Oxfordshire. He was afterwards, as Nathaniel Lord Fiennes, a member of Cromwell's "other House." Fiennes was accused of cowardice in surrendering Bristol (of which he was governor) to Prince Rupert, somewhat hastily, in 1643. His father, Lord Say and Sele, opposing Cromwell, was obliged to retire to ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... Infantes had so plainly revealed their cowardice, people made fun of them, until they roused their resentment to such an extent that, when the Moors again threatened Valencia, they offered to go forth and defend the Cid. This show of courage simply delighted the old hero, who sallied ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... the one class of actions and prejudices against the other class. From early boyhood the young savage hears recounted the daring deeds of his chief—hears them in words of praise, and sees all faces glowing with admiration. From time to time also he listens while some one's cowardice is described in tones of scorn, and with contemptuous metaphors, and sees him meet with derision and insult whenever he appears. That is to say, one of the things that come to be associated in his mind with smiling faces, which are symbolical of pleasures in general, is courage; and ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... those jets wide or you'll spend the rest of the trip to Roald in the brig and I'll send a report back to the Academy on your cowardice!" Vidac paused, then added quietly, ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... set me thinking about what a moll the fellow was in that cave business. It was sheer cowardice, old man. He confessed it, and through that your accident happened. I don't like Corporal May, and I wish to goodness he wasn't with us to-night. ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... and opening a drawer in the table took out a revolver and held it a moment in his hand, looking at it dispassionately. It was not the ultimate purpose for which it had been intended. He had never imagined a time when he might end his own life. He had always vaguely connected suicide with cowardice. Was it the coward's way? Perhaps! Who can say what cowardice or courage is required to take the blind leap into the Great Unknown? That did not trouble him. It was no question of courage or cowardice but he felt convinced that his death was the ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... unsteadiness in his attitude, irresolution in the black eyes beneath their bushy brows. But the blue-whiteness under the dark beard was not the pallor of fear, so called. Seth Huntington was as incapable of physical cowardice as he was of moral courage. He was not afraid of Philip Haig, but he was dreadfully afraid of being thought afraid of him. There was yet time to avoid a clash with Haig, to withdraw from an undertaking in which he knew ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... June. All the wild, brave spirit of her would have gone out to her husband in a rush of feeling. The battle would have been won for them both. The thing that had stung her pride and crushed her spirit was that he had not struck a blow for her. His cowardice had driven her to Jake Houck's arms because there was no other place for her ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... his ends, appeared everywhere. From the morrow of those first days of high exaltation the two currents ran side by side in Canada: the clear tide of valor and self-sacrifice, the muddy stream of cowardice and self-seeking. There was an influential element in the dominant party which was determined to exploit the war to the limit for political and personal interests. The war meant patronage; it must be placed where it would do the ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... truth. The personal answer to this, which the workman finally makes, may be of three kinds: He may desert his vision entirely and return to operate among the infinite small doors of the many—which is cowardice and the grimmest failure. He may abandon the many and devote himself to the few who understand; and this opens the way to the subtler and more powerful devils which beset and betray human understanding, for we are not ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... for a slave-driver. Tobacco and rage had worn his teeth short, and nearly every sentence that escaped their compressed grating, was commenced or concluded with some outburst of profanity. His presence made the field alike the field of blood, and of blasphemy. Hated for his cruelty, despised for his cowardice, his death was deplored by no one outside his own house—if indeed it was deplored there; it was regarded by the slaves as a merciful interposition of Providence. Never went there a man to the grave loaded with heavier curses. ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... valour. Of his moderation and wisdom when acting as governor of Scotland there can be no doubt, while the brilliant strategy which first won the battle of Stirling, and would have gained that of Falkirk had not the treachery and cowardice of the cavalry ruined his plans, show that under other circumstances he would have taken rank as one of the greatest commanders of his own or ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... Religion." [Footnote: Commons Journals, Aug. 9, 1644.] This "one Mr. Williams," as the reader will be aware, was Roger Williams, then on his way back to America; and "his book" was The Bloody Tenent. There must have been much hypocrisy, and much cowardice, in the English House of Commons on that day. Where was the younger Sir Harry Vane? Probably he was in the House while they passed the order, and wondering how far Roger Williams had got on his voyage, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... be forgotten; and when he spoke of his hangman's hands he seemed to have blood in his utterance. Never for a moment, even in the very article of the murder, does he possess his own soul. He is a man on wires. From first to last it is an exhibition of