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More "Coward" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that Comet came home in disgrace—a coward expelled from college, not for some youthful prank, but because he was yellow. And he knew he was disgraced. He saw it in the face of the big man Devant, who looked at him in the yard where he had spent his happy puppyhood, then turned away. He knew it because of what he saw in the ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... craft; The demagogue still schemed and lied; The patriot wept, the traitor laughed; The coward to his covert hied, And ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... Ruth was afraid of what terrors the forest might hold, and of her general situation, she had seen enough of this boy to know that he was just a poor, miserable coward—he aroused no ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... one slowed down for him; but all at once it started up again more swift than the wind, he says; and he could see that the motorman was a coward about something, because he looked greatly frightened when he flew by the spot. He never saw one go so fast as this one did after it had slowed up for him. It looked like the motorman would soon be arrested for driving his car too fast. He then had the ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... house said to the Easterling: "In an evil hour hath my daughter Gudruna humbled herself, and broken the point of her maidenly pride, and lain by thy side as thy wife, when thou wilt not dare to follow thy father-in-law, and thou must be a coward," she says. ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... To where Christ's chosen with one mind Are gathered in one place. With tongues of flame He lights on each, Whose wonder-working spell Fires them in every human speech Heaven's message forth to tell. The coward brood of doubt and fear And hesitance are fled; Before the quickening Comforter They rise as from the dead. The bolted door is yawning wide, The barred gate backward flung; And forth unarmed and fearless-eyed, ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... I knew him well. He was not a scoundrel; only weak. He went to America and became successful in business. He fought with the North in the war. He was not a coward; he did his fighting ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... have told you that in my opinion the forger has a commercial education or style, that he doesn't know me nor Barker, and don't understand slang. Now, I have to add what must have occurred to you, Jim, that the forger is either a coward, or his object is not altogether mercenary: for the same ability displayed in this letter would on the signature alone—had it been on a check or draft—have drawn from your bank twenty times the amount concerned. Now, what is the actual ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... and she give and take equal liberty, which preserves a perfect peace and good understanding between both, while those that are concerned in one another's love and honour are never quiet, but always caterwauling. He differs from a jealous man as a valiant man does from a coward, that trembles at a danger which the other scorns and despises. He is of a true philosophical temper, and suffers what he knows not how to avoid with a more than stoical resolution. He is one of ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... sympathy, it shows only scorn. The scheming mother, who attempts to marry her beautiful daughter to a Prince rotten with diseases, is a stock figure on the stage and in novels. The only truly Russian personage is the young lover, weak-willed and irresolute, who lives a coward in his ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... bullerjaan, meaning "noisy"; the word has also, with less probability, been derived from the Dutch boel, and Ger. Buhle, a lover), originally a fine, swaggering fellow, as in "Bully Bottom" in A Midsummer Night's Dream, later an overbearing ruffian, especially a coward who abuses his strength by ill-treating the weak; more technically a souteneur, a man who lives on the earnings of a prostitute. The term in its early use of "fine" or "splendid" survives in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... to seize Gabe by his coat collar, and yank him suddenly forward. Then he shook him as a dog would shake a rat, while Grimsby filled the house with his howls of distress. He was a veritable coward at heart, and in Eben's hands he was as helpless as ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... remained in their places in the sea-fight the Chians suffered very severely, 7 since they displayed brilliant deeds of valour and refused to play the coward. These furnished, as was before said, a hundred ships and in each of them forty picked men of their citizens served as fighting-men; 8 and when they saw the greater number of their allies deserting them, they did not think fit to behave like the cowards ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... a single hour to quit it. They love him, because he loved the very humblest condition of humanity, where every thing good was only the more commended to his manly mind by disadvantages of social position. They love him, because he saw with just anger, how much the judgments of "silly coward man" are determined by such accidents, to the neglect or contempt of native worth. They love him for his independence. What wonder! To be brought into contact with rank and wealth—a world inviting ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... directly I came in last night, and I suppose I had better dash at it at once. I would so willingly delay doing so, saying nice little things the while, did I not know that this would be mere cowardice. Whatever happens I won't be a coward, and therefore I will tell you at once that I cannot let you hope that we should be married this year. Of course you will ask me why, as you have a right to do, and of course I am bound to answer. I do not know that I can give any answer with which you will not have a right to complain. ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... means national stability and national greatness; and this can be achieved, and can only be achieved, by a national army. The Condottiere system, born of sloth and luxury, has proved its rottenness. Your hired general is either a tyrant or a traitor, a bully or a coward. 'In a word the armour of others is too wide or too strait for us: it falls off us, or it weighs us down.' And in a fine illustration he compares auxiliary troops to the armour of Saul which David refused, preferring to fight Goliath with his sling ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... "Listen to me, Dr. Perrin. You are a chivalrous gentleman, and you think you are helping a man in desperate need. But I say that anyone who would permit you to tell such a tale is a contemptible coward!" ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... even now have made his bid for liberty; but he was no coward to desert his companions. He uttered a choking cry of mingled fear and defiance, and rushed in between his friends to swing a heavy blow with his fist fair upon the giant's unprotected temple. Now Milo gave ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... for posts of danger," said Troup. "I believe you to be walking over a powder-mine here. I am not in their confidence, for they know what I think of Washington, but I believe there is a cabal on foot, and that Gates may be in open rebellion any minute. But he's a coward and a bully. Treat him as such. Press your point and get your troops. He is but the tool of a faction, and I doubt if they could make him act when it came to the point. He wants to make another grand coup before striking. Look well into what ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... "Highborn and great as your magnates deem themselves, I would not, while the mountains can yield one free spot for my footstep, change my place in the world's many grades for theirs. To the brave, there is but one sort of plebeian, and that is the coward. But you, sage Rienzi," continued the Knight, in a gayer tone, "I have seen in more stirring scenes than the hall of ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the warrior. Her eyes flashed fire; Her proud lips quivered with queenly ire; Her hand to the Spirits she raised and said, And her sun browned cheeks were aflame with red: "I am pure!—I am pure as falling snow! Great Taku-Skan-Skan [51] will testify! And dares the tall coward to say me no?" But the sullen warrior made no reply. She turned to the chief with her frantic cries: "Wakawa—my Father; he lies!—he lies! Wiwaste is pure as the faun unborn; Lead me back to the feast, or Wiwaste dies!" But the warriors ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... "Coward!" cried her companion contemptuously. "The Seine seldom surrenders its prey. Rupert Gascoigne is dead—drowned, as you ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... creature, a foolish, silly, cherished, coward male. It was wild to see him rush up and down in the back yard, barking and bouncing at the wall, when there was some dog out beyond, but when the very littlest one there was got inside of the fence and only looked at Peter, Peter would retire ...
— Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena • Gertrude Stein
... shaking his head sadly. "No," he said, his voice breaking—"no, my Father, you must not embrace me now. I may have been a brave man once. But now I am a coward. Let me tell you everything. My wounds were bad, but not desperate. The brancardiers carried me down to Verdun, at night I suppose, but I was unconscious; and so to the hospital at Vaudelaincourt. There were days and nights of blankness mixed ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... stood, swinging his terrible staff, and so fell had been the blow that he struck the stout smith that none dared to come within the measure of his cudgel, so the press crowded back, like a pack of dogs from a bear at bay. But now some coward hand from behind threw a sharp jagged stone that smote the stranger on the crown, so that he staggered back, and the red blood gushed from the cut and ran down his face and over his jerkin. Then, seeing him dazed with this vile blow, the crowd rushed ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... mean coward!" Jean stood up and looked from one to the other, and spoke through her clinched teeth. "To let dad suffer all this while! Lite, when did you say that train left for Salt Lake? We can take the taxi back down town, and save time." She was at the door when she turned toward ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... the best game of all will be neck and crop for that young scamp. A bully, a coward, a puling milksop, is all the character he beareth. He giveth himself born airs, as if every inch of the Riding belonged to him. He hath all the viciousness of Yordas, without the pluck to face it out. A little beast that hath the venom, without the ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... from a state of terror to a feeling of perfect safety, and in such an unexpected manner, too, that we laughed outright, and we thought that we had been very foolish to be so frightened, and looked upon our enemy as a great coward. So we concluded that an animal who was so easily scared as that would never attack us, and therefore, getting our weapons, we followed after him, hoping to drive him from the island. The jumps that he had made were quite immense, showing clearly ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... derived from the missionaries are visible in the New World. Nowhere was any well-defined doctrine that moral turpitude was judged and punished in the next-world. No contrast is discoverable between a place of torments and a realm of joy; at the worst but a negative castigation awaited the liar, the coward, or the niggard. The typical belief of the tribes of the United States was well expressed in the reply of Esau Hajo, great medal chief and speaker for the Creek nation in the National Council, to the question, Do the red people believe in a future state of rewards and ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... principal injuries were in the head and thigh. One or two of his physicians feared that he would never walk again; the limb seemed to contract, and neuralgic pains made his life a misery. To add to his troubles, his nerves were seriously affected, and though he was no coward, depression held him at times in its fell grip, and mocked him with delusive pictures of other men's happiness. Like Bunyan's poor tempted Christian, he, too, at times espied a foul fiend coming over the field ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... old man had five sons in the patriot army at Bennington. A neighbor, just from the field, told him that one had been unfortunate. "Has he proved a coward or a traitor?" asked the father. "Worse than that," was the answer, "he has fallen, but while bravely fighting" "Ah," said the father, "then I ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... weighty reason, to hope that friends are not far distant," he said, half aloud. "There fled one coward, unwounded, in the beginning of the fight, and most probably he made good speed. Every true man on the frontier would shoulder his musket at the news; and, though no party may range so far into the woods as this, I shall perhaps encounter them in one day's march. Counsel me ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and in the darkness grasps her wrists. The enraged girl shrieks, and calls aloud for assistance. Simultaneously a blow fells Mr. Snivel to the floor. The voice of Tom Swiggs is heard, crying: "Wretch! villain!—what brings you here? (Mr. Keepum, like the coward, who fears the vengeance he has merited, makes good his escape.) Will you never cease polluting the habitations of the poor? Would to God there was justice for the poor, as well as law for the rich; then I would make thee bite the dust, like a dying viper. You should no longer banquet on ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... Ye can't help it. Ye're NOT a coward, my own brave little Peg. It's yer mother in ye. She could never bear a thunder-storm without fear, and she was the bravest woman that ever lived Bad luck to me for sayin' ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... feign; Come, lightning Passion, that with foot of fire Advancest to the middle of a deed Almost before 'tis plann'd; come, glowing Hate; Come, baneful Mischief, from thy murky den Under the dripping black Tartarean cliff Which Styx's awful waters trickle down— Inspire this coward heart, this flagging arm! How say ye, maidens, do ye know these prayers? Are these words Merope's—is this voice mine? Old man, old man, thou had'st my boy in charge, And he is lost, and thou hast that to atone! Fly, find me on the instant where ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... ruffians; and, after nearly two months of vehement debates in the Convention, in which Robespierre denounced the whole body of the Girondin leaders as plotters of treason against the State, and Vergniaud in reply reviled Robespierre as a coward, the Jacobins worked up the mob to rise in their support. The Convention, which hitherto had been divided in something like equality between the two factions, yielded to the terror of a new insurrection, and on the 2d of June ordered the arrest of the Girondin leaders. A ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... quantities; nor does she inherit the smallest trifle of her husband's property. The Kerekein never sleep under the same blanket with their wives; and to be accused of doing so, is considered as great an insult as to be called a coward. ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... look beyond thy brow's concealment! I see thy spirit's dark revealment! Thy inner self betrayed I see: Thy coward, ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... suppose I was old?... I tell you, Aunt Alice, it's something I can't forget ... the dirty coward," and I swore violently, ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... uneasiness which had already attacked me grew stronger. Although I fought against it, calling myself an old woman and a coward, I must confess to an impulse which almost made me beg the station-master's company on my walk; but, besides being ashamed to exhibit a timidity apparently groundless, I was reluctant to draw attention to myself in any way. I would not for the world ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... They were both very excellent examples of pure British phlegm and unimaginativeness. This seemed to cast the burden upon me, for Pye was still confined to his cabin. The little man was undoubtedly shaken by the horrid events he had witnessed, and though he was confessedly a coward, I could not help feeling sorry for him. He was an abject creature now, and clung to his bunk, keeping out of the Prince's way and Barraclough's as much as possible, and pestering me with ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... nothing to the Briton," he said; "it was the boy I addressed. If it was an offence, why did he not take it up? Is he a coward that others have to fight his battles? If he is offended, why does he not challenge me to fight, as is customary in all ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... seeking to perfect certain details of light and range and elevation. Perhaps it was only a grim enjoyment which he gathered from thus holding the Mule's life in his hand for five or six minutes two or three times a week; perhaps, after all, he was that base thing, a coward, and lacked the nerve to pull a trigger—to throw a bold stake upon life's table and stand by the result. Each day he crept a little nearer, grew more daring; until he noticed a movement made by the ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... plunged all at once into the indolence, the intrigues, the busy nothingness of the Court, in which whispering favourites surrounded a foolish young prince, beguiling him into foolish amusements, alarming him with coward fears. Wise men and buffoons alike dragged him down into that paltry abyss, the one always counselling caution, the other inventing amusements. "Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die." Was it worth ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... upward, Where the starry light appears,— Where, in spite of the coward's doubting, Or your own heart's trembling fears, You shall reap in joy the harvest You have ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... "He is no coward!" thundered Anguish; startling both women with his vehemence. "I say he did not kill the Prince, but I'll stake my life he would have done so had they met this morning. There's no use trying to have ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... a clout from the Boer — to plaster anew with dirt? An Irish liar's bandage, or an English coward's shirt? We may not speak of England; her Flag's to sell or share. What is the Flag of England? ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... sinking in the waves, to see the frail bush at which the hand clutches uprooted; hard, when alone in the crowded thoroughfare of travel, to have one's last bank-note declared a counterfeit. I knew I should not be able to see her face, under the shade of this disappointment; and so, coward that I was, I turned this trouble, where I have turned so many ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... he had taken for a coward, was calmly ready and was apparently quite willing to give his life—his life!—in order to save his enemy's soul. The robber had almost forgotten that he had a soul. His manhood was black and stained now by numberless deeds ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... him, in the world, but always cowards; he is as bold as a lion, but with the same deadly, causeless duplicity I have watched with so much surprise in my two cowards. 'Tis true, I saw a hint of the same nature in another man who was not a coward; but he had other things to attend to; the Master has nothing else but his devilry. Here come my visitors - and have now gone, or the first relay of them; and I hope no more may come. For mark you, sir, this is ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... science we oppose a plenum to a vacuum, in medicine we supply a deficiency of saline secretions by the common expedient of salt. Wherefore not apply our knowledge painfully gleaned from lower science to the study of these more complicated phenomena? The coward who would flee the fire of the enemy may be kept at his post by the equal dread of death from his commander. Open a double fire upon these wayward youths. Make the Barbarians enlist in the Roman legions. In short, teach Haguna and the others philosophy. There will then ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... he said, "and I should have died upon this threshold ere my Lord Rippingdale and the King's men had ever crossed it, but for you, an Enderby, who deserted me in the conflict—a coward who went over to the enemies ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... magnificent, but Esperance saw nothing. Nothing but a lacquer table on which lay a letter. This letter contained the words, "If the son of Monte-Cristo be not a coward, if he wishes to find her whom he has lost, he will go from here to a certain Malvernet, who lives at Courberrie. There he will learn what he wishes to know, and will ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... he thought. "Bang! And it's all over. Is it a wise or a stupid thing to shoot oneself? Is suicide a cowardly act? Then I suppose that I am a coward!" ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... bear upon your face, is it not the mark of a whip, with which I lashed a certain Herr Ebenstreit three years since, who prevented my eloping with my betrothed? I challenged him to fight a duel, but the coward refused me satisfaction, and then I struck him in the face, causing the blood to flow. ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... agree with you,' said Merevale. 