"Shift" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pound me; and, standing at four corners, they commended me to think of becoming a jelly. Four though they were, they kept their positions; they left it to me to rush in for a close; the hinder ones held out of arms' reach so long as I was disengaged. I had perpetually to shift my front, thinking—Oh, for a stick! any stout bit of timber! My fists ached, and a repetition of nasty dull knocks on back and neck, slogging thumps dealt by men getting to make sure ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... them, troops were compelled to depend for subsistence, in a great measure, upon the country immediately about their cantonments, and as they exhausted the surplus provisions in different neighborhoods, they would shift their encampments. This was owing to the great lack of wheel transportation. It was very difficult to procure wagons, except by purchase or impressment from the citizens, and those so gotten were of course inferior. Much less inconvenience ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... ashamed. And although I Gnash my teeth when I look in your French or your English papers, What is the good of that? Will swearing, I wonder, mend matters? Cursing and scolding repel the assailants? No, it is idle; No, whatever befalls, I will hide, will ignore or forget it. Let the tail shift for itself; I will bury my head. And what's the Roman Republic to me, or I to the Roman Republic? Why not fight?—In the first place, I haven't so much as a musket; In the next, if I had, I shouldn't know how I should use it; ...
— Amours de Voyage • Arthur Hugh Clough
... in Wall Street. His father's brother, James, offered to take him in with him to buy and sell stocks and gold, to watch the market, to touch little unseen springs, to put the difference into his own pocket every time the tide of value shifted, or could be made to seem to shift. He might have been one of James R. Kincaid and Company. He would have none of it. He told his uncle plainly that he wanted real work; that he had not come back from fighting to—well, there he stopped, for he ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... their hands in time, the Turk would never have taken any one of all those places. But partly because of dissensions fallen among ourselves, and partly because no man careth what harm other folk feel, but each part suffereth the other to shift for itself, the Turk has in a few years wonderfully increased and Christendom on the other hand very sorely decayed. And all this is worked by our wickedness, with which God ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... black Misfortune beckons When upon himself he reckons, Marshals Faith among his assets, Blinks his nature's many facets. This dull gem is an ascetic, Bloodless, pulseless, apathetic: Shift the light—a trifling matter— Fra Anselmo turns a ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... lead to wider hostilities that would disrupt vital capital inflows. Furthermore, the gap between rich and poor has widened since HARIRI took office, resulting in grassroots dissatisfaction over the skewed distribution of the reconstruction's benefits and leading the government to shift its focus from rebuilding ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... name enriches not himself, but renders me poor indeed,' or words to that effect. Keep in mind that scarcely any change would be agreeable to you at first, from the sudden transition, and from never having been accustomed to shift or rough it; and, moreover, that if you meet with collegiate fare, it will be unmanly to complain. My paper reminds me it is ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... note: the shift from Bonn to Berlin will take place over a period of years, with Bonn retaining many administrative functions and several ministries even after ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... the sea; old age brings me reproach; I used to wear a shift that was always new; to-day, I have not even a ...