hideous cowardice. For, after all, it is not here, but in broad daylight, with the exhilaration of conflict, where he can assure himself at every blow he has the longest sword and the heaviest hand, that this man's physical bravery can keep him up; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... by the bias of party politics. Our countrymen are now waking up to a graver and deeper consideration of the tremendous interests at stake in our Colonies and Dependencies, and to a greater readiness to accept responsibilities which once undertaken it is cowardice to reject or even to ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... more or less empty performance. This blunder and a variety of other mishaps proved destined to blight his military career. Unfortunate in the choice of his subordinates and unable to retain their confidence; accused of irresolution and even of cowardice; abandoned by Cochrane, who sailed off to Chile and left the army stranded; incapable of restraining his soldiers from indulgence in the pleasures of Lima; now severe, now lax in an administration that alienated the sympathies of the influential ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... thrasher or a new automobile was ordered without a question, but it was considered extravagant to go to a hotel for dinner. If his father or Bayliss heard that he had been there-and Bayliss heard everything they would say he was putting on airs, and would get back at him. He tried to excuse his cowardice to himself by saying that he was dirty and smelled of the hides; but in his heart he knew that he did not ask Ernest to go to the hotel with him because he had been so brought up that it would be difficult for him to do this simple thing. He made some purchases at the fruit ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... the pitch of nervousness that must rush on the crisis at once, and take the bull by the horns, this valiant piece of cowardice declared that she could not even return the girls to their homes till Rachel knew all about it, and gave the word to drive to the Homestead, further cheered by the recollection that Colonel Keith would probably ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... very much afraid of getting a sword scratch, monsieur?" interrupted the Colonel impatiently, whilst M. de Quettare elevated a pair of aristocratic eyebrows in bewilderment at such an extraordinary display of bourgeois cowardice. ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... with Rexhill to regain his ranch. His manhood rebelled at the idea of coercion, but, dead, he could certainly not defend himself; it seemed to him better that he should live to carry on the fight. He would most likely have yielded but for the taunt of cowardice which had already been noised about Crawling Water. True, the charge had sprung from those who liked him least, but it had stung him. He was no coward, and he would not feed such a report now by yielding to Moran. Whatever the outcome of a later fight might be, the fact that he had knuckled ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... only a Christian in his own way, and as far as he thinks proper, and that he doubts of many things which we ourselves do not believe strongly enough to hear doubted without danger. What is in reality cowardice and faithlessness, we call charity; and consider it the part of benevolence sometimes to forgive men's evil practice for the sake of their accurate faith, and sometimes to forgive their confessed heresy for the sake of their admirable ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... pounding through the village now. Henson gave vent to one cry of distress, but nothing came of it but the mocking echo of his own voice from a distant belt of trees. Merritt shot out a short, sneering laugh. He had not expected flagrant cowardice like this. He made a sudden spurt forward and caught Henson by the tail ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... hopeful, you see. * * * Alarming accounts come to us. Prepare for the worst, but hope for the best. We do not doubt we are in a very critical condition, out of which only the Most High can bring us." This is not the language of fear or cowardice. There was no disposition on her part to seek her own personal safety, but while she despaired of success, she was ready to brave any danger for the sake of the wounded soldiers. This courage in the midst of despair, is really greater than that of ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... depredations, but of the piracies of the Algerians. That fierce and predatory people had for long years held the Mediterranean as a sort of a private lake into which no nation might send its ships without paying tribute. With singular cowardice, all the European peoples had acquiesced in this conception save England alone. The English were feared by the Algerians, and an English pass—which tradition says the illiterate Corsairs identified ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... speak. I own I was uncommonly pleased by it. I considered it the biggest compliment of the kind I had ever received in my life. For that matter it was too big, as I had to acknowledge. That, however, sir, was your affair; and so, without stopping much to think, and before I could muster the cowardice to decline, I accepted it. [Laughter.] But as soon as I began to reflect, especially when I came to ask myself what in the world I had or could have to say in this august presence, I was scared ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... will fight when he can no longer flee; and the doe will defend her young in the face of murderous enemies. The deer gets little credit for this eleventh-hour bravery. But I think that in any truly Christian condition of society the deer would not be conspicuous for cowardice. I suppose that if the American girl, even as she is described in foreign romances, were pursued by bull-dogs, and fired at from behind fences every time she ventured outdoors, she would become timid, and reluctant ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... is the greater. Wherever he attracts general attention he cannot but be misunderstood. The generality of modern men and women who pretend to literature are not hypocrites, or they might go near to divine him,—for hypocrisy, though rooted in cowardice, demands for its flourishing a clear intellectual atmosphere, a definite aim, and a certain detachment of the directing mind. But they are habituated to trim themselves by the cloudy mirror of opinion, and will mince and temporise, as if for an invisible audience, even in their ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... in his head that it was Puritanical to speak courteously to servants, and despising Diggory for his cowardice and stupidity, he was especially overbearing with him, and went on rating him all the time he was putting on his boots, to go out and try to catch some fish for the morrow's dinner, which was likely to be but scanty. As soon as he was gone, Diggory, who had listened in sulky silence, ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... resource which a nation ought to neglect is its financial credit. It was Walpole's long policy of peace which made possible Pitt's conquests. But I hold with far stronger conviction that he does wickedly who trades on a nation's cowardice to raise money for its protection. An old text, my masters! It seems a long while that some of us were preaching it in vain until Admiral Togo came along and ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... E.N.E., and this morning's march formed the chord of the arc. Halted; again delayed for the day, as we are not far from the capital, and a messenger must be sent to the king for instructions before we proceed. I never saw such abject cowardice as the redoubted Kamrasi exhibits. Debono's vakeel having made a razzia upon his frontier has so cowed him, that he has now left his residence, and retreated to the other side of a river, from which point he sends false messages to delay our advance ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... military and the civilian; either can let the other down. If the civilian army loses its morale, its vision, its unselfishness, and allows itself to be out-bluffed by the civilian army of Germany, it as surely betrays its soldiers as if it joined forces with the Hun. We execute soldiers for cowardice; it's a pity that the same law does not govern the civilian army. There would be a rapid revision in the tone of more than one English and American newspaper. A soldier is shot for cowardice because his example is contagious. ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... might have been watching me from the shore; some boy who was jealous of my prowess as an oarsman— and there were such in our village—and this boy or boys would have seen that I had started for the islet, would easily have divined my reasons for turning back, and would not fail to "twit" me with cowardice. Partly influenced by this thought, and partly because I still had a desire to proceed, I plucked up fresh ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... the other robbers were easily disposed of, for we were two to one; but even after we had them securely pinioned, they taunted us with cowardice, and dared us to meet them in open fight, where they could stand some chance for their lives. Their complaints were unheeded, although Mike and the ghost both expressed a wish to meet two of the men, and give them fair play, according to ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... set the common good above their private gain. For them a new heart was being born into the world. They were no longer consumed with blind greed, with love of their petty selves. They were no longer full of cowardice and distrust and enmity. Life was a thing beautiful to them. It was flushed with the color of hope, of fine enthusiasms. They might suffer. They might be defeated. But nothing could extinguish the joy in their souls. They walked like gods, immortals, these brothers to the spent and the maimed. ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... take such out of every city as freely offer themselves, for none are forced to go against their wills, since they think that if any man is pressed that wants courage, he will not only act faintly, but by his cowardice dishearten others. But if an invasion is made on their country they make use of such men, if they have good bodies, though they are not brave; and either put them aboard their ships or place them on the walls of their towns, that being so posted they may find ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... of fighting blood brought a red blindness which at times made the voice of reason seem contemptible and pallid with cowardice. ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... single quality or characteristic and descanted upon it, neglecting all the rest. Thus it is that Griselda becomes Patience, and Janicola Poverty, and that by an easy and imperceptible transition the abstract personages of novels and the drama are created: Cowardice, Valiance, Vice. Those typical beings, whose names alone make us shudder, were considered perfectly natural; and, indeed, they bore a striking resemblance to Griselda, Janicola, and many other heroes of ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... a horrible pause, and then, in pitiful tones: "I am fighting down this fearful feeling of cowardice, but it is so hard—so hard to die so soon. Not twenty yet, and the bright world and all its hopeful promise before one. How can you keep like that? Are ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... was when he overthrew his own throne forty years later, had run away from peril and from duty after the insurrection of July. After the insurrection of October, a troop of the nobles of the court followed him. The personal cowardice of the Emigrants was only matched by their political blindness. Many of the most unwise measures in the Assembly were only passed by small majorities, and the majorities would have been transformed into minorities, if in the early days of the Revolution these unworthy ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... Morel, with great bitterness, "we had the cowardice, the selfishness, to let our child return there. Oh! poverty, poverty! how many crimes it ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... undertaking which well accorded with his bold spirit; and as his thoughts went back to the scene of the banquet and the suspicions entertained there as to his own courage, it pleased him to reflect that, whatever happened, a Singleton would never again be able to charge his chief with cowardice. ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... captured and sentenced to be hanged. One of the men, who seemed to be less brutal than the rest, told how, in 1812, they had captured a schooner, and, after their usual practice, had compelled the passengers to walk the plank. All hesitated and showed cowardice, except only one—a beautiful woman whose eyes were as bright and whose bearing was as unconcerned as if she were safe on shore. She quickly led the way, and, mounting the plank with a certain scorn of death, said to ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... English energies, and left the Borders defenceless against one of the largest armies ever collected in Scotland. Wolsey and Henry were only saved, from what might have been a most serious invasion, by Dacre's dexterity and Albany's cowardice. Dacre, the warden of the marches, signed a truce without waiting for instructions, and before it expired the Scots army disbanded. Henry and Wolsey might reprimand Dacre for acting on his own responsibility, but they knew well ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... made up her mind to tell him at the very first interview that she would not marry Jacopo Contarini under any circumstances, but she had not decided whether she would add that she loved Zorzi. She hated anything like cowardice, and it would be cowardly to put off telling the truth any longer; but what concerned Zorzi was her secret, and she had a right to choose the most favourable moment for making a revelation on which ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... nadir of what he felt was his utter degradation, had he dwelt on the plan of ending it all, and from time to time had turned on a gas jet and sniffed at the evil fumes, wondering of what sort would be death by that means. To think that he would descend to that depth of cowardice! Nevertheless, he was not especially surprised by this weakness, even while he hated himself for entertaining such a base resolve. One after the other, right and left, the blows in his business ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... always breaking loose before one can be aware of it. If we reflect a moment, we shall find that even in the present day, on our own stage, the infallible and inexhaustible source of the ludicrous is the same ungovernable impulses of sensuality in collision with higher duties; or cowardice, childish vanity, loquacity, gulosity, laziness, &c. Hence, in the weakness of old age, amorousness is the more laughable, as it is plain that it is not mere animal instinct, but that reason has only served to extend the dominion of the senses beyond ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... Cowardice is a trait attributed to Manbos and other people of Mindano. It is true that they do not take inordinate risks. The favorite hour for attack on an enemy's house is dawn. They prefer to thrust a spear through the floor rather than to call ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... cowardice and treachery of two of their number, Pearson, the leader, and Bent, the wagoner, had made a clean breast of the business. They had driven hard bargains, had laid in good stores of beaver, wolf, and deer skins, and no little cash. Then Little Crow came, quarrelled ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... of St. Bartholomew. When contemplated in all its aspects of perfidy, cruelty, and cowardice, it must be pronounced the greatest crime recorded in history. The victims were invited under the guise of friendship to Paris. They were received with solemn oaths of peace and protection. The leading men in the nation placed ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... father would talk in his matter-of-fact way of the hours of waiting before the actual commencement of a battle, after the troops had been paraded. The mere anticipation of the suspense and the strain of those hours was a torture to me. I foresaw the possibility of cowardice. Then one evening, when my father had his old friends about him on one of his Crimean nights, two dreadful stories were told—one of an officer, the other of a surgeon, who had both shirked. I was now confronted ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... his pain Prolong your misery an hour or two Prudent and just man may be intemperate and inconsistent Prudent man, when I imagine him in this posture Psalms of King David: promiscuous, indiscreet Public weal requires that men should betray, and lie Puerile simplicities of our children Pure cowardice that makes our belief so pliable Put us into a way of extending and diversifying difficulties Pyrrho's hog Quiet repose and a profound sleep without dreams Rage compelled to excuse itself by a pretence of good-will Rage it puts them ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne
... think the occasion an opportune one for exploring caves, but to have withdrawn would have demanded a "moral courage," as people commonly say when they mean cowardice, which I did not possess. We stepped within a narrow crevice of the great cliff. Moore lit a lantern and went in advance; the negro followed with a ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... in his experience Rube Carter suspected Kiddie of cowardice, or at least of indecision. If he were not meaning to fight, why had he not retreated earlier, while there was ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... For the law jealously guards the earnings or property of the wife from possible spoliation. She on any colourable pretext can obtain magisterial separation and protection."[967] Bax concludes that if the law is right in flogging men it should flog women too, for "the brutality and cowardice of the proceeding is no greater in the one case than ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... what sort of books will he need? There is his imagination to be fed. That, after all, is the crown of every education. The crown—as sound habits of mind and conduct are the throne. No imagination at all is brutality; a base imagination is lust and cowardice; but a noble imagination is God walking the earth again. He must dream too of a dainty fairy-land and of all the quaint little things of life, in due time. But he must feed chiefly on the splendid real; ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... Albany, 28 June, 1754.] Uninitiated as they were in party politics and faction quarrels, they could see nothing in this and other military lapses but proof of a want of martial spirit, if not of cowardice. Hence the difficulty of gaining their active alliance against the French was redoubled. Fortunately for the province, the adverse influence was in some measure counteracted by the character and conduct of one man. Up to this time the French had ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... to you?"—his words overwhelmed him with a realization of the cowardice which had driven him from her at the very moment of attainment. Yes—he had always feared his fate, and he was too honest to disown his cowardice now; for had not all his old doubts started to life again at the mere ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... mind, can be equally honest, and have come by their convictions by a straightforward path. Often it has been very difficult for them to break with their old faith, cherished from childhood, and they can only look upon it as cowardice and weakness if others, as they think, have not made or wished to make this sacrifice. But we shall let the horseherd who emigrated to America ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... lost sight of our trail. Indeed, they had often seen us, and had watched us when we slept or took our frugal meals. Why they had never seized us, we could not imagine. Perhaps, with their well known cowardice, they feared lest we might defend ourselves, and kill some of them. As often as we passed through a valley, the inhabitants flocked out of their houses to see us, but to their credit be it said, that we never received from them the ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... "So if ye desire to save him, save him; and if ye desire not, prithee, go to, and let me be at peace! For an I had been a hasty man I would already have put my sword through you, for your intolerable cowardice and folly. Have ye ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... The figurative symbol of cowardice: a white feather in a cock's tail being considered a ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... to our assistance," replied Bois-Rose. "Whatever Pepe says, the Indians may still doubt, but if we show ourselves, all is over. To accept an alliance with these Indians, even against Don Estevan de Arechiza, would be an unworthy cowardice. What can ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... as the legal forms would allow. Father Marty, he knew, would see to all that, and the marriage might be done effectually. He had quite come to understand that Father Marty was practical rather than romantic. But there would be cowardice in this as mean as that other cowardice. He believed himself to be bound by his duty to his family. Were he now to renew his promise of marriage, such renewal would be caused by fear and not by duty, and would be mean. They should tear him piecemeal rather than get from ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... Lip, was well known as a thief, and was as much detested as his companion was respected. He cried and begged for his life, saying that his gun had missed fire—he had killed no one. The other calmly distributed his clothes among his friends, upbraiding his companion for his cowardice. "You lie, dog. Coward, old woman, you know that you lie. You know that you are as guilty as I am. Hold your peace and die ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... of their comrade has taught the freebooters a lesson, and for a time they make their approach with more caution. But the shouts of those standing spectators in the outer circle stimulate them to fresh efforts, as the slightest show of cowardice would surely cause them to be taunted. Those entrusted with the fiery arrows are all young warriors, chosen for this dangerous service, or volunteers to perform it. The eyes of their chief, and the ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... of the Society for the Suppression of Moral Indignation step forward and heatedly charge the plain man with culpable foolishness, ignorance, or gullibility; or even with cowardice in neglecting to find a convincing answer to the fundamental question about the other end ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett
... brilliant future. But the old spell draws him back. He returns to Cleopatra, and Octavius in revenge for Octavia's wrongs makes war upon him. Cleopatra proves still Antony's evil genius. Her seduction has already drawn him into war; now her cowardice in the crisis of the battle decides the war {191} against him. From that point the fate of both is one headlong rush to ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... necessary, in the good old cause, in defence of which their fathers had bled. They scorned to violate their engagements; they spurned the idea of shrinking from the difficulty they had pledged themselves to face, and resolved that come what may the reproach of cowardice and bad faith should never be uttered against them. Accordingly, in January, '67, they began to fend in scattered parties at Queenstown, and spread themselves through the country, taking every precaution to escape the suspicion ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... loud shouts and gesticulations to rouse the royal beast to a sense of his position. Not a bit of it: the royal beast declined to be drawn; he preferred retirement. The Maharajah, whose elephant was stationed next to mine, even apologised for the resolute cowardice with which he clung to his ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... almost every one of the Fathers tried to correct the growing disorders. We learn from them that many fled from society, not to become holy, but to escape slavery and famine; and that many were lazy and immoral. Their "shaven heads lied to God." Avarice, ambition, or cowardice ruled hearts that should have been actuated by a love of poverty, self-sacrifice or courage. "Quite recently," says Jerome, "we have seen to our sorrow a fortune worthy of Croesus brought to light by a monk's death, ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... its entrancing triumph of the chain of mirrors arranged (during the providential absence of those in authority) from the night nursery, down two flights of stairs, to the store-room in the basement? I know a reviewer whom nothing, but moral cowardice restrained from testing the possibility of this delightful plan by personal experiment. Fireworks too—Mr. SMITH has remembered them with a proper regard that is, of course, wholly different from that of those who understand them only in their pyrotechnic ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... said Miselle, in the desperate courage of extreme cowardice; and the wagon went on, two wheels deep in the gully, crumbling down the clayey mud, two wheels high on the mountain-side, crashing through brush and over stones. And yet there ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... after, as we read in the second lesson, he was killed in battle, and that not bravely and with honour (for if he had been, that would have been but a slight punishment, my friends), but shamefully by a chance shot, after he had disguised himself, in the cowardice of his guilty conscience, and tried to throw all the danger on his ally, good King Jehoshaphat of Judah; 'and they washed his chariot in the pool of Samaria, and the dogs licked up his blood, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley
... resolved, through grace, to seek a closer walk with God, and sweeter communion by the Holy Ghost. I want constancy, and more faith. I am convinced of my cowardice in not confessing the sanctifying grace of God which I enjoy; and thus insensibly lose sight of it. I desire continually to be led by the Spirit. I went to converse with a neighbour about having family-prayer. ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... thousand times, ever since I have been engaged in public matters, I have hardly heard anything else but that. It is precisely your own case, when, as a bishop, people reproach you for your impiety; or, as a musketeer, for your cowardice; the very thing of which they are always accusing ministers of finance is the ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... matter to group around him historical pictures of unique interest, brilliancy, variety, and suggestiveness, but, as the historians present him to us, he is as made for the stage. His cruelty, profligacy, effeminacy, cowardice, and artistic vanity are traits which invite dramatic illustration, and for each one of them the pages of Suetonius afford incidents which accept a dramatic dress none the less willingly because they are facts of historical record. Besides all this, there is ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... quite free from superstition. Doocheek had plenty of natural courage, but he was apt to quail before the supernatural. Apart from the conscience, which even in Arctic bosoms tends to produce cowardice, the strange surroundings of the place—the deep shadows, merging into absolute obscurity, and the feeling of mystery that attached to everything connected with the vessel—all had the effect of rendering Doocheek's enjoyment somewhat mixed. To look ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... They were those of Vergor's guard at the Anse du Foulon, now called Wolfe's Cove. As he could see but ten or twelve of them, he thought that the guard could not be numerous, and might be overpowered. His hope would have been stronger if he had known that Vergor had once been tried for misconduct and cowardice in the surrender of Beausejour, and saved from merited disgrace by the friendship of Bigot and ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... stand back!" burst from his lips in nervous agitation as the shriek rung out upon the air, and turning round, he rushed to the bedside, but started back; and there was the confusion of cowardice in his manner as he exclaimed, "You here, Mary! what in the world brought you into this room at such a time ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... lectured him paternally in a whisper, not mincing his words, but employing good, vigorous language to restore him to a sense of self-respect, for he knew by experience that a man in panic is not to be coaxed out of his cowardice. There were others also who were showing the white feather, among them Pache, who was whimpering involuntarily, in the low, soft voice of a little baby, his eyes suffused with tears. Lapoulle's stomach betrayed ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... suggests down; inward, outward; forward, backward; advance, recession; motion, rest; elevation, degradation; abundance, deficiency; heat, cold; light, darkness; strength, weakness. The same antagonism exists in the psychic nature, as in love, hate; hope, despair; courage, cowardice; pride, humility, etc.; and equally in the physiological, as we see in the action of flexor and extensor muscles, their antagonism being a necessity. If we had only flexor muscles, one motion would exhaust the muscular ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various