'I know Thomson well, and I think he is the last boy to do such a thing. He is neither a fool nor a coward, to put it shortly, and he would need to have a great deal of both in ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... and thou, Destiny, whithersoever ye have appointed me to go, for I will follow, and that without delay. Should I be unwilling, I shall follow as a coward, but I must follow all the ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... by the fire, Elmer turned and glared at him as he had glared back along the road at the town of Winesburg. "Go on back to work," he screamed. "What good does it do me to talk to you?" A thought came to him and his voice dropped. "I'm a coward too, eh?" he muttered. "Do you know why I came clear out here afoot? I had to tell someone and you were the only one I could tell. I hunted out another queer one, you see. I ran away, that's what I did. ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... on these 'contraband' missionaries, teachers, and nurses, since they went their way. They have been accused of pilfering, of lying, of doing nothing, of corrupting the blacks, of going out only to speculate, and, as might have been expected, we have at last the unfailing resort of the lying coward—a dirty hint as to breaking the seventh commandment—all according to the devilish old Jesuit precept of, 'Calumniare fortiter aliquis koerebit'—'Slander boldly, something will be sure to stick.' And to such a depth of degradation—to the hinting away the characters of young ladies because ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... So he went right out, got his bag (which has been packed for some time) and took the night train East. He owes me a big bill—and more promises than he can ever pay. I've been getting sick of this kind of thing for weeks; now that he's proved the biggest kind of a coward, I've come straight to you. ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... unstrapping the two rifles. The wolf-pack was crowding around in a grinning circle. Barney caught his breath as his eyes swept the circle. Five hundred if one, dripping-jawed, red-eyed, gray creatures-of-prey, they waited, as ever, for the coward's chance to fight with great odds ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... the "coward" did. The whip was whirring in the air again; but it never fell. A jagged stone in the boy's hand struck true, and the overseer plunged with a grunt into the black furrow. In blank dismay, Zora came ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... considered himself as his patron and protector, and often gave himself great airs of superiority. For the sake of peace, Anthony often yielded a disputed point to his impetuous companion, rather than awaken his turbulent temper into active operation. Yet he was no coward—on the contrary, he possessed twice the moral courage of his restless playmate; but a deep sense of gratitude to his good uncle, for the blessed change he had effected in his situation, pervaded his heart, and influenced ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... undertaken in jest, in order to disprove the assertion made by an acquaintance that Falstaff was a coward; but, inspired by his subject, it was continued and finished in splendid earnest. As his analysis of the character of Falstaff becomes more intimate his wonder grows at the concrete human personality he apprehends. Falstaff ceases ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... not know. "The man was going to give his arm to a young lady, on which I said that he was a cook, and the man called me a coward and challenged me to fight. I own I was so surprised and indignant, that if you gentlemen had not stopped me, I should have thrown him ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of Spain. I mean to stay here in England and fight the matter out. My wife would be the first person to tell me so. I cannot imagine her speaking to me again if I were coward enough ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... was with pistols, the combatants standing back to back, at a distance of ten or twelve paces, and turning round to fire at the word of command. If both shots missed, the question was decided with cutlasses, the man who drew first blood being declared the winner. If a man were proved to be a coward he was either tied to the mast, and shot, or mutilated, and sent ashore. No cruise came to an end until the company declared themselves satisfied with the amount of plunder taken. The question, like all ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... him of "weakening." "After rising from his kneeling posture, I saw he was calm, pale, and serious—so different from his former moods in going into battle. I began teasing him in a bantering way about being a coward." "No," said he, "I am no coward, and will show I have as much nerve, if not more, than most men in the army, for all have doubts of death, but I have none. I will be killed in this battle. I feel it as plainly as I feel I am living, but I am ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... On th' wooden member such a load, That down it fell, and with it bore CROWDERO, whom it propp'd before. To him the Squire right nimbly run, And setting conquering foot upon 955 His trunk, thus spoke: What desp'rate frenzy Made thee (thou whelp of Sin!) to fancy Thyself, and all that coward rabble, T' encounter us in battle able? How durst th', I say, oppose thy curship 960 'Gainst arms, authority, and worship? And HUDIBRAS or me provoke, Though all thy limbs, were heart of oke, And th' other half of thee as good To bear out blows, as that of wood? 965 Cou'd not the whipping-post ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... would do this thing; nor yet altogether from love of her. Not that I would not do much for her sake. I almost think that I would do it entirely for her sake, if there were no other reason. But to shame myself by taking that which belongs to another, as though it were my own property! To live a coward in mine own esteem! Though I may be the laughing-stock and the butt of all those around me, I would still be a man to myself. I ought to have felt that it was sufficient when she told me that some of her thoughts must still be given to you. She ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... new name they're calling us and it's not complimentary. 'Canwanka' means coward. First we were women, then worms and now cowards, because we won't give up the aid of our fortifications and allow ourselves to be overpowered by the Sioux numbers. Do you hear anything among the cottonwoods on the ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... I shall be really obliged, if I am not taking you from your friends. I am a much greater coward than I used to be. London lamps spoil one for country roads. Tell your grandmother that I will come again to-morrow ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... good-breeding, and for the prevention of quarrelling, or unseemly and abusive conversation, any person who should call or designate any other person in the said town by the name of thief, villain, rascal, rogue (schurke), cheat, charlatan, impostor, wretch, coward, sneak, suborner, slanderer, tattler, and sundry other titles of ill-repute, which I cannot recollect now, and could not render into English were I to recall them, should, upon complaint of the person aggrieved, and upon proof ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... of being a coward, and treachery had no rightful place in his nature. He was, however, so in the habit of fighting windmills and making mountains of molehills that he could not at first glance see any sudden presentment ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... himself off I braced myself for the necessary effort of getting out of the warm sheets. Like a coward, I kept on allowing myself successive respites, vowing to ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... Our last string's dead ahead, off Peeble Beach. When you get around the point swing on the outside of Coward Rocks and ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... of your country walks you have come upon a man with his back against a hedge, tormented by a fiend in the likeness of a dog. You yourself, of course, are not a coward. You possess that cornerstone of virtue, a love for animals. If at your heels a dog sniffs and growls, you humor his mistake, you flick him off and proceed with unbroken serenity. It is scarcely an interlude to your speculation on the market. Or if ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... crime than that mere murder that shook Hamlet's reason to its foundation. He dared not think of it lest he should cry out aloud. But, patience! Only two or three hours more, and Rosalind would be there to help him to bear it.... What a coward's thought!—to help him to bear what she herself had borne ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... within five miles of Denver, Mark Shearer went around to the driver and told him to get back in the wagon, and if he stuck his head outside that wagon sheet, he would use it for a target. The driver was a born coward and quietly obeyed and remained under the wagon sheet until we were forty miles beyond Denver when Mark told him to "come to" now and try to be ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... was a slender little fellow with a freckled skin and a face full of sensitive expression. He was full of fears and fancies, too, poor little Ambrose, and amongst the children he was considered not far short of a coward; it had become a habit to say, "Ambrose is afraid," on the smallest occasions, and if they had been asked who was the bravest amongst them, they would certainly have pointed out Nancy. For Nancy did not mind the dark, Nancy would climb any tree you liked, Nancy ...
— The Hawthorns - A Story about Children • Amy Walton
... man could he have been? What were his reflections as he went about his farm-work and thought of his sister at the head of armies? Was he merely a lout or something worse—the prototype of our Conscientious Objector: a coward who disguised his cowardice ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... wilt have it,—like a coward, fled, Fled while his soldiers fought; fled first, Ventidius. Thou long'st to curse me, and I give thee leave. I know thou cam'st ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... 'Shame!' and one, 'You coward!' But the Englishman stepped forward, a fixed look in his blue eyes. He took his place without a word. I read in his drawn white face that he had made up his mind to the worst, and his courage so won ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... lonely place to spend the night in," he went on. "I'm no coward, but I wouldn't care to do it, ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer
... handled that shallow politician at my Lady Plausible's the other day. The same method I practise upon the crazed Tory, the bigot Whig, the sour, supercilious pedant, the petulant critic, the blustering coward, the fawning fool, the pert imp, sly sharper, and every other species of knaves and fools, with which ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... the cold-blooded tone in which these men discussed the killing of the boys, but Ted only smiled, for he knew that Burk was at heart a coward, and that he did not care to rush, nor would he stand a rush should ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... dreams; he heard the pianos and violins going in every room in happy incongruity, publishing to all the prowess of the players; dirty, picturesque old Leipsic rose before him; he was walking again in the Hainstrasse, in the shadow of the quaint, tall houses. Yes, life was sweet after all; he was a coward to lose heart so soon; fame would yet be his; fame and love—the love of a noble woman that fame earns; some gracious creature, breathing sweet refinements, cradled in an ancient home, such as ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... against her will, she stood committed to carry through an undertaking for which even at the outset, she had no heart. For there was no turning back. The challenge, once uttered, could not be withdrawn. She was no coward. The idea came to her that if she blenched then she would for all time forfeit his respect ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... would have a shot without receiving one?" cried Gascoigne. "The fact is that this fellow's a confounded coward." ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... has got is more disgraceful than to be balked in getting, and you must confront your enemies not merely with spirit but with disdain. Confidence indeed a blissful ignorance can impart, ay, even to a coward's breast, but disdain is the privilege of those who, like us, have been assured by reflection of their superiority to their adversary. And where the chances are the same, knowledge fortifies courage by the ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... no!sometimes if de circle be no quite just, or de beholder be de frightened coward, and not hold de sword firm and straight towards him, de Great Hunter will take his advantage, and drag him exorcist out of de circle and throttle him. Dat ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... your much hated Greek was guilty of, there is one question to ask:—in monk's cell, or in the battles for the wrong—left he the record of a coward?" ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... yep, kill me, ye proud whelp! Go 'long; do it, ye big coward! Before ye're done with life, ye'll hate yerself ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... said the second, "for he's always fearful that people should take him for a coward. He's always asking us whether we ever saw him turn his back to the enemy; and bidding us be sure, whenever he falls in battle, to tell the Vendeans how well he fought. That's what makes us all so sure that he came from the other side ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... great bluffer, while at heart he is really a coward. With a fierce hiss he rushed right at Johnny Chuck, expecting to see him turn tail and run. But Johnny stood his ground and showed all his sharp teeth. Instead of attacking Johnny, Mr. Blacksnake glided past him and sneaked away ...
— The Adventures of Johnny Chuck • Thornton W. Burgess
... in that point they are "much of a muchness." They are also both respectable for their attainments in cowardice; but with this difference, that the Cinghalese are soft, inert, passive cowards: but your Kandyan is a ferocious little bloody coward, full of mischief as a monkey, grinning with desperation, laughing like a hyena, or chattering if you vex him, and never to be trusted for a moment. The reader now understands why we described the Ceylonese man as a tiger-cat in his noblest ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... "You coward," he replied, affably, "you could have done a thousand things. You could have remarked that the day was fair, or that you wondered if it would rain. And you could have asked her to stroll over to a restaurant and take a little refreshment. ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... was clear, then, that he and Hilliard were seriously suspected by the syndicate and were being traced by their spy! What luck would the spy have? And if he succeeded in his endeavor, what would be their fortune? Merriman was no coward, but he shivered slightly as he went over in his mind the steps of their present quest, and realized how far they had failed to cover their traces, how at stage after stage they had given themselves away ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... his "sudden piety," and in a jesting manner accused him of "weakening." "After rising from his kneeling posture, I saw he was calm, pale, and serious—so different from his former moods in going into battle. I began teasing him in a bantering way about being a coward." "No," said he, "I am no coward, and will show I have as much nerve, if not more, than most men in the army, for all have doubts of death, but I have none. I will be killed in this battle. I feel it as plainly as I feel I am living, ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... to her, so she sent for me. As I entered the room she gave him to me with an apology for doing so, since I shrank from witnessing the operation. What must Dr. E. think I am made of if I can't bear to see a child's gums lanced? However, it is my own fault that he thinks me such a coward, for I made mother think me one. It was very embarrassing to hold baby and have the doctor's face so close to mine. I really wonder mother should not see how awkwardly I ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... gallants ride, in some safe nook to hide Their coward heads, predestined to rot on Temple Bar; And he—he turns, he flies:—shame on those cruel eyes That bore to look on torture, and dare ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to me. And yet if I refuse it, it will be like buying Echo—'paying for stepping into Dick's place,' as Bud expressed it. What to do I don't know. Well, events will decide." And by this favorite reflection of the moral coward, Jack Payson marked the lowest depths of ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... people, essentially a just and serious people, will not listen to these last desperate pleas, the coward fugitives of ...
— Home Rule - Second Edition • Harold Spender
... to go without what I wanted at the hotel rather than to ring and make the waiter fetch it. Combative on the platform in defense of any cause I cared for, I shrink from quarrel or disapproval in the house, and am a coward at heart in private while a good fighter in public. How often have I passed unhappy quarters of an hour screwing up my courage to find fault with some subordinate whom my duty compelled me to reprove, and how often have I jeered myself for a fraud as the doughty ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... And then the "coward" did. The whip was whirring in the air again; but it never fell. A jagged stone in the boy's hand struck true, and the overseer plunged with a grunt into the black furrow. In blank dismay, Zora came ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... did buckle on his armour, trusting in the great Comforter for strength according to my need. For truly the memory of a brave son dead in his shroud were a greater staff of my declining years than a coward, though his days might be long in the land and he should get much goods. It is not till our earthen vessels are broken that we find and truly possess the treasure that was laid up in them. Migravi ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... remember Scene Fourth of the Third Act? That is the situation I have endeavored to portray. Macbeth, wretched criminal, suspects every one of his own dark purposes, or fears their hatred, because he feels himself hateful. He is not a coward, either physically or morally; his fears are all intellectual; he knows that Banquo is too noble to serve him, too powerful to be permitted to serve against him,—so he must out of the way. The murderers have received their commission; the king, satisfied now that all he has to fear will ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... a male shero," I told him; "you learn that in the third grade. Just the same as a cowardice is a female coward." ...
— Roy Blakeley • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... P————n, who inheriting all the Pride and Insolence of his Ancestors, without one of their good Qualities; the Bully, the Billingsgate, and all the hereditary ill Language of his Family, without an Ounce of their Courage; that has been rescued five or six times from the Scandal of a Coward, by the Bravery, and at the Hazard of Friends, and never fail'd to be ungrateful; that if ever he committed a Murther, did it in cold Blood, because no body could prove he ever had any hot; who possess'd with ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... there for honest poverty That hangs his head, and a' that? The coward slave, we pass him by, We dare be poor for a' that! For a' that, and a' that, Our toil's obscure, and a' that: The rank is but the guinea's stamp, The man's the gowd for ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... "I have been a coward without your love, Rose. You cannot imagine how your scorn has weakened me, and the whole affair has been one round of ghastly mistakes. I am here to-night to tell you the truth. You have constantly denied ...
— Five Thousand Dollars Reward • Frank Pinkerton
... murderer!" he screamed. "Strike me, coward! I am a woman! Have me arrested, have me guillotined, Cain! I am your sister,"—and Julie spat in ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... know," whispered his mother. "Never you fear, never fear." And then, as if to herself, she added, "Thank the Lord you are not a coward, whatever." ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... with a convulsed voice, "I swear I won't go away without fighting you. Do you want provoking any more? I tell you you're a coward and a ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... scholastic ethics, amazes the company at his father's table, who are all devout believers in the virtues of the hair-trigger, by an eloquent declamation against the folly and the sin of duelling. At last one of the set gets sufficient breath to call him a coward. The hot Irish blood is up in an instant, a tumbler is thrown at the head of the doubter of his courage, and in ten seconds the young moralist is crossing swords with his antagonist ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... and three sisters. His third sister, Dorothy, survived the rest, and was twice married. Swift met her once, and with some awe (for he, like all bullies, had a little of the coward about him), describes her as a kind of wit, and very like her brother. The Spectator seems to have been a wild and wayward boy. He is said to have once acted as ringleader in a "barring out," described by Johnson as a savage license by which the boys, when ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... told you she had rather have a brave and noble youth without money, than to have a coward she hated with his land and money—that, should his money be lost by misfortune, she would only have the wreck of a man left? And now she is gone, perhaps we shall never see her face again; and, what ...
— The Forest King - Wild Hunter of the Adaca • Hervey Keyes
... begun to make Mars a little overconfident. By now Mars was fully convinced that Forrester was nothing but a coward, and he was absolutely certain that he could beat the newcomer easily, if he could only ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Saxe-Coburg-Gotha became the Prince of Bulgaria. He, also, was a remarkable man, but not the romantic of his predecessor. He seems to have been a sort of a parody of a king. He was fond of ostentation, and full of ambition. He was a personal coward, but extremely cunning. During his long reign he built up Bulgaria into a powerful, independent kingdom, and even assumed the title of Czar of Bulgaria. During the first days of his reign he was kept safely on the throne by his mother, the Princess Clementine, a daughter of ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... code, a man who appeals to the law against his fellow man is not only a fool but a coward, and he who cannot take care of himself without the protection of the police is both.... It is reckoned as cowardly to betray an offender to justice, even though the offence be against one's self, as it would be not to avenge an injury by violence. ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... and, without waiting to strut and spread his gorgeous feathers as usual, he rolled out the long call, drawing himself up straight the instant it was done, turning his head from side to side to catch the first beat of his rival's answer—"Come out, if you dare; drum, if you dare. Oh, you coward!" And he hopped, five or six high, excited hops, like a rooster before a storm, to the other end of the log, and again his quick throbbing ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... a hypocrite, a wretch, a coward!" he exclaimed, impetuously. "They overwhelmed me with exhortations, supplications, and representations. They knew so well to flatter me with the idea that the beautiful, wealthy, and much-courted heiress, Julia Gilly, ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... play has many delightful scenes, though not sufficiently probable, and some happy characters, though not new, nor produced by any deep knowledge of human nature. Parolles is a boaster and a coward, such as has always been the sport of the stage, but perhaps never raised more laughter or contempt than in the ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... die for their country. I consider it my duty, too, to fight for my country and for all the dear ones whom I love. If I were not profoundly convinced of this truth, I should not communicate my resolution to you; but my family is one that has a really German heart, and that would consider me as a coward and an unworthy son if I did not follow this impulse. I certainly feel the greatness of the sacrifice; it costs me something, believe me, to leave my beautiful studies and go to put myself under the orders of vulgar, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - KARL-LUDWIG SAND—1819 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... "I do love to be called 'brave' better than anything, because I'm really such a coward. You don't think I've ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... "'Coward!' exclaimed Watson, with augmented vehemence, 'you know me too well to believe me capable of assassination. Vile subterfuge! Contemptible plea! Take the pistol and defend yourself. You want not the power ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... back," I arraigned myself with bitter scorn. "You have no faith nor spiritual sources yourself, and you throw him back into degradation when something is helping him crawl out. What's helping him? No matter what it is, you are a coward to obstruct it." ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... liest, knave! Wouldst thou make me think her beauty, Proud and gentle though it be, Which might soar e'en like the heron To the sovereign sun itself, Could descend with coward pinions At ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... see into the future, Beyond the end of that Chieftain Who shall be the last of the race Which allowed only death to a coward. ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... rescued my life by the sacrifice of his. Whereas I should have died. Wretched and precipitate coward! What had become of my boasted gratitude? Such was the zeal that I had vowed to her. Such the services which it was the business of my life to perform. I had snatched her brother from existence. I had torn from her the hope which she so ardently and indefatigably cherished. ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... a maid! Shame upon me for a coward! I will not call to Edred and Julian. It shall not be said of me, even by mine own self, that I dared not face even a spirit from the lower world alone. I will find out what this sound is, and that without ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... grim aunt—even the quiet, kind, cold, austere uncle—the apprentices—the strange servants— and, oh! more than all, those hardeyed, loud-laughing tormentors, the boys of his own age! Naturally timid, severity made him actually a coward; and when the nerves tremble, a lie sounds as surely as, when I vibrate that wire, the bell at the end of it will ring. Beware of the man who has been ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... I can't pray; if my fate be death, then come death and welcome the worst. There will at least be nothing hidden then, nothing behind the scenes. I will not be a coward." ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... me—all maids do," announced Pixie, with her complacent air well to the fore. "It's the way I treat them. My sister, now—Bridgie Victor—she's a coward with her maids. She lies awake half the night rehearsing the best ways of hinting that she'd prefer pastry lighter than lead, after begging us all as a personal favour to eat it in case cook should be hurt. When I have a house—" She ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... run away so soon than to be killed? Is there any bravery in staying in a place where you are likely to be murdered by some coward?" ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... killed there: and observing the prince take delight in Benedick's conversation, she called him "the prince's jester." This sarcasm sunk deeper into the mind of Benedick than all Beatrice had said before. The hint she gave him that he was a coward, by saying she would eat all he had killed, he did not regard, knowing himself to be a brave man; but there is nothing that great wits so much dread as the imputation of buffoonery, because the charge comes sometimes a little too near the ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... is very discriminating in his attachments and does not easily lose his temper, or, as a rule, fight, unless he is unduly excited. He is such a nervous dog that if he is roughly treated he is apt to become a coward, but there is no truer, more faithful friend than a properly ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... But he allowed his anger against Philip to color his judgment when he spoke harshly against the Duke of Burgundy. The Duke is no coward, and Richard Plantagenet well knows it. As I said, ...
— ...After a Few Words... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... of my hour, the double argument, that Literature is an Art and English a living tongue, has led me right up to a fourth principle, the plunge into which (though I foresaw it from the first) all the coward in me rejoices at having to defer to another lecture. I conclude then, Gentlemen, by answering two suspicions, which very likely have been shaping themselves in your minds. In the first place, you will say, 'It is all very well for this man to talk about ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... out her arms in a great gesture of liberation. How had she ever lived before, under the shadow of that coward fear? This . . . this . . . she had a moment of vision . . . this was what Neale had been trying to do for her, all these years, unconsciously, not able to tell her what it was, driving at the mark only with the inarticulate wisdom of ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... was that Davis had demanded from Nelson an apology for language used in the original altercation, and that Nelson's refusal was accompanied by a slap in the face, at the same moment denouncing Davis as a coward. However this may be, Nelson, after slapping Davis, moved toward the corridor, from which a stairway led to the second floor, and just as he was about to ascend, Davis fired with a pistol that he had obtained from some one near by after the blow had been struck. The ball entered ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... JUAN. This creature Man, who in his own selfish affairs is a coward to the backbone, will fight for an idea like a hero. He may be abject as a citizen; but he is dangerous as a fanatic. He can only be enslaved while he is spiritually weak enough to listen to reason. I tell you, gentlemen, if you can show a man a piece ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... dogs. The quills were large enough to make excellent penholders. The dogs also swore by all canine gods that they wouldn't do a thing to a hyena, if only they could get hold of one. They never got hold of one, for the hyena is a coward. His skull and teeth, however, are as big and powerful as those of a lioness; so I do not know which was luckier in his avoidance ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... his fists. If it must be, he'd show them he was no coward! A moment later, as he stood tensely in the alcove, came the postmaster's cry of "One letter for Louise Martin," and the green curtain swung aside ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... testify more strongly to thy merit, Maso, in face of this or any tribunal;" he said, grasping the hand of the Italian. "One who showed so much bravery and so strong love for his fellows, would be little likely to take life clandestinely and like a coward. Thou mayest count on my testimony in this strait—if thou art guilty of this crime, who can hope to ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... wish with me That I might leave a scion—some small tree As channel for my sap, if not my name - Ay, offspring even of no legitimate claim, In whose advance I secretly could joy. Thereat he warned. "Cancel such wishes, boy! A son may be a comfort or a curse, A seer, a doer, a coward, a fool; yea, worse - A criminal . . . That I could testify!" "Panthera has no guilty son!" cried I All unbelieving. "Friend, you do not know," He darkly dropt: "True, I've none now to show, For THE LAW TOOK HIM. Ay, in sooth, ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... put spurs into our horses, and gallop back to Tweedside; for I kenned it would be impossible for us to secure a single cow, surrounded, as we were sure to be in a few minutes, by sixty or a hundred men; and though I was no coward, I was aware that there could be but little bravery in six men attempting to give battle to sixty. But, before I had time to come to a determination, or even to speak, I saw your uncle's pistol flash; and even, I may say, before ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... "The coward! Are all books lies? I thought he would fly to the front, and be brave and noble, and stand up for me against all the world, and defy my enemies, and wither these gossips with his scorn! Poor crawling thing, let him go. I do begin ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... said Ivanhoe, "hast thou forgotten that twice didst thou fall before this lance? I will proclaim thee a coward in every court in Europe unless thou do battle without ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... and wing hence the way he makes more clear: See a great Tree of Life that never sere Dropped leaf for aught that age or storms might wreak: Such ending is not Death: such living shows What wide illumination brightness sheds From one big heart—to conquer man's old foes: The coward, and the tyrant, and the force Of all those weedy monsters raising heads When Song is murk ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... Fitzgerald! If you can't realize the mischief your thoughtlessness has done, you might at least have the grace to be sorry for it! To amuse yourself by playing on the fears of a timid girl, younger than you, is the work of a coward—yes, a coward! That's what I consider you!" and Vivian turned away, full of righteous wrath, and wondering whether she had adequately fulfilled her monitorial duty, or whether she ought ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... Garth. "Why, she helped me to live again! I am ashamed to remember how at the bottom of all things I was when you came up before, Brand,—just pounding the wall, as old Robbie expresses it. You must have thought me a fool and a coward." ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... it was because he was a coward, and had not the moral courage to go to sleep with a lie on his soul, for fear he might wake up and see an angel with a fiery sword standing by his bedside. And I must sorrowfully acknowledge this seemed a truer view ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... the second officer, wandered on ahead of us, and entered a large building in pursuit of a rabbit. He was about descending to the basement below, when he saw, close before him, a bear leisurely mounting the marble stairs. Kuzundam is no coward, but he turned and ran as he never ran before. The bear, who seemed of a sportive nature, also ran, and in close pursuit. Luckily for my friend we happened to be near, otherwise instead of our eating bear's meat, ...
— The Last American - A Fragment from The Journal of KHAN-LI, Prince of - Dimph-Yoo-Chur and Admiral in the Persian Navy • J. A. Mitchell
... Chesterton contends, a really horrible eugenist, because he wants to get a super-man who, having more than two legs, will be a vastly superior person to a man. Chesterton loves men. He tells us why St. Peter was used to found the Church upon. It was because he 'was a shuffler, a coward, and a snob—in a word, a man.' Even the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Councils of Trent have failed to find a better reason for the founding of the Church. It is a defence of the fallibility of the Church, the practical nature of that Body, an organization founded ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... she worth such sacrifice as he and Rosendo were making? God forgive him! Yes—a thousand times yes! If he betrayed Rosendo's confidence and fled like a coward now, leaving her to fall into the sooty hands of men like Padre Diego, to be crushed, warped, and squeezed into the molds of Holy Church, could he ever again ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... pretty tol'able wonderful. But so's he—to let 'em do it. Now, this ain't the question, either, but—why does he allow it? It ain't for lack of pluck, senator. I know a coward's earmarks and he ain't got 'em. It ain't for religion; less'n two hours out of Orleans he'd offered them twins, I'm told, to take 'em down to the freight deck and dish up the brace of 'em at one fell scoop. And no more is it because his people won't let ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... walking costume, a quick flicker of red flaming in her cheeks and her eyes alight with that sweet tantalizing look in which expectation and a hot pride were mingled, I wondered and felt sick at heart. Desirable she was beyond any other woman I had known, and I called myself witling coward, to have avoided putting my fortune to the test on that fatal day of my departure for Mesopotamia. For just as she looked at me now she had looked at me then. But to-day she was evidently on the point of setting out—I did not ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... quickly as he heard their footsteps approaching; he felt like a criminal escaping from justice. Though constitutionally brave, the consciousness that he had acted wrongly in many respects made him a coward. The men were only, as far as he could judge, labourers returning home after their day's work. He heard them talking of the attempted run of contraband goods, the capture of the Nancy and her crew, as well as of the number of people assisting ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... to sleep on the rock, but it is she who asks for flames to protect her from the unworthy. Wotan grants her request, and Brunnhilde throws herself enraptured into his arms. 'Let the coward shun Brunnhilde's rock—for but one shall win—the bride who is freer than ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... in his estimation, tantamount to blasphemy; and, to dispute his prerogatives, a contempt of the Divine Majesty. Once, in a time of persecution, he retired from Carthage, and he was, in consequence, upbraided by some as a coward; but when a fellow-bishop, Papianus, ventured to ask an explanation of a course of proceeding which apparently betokened indecision, Cyprian treated the inquiry as an insult, and poured out upon his correspondent a whole torrent of invectives and ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... fully appreciate all the difficulties of your position, and can well understand that you have felt yourself compelled to yield to circumstances which you found it impossible to control. But give me credit for believing that your surrender was not the base, unconditional surrender of a coward who preferred to turn traitor to his country rather than submit to a flogging. If I have read your character aright—and God knows I have been associated with you under circumstances that ought to ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... L150 at a time upon books. He was not devoid of good instincts; for he could repent of a misdeed or unkindness, and, after repeating it, repent again. But he was garrulous, puffed up with a sense of his own importance, full of levity and passion, and morally, if not physically, a coward. Ralegh, whom some social brilliancy in the man, as well as his rank and fortune, may have dazzled, can at no time have been wholly unconscious of the defects which later he resentfully characterized: of the 'dispositions of such violence, ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... to who's talking! Hasn't the soldier a right to go with his girl? He gave him the coward's blow. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... the old hunter, "that I never killed a harmless critter onless I had to. Neither have I. Varmints, o' course, is a different matter. I've shot plenty o' them, an' once in a while I've had ter kill fer food. But just shootin' for the sake o' shootin' is the trick of a coward or a fool or a tenderfoot or a mixture of all three. It's plumb unnecessary, ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... be a coward, if she was going to be afraid of pain—How was she to escape it, how was Jerrold to escape? If she stayed on they would break down together and give in; they would be lovers again, and again Maisie's sweet, wounding face would come between them; they could never get away ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... what I have is better than none. I don't know what's beyond—if there is any life or none at all; but something in me makes me stick to this one. Besides, if there is any chance for a better life here, he must be a damned coward that would go out of it and leave it ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... use of my going into the kitchen?" Beth rejoined; "Bernadine doesn't fight fair. She's a horrid, low little coward." ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... 'em—and expect to fight 'em—hard as any man. That's my business. But I never yit drew a bead on a squaw or papoose, and I despise the man who would. 'Taint nateral for men to kill women and pore little children, and none but a coward or a dog would do it. Of course when we white men do sich awful things, why these pore ignorant critters don't know no better than to foller suit. Pore things! Pore things! I've seen as much of 'em as any man livin', and I can't help but ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... in a low voice, soft and unutterably sweet. Then a little sigh followed, and she added: "And that I will try to be to you, Brooke, until this danger is over. But you must bear with me, and not be angry if I turn out sometimes to be a coward." ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... he was generally very bland and polite, but to-night he was so cantankerous that I fancied he must have been drinking. To me he was especially insulting, and went so far as to hint that I, unlike other Englishmen, was a coward; that I hadn't courage to resist a man manfully, but would act towards an enemy in a cunning, serpent-like way. This was not the first occasion on which he had sought to pick a quarrel with me, and I felt like resenting it. I desisted, however, as there were ladies present, ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... no coward, but an undefinable sense of uneasiness was stealing over her. The Priory was fully half an hour's walk from the Lodge, which was the nearest house. Still further off, in the opposite direction, stood a large building, the nature of which ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... nose might easily upset the raft, when they to a certainty would become its prey. Dick grasped his pole to do battle, should the creature come nearer, and he at once began beating the water on every side and shouting at the top of his voice. The shark, an arrant coward by nature, kept at a distance, but his dark fin could still be seen as he circled round and round the raft, waiting, Dick feared, for an opportunity to rush in and ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... great wax candles alight on the altar. We could see in, as we paused in the darkness of the antechapel, outside the screen, while the Coadjutor advanced the door. My Margaret knelt, clinging closely to a great stone image. The vile coward d'Aubepine was commanding—for we heard him—his soldiers to seize her. The Abbe stood finding the place in his book; Lamont was at a safe distance, however, trying to induce her to rise. The Coadjutor's ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of a lance and elevated it in the air. "Cavaliers," cried he, "why do ye take weapons in your hands if you depend upon your feet for safety? This day will determine who is the brave man and who the coward. He who is disposed to fight shall not want a standard: let him follow this handkerchief." So saying, he waved his banner and spurred bravely against the Moors. His example shamed some and filled others with generous emulation: all turned ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... an instantaneous change in Horace Lansing's demeanour. From a blustering braggart, he became a pale and cringing coward. But with a desperate attempt to bluff it out, he exclaimed, "What do you mean?" but even as he spoke, he shivered and staggered backward, as ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... Meanwhile Aigres contrives to get out of the well, and finds his steed and armour close by: he is fortunate in rescuing the princess and her maid from the king who had taken them from Acars, and arriving at the court of Loquiferne denounces Acars as a coward and traitor, and the princess Melia confirms his assertions; so the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... dreadful must have been the suspense and feelings of the drover as he lay crouched under the old tree, surrounded by this horde of glaring eyes, his ears split with their awful howl, and their hot and venomous breath fairly in his face! But the wolf is a base coward, and will not meet a man eye to eye, and so protected lay the drover, with his clenched teeth and unquivering eye, that the wolf had no chance to attack, but by rushing up to his very front. The red tongue lapped, the fierce teeth were arrayed and the demon eyes ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... her eloquence. He was conscious of no instinctive resentment, no sense that she was, as she confessed, meddling in matters which did not concern her. His ebbing spirit was revived by the shock of an ardour like his own. She had not shrunk from calling him a coward—and it did him good to hear her call him so! Her words put life back into its true perspective, restored their meaning to obsolete terms: to truth and manliness and courage. He had lived so long among equivocations that he had ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... solemn moments. So, Doctor, tell me truly, may I stay here, and be clear of any imputations of curtailing, through wilfulness or impatiency, or through resentments which I hope I am got above, a life that might otherwise be prolonged?—Tell me, Sir; you are not talking to a coward in this respect; indeed you ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... but she had seen through the mask. She went on eagerly: "You are obsessed by this idea of vengeance. What can it mean to you, after all is said and done? You say you are going to end your own life, as well. You will escape the consequences, as any coward would, and you are not a coward. Who stays behind to suffer all the pain and anguish? Not you! Oh, no! I am the one—as if you had not already done enough. Christine and ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... potion, Made of Concentrated Ages, Made of Many Mingled Feelings— Highest Hope and Deepest Terror— Mixed our best and worst together, Reverence and Love and Service, Coward Fear and rank Self-Interest— Gave him this when he was little, Pumped it in before the Person Could examine his prescription. So the Person, thus instructed, Now believed the things he told him; Paid the price as he ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... impetuous flight, But being spent on earth innoxious lies, E'en its track vanish'd from the yielding skies— So lies the soldan, stopp'd his bright career, His vanquish'd realms their prostrate heads uprear, And coward ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XII, No. 347, Saturday, December 20, 1828. • Various
... successful, only a paltry dozen of Englishmen would fall, and their comrades would remain to wreak a terrible retribution, in the course of which he, among others, would have to pay the full penalty. No, that would not do at all; it was not that Don Manuel Rebiera was a coward; very far from it; but with the speed of thought he pictured to himself the happenings that must inevitably follow the perpetration of an act of such base treachery as he meditated; he saw in imagination the execution of the hostages— among whom, he suddenly remembered, were one or two ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... fortitude, are those qualities likewise admired from a principle of regard to our fellow creatures? Why not, since they render men happy in themselves, and useful to others? He who is qualified to promote the welfare of mankind, is neither a sot, a fool, nor a coward. Can it be more clearly expressed, that temperance, prudence, and fortitude, are necessary to the character we love and admire? I know well why I should wish for them in myself; and why likewise I should wish for them in my friend, and in every person who is an object of my affection. ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... knocking at the street door mean? And those voices and heavy footsteps outside? Some lodger who has lost his key, I suppose. And yet, my heart—What a coward I have become all of ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... "Divorce is a coward's retreat from the battle of life." Captain Harris said this. He spoke slow and decided. Captain Harris is old and rich and not married. He's the hotel's star boarder, and what he says, goes, 'most always. But it didn't this time. ...