... great a one was prepared, at which I was very much troubled, and wished I had not been there. After dinner comes Sir J. Minnes and some captains with him, who had been at a Councill of Warr to-day, who tell us they have acquitted Captain Hall, who was accused of cowardice in letting of old Winter, the Argier pyrate, go away from him with a prize or two; and also Captain Diamond of the murder laid to him of a man that he had struck, but he lived many months after, till being drunk, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... in his "Philosophy of Education," "embraces both the animal and moral impulses. It regulates the former, and strengthens the latter, whenever gluttony, indelicacy, violence, cruelty, greediness, cowardice, pride, insolence, vanity, or any mode of selfishness shew themselves in the individual under training, one and all must be repressed with the most watchful solicitude, and the most skilful treatment. Repression may at first fail to be accomplished, ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... such burthens. This country will be made the field of bloody contention till it gain that independence for which nature formed it. It is, therefore, injustice and cruelty to our offspring, and would stamp us with the character of baseness and cowardice, to leave the salvation of this country to be worked out by them with accumulated difficulty ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... to say whether I was or not; but I am inclined to acquit myself of the charge of cowardice. My sensations were peculiar and rather unpleasant, I freely admit; but looking back upon them now in the light of long years of experience, I am disposed to attribute them entirely to nervous excitement. Hitherto my nostrils had never sniffed ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... seeing several men suffer, with various degrees of bravery and cowardice, and all variety of groans and contortions, Mole heard himself called ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... alternations. I am very pitiably a woman no doubt, weak in my will, strong only to love. Oh, I despise myself. At night, when all my household was asleep, I would go out bravely as far as the lake; but when I stood on the brink, my cowardice shrank from self-destruction. To you I will confess my weakness. When I lay in my bed, again, shame would come over me, and courage would come back. Once I took a dose of laudanum; I was ill, but I did not die. I thought I had emptied ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... on his life work were right and sane, nothing else could hurt him too much. But now, easing himself to the pony's gentle trot and staring into the exquisite blue silence of the desert night, he told himself that he had been a coward, and that his cowardice had made him shun the only real ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... had spread that an army was cut off, and a body of Germans on full march to invade Gaul; so that, under the terror of this news, there were those whose cowardice would have emboldened them to demolish the bridge upon the Rhine, had not Agrippina forbidden the infamous attempt. This high-minded woman took upon herself all the duties of a general, and distributed to the soldiers, gratuitously, medicines and clothes, according as anyone ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... fallen. Some seconds had elapsed, longer than hours, and his spirit had sunk into the numb torpor of idiocy. He was conscious, indeed, that he must presently think and act, but he would wait, refusing to understand, to know, to remember, out of fear, weakness, cowardice. He was one of those procrastinators who put everything off till the morrow; and when he was compelled to come to a decision then and there, still he instinctively tried to ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... The Charge of the Light Brigade or in such a glorious ballad as The Revenge. Neither of these poems is likely to perish until the glory of the nation perishes, and her deeds of a splendid chivalrous past sink into oblivion, which only shameful cowardice can bring upon her. But as a rule Tennyson's patriotism is not a contagious and inspiring patriotism. It is meditative, philosophic, self-complacent. It rejoices in the infallibility of the English judgment, the eternal security of English institutions, the perfection of English forms ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... has been half censured as cowardice by Johnson; but there was a tenderness of feeling which had ill-formed Cowley for the cunning of party intriguers, and the company of little villains. About this time he might have truly distinguished ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... the Rajput communities of Oudh or any other part of the country can hope to conceal from his family circle or village community any act of cowardice, or anything else which is considered disgraceful to a soldier, or to escape the odium which it merits in that ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... out into the world his understanding is enlarged and he becomes proficient in different kinds of work. All that is needed is to show courage. At the present time, one's bravery or one's cowardice is apparent. The opportunities for advancement come quickly. Such opportunities will ...
— The Eyes of Asia • Rudyard Kipling
... was gone I was able to smile grimly and call it a coincidence, wondering meanwhile, if one of the consequences of my hideously disarranged life was to be a lapse into chittering cowardice; an ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... and self-control. I should not want to be a coward, for cowardice always brings pity and contempt. I know that all must at times meet pain and suffering; and when the time comes to me I must not lose my courage and self-control; I will not shrink nor cringe, but find strength in remembering that many have suffered and endured without complaint. ...