— Mary Marie • Eleanor H. Porter
... hero of the expedition. Dompierre and another man carried me, for I was too weak to go as fast as they wished. I was hugging the capon and the bottle of wine to my heart; I had need to do that, so as to still the insistent call of my conscience, for I felt a coward—a mean, treacherous, abominable coward! ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... hundred students with the same ideals and inclinations as his own. The reputation of the friars in the Philippines has been depreciated by the conduct of the native priests. There was a padre named Pastor, an arrant coward, and wholly ignorant and superstitious. Sly old fox, he used to bet his last cent on the cock-fights, hiding up in the back window of Don Julian's. Once, on a drunken spree, he let a layman wear his gown and rosary. The natives, showing ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... I am no coward; on the contrary, like most men whose physical energy is unimpaired, I am constitutionally fearless, and in moments of danger and excitement have never found myself wanting; still it would be affectation to deny that the prospect of a sudden and violent ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... a coward she is! She loves. She will pardon. Will there, then, be no one to aid me? No one to smite them in their insolent happiness." After meditating awhile, her face still more contracted, she placed the letter in the drawer, ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... eyes moved quickly in a cautious, side-long glance that commanded impatiently. Her straight eyebrows drew together imperiously. Then, when he met her eyes with that same helpless look, she said another word that hurt. It was "Coward!" ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... inserted by this rule, if the pause for the omitted verb be very slight, it may be left unmarked, and the comma be used for the clauses; as, "When the profligate speaks of piety, the miser of generosity, the coward of valour, and the corrupt of integrity, they are only the more despised by those who know ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... part of the client we always made it a point at the very outset to scare the latter thoroughly. "Conscience doth make cowards of us all." But a lawyer is a close second to conscience when it comes to coward-making; in fact, frightening people, innocent or guilty, became to a very large ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... said Starbuck, "who is not afraid of a whale." By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward. ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... each arm, and two in the hand. The usual time of stopping under water is from fifty seconds to two and a half minutes. Much has been said of the danger of these fisheries, both from the shark, and another enemy called the 'Manta.' which crushes its victim. But the shark is ever a coward, and no match for an expert diver with a knife; and ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... duty to be true to you? Was it not my duty to confess my hateful weakness, when I had taken the fatal step? Duty has no meaning for me. I have set it aside at every turn. Even now there would be no obligation on me to keep my word, but that I am too great a coward to revoke it." ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... has deceived her, she might have been happy now—as happy as Raymond Raymond in the ballad, with the stone statue by his side. She is wretched because Mr. Serjeant Shirker worships money and ambition, and is a Snob and a coward. ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... window panes). I ought never to have concealed what sort of a life my husband led. But I had not the courage to do otherwise then—for my own sake, either. I was too much of a coward. ...
— Ghosts - A Domestic Tragedy in Three Acts • Henrik Ibsen
... save half a minute or more By leaping the stone wall and brooklet; But never, sir, never before, Had anyone ever attempted That leap; it was madness, but, sir, My young mistress knew that Delaunay Was too great a coward and cur To follow; and, what's more, she knew, sir, That she must be first in the race— For the sake of the Hislop honour, To win back ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... deserve such epithets; but even if all women deserved them, who is in fault? You not only prefer the weak-minded, extravagant women to the strong-minded and reasonable ones, but as soon as a woman attempts to leave her sphere, you, coward-like, throw yourselves before her, and secure to your own profit all remunerative occupations. I could, perhaps, forgive your selfishness and injustice, but I can not forgive your want of logic nor your hypocrisy. You condemn woman ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... "I'm such a coward!" Dick almost sobbed to himself, for he was frightened, though, it must be said, less on his account than at the ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske
... is a coward to raise up barriers between himself and life, whether it is a mistake to have a retreat, as you rightly call this room, this house, and to spend the greater part of one's time alone in it? But"—he moved restlessly—"the real question is ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... of Locria, another disciple, says that to alarm men and prevent them from committing crimes, they menaced them with strange humiliations and punishments; even declaring that their souls would pass into new bodies,—that of a coward into the body of a deer; that of a ravisher into the body of a wolf; that of a murderer into the body of some still more ferocious animal; and that of an impure sensualist into the body of ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... HE BLENCH? Did he die like a craven, Begging those torturing fiends for his life? Was there a soldier who carried the Seven Flinched like a coward or fled from the strife? No, by the blood of our Custer, no quailing! There in the midst of the devils they close, Hemmed in by thousands, but ever assailing, Fighting like tigers, all bayed ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness." The baptism with the Holy Spirit imparts to those who receive it new liberty and fearlessness in testimony for Christ. It converts cowards into heroes. Peter upon the night of our Lord's crucifixion proved himself a craven coward. He denied with oaths and curses that he knew the Lord. But after Pentecost, this same Peter was brought before the very council that had condemned Jesus to death, and he himself was threatened, but filled with the Holy Ghost, he said, ...
— The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit • R. A. Torrey
... say a word about it to Carmilla, because she can see down that walk from her room window," I interposed, "and she is, if possible, a greater coward than I." ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... wiles, Had waned from Olympus' solemn height, And from all serious Gods; that our delight Was quite forgotten, save of us alone! And wherefore so ashamed? 'Tis but to atone For endless pleasure, by some coward blushes: 790 Yet must I be a coward!—Honour rushes Too palpable before me—the sad look Of Jove—Minerva's start—no bosom shook With awe of purity—no Cupid pinion In reverence veiled—my crystalline dominion Half lost, and all old hymns made nullity! But what is this to love? O I ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... poop. That is what Boston and Blackie expected me to do. But I dismissed this thought without serious consideration. It was uncertain, and I meant to make sure of the brute. Besides, it was, I felt, cowardly, and I would not be a coward. I intended to get into the cabin and shoot Swope in his own arm-chair, so to speak. Afterwards—well, they could do what they pleased with me. My friend would ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... sharply at him out of his pale keen eyes. The fellow was too non-committal to please his taste. To hound a coward out of the corps promised infinitely less difficulty and enjoyment than he had hoped for when he pledged himself to rid the Guard of the Englishman. For perhaps the only time in his life he wished he wore any uniform but the tell-tale green ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... which Mrs. Haxton had asked him to deliver. Would the Austrian obey her, he wondered? A man's point of view and a woman's differ materially when the graver crises of life have to be faced. If it were merely a question of physical courage, Dick imagined that the Baron would refuse to play the coward's part by skulking on board the yacht. In that event, von Kerber and Alfieri could hardly fail to meet within the hour, for Massowah was a small place. Nor was it altogether probable that bloodshed would be the outcome. The affray at Marseilles had given the Italian an excellent opportunity for ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... bloodshed, bent on bringing down their game; But they searched in vain for the Cattle Thief: that lion had left his lair, And they cursed like a troop of demons—for the women alone were there. "The sneaking Indian coward," they hissed; "he hides while yet he can; He'll come in the night for cattle, but he's scared to face a man." "Never!" and up from the cotton woods rang the voice of Eagle Chief; And right out into the open stepped, unarmed, the Cattle Thief. Was that the game they had coveted? Scarce ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... of my madness. I was a coward and I thought then there were reasons why I should feel no pity for Dyck Calhoun. His father injured mine—oh, badly! But I was a coward, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... been crossed with Indian coolie. Also, somewhere or other, there was a dash of white and possibly, but of this I am not sure, a little Hottentot. The result was a person of few vices and many virtues. Sammy, I may say at once, was perhaps the biggest coward I ever met. He could not help it, it was congenital, though, curiously enough, this cowardice of his never prevented him from rushing into fresh danger. Thus he knew that the expedition upon which I was engaged would be most hazardous; remembering his weakness I explained this to him very clearly. ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... truth was that Professor Robinson was a born coward, though he was stronger and more muscular, probably, than Grant, Sherman or Sheridan. But it is not brawn and muscle that make a hero, but the spirit that animates the man, and of this spirit the professor had very little. Yet ...
— Walter Sherwood's Probation • Horatio Alger
... "I will cleanse them from a calumniator and a coward." He then pressed on Lord Dalgarno, and struck him with the flat ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... don't know. Much like other boys. I did think he was a coward at first, but he showed some pluck at last. I shouldn't wonder if he turns out a good sort of fellow! We were ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... whole world decide against duelling—until it has become the usage to offer the other cheek upon the first having been smitten, then, and not till then, will the practice be discontinued. When a man refuses to fight a duel, he is stigmatised as a coward, his company is shunned; and, unless he is a wretch without feeling, his life becomes a burden. Men have refused from purely conscientious motives, and have subsequently found themselves so miserable from ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... doubt," Heraugiere said, "that the fellow has turned coward now that the time has come to face the danger. It is one thing to talk about a matter as long as it is far distant, but another to look it in the face when it is close at hand. I do not believe ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... destruction. (Putting his hand upon his stomach). I feel, however, my bile is stirred up here; it almost persuades me to do some manly action. Ay, anger gets the better of me; it is rather too much of a good thing to be a coward too! I am resolved to be revenged upon the thief of my honour. Full of the passion which excites my ardour, and in order to make a beginning, I shall go and tell everywhere that he ...
— Sganarelle - or The Self-Deceived Husband • Moliere
... tongue that uttered them! He had sat and heard Enrica torn to pieces as a panting dove is severed by a hawk limb by limb! Even now Nobili's better nature, spite of the glamour of this woman, told him he was a coward to listen to such words, but his good angel had ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... of even a dead cockroach, would faint away. I have seen one of the most gallant officers of my acquaintance turn pale at the sight of a spider. Certainly no one would think of calling either one or the other coward; and assuredly such a name should not be applied to a man who would face a tiger armed only with a whip in defense of a native woman, because his nerves go all to pieces at the ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... you curmudgeon, you coward of an old blatherskite!" cried the boy, "I wouldn't drop it for all the world, not if you went on your bended knees. Bobo, yell for the police! Don't you touch my wrist! Look out now! ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... say, sir," he said calmly. "You are right. I am a traitor. I would not have been, but—but—well that makes no difference now. You shall see, sir, that I am no coward. I am not afraid to die. Neither need you fear that I shall not do as you command. Thus shall I ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... destined that evening to please his great-grandmother, for he had no sooner got well into the spirit of his play in the gallery than he began to sing. "I'm a coward at songs," she would sometimes say; "and if it wasn't for the dear birds; I could wish there was no music in ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... "She fancies that you have gone away," the girl wrote. "If you came forward I think she would wire the Duke of Carmona, for she writes to him nearly every day as it is; and she would do everything she could to make me marry him at once. Don't hate me for being a coward. I'm not, except with mother. I can't help it with her. She's different from everyone else. I heard the Duchess saying to her yesterday, that if I were to marry a grandee of Spain, I would be made a lady-in-waiting to the Queen instead of maid ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... of God upon our opportunity, intending to have preached the word of the Lord unto them there present: but the constable coming in prevented us. So I was taken and forced to depart the room. But had I been minded to have played the coward, I could have escaped and kept out of his hands. For when I was come to my friend's house, there was whispering that that day I should be taken, for there was a warrant out to take me; which when my friend ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... I to myself alone, The weakness of my bosom own? Why, mindful of my fame and pride, When my brave brethren had died; Why, with my friendly, ready knife, Drew I not forth my useless life? Was it a coward fear of death, That bade me treasure up my breath? Or had life yet some genial ray, That wooed me in its warmth to stay? Had earth yet one whose smile could stir, My spirit with deep love for her? Yes, though within me hope was dead, And wild Ambition's dreams were fled; Though o'er my blighted ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... "You rotten little coward," he yelled at her, "snap out of it! Or are all you Mentorians so gutless that you believe any half-baked folk tale the Lhari pass off on you? You and your fine talk about earning the star-drive! What ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... guessed, have you? You've guessed by my manner? You've realized, I hope, what this resolution has cost me and what it's going to cost me in the future. I'm a coward. I'm a traitor. Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice. A ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... swift-footed dogs at a distance from his own parents, with that fierce man, the very middle of whose liver I wish that I had hold of, that, clinging to it, I might devour it; then would the deeds done against my son be repaid; for he did not slay him behaving as a coward, but standing forth in defence of the Trojan men and deep-bosomed Trojan dames, neither mindful of ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... Masther Dick. It isn't being a coward, it's thinking av my poor mother, and taking care of meself for the poor owld sowl's sake. Whisht, Masther Dick, dear, jump up behind and hold on by me, and the baste'll ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... "Of course I knew. But what are threats between brothers? I knew they were but the idle boastings of a braggart. You would not dare harm me, or mine. You are a great coward, Rene, and it is to laugh and not to fear. You strut about like a cock partridge in the springtime, you clothe yourself with the feathers of the bluejay, and speak with the tongue of the great grey wolf but ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... had a fair field!"—it may be sometimes a coward's apology; but it is many a time the epitome of a great, cramped, tortured, wasted life, which strove like a caged eagle to get free, and never could beat down the bars of the den that circumstances and prejudice had ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... frightened, Vassily Ivanovitch. You thought you would frighten me, Vassily Ivanovitch. I'll scare him, you thought, he's a coward, and he'll agree to anything directly... No, Vassily Ivanovitch, I am a nobleman as much as you are, though I've not had city breeding, and you won't succeed in frightening me ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... new epithets to Lassalle. He is used to being called a Jew, a fanatic, a dangerous demagogue—something half-complimentary. But there is no alloy in "coward," "thief." He looks at Helene as if to receive reassurance that ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... I see Alva's guard; let the voice of reason penetrate to thy heart! Dost thou deem me a coward? Dost thou doubt that for thy sake I would peril my life? Here we are both mad, I as well as thou. Dost thou not perceive that thy scheme is impracticable? Oh, be calm! Thou art ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... Gowrie and his brother had tried to lure James, almost unattended, to their house. In the turret they had an armed man, who would assist the Master to seize the King. Events frustrated the conspiracy; James was well attended; the armed man turned coward, and Gowrie proclaimed the King's departure falsely to make his suite follow back to Falkland, and so leave the King in the hands of his captors. The plot, once arranged, could not be abandoned, because the plotters had no prisoner with a pot of gold to produce, ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... cried, shutting his fist upon the palm of his other hand, "if I take you, I will hang you; and if you take me, you may serve me in the same way. Is it a bargain, or are you a coward?" ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... Fight ye with faces turned towards every direction. Behold now the high-souled Karna, the son of Vikartana, that great bowman of mighty strength, careering in battle, using his celestial weapons! Through fear of that warrior in battle, that coward, viz., Dhananjaya, the son of Kunti, always turns back like a small deer at the sight of a lion! It is he who, by the ordinary methods of human battle, brought the mighty Bhimasena endued with the strength of 10,000 elephants to that plight! It is he who, uttering a loud roar, slew with his invincible ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... on the table in your ain room; carry this in your hand to your office, and stand it before your eyes upon your desk. If you want a foe to face and to conquer, a foe that you can see and touch, here is one mighty enough to stir the bravest soul. And, if you turn your back on him you are a coward; a mean, poor-hearted coward, sir. And there ne'er was a coward yet, o' the Callendar blood, nor o' the Campbell line! Your Captain is nane less than the Son o' God. Hear what he says to you! 'To him that overcometh! To him that overcometh!' O Davie, you ken the rest!" and ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... not," retorted the woman, fiercely—"you dare not, coward! boaster! and you know it! I have a great deal more to say, and I will say it, and you will hear me before we part to-night. I know my power, Mr. Carl Walraven, and I mean to use it. Do you think I need wear these rags? Do you think I need tramp the black, ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... open on his knee, sat Hartley's unexpected guest. He was slim, dark, and vital, but where his arresting note of vitality lay would have been hard to explain. No one can tell exactly what it is that marks one man as a courageous man, and another as a coward, and yet, without need of any test, these things may be known and judged beforehand. The man ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... belongs to her!" Long and silently she stood by the window, gazing at the shadowing curtain of the coming night. At last her face softened. "Perhaps he does not love her now, but fears her vengeance. No, no; he is not a coward! I should have approached him differently; he is proud, and maybe he resented my imperative manner," and a thousand reasons why he should or should not have removed that string flashed ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... the worst were selected for a distant expedition—the conquest of the far-off territory of California. And then a general was found who was in all respects worthy of his soldiery. He was pre-eminently the greatest coward in the Mexican army—so great a coward, that he subsequently, without striking a blow, surrendered a fort, with a garrison of 500 men, unconditionally, to ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... the loudest praise and most assiduous cultivation. When the balance hangs in doubt between the adventurousness of vanity and the frigidity of fear, ever incline to the latter side. I had rather your lordship should be a coward, than a coxcomb. If however you could attain to that reasonable and chastised opinion of yourself, which should steer a proper mean between these extremes, should make you feel your strength, when menaced by the most terrible adversaries, and your weakness, when soothed by the most ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... flyest me as ill fortune;— Care the consuming canker of the mind! The discord that disorders sweet hearts' tune! Th' abortive bastard of a coward mind! The lightfoot lackey that runs post by death, Bearing the letters which contain our end! The busy advocate that sells his breath, Denouncing worst to him, is most his friend! O dear, this care no interest holds in me; But holy care, the guardian of thy fair, Thine honour's champion, ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles - Delia - Diana • Samuel Daniel and Henry Constable
... always endeavored to make it as unpleasant for that man as possible. The Colonel was not in an amiable frame of mind. He was on foot, old "Billy" had been killed the night before, and he felt like having a dialogue with someone. He asked this man some questions which satisfied him he was a coward. His wrath broke out vehemently. He cursed and swore at him and called him a variety of unpleasant and detestable things and then he began to punch him with his fist wherever he could hit. Finally he partly turned him around, and gave ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... my grandmother heard from her father, and he from his, and so on until the time of that Thorolf Erlandsson who sailed with Bjarni Grimulfsson and went down into the sea by his side singing, for he feared nothing but to be a coward." ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... The sheriff was no coward. Yet was he undecided. He gazed into the gulf on either side and ran his eyes along the knife-edge he must travel. Then he made ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... known! I was not altogether pleased with my duties, but I could not refuse Rouletabille the assistance he had begged me to give him. I took care not to make him see that I in the least objected, and for several reasons. I wanted to oblige him; I did not wish him to think me a coward; I was filled with curiosity; and it was too late for me to draw back, even had I determined to do so. That I had not had these scruples sooner was because my curiosity had quite got the better of me. I might also urge that I was helping ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... more distant progenitors, too, had not been hypocrites; for aught he knew they had gone over to the Church even before the Expulsion; at any rate he was glad to have no evidence for an ancestry of deceit. None of the Da Costas had been cowards, thank Heaven! And he—he was no coward, he told himself. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... present position in the world. Sometimes it seems to me that I have never really been a Negro, that I have been only a privileged spectator of their inner life; at other times I feel that I have been a coward, a deserter, and I am possessed by a strange longing ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... less probability, been derived from the Dutch boel, and Ger. Buhle, a lover), originally a fine, swaggering fellow, as in "Bully Bottom" in A Midsummer Night's Dream, later an overbearing ruffian, especially a coward who abuses his strength by ill-treating the weak; more technically a souteneur, a man who lives on the earnings of a prostitute. The term in its early use of "fine" or "splendid" survives ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... for Jane would be my bride; 'Shall coward fears then turn the bliss aside?' While thus he spoke he heard a gentle sound, That seem'd a jarring footstep on the ground: Asham'd of grief, he bade his eyes unclose, And shook with agitation as he rose; All unprepared the sweet surprise ...
— Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs • Robert Bloomfield
... however, he was mortified to find me a coward upon the water. I assured him he should cure me if he could convince me there was no reason for fear. He would not allow of any, but could not ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... so. You are treacherous and cruel; but, abhor you as I may for the misery you have inflicted upon me, I do believe you to be one degree above a bravo. You are not a coward—you would not consent ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... missionaries, teachers, and nurses, since they went their way. They have been accused of pilfering, of lying, of doing nothing, of corrupting the blacks, of going out only to speculate, and, as might have been expected, we have at last the unfailing resort of the lying coward—a dirty hint as to breaking the seventh commandment—all according to the devilish old Jesuit precept of, 'Calumniare fortiter aliquis koerebit'—'Slander boldly, something will be sure to stick.' And to such a depth of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... 11, 1757.—When we had drunk hard after supper he broke out, saying, "By God! dear Mac, I'll tell you a secret you don't know; there is not a greater scoundrel on the face of the earth than that same Prince; he is in his heart a coward and a poltroon; would rather live in a garret with some Scotch thieves, to drink and smoak, than serve me, or any of those who have lost our estates for his family and himself. . . . He is so great a scoundrel that he will lie even when drunk: a time when all other men's hearts are ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... appeal against this phrase as unjust to them. What animal but man did you ever see maltreat a female of his species? The brutes are not such beasts as bad, cruel men are. Or if you ever saw such a monstrosity the animal that did it was some notorious coward, such as the deer, which I believe is now and then guilty in a trifling degree of this dirty sin, being a rank coward. But who ever saw a lion or a dog or any courageous animal let himself down to the level of a cowardly ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... them coming. At the instant of their passing her eyes looked into his, and but for the ever coward's heart of a true lover he could have sworn that she flushed a faint pink. He trotted on for twenty yards, and then wheeled his horse at the sound of runaway hoofs. ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... the foregoing pages of this journal. Was I a fool or a coward, or was I merely intoxicated for eight-and-forty hours? At all events, Courtney's tragic end sobered me, and put what I had been doing in a true light. I am glad my insanity was not permitted to proceed farther than it did; but I have quite enough to reproach myself with ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... saying, "La joie fait peur." [Abranyi, who was the Secretary of the Festival Committee which had been formed for the celebration of Liszt's Artist-Jubilee in November 1873 at Budapest, had in their name invited Liszt to take part in this.] Nevertheless I could not suit myself to the role of a coward; I will therefore endeavor to surmount my fear and to make myself worthy to share with my brave compatriots in the joy they ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... in Miss Masters' voice that Druce had noticed in the voice of a district attorney with whom he had once had an unpleasant interview. The man was a coward. He ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... relations had not improved since the riot, for Malin had lost credit with the other prisoners since the failure of it, and laid the blame on Poivre for making fun of him, while there rankled, deep in Poivre's breast, the recollection that Malin had as good as called him a coward. ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown
... purple on me—and what then? My hump shall shorten the imperial robe, My leg peep out beneath the scanty hem, My broken hip shall twist the gown awry; And pomp, instead of dignifying me, Shall be by me made quite ridiculous. The faintest coward would not bear all this: Prodigious courage must be mine, to live; To die asks nothing but weak will, and I Feel like a craven. Let me skulk away Ere life o'ertask me. [Offers to ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... "You are not a coward, Cora Kimball," exclaimed Mabel, "and I know perfectly well you would denounce him if ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... one recent instance, appallingly common, a poor frail woman had crept out in the dead of night to pay alone the penalty of a crime incurred by two—one foolish and weak, the other murderously selfishly a coward. ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... that we should be careful not to stamp them with the mark of greatness at the outset of the journey. Horatio was a happy stroke for Nelson, but how few Horatios win immortality, or deserve it! And how disastrous if Horatio turns out a knave and a coward! If young Spinks has any Miltonic fire within him, it will shine through plain John more naturally and lustrously than through any borrowed patronymic. You may be as humble as you like, and John will fit you: as illustrious as you like, and John will blaze as splendid as your ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... anything more despicable than when a man does not dare, either by word or deed, to declare plainly what he feels in his inner consciousness to be in opposition with generally received opinions. A man who sneaks through life in this manner is, in my opinion, a coward." ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... I less could fear to lose this being, Which, like a snow-ball, in my coward hand, The more 'tis grasped, the ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... Vijayanagar should turn to the chronicle of Nuniz. It will suffice here to say that he alienated his best friends by his violent despotism, and at the same time proved to the whole empire that he was a coward. His conduct and mode of government ruined the Hindu cause in Southern India and opened the whole country to the invader, though he himself did not live to see ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... wouldn't like that.' 'Oh,' she says, looking at me mighty hard. 'I've got the best of reasons for doing it.' 'Then,' says I, 'do it, no matter what they think or don't think. That's what Abe Hawk would 'a' done!' 'I'm such a coward,' she says, but I want to tell you there was fire in her words. 'Go ahead,' says I. 'Doctor, will you ride with me?' 'Hell!' says I, 'I never went to a funeral in my life.' 'Will you ride to this one with me? I can't ride alone; all the rest are men.' 'Dog gone it! ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... revolver in her hand, directed point blank at my quivering, quaking heart. Though I am bashful, I am no coward, and I thought for full two minutes that I'd let her fire away, ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... False coward, wreak thy wif; By corpus domini, I will have thy knife, And thou shalt have ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... slept since, And wakes it now, to look so green and pale At what it did so freely? From this time, Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard To be the same in thine own act and valour, As thou art in desire? Would'st thou have that Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life, And live a coward in thine own esteem, Letting, I dare not, wait upon, I would, Like the ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... she said. "Have it your own way. Proud. That's me all over, Mabel. Ginger!" She broke off sharply. "Pull yourself together. Where is your manly spirit? I'd be ashamed to be such a coward." ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... "You hulking coward!" says he; "you pack of screaming blackguards! how dare you attack children, and insult women? Fling another shot at that carriage, you sneaking pigskin cobbler, and by the Lord I'll ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... stunted by peaceful days, In idle repose his courage decays. Law is the weakling's game. Law makes the world the same. But in war man's strength is seen, War ennobles all that is mean; Even the coward belies his name." ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... sergeant said, "If you don't know, you soon will do. The fact is, you have spoiled the coppers in the cook-house, you have burned the bottoms out of them." "They were all right when I left" I retorted, beginning to feel rather "queer." If I had never been one before I felt a coward then; but, come what might, I thought, they can only reduce me in rank. So with "firm step" I marched to the sergeant-major's quarters. To my surprise—and in a manner which at once put me at my ease—the sergeant-major bade me a cheerful "Good evening." He told me that ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... discomfiture of Manassas, I with my own hands did buckle on his armour, trusting in the great Comforter for strength according to my need. For truly the memory of a brave son dead in his shroud were a greater staff of my declining years than a coward, though his days might be long in the land and he should get much goods. It is not till our earthen vessels are broken that we find and truly possess the treasure that was laid up in them. Migravi in animam meam, I have sought refuge ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... she strips the soft fur from her own breast to line the beds of grass for her little ones to sleep in. Sometimes a mother rabbit's chest is raw and bleeding for days after making her nest. She is timid because she is so defenseless, but no one can call her a coward. Timid folk are often braver in times of real danger than ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... essentially a casuist. Leave to him the application of your principles, and he will adapt almost any scheme of conduct to them. The moralist who does not boldly and explicitly point the application of his principles is either too ignorant of human nature to discharge his duty with effect or is a coward. The plain fact is that the preaching of justice and peace throughout Europe has been steadily accompanied by an increase in armaments and in international friction. It had no moral influence ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... table violently, and his eyes glittered. "That ever one should think I loved a coward! Yet more intolerable, that he whom I have called brother should know me so little! Can it be, O Mirza, can it be, you tell me these things imagining them new to me? ... Let me have done. What we are saying would have become us ten years ago, not now. It is unmanly. I had a purpose in sending for ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... woods, lighted up like noon, every tree distinct, every mountain, every rock, and valley, as perfect and plain to be seen as if the sun was standin' right above us in the sky. Crop was as much astonished as I was, and he crept to my feet and trembled like a coward, as he crouched beside them. I looked up, and flyin' across the heavens was a great ball of fire, lookin' for all the world as if the sun had broke loose, and was runnin' away in a fright. A long trail of light flashed and streamed along the sky where it passed. It was out of sight ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... creature stands still, wearied and disdainful, his head erect, the blood flowing from his wounds in which the darts move, swaying to and fro each time he stirs, causing him an agony he cannot understand. So he faces the great crowded ring contemptuously, and the people shout at him and call him a coward and scream for the espada ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... revenge against an imaginary enemy, to find at last that the man I had loved and trusted, honoured and admired beyond all other men throughout the best years of my life, was the man who had struck this secret blow—it was the conduct of a villain and a coward, John Saltram. I have no words to speak my contempt for so base a betrayal. And when I remember your pretended sympathy, your friendly counsel—O God! it was the work of a social Judas; nothing was wanted ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... not honest; or, If thou inclin'st that way, thou art a coward, Which hoxes honesty behind, restraining From course requir'd; or else thou must be counted A servant grafted in my serious trust, And therein negligent; or else a fool That seest a game play'd home, the rich stake drawn, And tak'st it ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare
... at the close of my hour, the double argument, that Literature is an Art and English a living tongue, has led me right up to a fourth principle, the plunge into which (though I foresaw it from the first) all the coward in me rejoices at having to defer to another lecture. I conclude then, Gentlemen, by answering two suspicions, which very likely have been shaping themselves in your minds. In the first place, you will say, 'It is ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... called "coward" for not sailing through a solid continent. Cook was accused of fur trading, "pottering in peltries," to the neglect of discovery, because his crews sold their sea-otter at profit. To be sure, the combined results of Bering's and Cook's voyages proved there was no waterway through Alaska to the Atlantic; ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... word out of his right sense, so forcible is thy wit. But I must tell thee plainly, Claudio undergoes my challenge, and either I must shortly hear from him, or I will subscribe him a coward. And, I pray thee now, tell me, for which of my bad parts didst thou first ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... they chide him: "Art afraid of us, Or art thou also cold, as well as coward? Here butterfly is wooed by loving flowers, And does not know enough to sip ...
— Parsifal - A Drama by Wagner • Retold by Oliver Huckel
... 'Ugh, you coward!' replied Mrs. Raddle, with supreme contempt. 'DO you mean to turn them wretches out, or ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... at the boy who confronted him. Edward was slightly smaller, but there was a determined look in his eye which the bully, who, like those of his class generally, was a coward at heart, did not like. He mentally decided that it would be safer ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... are horrible men. I won't be a tailor, I won't be a sailor, And gardener's taken by Ben. It's unfair if you say that you'll write great music, you horrid, you unkind (I simply loathe you, though you are my sister), you beast, cad, coward, cheat, bully, liar! Well? Say what's left for me then! But we won't go to your ugly music. (Listen!) Ben will garden and dig, And Claire will finish her wondrous pictures All ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves
... inclined to be fat, and not unpleasant in feature. But it was with a scowling brow that he replied to Diggle. Desmond was no coward, but he afterward confessed that as he stood there watching the two faces, the dark, lowering face of Angria, the smiling, scarcely less swarthy face of Diggle, he felt his knees tremble under him. What was the Pirate ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... settled among their generals. But unfortunately their generals were not of a turn of mind to agree on anything; and after spending nine days in angry discussion, concluded with calling one another such names as-"robber," "ruffian," "coward." In fact each general had such a longing for the crown, and fancied himself possessed of such a rare talent for governing, that neither coaxing nor beseeching could have brought them to an agreement on this matter of the crown. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... How could I fear to die after he was taken away from me so cruelly! How could I! How could I be such a coward!" ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... Linden, in a savage and stern tone, for his blood was up. "I will twist your coward's throat, and save the murderer his labour, if you do not instantly give me up ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... has that to do with it? Because one is a coward that doesn't make it any better, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... anxiously; it was such an extraordinary thing. However, he was no coward, but a thorough boy, who, if he had been like other boys, would doubtless have grown up daring and adventurous—a soldier—a sailor, or the like. As it was, he could only show his courage by being ...