— How to Teach Religion - Principles and Methods • George Herbert Betts
... wounded, the more brilliant and brave had been its work. This assumption is absolutely fallacious. Heavy losses may be the result of great bravery with splendid work. On the other hand, they may be the result of cowardice or inefficiency. Suppose, under trying circumstances, officers lose their heads and fail to properly handle their men, or if the latter prove cowardly and incapable of being moved with promptness to meet the exigency, ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... many cards for me. I could see at a glance that I was out-manoeuvred, and that there was nothing to be gained by a struggle. I don't think I can be accused of cowardice; my reputation is too well known for that. But I do decidedly object to being shot by a desperate man, when there is not the least necessity ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... woman was doing what nothing in her youth could well have prepared her for. She must have passed a childhood unlike the ordinary girl's childhood, if her steadiness or her alertness had ever been educated, if she had been rebuked for cowardice, for the egoistic distrust of general rules, or for claims of exceptional chances. Yet here she was, trusting not only herself but a multitude of other people; taking her equal risk; giving a watchful confidence to averages—that last, perhaps, ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... his anger, Cursed be the knight who ever gets on horseback without his spurs. Now in all the feats of the Cid never was fault found in him save only in this, that he did not enter after Vellido into the town; but he did not fail to do this for cowardice, neither for fear of death, or of imprisonment; but because he thought that this was a device between him and the king, and that he fled by the king's command; for certes, if he had known that the king was slain, there was nothing ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... to commissions; final discussion; no book upon the contents of. Legislatures (see also Parliament), history of; to make new laws a modern conception; origin of representative; early, included all fighting men; annual sessions, history of; biennial or quadrennial sessions of; moral cowardice of; modern distrust of; sessions of limited. Legitimacy, common law as to. Lent, observation of, required by statute of James I. Levees on the Mississippi. Liability (see Corporation). Libel, and slander, legislation relating ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... abandoned the raft. They were not therefore driven to this measure by any new perils; and the cry of "Nous les abandonons!" which resounded throughout the line, was the yell of a spontaneous and instinctive impulse of cowardice, perfidy, and cruelty; and the impulse was as unanimous as it was diabolical. The raft was left to the mercy of the waves; one after another, the boats disappeared, and despair became general. Not one of the promised ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... was delivered at a crucial moment of the speaker's personal fortunes. Whether he would or would not have made a good bishop, and whether the Whigs were or wore not justly chargeable with cowardice[103] in not having raised him to the Episcopal Bench, are disputable points. It seems certain, from his own declarations, that in later life he would have declined the honour; but there was a time when it might have been offered, and would probably have been accepted. When ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... call it cowardice that you simply did your duty? Have you forgotten that a child should love and honour his father ...
— Ghosts - A Domestic Tragedy in Three Acts • Henrik Ibsen
... when going into action to think about anything but what would seem most likely to interest him—the impending danger. During the first period of his service, hard as he tried and much as he reproached himself with cowardice, he had not been able to do this, but with time it had come of itself. Now he rode beside Ilyin under the birch trees, occasionally plucking leaves from a branch that met his hand, sometimes touching his horse's side with his foot, or, without turning round, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... forgotten her silk gown in her interest for the man. I don't think she had caught the name of the bank, and in my nervous cowardice I was anxious that she should not; and so I began admiring the yellow-spotted lilac gown that I had been utterly condemning only a minute before. But it was ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... We both love the Constitution, respect the King, and abhor the French.' Only, as the difference about the means was diametrical, Tories naturally held them to be playing into the hands of destructives, though more out of cowardice than malignity. In such a position it is not surprising if the Reviewers generally spoke in apologetic terms and with bated breath. They could protest against the dominant policy as rash and bigoted, but could not put forwards conflicting principles ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... an actor may wish to "register" disgust or hatred, and yet he may convey the idea that he is portraying only fear. The word covers various meanings. In writing your story in action (in the scenario or continuity), if a character is hiding behind a curtain, watching an exhibition of cowardice in another character, instead of saying "Tom shows by his actions that he considers Jack an arrant coward," thereby using twelve words, you may write, "Tom registers disgust at Jack's cowardice," which uses ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... father Calchas, in the Greek camp, in a day becomes "the sluttish spoil of opportunity," and of Diomede, and the comedy praised by the preface-writer of a quarto of 1609, is a squalid tragedy reeking of Thersites and Pandarus, of a light o' love, and the base victory of cruel cowardice over knightly Hector. Yet there seemed to be muffled notes from the music, and broken lights from the splendour of Homer. When Achilles eyes Hector all over, during a truce, and insultingly says that he is thinking in what part of his body he shall drive ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
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