— The Little Lame Prince - Rewritten for Young Readers by Margaret Waters • Dinah Maria Mulock
... Grip!" cried Tom Tallington, kicking his heels together as the big dog gave his ears a shake, and lay down with his head between his paws, blinking at the fire, while his little assailant uttered a snarl, which seemed to mean "Oh you coward!" and trotted away to meet a tall rugged-looking man, who came slouching up, with long strides, his head bent, his shoulders up, a long heavy gun over his shoulder, and a bundle of wild-fowl in his left hand, the birds banging against his leather legging as he walked, ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... the house said to the Easterling: "In an evil hour hath my daughter Gudruna humbled herself, and broken the point of her maidenly pride, and lain by thy side as thy wife, when thou wilt not dare to follow thy father-in-law, and thou must be a coward," she says. ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... must have been a fool and a coward. Yet he could read and understand Shakespeare. He knew much,—by far too much,—of Byron's poetry by heart. He was a deep critic, often writing down his criticisms in a lengthy journal which he kept. He could write quickly, and with understanding; and I may ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... not pleasant for a man to be branded, in his own consciousness, a coward. Refusal to admit it by day does not change the hour of the night when life is at its lowest ebb, and, sleepless, man ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... longer. The friendship I had with thee, O first of Brahmanas, was for a particular purpose. Friendship can never subsist between a poor man and a rich man, between a man of letters and an unlettered mind, between a hero and a coward. Why dost thou desire the continuance of our former friendship? There may be friendship or hostility between persons equally situated as to wealth or might. The indigent and the affluent can neither be friends nor quarrel with each other. One of impure birth ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... I was too weak to go as fast as they wished. I was hugging the capon and the bottle of wine to my heart; I had need to do that, so as to still the insistent call of my conscience, for I felt a coward—a mean, treacherous, ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... replied, and walked over to him, well pleased to bring his argument with Charlie to an end. Charlie was not really a very formidable opponent for a grown man, but Skipper Drummond, like many bullies, was a great coward. ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... mysterious, and filled with the noises of night, a feeling of helplessness and fear came over her. What unseen perils might she not meet? What would she find at the end? How would she be received on this occasion? Would the natives be fighting or drinking or dancing? Her heart played the coward; she felt a desire to turn and flee. But she remembered that never in her life had God failed her, not once had there been cause to doubt the reality of His guidance and care. Still the shrinking was there; she could ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... abidingly memorable. We have already reached a point where we perceive the unreality of the importance which the chronicles have sought to give to mere kings and captains. If the king was a hero, we love him; but if he was a sot or a coward, his jeweled crown and purple robes leave him as unconsidered by us as the beggar in his rags. Whatever influence, favorable or unfavorable, democracy may exert to make easy or difficult the advent of the noblest kind of man, an age in which the people think and rule will strip ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... a hot fight ensued, in which the Portuguese were forced to retreat with disgrace, having only cut the hawser of one of the frigates, which drove on shore and was stove in pieces. This belonged to the governor, who was well served, for he remained like a coward in the country, keeping four or five great guns that were in the town locked up, except one, and for it they had only powder and shot for two discharges. Before the fight ended, some 4000 nayres were come in from the country, and several were slain on both sides. Nine or ten ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... be done now?" he shouted, trying in vain to rouse the prostrate figure with his foot. "Rouse up! Rouse up, you fool!" he roared. "Are you going to die like a coward?" And letting himself down, he put his face close to that of the man who by his stupidity had brought them all to this terrible plight. But both the mate and boy seemed paralyzed. Not a word, not a moan could he get out of them. The help which they would have been was denied him. Once ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... in criminating this retirement from every-day political conflicts which is, to say the least, very short-sighted. Extreme radicalism spurns the comparative inactivity, and says, "Lo, a sluggard!" Extreme conservatism spurns it, and says, "Lo, a coward!" It is only too true that cowards and sluggards both may take shelter under a shield of indifference; but it is equally true that any reasonably acute mind, if only charitably disposed, can readily distinguish between an inactivity which springs from craven or sluggish propensity, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... my books. Paul, here is my jacket and hat. Stand back, boys, and see if I am the coward they think me," and soon his legs and arms were in motion. The laughter and jeering of the Trojans stimulated him to his greatest effort, and he had almost reached the top ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... said, indignantly. "You are coward enough to threaten me with showing my husband the letters I was so mistaken as to ...
— The Coquette's Victim • Charlotte M. Braeme
... the truth. Already he had that day stopped at more than one road-side ale-house and drunk several glasses of beer. "In vino-veritas," is a true saying. Blackall when sober might pass for a very brave fellow: his true character came out when he was drunk, and he showed himself an arrant coward, as he had done on this occasion. The boys who remained with him looked very foolish, and some of them felt heartily ashamed of their leader. Some resolved to break from him altogether, but he had thrown his chains too firmly over others to allow them to hope or ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... Master Meadow Mouse forgot his fear of Turkey Proudfoot. Nobody stands in awe of a coward. So the very next time that Master Meadow Mouse saw Turkey Proudfoot strutting in the yard he crept up behind Turkey Proudfoot and tried ...
— The Tale of Turkey Proudfoot - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... will be a traitor knave? Wha can fill a coward's grave? Wha sae base as be a Slave? Let ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... she was suspicious of those opportunities of joy which did come to her, or at least resolute not to believe too implicitly in the good messages of the stars, which might be mere dreams, or of the earth, which was only certainly kind in preparing for her that often-thought-of grave. 'No coward soul is mine' is one of her true sayings; but it was with difficulty that she trusted even that message of life which she seemed to discover in death. She has to assure herself of it, again and again: 'Who once lives, never dies!' ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... these fools," he muttered; "and I am very much afraid of being here between a drunkard and a coward. Here's an envious fellow making himself boozy on wine when he ought to be nursing his wrath, and here is a fool who sees the woman he loves stolen from under his nose and takes on like a big baby. Yet this Catalan has eyes that glisten ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... wickedness did you touch in my heart? I never had a thought of wrong before you came. But when I first set eyes upon your face, I felt some strange change come over me: I recognized my evil destiny. How you discovered my fascination, how you led me on to evil, you best know. I am no coward, I do not wish to excuse myself, but sometimes I think that you have much to answer for, George. Hark, I hear my baby crying, my beautiful boy with his father's eyes. Do you know, I believe that the child has grown afraid of me: it beats at me with its tiny hands. ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... were ambushed at several points in that defile, but our perfect preparation intimidated our foes. The Indian is cruel as the grave, but he is an arrant coward. He will not risk being the first man shot, though his band ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... strawberries. His head ringing from the stroke of that sturdy black wing, his plump flank smarting and bleeding from a fierce jab of that pointed beak of the imp's, he squeaked with rage and clambered up again to the battle. Mr. Rat, you know, is no coward and no quitter. ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... a fool! You are not the only proud man in the empire, Sextus. I don't desert my friend for such a coward's reason as that he acted thoughtlessly. But I will tell you what I think, whether or not that pleases you, if only because I am your true friend. You are a rash, impatient lover of the days gone by, possessed of genius that you betray by your arrogant hastiness. So now you know ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... that Arnold for the first time in his life, had turned coward. Having drifted into a situation which he had always regarded as undesirable, and had felt strong enough to avoid, he lost his head, and clutched rather wildly at the first support within reach. That Irene ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... Ashton went on with an effort. "I wanted to see you—I knew I could trust you...." He fumbled in a pocket. "There's a letter here.... I've written—I couldn't see her again. I know I'm a coward, but ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... make love to Lady Mary Wortley Montague, the lady's answer was "a fit of immoderate laughter." In an appendix to the 'Dunciad' Pope collected some of the epithets with which his enemies had pelted him, "an ape," "an ass," "a frog," "a coward," "a fool," "a little abject thing." He affected, indeed, to despise his assailants, but there is only too good evidence that their poisoned arrows rankled in his heart. Richardson, the painter, found him one day reading ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... rose in his throat. The cowardice of the attack incensed him; some of the hot blood of the old ancestor that had crossed the flood at Trenton flamed up in his face. With the quickness of a cat he dropped to the sidewalk, darted forward, struck the coward full in the face with his clenched fist, tumbling him to the ground, wrenched the rung from his hands, and, jumping in front of the now almost overpowered soldier, swung the heavy stick about him like a flail, ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Although a coward at heart, the Portuguese steward, nerved by his intense hatred of the cook, made a bold resistance to his first onslaught, clutching at Ching Wang's pigtail with one hand and clawing at his face with the other; ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... of the words of William Blake: "He who does not love Form more than Colour is a coward." For it is, above all, Form that appeals to Mr. Hardy. The iron plough of his implacable style drives pitilessly through the soft flesh of the earth until it reaches the architectural sub-structure. Whoever tries to visualize any scene out of the Wessex Novels will be ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... gave himself up, the coward—the lying turn-tale! The treacherous dog! Swearing it off on me to save a few years of his miserable life out of jail. See here!" stopping suddenly before Mr. Pinkerton, "That traitor made me swear I would never squeal. All I got out of ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... The plastic artist has his own problems of light, and mass, and the like. And from this I came back circuitously to Mr. Carville. I was puzzled to find a name for the deliberate rejection of his responsibilities as an artist. One could not call him a renegade or a coward, for he was neither. And yet his acceptance of an obscure destiny had in it nothing of the sacredness of renunciation. It was almost as though he were hoarding his soul's wealth, and adroitly avoiding any of the pangs and labours of the spiritual life. Because it seemed to me that, for a ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... back me living, or carry me off dead, and save my body." At news of this mighty host, and the ardor with which they were animated, the Emperor Henry V. advanced no farther, and, before long, "marching, under some pretext, towards other places, he preferred the shame of retreating like a coward to the risk of exposing his empire and himself to certain destruction. After this victory, which was more than as great as a triumph on the field of battle, the French returned, every one, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... an observance of high principle in public life, which it might be difficult to illustrate from his recorded actions. But the warmer-blooded Andrew Jackson set him down as "heartless, selfish, and a physical coward," and Jackson could speak generously of an opponent whom he really knew. His intellect must have been powerful enough, but it was that of a man who delights in arguing, and delights in elaborate deductions from principles which he is too proud to revise; a man, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... to kill your cousin! You know nothing of the kind. Your cousin tried to kill me. He's a bully and a coward, a man that doesn't know what fair fighting means. Tell ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... said, "You're a coward an' a fool, Billy Polk. The cow wasn't hurtin' nothin', an' you're just tryin' to ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... to Napoleon what Arakcheev was to Alexander—though not a coward like Arakcheev, he was as precise, as cruel, and as unable to express his devotion to his monarch except ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... say of them: as to the latter, I shall conclude all I have more to offer against them (with respect to their being prompted by the fear of shame) by applying to the duellist what I think Dr. South says somewhere of the liar, "He is a coward to man, and a brave ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... also," replied Maxwell with a sad smile. "Why should I, simply because I am a minister, shelter myself behind my refined, sensitive feelings, and like a coward refuse to touch, except in a sermon possibly, the duty of citizenship? I am unused to the ways of the political life of the city. I have never taken an active part in any nomination of good men. There are hundreds of ministers like me. As a class we do not practice in the municipal life the ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... Sorcerers have in all time and countries played on the hopes and terrors of lovers. Once let loose a strong impulse on the centre of inhibition, and the warrior who had faced bayonets and batteries becomes a coward whom the well-dressed hero of the ball-room and leader of the German will put to ignominious flight in five minutes of easy, audacious familiarity ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... says I, in a rage; 'and just let me have the pleasure of telling him that he's a coward and a liar; and that my lodgings are in Piccadilly, where, if ever he finds courage to meet me, he may ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... they that league with thee," answered the giant Kifri, "thou son of fear, thou wretch unworthy of such support! Was it for thee, base coward, that Ollomand poured forth his unnumbered stores? that the plains of India were dyed with the blood of Desra, the ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... thought you a coward!" Sir Ralph exclaimed; "now I know it," and, with a taunting laugh, he ordered his men to follow him, issued from the village, and prepared, with his little band, to charge the Roundhead horse, about a hundred ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... Administration there was, of course, deep mortification. Old General Scott passionately declared himself to have been the greatest coward in America in having ever given way to the President's desire for action. Lincoln, who was often to prove his readiness to take blame on his own shoulders, evidently thought that the responsibility in this case was shared by Scott, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... Valley for a little, just to think things out and remember that she wasn't a child any longer—she was grown-up and women had to face things like this. But it was—nice—to get away alone now and then, where nobody could see her and where she needn't feel that people thought her a little coward if some tears came in spite ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... first days of his reign, when he enforced loyalty with grape-shot and halter, Nicholas dared much and stood firm; but his character soon showed another side. Fearless as he was before bright bayonets, he was an utter coward before bright ideas. He laughed at the flash of cannon, but he trembled at the flash of a new living thought. Whenever, then, he attempted a great thing for his nation, he was sure to be scared back from its completion by fear of revolution. And so, today, he who looks through Russia for Nicholas's ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... snake," he said. "Bamboo; and a thick 'un, too, for here's a knot. Here, don't be such a coward, Peter. Go on, comrade. That there snake's gone, and it was more afraid of you than you were ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... that which does not merge away into something else, and that which is not partly something else: that which is not a reaction to, or an imitation of, something else. By a real hero, we mean one who is not partly a coward, or whose actions and motives do not merge away into cowardice. But, if in Continuity, all things do merge, by Realness, I mean the Universal, besides which there is ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... starts. He leaves me to pray— like the mother seeing her child on the edge of the cliff. Come. This is your breast, my Tony? And your soul warns you it is right to come. Do rightly. Scorn other counsel—the coward's. Come with our friend—the one man known to me who can be a friend ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of a great happiness. Even now with all the proofs of reality about him, it seemed impossible that this scene could be aught but the ephemeral vapors of a dream—that Leopold of Lutha, the coward, the craven, could have become in a single day the heroic figure that had loomed so large upon the battlefield of Lustadt—the simple, modest gentleman who received the plaudits of his subjects with bowed head ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... portion of the journey, as they encountered these obstacles, the mine boss urged, almost commanded, Derrick to go back and leave him to continue the undertaking alone. In spite of some faults the lad was no coward, and he begged so earnestly to be allowed to keep on that the other consented, on condition that no ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe
... sign of contempt or disgust; and spitting obviously represents the rejection of anything offensive from the mouth. Shakspeare makes the Duke of Norfolk say, "I spit at him— call him a slanderous coward and a villain." So, again, Falstaff says, "Tell thee what, Hal,—if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face." Leichhardt remarks that the Australians "interrupted their speeches by spitting, and uttering a noise like pooh! pooh! apparently expressive of their disgust." And ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... had not retired thus early, Languidly thus, from pursuit of a purpose I once had adopted. But it is over, all that! I have slunk from the perilous field in Whose wild struggle of forces the prizes of life are contested. It is over, all that! I am a coward, and know it. Courage in me could be only factitious, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... principal and most credited of which was that Davis had demanded from Nelson an apology for language used in the original altercation, and that Nelson's refusal was accompanied by a slap in the face, at the same moment denouncing Davis as a coward. However this may be, Nelson, after slapping Davis, moved toward the corridor, from which a stairway led to the second floor, and just as he was about to ascend, Davis fired with a pistol that he had obtained from some one near by after the blow ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the part of the client we always made it a point at the very outset to scare the latter thoroughly. "Conscience doth make cowards of us all." But a lawyer is a close second to conscience when it comes to coward-making; in fact, frightening people, innocent or guilty, became to a very large extent ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... had been a hofficer, and so he had. He had been a sub-deputy assistant vice-commissary, or some such think; and, as I heerd afterwards, had been obliged to leave on account of his NERVOUSNESS. He was such a coward, the fact is, that he was considered dangerous to the ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... his wings again and was flying away; that a deer passing to the west had caught a whiff of them on the wind and was running with all speed in the other direction; that a lynx had climbed a tree, and, after staring at them, had climbed down again, and had fled, his coward heart filled with terror. ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... to her quickly. "You are thinking that I am a coward," she said, "that I am making but a poor beginnings to my fight. But it isn't that, not exactly. I shall have courage enough when it comes to the time. But just now it is hurting me so to hurt Aunt Janet; I had not reckoned on that, I did not know ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... Imperial troops, capturing all the smaller places around it, so that it might be completely invested. Here again he exhibited his quick perception of the weak points in his opponents' character. Even the greatest coward amongst our own countrymen would fight desperately if he felt that all his means of retreat were cut off; but, strange as it may seem, this is not a characteristic of all nations. Once let a Chinaman feel that his ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... universally defined too close and anxious an attention to personal safety, there will be found scarcely any fear, however excessive in its degree, or unreasonable in its object, which will be allowed to characterise a coward. Fear is a passion which every man feels so frequently predominant in his own breast, that he is unwilling to hear it censured with great asperity; and, perhaps, if we confess the truth, the same restraint which would hinder a man ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... Hall. Grand place I had then—park, conservatory, servants. He had only one fault, that Duke of Wellington's nephew," said Bonaparte, observing that the German was deeply interested in every word, "He was a coward—what you might call a coward. You've never been in Russia, I suppose?" said Bonaparte, fixing his crosswise looking eyes on the ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... there is no intention of carrying them out. Many people, rather than to say no, will promise and then refuse to perform, thereby making themselves liars. They have not manhood enough to refuse and honestly tell why, so they make a promise and break it. That is the coward's way out. It ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... did! I fully intended to, but found myself too great a coward. I dare not—I cannot risk losing her. I am fearful that if she knew it she would throw me ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... to wrestle in the contests at the fort, and had failed to fight the man who had warmly called him a coward ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... was not devoid of good instincts; for he could repent of a misdeed or unkindness, and, after repeating it, repent again. But he was garrulous, puffed up with a sense of his own importance, full of levity and passion, and morally, if not physically, a coward. Ralegh, whom some social brilliancy in the man, as well as his rank and fortune, may have dazzled, can at no time have been wholly unconscious of the defects which later he resentfully characterized: of the 'dispositions ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... believed that his last hour was come. He showed something of the defiant, almost maniacal courage of a coward who realizes he ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... tell you to-day, Mother," he answered slowly. After a moment's silence he looked up and said steadily, "I've failed with Miss Wingate—and I'm too much of a coward to tell her. I feel sure now that she'll never be able to use her voice any more than she can in the speaking tones and she—she will never sing again." As he spoke he buried his face in his hands and his arms shook the table they ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... around the handsome figure of Elias, whose scarlet dust-cloak seemed a flame of fire. What was a plain of gold in the truest of stories to compare with an orange-garden actually existent close at hand? He had prepared to vanquish Elias in one sphere, and the coward leapt into another where he could not reach him. Never till now had he heard that Elias owned a garden. This was the end. Iskender resigned a contest so unequal. He heard the Emir invite him to go with them, but shook his head, quite unable to articulate a reply. The despair of ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... with most dross in them have had something of this virtue; but the Christian religion manifests it with unexampled splendor. "Lead me, Zeus and Destiny!" says the prayer of Epictetus, "whithersoever I am appointed to go; I will follow without wavering; even though I turn coward and shrink, I shall have to follow all the same."[187] The fortitude of that is for the strong, for the few; even for them the spiritual atmosphere with which it surrounds them is bleak and gray. But, "Let thy loving spirit lead me forth into the land of righteousness";[188]—"The Lord shall be ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... to stow it, so Albert did, and then he asked him if he was hurt—and Albert had to say he wasn't, for though he is a coward, and very unlucky, he is not a liar ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... friend followed me for some time at a respectful distance; and though the dingo is a sneaking coward, still, had sleep overpowered me, he might have been tempted to try how I tasted, as he must have been hungry to come so close to me as he did. So, although I never had any fear of such an event actually occurring, I was not at all sorry when he trotted off, his tail, as usual, ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... raise the coward in the minds of those who were left, and losing heart they turned to those subtle and cunning devices that had never before failed in their attacks on mankind. Their great endeavour now was to inveigle Monkey into a position where certain destruction would be sure to follow. Three-pronged spears ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... gun, I tell you!" A smile almost fiendish broke over the furrows of the rugged face. "You wouldn't dast shoot, unless perhaps it was a woman, you coward!" ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... corner to think over the strange affair. The words, "You are a cad, young sir," vexed me more and more the longer that they sounded in my ears. My tipsiness was gone now, and, in considering my conduct during the dispute, the uncomfortable thought came over me that I had behaved like a coward. ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... tone rang out into the room. "But that would be murder," she continued. "We should have to call it murder, shouldn't we? And that is a fearful word. I could never quite forget it. I should always ask myself if I were right, if I had the right to judge. I am a coward. The work is too ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... and find my mother; my courage has returned! Were I to forfeit the favor of my father, were my aunt to cut me off with a sou, I would stand my ground. If I did otherwise, I should be destitute of self-respect, I should prove myself a soulless coward.—After that, is ...
— Pamela Giraud • Honore de Balzac
... that? A sigh—a whispered word? Or was it coward conscience?" He sat back aghast for a moment; then, with a resolute face, bent forward, laying his hand upon the book. Suddenly he paused, raising his head again. A sound—a movement? Surely he heard something! He hurriedly ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... with his own hands, he begins to enrich himself at the expense of the youth, the sweat, the blood, the joy of his fellow men. I can go to the city, take a look, and see what money does, as a rule, and it's another thing I'm afraid of. You will find me a dreadful coward on those two points. I don't want to know society and its ways. I see what it does to other men; it would be presumption to reckon myself stronger. So I live alone. As for money, I've watched the cross cuts and ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... cried Mr. Percy, looking up from a letter he was writing,—"show him a certain danger, and he will feel fear as much as the greatest coward of you all. Ha! upon my word, it is an ugly night," continued he, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... was thoroughly uncomfortable. I had known all along I was not a hero; but it had never occurred to me before that I was a coward. In the course of one short evening I had forsaken more than one old principle, merely because others did the same. I had joined in a laugh against my best friend, because I had not the courage to stand up for him behind his back, ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... inanimate things'! Those grapes knew that you wanted them, that I wanted to get them for you, and see how they act? But I'll have them yet. Don't fear. That old fellow I camped-out with this last summer told me it was a coward who ever gave up 'discouraged.' I'll have that bunch of grapes—or I'll know the reason why! I almost reached them that time!" cried the struggler, proudly, ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... an entirely different face on the affair, and instead of being a childish coward, he represents himself to have been an arch conspirator, who disguised himself as a female to get a good chance to throw a boy off his horse and steal the horse. We can only admire the calm determination ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... stuff. Somebody's dreadfully ill—dying, I believe, and that somebody is wife, or mother, or son to this brute you challenged. He's got to go, the coward. If you are ever in his vicinity again, and send him your card, he will understand it and meet you at such place and with such weapons as you prefer. Bah—too thin!" and Eric concluded with this ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... interruptingly answered: "Yea, forsooth,[34] I may be called a coward and a man of no worth, if now I yield to thee in everything, whatever thou mayest say. Enjoin these things to other men; for dictate not to me, for I think that I shall no longer obey thee. But another thing will I tell thee, and do thou store it in thy mind: ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... the soul of Sergeant Todd; "you're still in my squad, McQuade, I say that I lacked what you did not lack—courage to die, unafraid. I was a coward, a trembling coward, deep in my craven heart; I fought with the fear of that fear at my soul, playing no hero's part! You can't understand it—but I Had ...
— With the Colors - Songs of the American Service • Everard Jack Appleton
... BLENCH? Did he die like a craven, Begging those torturing fiends for his life? Was there a soldier who carried the Seven Flinched like a coward or fled from the strife? No, by the blood of our Custer, no quailing! There in the midst of the devils they close, Hemmed in by thousands, but ever assailing, Fighting like tigers, all ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... and went away without it, read the answer. The puzzle was too deep for them. Yet it was only this: to Monsieur, honour was more than a pretty word. If he could not find his cause honest, he would not draw his sword, though all the curs in the land called him coward. ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... truth! Give me your Bible! I'll kiss the place you kissed, and swear before God that I never meant to marry Martha Deane! I let the old man think so, because he hinted it'd make a difference in his will, and he drove me—he and Dr. Deane together—to speak to her. I was a coward and a fool that I let myself be driven that far, but I couldn't and wouldn't ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... revenge were uppermost, they reprobated; but applauded acts of kindness and generosity, for of both these they were capable. A man who would not stand to have a spear thrown at him, but ran away, was a coward,jee-run, and wee-re. But their knowledge of the difference between right and wrong certainly never extended beyond their existence in this world; not leading them to believe that the practice of either had any ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... would, it was thought, have induced him to make some show of resistance, or to have gone to the rescue of a young and delicate girl; but none of these things did he do, and, if the story related was true, the young man had acted like a base coward at the best, and submitted without a murmur to the outrages that were perpetrated in his presence. Instead of acting like a man, he stood tamely by and allowed a woman to be cruelly beaten, the bank robbed, and the robbers to walk off unmolested ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... said the other, going up to him, "except that I have been a poor dicky-boy, and that now I am a dealer in horses, and that my father was lagged; that is all you could tell of me, and that I don't mind telling myself: but there are two things they can't say of me, they can't say that I am either a coward, or a screw either, except so far as one who gets his bread by horses may be expected to be; and they can't say of me that I ever ate up an ice which a young woman was waiting for, or that I ever backed ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... man's point of view and a woman's differ materially when the graver crises of life have to be faced. If it were merely a question of physical courage, Dick imagined that the Baron would refuse to play the coward's part by skulking on board the yacht. In that event, von Kerber and Alfieri could hardly fail to meet within the hour, for Massowah was a small place. Nor was it altogether probable that bloodshed would be the outcome. The affray at Marseilles had given the Italian an excellent ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... huge enough and strong enough to crush the infuriated lad, but drink had made him a coward at heart. He stooped over and picked up an ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... neutral till I had at least discovered the author of the lines I held in my hand. If they came from a credible person—but how could they do so and be written and posted up in the manner they were? An honest man does not seek any such roundabout way to strike his blow. Only a coward or a villain would take this method to arouse public curiosity, and ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... of him, of the night, of the inanimate and imponderable black walls, and of herself, were exquisitely and abnormally keen. She saw him there, bowed under his burden, gloomy and wroth and sick with himself because the man in him despised the coward. Men of his stamp were seldom or never cowards. Their lives did not breed cowardice or baseness. Joan knew the burning in her breast—that thing which inflamed and swept through her like a wind of fire—was hate. Yet her heart held a grain of pity for him. She measured his forbearance, his struggle, ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... interjected Le Gardeur. "I am a coward when I think of her, and I shame to come into ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... report, saw the flash of the little weapon, saw the two holes in the carven woodwork, and gained a greater, hysterical courage—the courage of a coward's desperation. ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... look at Nan again. Bess was crying frankly, with her gloved hands before her face. "Oh, Nan! Nan!" she sobbed. "I didn't do a thing, not a thing. I didn't even hang to the tail of your skirt as you told me. I, I'm an awful coward." ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... you!" he cried, as he came suddenly upon Mark leaning back in a niche, and who looked first white, then scarlet. "What do you mean? Hiding, like the sneaking coward ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... won't be caught," she answered, gayly. "'Tis only your laggards and cowards that are caught, and Lord Farquhart has proved himself no coward. What can you ask of fortune if you'll not trust the jade? How can you look for luck when you're blind to everything save ill luck? Trust fortune! Trust to luck! And trust to me, to Lady Barbara Farquhart that'll ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... is usually a coward at heart. The sinking of unarmed merchant ships and of hospital ships by the German U-boats, the bombing of undefended towns and hospitals, and the firing upon Red Cross workers were acts of brutes and cowards. So it ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... one, 'You coward!' But the Englishman stepped forward, a fixed look in his blue eyes. He took his place without a word. I read in his drawn white face that he had made up his mind to the worst, and his courage so won my admiration ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... at heart he was more or less of a coward. He tried to retreat, and as Jack's father followed him up he mumbled some words about there being a mistake and that he had not meant to say just what Jack's ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... and explained that Speke had given that number of presents, whereas I had only given ten, the latter figure being carefully exemplified by ten pieces of straw; he wished to know 'why I did not give him the same number as he had received from Speke?' This miserable, grasping, lying coward is nevertheless a king, and the success of ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... vigorously against the proposal to make a human pin-cushion of him, whereupon the Sultan, his suspicions now confirmed, gave him his choice between being impaled upon a stake, a popular Turkish pastime of the period, or of renouncing Judaism and accepting the faith of Islam. Preferring to be a live coward to an impaled martyr, he chose the latter, yet such was his influence with the Jews that thousands of his adherents voluntarily embraced the religion of Mohammed. The Dounme of Salonika are the descendants of ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... why could not he redress himself like other injured men? If revenge were necessary to him, why could he not avenge himself like a man, instead of leaguing with others to commit murder in the dark, like a coward and a felon? And then he thought of his position with Keegan and Ussher. There was something manly in his original disposition; he would have given anything for a stand up fight with the attorney with equal weapons; if it had been sure death ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... the gable window of the Trumans' quarters, shook a hard-clinching Irish fist and showered malediction after the swiftly speeding ambulance. "Wan 'o ye," she sobbed, "dealt Pat Mullins a coward and cruel blow, and I'll know which, as soon as ever that poor bye can spake the truth." She would have said it to that hated Frenchwoman herself, had not mother and mistress both forbade her leaving the room until ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... dropping behind in the darkness? Was he ashamed to face her—or angered by the reminder of her existence? No doubt it seemed to him now a monstrous absurdity that he should ever have said he loved her! He despised her—thought her a base and coward soul. Very likely he would make it up with Mary Lyster now, accept her ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "Strike me, coward! I am a woman! Have me arrested, have me guillotined, Cain! I am your sister,"—and Julie spat in ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... to run away so soon than to be killed? Is there any bravery in staying in a place where you are likely to be murdered by some coward?" ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... frightened faces. Gladys caught the word "dead" and her heart turned to water within her. The horror of the afternoon's experience had made her see herself in her true light and she was overwhelmed with shame at the sight. This Sahwah whom she had twitted as being a coward and a baby because she would not break her word, was made of the stuff that heroes are made of, and had probably given her brave life to save her worthless one. Looking back over the weeks she had spent in camp, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... I could only meet Don Pike and swell up his eyes for him," he continued to growl. "But the coward has sloped." ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... discomfort, impeded or heightened circulation, perhaps the irritation of a nervous thread, a slight congestion, a small disturbance in the imperfect and delicate functions of our living machinery, can turn the most lighthearted of men into a melancholy one, and make a coward of the bravest! Then, I go to bed, and I wait for sleep as a man might wait for the executioner. I wait for its coming with dread, and my heart beats and my legs tremble, while my whole body shivers beneath the warmth of the bedclothes, until the moment when I ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... first is to give me a bit of a hint whenever you see me—what I suppose I ought to call acting like a moral coward." ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... Rodin, who had approached hastily, as if to interpose. "It is not worth while chastising a wretch," said M. Hardy; "But I will press your honest hand, sir—for you have had the courage to unmask a traitor and a coward." ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... for the act I am committing, which you may think is the act of a coward, and try to think as well of me as you possibly can. ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... fellow-soldiers, the sound of the triumphant bells, was plunged all at once into the indolence, the intrigues, the busy nothingness of the Court, in which whispering favourites surrounded a foolish young prince, beguiling him into foolish amusements, alarming him with coward fears. Wise men and buffoons alike dragged him down into that paltry abyss, the one always counselling caution, the other inventing amusements. "Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die." Was it worth while to lose everything that was enjoyable in the present moment, to subject a young ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... Committee which had been formed for the celebration of Liszt's Artist-Jubilee in November 1873 at Budapest, had in their name invited Liszt to take part in this.] Nevertheless I could not suit myself to the role of a coward; I will therefore endeavor to surmount my fear and to make myself worthy to share with my brave compatriots in the joy they have ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... never did a man's heart more fail him than did mine at this conjuncture. I made the' effort, however, and stammered out certain unmeaning commonplaces. Inez replied, and I felt myself conversing with the headlong recklessness of one marching to a scaffold, a coward's fear at his heart, while he essayed to ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... Tristram, that is the worshipfullest knight that now is living, and all knights speak of him worship; and for jealousness of his queen he hath chased him out of his country. It is pity, said Sir Lamorak, that ever any such false knight-coward as King Mark is, should be matched with such a fair lady and good as La Beale Isoud is, for all the world of him speaketh shame, and of her worship that any queen may have. I have not ado in this matter, said King Mark, neither nought will I speak thereof. Well said, said ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... the brave, Who in Pomfret shot the wolf in the cave; And by her ears did draw her out,— I am no coward, ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... getting a bullet put into you in the most gentlemanly way possible, and call it receiving satisfaction,—very satisfactory, certainly. Well, sir, you shall soon have my answer: no man can call George Lawless a coward; if he did, he'd soon find his eyesight obscured, and a marked alteration in the general outline of his features; but I never have fought a duel, and I never mean to fight one. If I've smashed your panels, or done you any injury, I am willing ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... yourself, you could not love me more; perhaps less. Women like to feel their superiority; you are as clever as I am, and have more judgment; you are generous, and I am selfish; honourable, and I am a villain; brave, and I am a coward; rich, and I am poor. Let that satisfy you, and do not trample on the fallen;' and Fakredeen took her hand and bedewed it with ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... till to-morrow," replied the child, "Valence will think me a coward." Then shaking his head, "It is too long till to-morrow." And ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... passed, One look upon her shrinking lover cast That seared his coward heart for many a day, Into the deepest woods she took her way. The dance was soon resumed, and as she fled, Like hollow laughter chasing overhead, Pursued the music and the maidens' song. Just as she passed from sight an ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... a father but hostility?" said Elinor, bitterly. "You are a coward, like all your sex," she added, turning to Douglas. Then she suddenly opened the door, and passed out through it with Marian, whilst the housemaids fled upstairs, the footman shrank into a corner of the landing, and the page hastily dragged the ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... haunted us like a ghost in whom we could not quite believe. An aristocrat like Palmerston, loving freedom and hating the upstart despotism, must have looked on at its cold brutality not without that ugly question which Hamlet asked himself—am I a coward? ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... therefore with the habits of perfected Self-Mastery and Courage and the rest of the Virtues: for the man who flies from and fears all things, and never stands up against anything, comes to be a coward; and he who fears nothing, but goes at everything, comes to be rash. In like manner too, he that tastes of every pleasure and abstains from none comes to lose all self-control; while he who avoids all, as do the dull and clownish, ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... little remained except her son John, who, by the unanimous voice of his family, his friends, his enemies, and even his admirers, achieved a reputation for excelling in every form of twelfth-century crime. He was a liar and a traitor, as was not uncommon, but he was thought to be also a coward, which, in that family, was singular. Some redeeming quality he must have had, but none is recorded. His mother saw him running, in his masculine, twelfth-century recklessness, to destruction, and she made a last and a characteristic effort to save him and Guienne by a treaty of amity with the French ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... tell what she said as she raved there. She wept and sobbed, flinging reproaches—at the dead! She scolded, as one reproves a child that has cut itself with a knife. She asked why he did this. And again she heaped grave calumny upon him, called him coward, wretch, threatened him with God, with God's wrath, and with eternal damnation;—then asked pardon of him, babbled out words of conciliation, called him back, called him dear, sweet, and good; related to him what a faithful, dear, loving wife waited at home, with his two sweet children,—how could ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... follow will stamp him as an ungrateful master, and drive every honest man to abandon his service. No wonder that the King seemed "very much troubled." He pleaded the power of Parliament, and how he was "at their mercy." Clarendon could only advise him not to act the coward. He had a warning in the fate of Richard II. of what faint- heartedness in a King might bring. In his last thrust Clarendon forgot—as he himself admits—the bounds of prudence. "In the warmth of this relation, he found a seasonable opportunity to mention the Lady with some reflections ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... after vainly attempting to quell the disturbance, fell powerless and half-fainting on the steps. "Sheriff," shouted the judge, "clear the court!" It was easier said than done. Five hundred determined men are not to be thwarted by a coward, and such the sheriff proved. It was a trying moment. The life of Smith per se was not worth saving, but the dignity of the court must be upheld, and Douglas saw at a glance that he had but a moment in which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... night and danger, and I was not here to protect and save her. She dies a victim to her love, but she shall not perish alone. One same night will see the end of both lovers. Come, ye lions, and devour me too, 'tis my one prayer. Yet 'tis a coward's part to pray for death when his ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... injurious insect. The teacher, by exercising proper control of the collecting, has an efficient means of teaching the sacredness of life. The fact should be emphasized that killing even an insect, when there is no good reason for doing so, is the act of a mean and selfish coward. ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... right hand of mine; I grudge thee this quick-beating heart; They never gave me coward sign, Nor played me once ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... horse the Greeks and Germans in one band. Soon all through the camp the knights are arming and mounting. Meanwhile Cliges is hotly pursued by his enemy, all armed and with helmet closed. Cliges, who never wished to be numbered among the coward and craven-hearted, notices that he comes alone. First, the knight challenged him, calling him "fellow," unable to conceal his rage: "Young fellow," he cried, "thou shalt leave me here a pledge for my lord whom thou hast ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... Camden, in South Carolina. How the bitter words of General Charles Lee, "Beware lest your Northern laurels change to Southern willows," must have rung in his ears! Gates fled from Camden like the commonest coward in the army. Mounted on a fast horse, he did not stop until he reached Charlotte, seventy ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... a liar—a liar!" he shrilled. "He's a liar and a bully and a coward. He'd—he'd be a murderer if he dared—but he daren't." And his face dropped on his arms folded on his crutch, and he broke into a passion of crying. Then Betty knew she might go to him. She went and knelt down and put ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of thing I don't understand. But I only wanted to know it was not cowardice; I could not make an apology to a coward." ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... what way, they might avenge themselves for their heavy loss. Said the host, their lord, did he let the guest, whom he held there captive, and who had smitten his son to death, depart in safety, "Men would say I were but a coward, and durst not avenge myself, and would speak scorn of me; so many have seen how the matter fell out that it may not well remain hidden. Yet should I slay my guest then from henceforward would they cry shame upon me in every land where ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... madness. I was a coward and I thought then there were reasons why I should feel no pity for Dyck Calhoun. His father injured mine—oh, badly! But I was a coward, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... No one thinks you a coward, but that's not the point. Ask Denisov whether it is not out of the question for a cadet to demand satisfaction ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... ran out to get the hotel register, and he angrily thrust it under the nose of the coward, daring him to deny his having dictated: Captain P—— C——, with M. and Madame Casanova. The scoundrel answered that his words had certainly not been heard rightly, and the incensed landlord slapped the book in his face ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Idernes who gained his advancement through courage and skill in war. Let him therefore come out together with the lord who named me a liar, armed with swords only, and I, who being a liar must also be a coward, together with my servant, a black dwarf, will meet them man to man in the sight of both the armies, and fight them to the death. Or if it pleases Idernes better, let him not come and I will seek him and kill him in the battle, or by ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... anywise pleasant in thine eyes, restrain Oinomaos' bronze spear, and send me unto Elis upon a chariot exceeding swift, and give the victory to my hands. Thirteen lovers already hath Oinomaos slain, and still delayeth to give his daughter in marriage. Now a great peril alloweth not of a coward: and forasmuch as men must die, wherefore should one sit vainly in the dark through a dull and nameless age, and without lot in noble deeds? Not so, but I will dare this strife: do thou give the ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... ill-grounded diffidence of his men, he neglected to attack Albemarle; an easy enterprise, by which he might both have acquired credit, and have supplied himself with arms. Lord Gray, who commanded his horse, discovered himself to be a notorious coward; yet such was the softness of Monmouth's nature, that Gray was still continued in his command. Fletcher of Salton, a Scotchman, a man of signal probity and fine genius, had been engaged by his republican principles in this ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... there is; and the best game of all will be neck and crop for that young scamp. A bully, a coward, a puling milksop, is all the character he beareth. He giveth himself born airs, as if every inch of the Riding belonged to him. He hath all the viciousness of Yordas, without the pluck to face it out. A little beast that hath the venom, without ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... trial to make of this officer, of this brave fellow who accompanies me, and whose courageous resistance makes me very happy; for it denotes an honest man, who, though an enemy, is a thousand times better than a complaisant coward. Let us try to learn from him what his instructions are, and what ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... assumed a Cornelia expression that almost daunted poor Joyce, who was half a coward at heart, anyhow, so she ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... another rascal a superstitious coward in the face of impending death, was seeking to appease the sting of his conscience by doing everything in his power to make amends in these grave moments. He stood by, pallid-faced yet collected enough ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... him that he would not advise him to try to fight, but if he insisted, he would try to give him satisfaction. Nothing came of the discussion, however, as Robards seemed willing to take Jackson's advice and did not dare to strike him. But the coward continued to abuse his wife, and insulted Jackson at every opportunity. The result was that the young lawyer ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... I think you are out of your senses, Katherine! If I were to be such a miserable coward as to go on my knees to Peter and his damned crew, do you suppose I should ever know an hour's peace of ...
— An Enemy of the People • Henrik Ibsen
... courtier.] He is not the sinner. [Discovers Sansthanaka.] Ah, here is the sinner. Well, you brother-in-law to the king, Sansthanaka, you scoundrel, you coward, this is perfectly proper, isn't it? Charudatta the good is a poor man now—true, but are not his virtues an ornament to Ujjayini? And so men break into his house ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... adobe. There he closed the door, as though he feared intrusion. The old restlessness coming over him, he paced up and down the narrow, cagelike room. Presently he approached a tiny mirror that hung upon the wall, and stood looking into it intently. "Fool!" he muttered. "Liar, and fool, and coward—you, you! You'll take care of Tom, will you? But who'll take care ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... particular account, but Welsh we have met before. Though he had been under denunciation as a rebel ever since the Pentland rising (in which he had, indeed, borne no part), he had never given his voice for war; and, though assuredly neither a coward nor a trimmer, had always kept from any active share in the proceedings of his more tumultuous brethren. His plan, and the plan of the few who at that time and place were on his side, was temperate and reasonable. They asked for no more than they were willing to give. Against the King, his ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... not what you came into this room to announce to me, Alice. So please say whatever it is you wish and be through. I am going out for a little walk before lunch." In any event Sally was no coward! ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... "Then" she said, "the coward spoke." She added, "I guess the only way is for you to make her leave. There's nothing in her for ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... notwithstanding his passion, which was raised to the utmost by the calm and pointed remarks of this observing Christian, thought it most prudent to dismiss the father, on account of the nearly murdered child. His coward soul trembled for the consequences which might ensue; fear is inseparable from little minds; and this dastardly pampered priest experienced its effects so far as to induce him to assume the appearance of that he was an utter ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... "Ah, coward! you beg, you solicit for the fruits of my bad conduct—that is what they call a man! I have ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... father—old, silent, unforgiving—passed before her eyes; her mother—patient, long-suffering—who had made one sacrifice after another to keep her in this school, far beyond her means. The vision of those faces settled Joy's mind—made a coward of her. Her disgrace should not touch them. She would not acknowledge the book, no matter what came! Blue Bonnet Ashe could disclaim any knowledge of it. She was innocent—could prove that she was. If she, herself, kept still, ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... dressed, and as some blown sand had drifted over his boots and ankles I knew that he had been there for some hours. There was blood upon his collar, and the fingers of his right hand were tightly clenched. I told myself that I was a coward, and I set my teeth. I must lift his head from the water, and cover him up with my own coat while I fetched help. But when I stooped down a deadly faintness came over me. My fingers were palsied with horror. I had a sudden irresistible ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... bravest, You sought honors more than love; Dear, I weep, yet I am not a coward; My heart weeps for thee— My heart ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... Pointer know disgrace, Thwarting the gen'ral instinct of his race; E'en so the MASTIFF, or the meaner Cur, At times will from the path of duty err, (A pattern of fidelity by day; By night a murderer, lurking for his prey); And round the pastures or the fold will creep, And, coward-like, attack the peaceful sheep: Alone the wanton mischief he pursues, Alone in reeking blood his jaws imbrues; Chasing amain his fright'ned victims round, Till death in wild confusion strews the ground; Then wearied out, ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... thought, for they attached him to something in his base career which had been noble. So careful was he, so fearful of facing eternity and judgment—if drown he must—without them, that, although the time was short and the danger instant, and the man by this time a coward, he had stripped off oilskin coat and pea-jacket to indue them again and button them ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... "You filthy coward, Race! Six years hiding in the Terran zone. Six years, and I gave you six months! If you'd had the guts to walk out after me, after I rigged that final deal to give you the chance, we could have gone ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... suppose he's a coward to ask a woman to share— But it wouldn't be for always. You believe ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... innocent, and yet you stand here idle while he is done to death!" she cried. "Oh, go—go quickly and tell them he is not to blame! Make them set him free!" She caught his arm and he felt her fingers shake. "Are you a coward, that you will listen to his cries when a word of yours could release him? I had not thought it of you—oh, I had not thought ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... the sons of the men of the Civil War, the sons of the men who had iron in their blood, rejoice in the present and face the future high of heart and resolute of will. Ours is not the creed of the weakling and the coward; ours is the gospel of hope and of triumphant endeavor. We do not shrink from the struggle before us. There are many problems for us to face at the outset of the twentieth century—grave problems abroad and still graver at home; but we know ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... to back out of it now?" exclaimed Enna, leaving her machine, and approaching him in sudden and violent anger. "You'd better take care, coward, they'll kill you if you turn traitor; and right ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... he said (for thus he always addressed his men), "the Dahcotahs are all braves; never has a coward been known among the People of the Spirit Lakes. Let the women and children fear their enemies, but we will face ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... Antony— Well, thou wilt have it,—like a coward, fled, Fled while his soldiers fought; fled first, Ventidius. Thou long'st to curse me, and I give thee leave. I know ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... those days, never to be recalled without a blush, the days of servitude without loyalty and sensuality without love, of dwarfish talents and gigantic vices, the paradise of cold hearts and narrow minds, the golden age of the coward, the bigot, and the slave. The king cringed to his rival that he might trample on his people, sank into a viceroy of France, and pocketed, with complacent infamy, her degrading insults, and her more degrading gold. ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... yesterday, when in a letter from Esterton he casually mentioned the matter, I did not know that Berry was in prison, else this letter would have been written sooner. I have been wanting to write it for so long, and yet have been too great a coward to do so. ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... very well, or you would not have got her to believe you. I've met some bad 'uns in my time, Heyton; but, upon my word, I think you're the very worst of the lot. You're black rotten, through and through. And yet you've got a decent girl not only to believe in you, but to marry you—a liar, a coward, and ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... will help me get rid of them. There's something else, something more serious, more uncanny. It terrifies me. I feel that I'm in the power of some supernatural being who takes a fiendish delight in torturing me. I'm not a coward, Dr. Owen," Penelope lifted her head proudly, "for I truly have no fear of real danger that I can see and face squarely, but the unseen, the unknown——" She broke off suddenly, a strained, listening look on her face. Then she shivered though the glowing ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... sooner entered the mind of Mr. Harley than he dismissed them as offering no solution of his perils. He had felt, rather than seen, the barbarism of Storri beneath the tissue of what that nobleman would have styled his elegant refinement. Storri was a coward, and therefore Storri was malignant; he had shown, as he went promising disgrace to Mr. Harley, that petulance of evil which is remarked in savages and cruel children. Storri was dominated of a passion for revenge; under sway of that passion no chance of money-loss would stay him; he ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... familiar white hair. Of all the people on Yellow Creek this was the man he least wanted to see at the moment. But he was shrewd enough to avoid any sign of open antagonism. He knew well enough that Moreton Kenyon was neither a fool nor a coward. He knew that to openly measure swords with him was to challenge a man of far superior intellect and strength, and the issue was pretty sure to go against him. Besides, this man they affectionately called the Padre had the ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... than the hairs which grow upon my aching head I would meet them, embrace them, to save Saronia one pang of grief or pain. Nevertheless, I thank thee for thy kindly counsel, but the mind of the Greek is made up. If she suffer, I suffer with her. If she die, Chios dies. Not as the coward dies—I will die trying to save her life. No threats, no danger, no death will stop me. I am fixed to this purpose. I know she is as pure as heaven, and honoured from thence. Were Chios half so holy he ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... away without turning his head. He was stinging with humiliation; an angry voice inside him kept telling him that he was a coward, that he should make some futile gesture of protest. Grotesque pictures of revolt flamed through his mind, until he remembered that when he was very small, the same tumul- tuous pride had seethed ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... completely and confessed everything she had hidden in the garden at Luciennes. On her way to the scaffold, she was a most pitiable sight to behold—the only prominent French woman, victim of the Revolution, to die a coward. The last words of this once famous and popular mistress were: "Life, life, leave me my life! I will give all my wealth to the nation. Another minute, hangman! A moi! A moi!" and the heavy iron cut short her pitiful ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... Grettir was thrown. Audun then set his knees on his stomach and dealt unmercifully with him. Atli and Bersi and a number of the others ran up and separated them. Grettir said they need not hold him like a mad dog, and added: "The thrall alone takes instant vengeance, the coward never." ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... any difference if you didn't; you're a thief just the same!" screamed Chatterer and rushed at Happy Jack. And what do you think Happy Jack did? Why, he just turned tail and ran, Chatterer after him, crying "Thief! Robber! Coward!" at the top of his lungs, so that every one in the Green ...
— Happy Jack • Thornton Burgess
... the sin away from love to him, and not from any selfish or worldly motive. This state of active cooperation with the Lord is something very different from that into which one falls who is the subject of religious fear, and cannot exist in company with it. The religious coward can only overcome his fear by remembering that God is not a tyrant who demands impossibilities of his slaves, but a Father of infinite love, who would make his children eternally happy; and who, in order that they may become so, gives them every means and every aid that they will ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... your money, your power, to escape ze war? So! You are not only a skindler, but a coward. While my frand fight, you stay to home, to torture ze woman, H'm! I see it ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne
... he say, But the cheek of Argyle grew ghastly pale, And he turned his eyes away. The painted harlot by his side, She shook through every limb, For a roar like thunder swept the street, And hands were clenched at him; And a Saxon soldier cried aloud, "Back, coward, from thy place! For seven long years thou hast not dared To look him in ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... withal the Creoles are such gamblers, they never cheat; they play absolutely fair. So Agricole had to challenge the planter. He could not be blamed for that; there was no choice—oh, now, Frowenfeld, keep quiet! I tell you there was no choice. And the fellow was no coward. He sent Agricole a clear title to the real estate and slaves,—lacking only the wife's signature,—accepted the challenge and fell dead ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... came to him in vowing to himself that he would stand by that boy through thick and thin, and cheer him, and help him, and bear his burdens, for the good deed done that night. Then he resolved to write home next day and tell his mother all, and what a coward her son had been. And then peace came to him as he resolved, lastly, to bear his testimony ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... that you are no coward, Christy, and if you don't send a shot into the Vampire, it will not be because you ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... seemed to fall over every thing. It was not so much that I was afraid to die,—although I did dread the final conflict,—as that I felt so forsaken and lonely. It was of little use saying to myself that I mustn't be a coward, and that it was the part of a man to meet his fate, whatever it might be, with composure; for I saw nothing worth being brave about: the heart had melted out of me; there was nothing to give me joy, nothing ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... not destined that evening to please his great-grandmother, for he had no sooner got well into the spirit of his play in the gallery than he began to sing. "I'm a coward at songs," she would sometimes say; "and if it wasn't for the dear birds; I could wish there was ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... likewise a cautious one. He knew where to send an answer to this epistle, and he sent it: "You are brave men, and I thank you. I do not fear Tumbaga, for he is a coward. How can you keep among you a man who would shoot another in the back?" Just look at that for slyness! And the message had the effect he desired and expected. Some brave bandit got behind a tree a couple of weeks afterward ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... proof against the scorn and hate of a woman. Only greater power than his own could make him feel. Her powerlessness maddened her—her powerlessness contrasted with his remorseless strength. But he used his strength like a coward. ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... of him, dad, sometimes. He is so dreadfully jealous, and he has no right whatever to be jealous of me, for we were never engaged. And then there is another thing that is an absolute bar to my marrying him, though I fear I am too much of a coward to tell him so; he is a Roman Catholic. And whenever I think of that I remember the awful tragedy of the ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... she to do? She, a coward par eminence, known to be the most timorous of the whole family; her tremors at all sorts of imagined dangers affording laughter to the flock of sisters and brothers. Should she stay on her knees after having seen ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... was a coward, with all his brawn and inches; for he dared not protest straight-forwardly that all was not settled. He certainly told himself that he did not know what to do, but he also told himself that he would be a ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... all our goodly train How few will find our banquet hall! Yet why with coward lips complain That this must lean ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... poor creature didn't get out fast enough to suit you—and you bewildered her with your shouting till she didn't know which way to turn—you jabbed her with the pitchfork. I saw the blood! And I say nobody but an out and out coward would do a thing like that to a ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
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