— The Kiltartan Poetry Book • Lady Gregory
... 1759, a certain Mrs. Hammokes was accused of witchcraft, and her husband demanded the "trial by the church Bible." So "she was solemnly conducted to the parish church, where she was stript of all her clothes to her shift, and weighed against the great parish Bible in the presence of all her neighbours. The result was that, to the no small mortification of her accuser, she outweighed the Bible, and was triumphantly acquitted of ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... incapacity resulting in pauperism and invalidism, which must be cared for. To put it briefly, it is far more dangerous to the state to tell the individual that he shall be taken care of than to tell him that he must shift for himself. As for the effect upon the individual, it is a lowering medicine, making the patient gradually dependent upon the drug, and bringing him finally to the incurable invalidism of surly apathy. To change Patrick Henry's fiery peroration slightly: ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... inform you that you are wanted to assist in looking up a case of importance, which will require all the attention of an experienced member of the force. The matter of the robbery on which you are now engaged you will please to shift over to the young man who brings you this letter. You will tell him all the circumstances of the case, just as they stand; you will put him up to the progress you have made (if any) toward detecting the person or persons by whom the money has been stolen; and you will leave him to make the ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... also been working in the Keswick lead-pencil factory for a weekly wage of twelve shillings. The philosopher did not much like this lowering of dignity, and said so mildly. This led to the truthful explanation that he had hardly done his duty by his family in allowing them to shift for themselves or be cared for by kinsmen; and therefore advice from him was out of place. In short, Southey intimated that while he would care for his sisters-in-law he drew the line at brothers-in-law. And Samuel Taylor Coleridge drifted up to London ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... sinews of the caribou—Donald strung the defective toe, and then made a not very successful shift at tightening the center webbing of askimoneiab, or heavy, membranous moose filling. The mending of his clothes was a comparatively simple matter by means of ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... pulled down with the one hand, at any rate, tried hard to build up with the other; but the people of Greyshot caused in a great degree the ruin and down fall, and then exclaimed, "How shocking!" and turned their backs, thinking to shift their blame on to the ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... materials in your hands. Nobody else ever stood in your particular place or ever will stand in one identical; nobody ever has or can possess the same materials. You alone can fuse the elements. Hold your place; do not try to shift into the place that another occupies. Keep your eye on what you have to work with, not on what somebody else has. The ultimate result, the originality, flavor, distinction, usefulness of your life, depend on the care, the reverence, and the intelligence with which you work up and out from where ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... could distinguish some large object upon the camel's back, that was steadied by two men, one of whom walked on either side. I had a foreboding that something was wrong, and in a few minutes I clearly perceived a man lying upon a make-shift litter, carried by the camel, while the Sheik Abou Do and Suleiman accompanied the party upon horseback; a third led ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... no matter for that. There was an ugly look with Matthews from the first; and I found, the day we took her, something odd in the look of her stern. The rascals had done their best to paint over her name; but I, though no great scholar, made a shift to spell the Lively Peggy through it all. We have the mate in limbo at Plymouth: but it's all come out, without any more to do; and, mistress, I'll get you her bill of lading in a trice, and I give ye joy with ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... in burrows, making the entrance under water, and working upwards, making a small hole for the ventilation of their chamber. The female has about four or five young ones at a time, after a period of gestation of about nine weeks, and the mother very soon drives them forth to shift ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... neither find them nor any of the rest, for they all fled into the woods when they saw the boat coming on shore. The mate was once resolved, in justice to their roguery, to have destroyed their plantations, burned all their household stuff and furniture, and left them to shift without it; but having no orders, he let it all alone, left everything as he found it, and bringing the pinnace way, came on board without them. These two men made their number five; but the other three villains were so much more wicked than ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... to present the linen to the first femme de chambre, who, in her turn, handed it to the Princess of the blood. Each of these ladies observed these rules scrupulously as affecting her rights. One winter's day it happened that the Queen, who was entirely undressed, was just going to put on her shift; I held it ready unfolded for her; the dame d'honneur came in, slipped off her gloves, and took it. A scratching was heard at the door; it was opened, and in came the Duchesse d'Orleans: her gloves were taken off, and she came forward to take the ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... the fleet obedience was out of the question. Nelson acknowledged, but refused to repeat the order, and, jocularly placing his glass to his blind eye, declared that he could not see the signal. At length the British cannonade told. Fischer, the Danish commander, had had to shift his flag twice, at the second time to the Trekroner, and all the ships south of that battery had either ceased fire or were practically helpless. The Trekroner, however, was still unsubdued and rendered it impossible for Nelson's squadron to retire, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... face forward and shook his open hand, bent like a claw, under Mr. Polly's nose. "Not your blooming business," he said. "You got to shift." ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... Imperial Finance reform has shown how party interests and selfishness rule the national representation; it was not pleasant to see how each tried to shift the burden to his neighbour's shoulders in order to protect himself against financial sacrifices. It must be supposed, therefore, that similar efforts will be made in the future, and that fact must be reckoned with. But a considerable and rapid rise of the Imperial ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... tramp of men. Slit-eyed Chinese with long pigtails Bearing oblong things upon their shoulders March slowly along the road to Longwood. Their feet fall softly in the dust of the road; Sometimes they call gutturally to each other and stop to shift shoulders. Four coffins for the little dead man, Four fine coffins, And one of them Captain Bennett's dining-table! And sixteen splendid Chinamen, all strong and able And of assured neutrality. Ah! George of England, Lord Bathhurst & Co. Your princely munificence ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... came to speech, we made shift to light our pipes; for the bo'sun had discovered a case of tobacco in the captain's cabin, and after this we came to the consideration ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... rose, with the water dripping from me, and having made shift to dry myself upon my neckcloth, nothing else being available, ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... September 1991, Lithuania has made steady progress in developing a market economy. Almost 50% of state property has been privatized and trade is diversifying with a gradual shift away from the former Soviet Union to Western markets. In addition, the Lithuanian government has adhered to a disciplined budgetary and financial policy which has brought inflation down from a monthly average of around 14% in first half ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... planted there for the succor of the world, shall in a few weeks be coldly set aside by the same speaker, as morbid; "I thought I was right, but I was not,"—and the same immeasurable credulity demanded for new audacities. If we were not of all opinions! if we did not in any moment shift the platform on which we stand, and look and speak from another! if there could be any regulation, any 'one-hour-rule,' that a man should never leave his point of view without sound of trumpet. I am always insincere, as always knowing there ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... part in it?" I pass over the surprising state of mind which could imagine a distinction between things necessary to be believed, and necessary to be done; and could conceive such a distinction to be according to the meaning of our article. It would appear that this shift has been since abandoned, and others, no way less extraordinary, have been attempted in its place; for an extraordinary process it must be which tries to reconcile Mr. Newman's opinions with the declaration of the sixth article. But now for Mr. Newman's scriptural ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... Who thief-like fled from his own church by night, No man pursuing. I would have had him back. Take heed he do not turn and rend you too: For whatsoever may displease him—that Is clean against God's honour—a shift, a trick Whereby to challenge, face me out of all My regal rights. Yet, yet—that none may dream I go against God's honour—ay, or himself In any reason, choose A hundred of the wisest heads from ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... thing to be made was a sieve, to part the grain from the husks. Goat's hair was of no use to me, as I could not weave or spin; so I made a shift for two years with a thin kind of stuff, which I had brought from the ship. But to grind the corn with the stones was the worst of all, such hard work did I find it. To bake the bread I burnt some wood down to an ash, which I threw on the hearth ...
— Robinson Crusoe - In Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... all point to the identity of this region with the Chingintalas of our text. The only alteration called for in the Itinerary Map (No. IV.) would be to spell the name Hinkin, or Ghinghin (as it is in the Geographic Text), and to shift it a very little further ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... broke something of its midnight fury went out of the gale. The carpenter made shift to sound the well, and to our great satisfaction found but little water, only as much as we had a right to suppose she would take in above. But it was impossible to stand at the pumps, so we returned to the cabin and brewed some cold ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... been people as have been able to subsist without their princes. The poverty of Virginia is such that the major part of the inhabitants can scarce supply their wants from hand to mouth, and many there are besides who can hardly shift without supply one year, and you may be sure that the people which so fondly follow you, when they come to feel the miserable wants of food and raiment, will be in greater haste to leave you than they were to come after ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker
... good morning, our niece," said Ermengarde, haughtily indeed, yet with more deference than she seemed at first to have intended, so much did the bearing of Eveline impose respect upon her;—"I find that you have been pleased to shift that chamber which was assigned you, in conformity with the ancient custom of this household, and betake yourself to ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... steer a ship becalmed; but he that will Govern her and carry her to her ends, must know His tides, his currents; how to shift his sails; What she will bear in foul, what in fair weathers; What her springs are, her leaks, and how to stop them; What strands, what shelves, what rocks to threaten her; The forces and the natures of all winds, Gusts, storms, and tempests; when her keel ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... Jim. I want to look at this automobile.... Yes, I know it is the sixth machine I've walked around in seven blocks, but what's time to a New Yorker on Saturday afternoon? This nifty little mile-eater has an electric gear shift, and I want to ask the chauffeur how he likes it. ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... for a holy man," said Metem, feigning amazement. "Well, Issachar, I will do most things for good money, but to shift that bandage would be but murder, and this I cannot work even for the gold and to ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... dress, a shimmy and draw's. That 'oman didn't care what happened to the niggers. Sometimes she would take us to church. We'd walk to the church house. Ah never went nowhere else. That 'oman took delight in sellin' slaves. She'd lash us with a cowhide whip. Ah had to shift ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... did now feel myself to sink into a gulph, as an house whose foundation is destroyed; I did liken myself in this condition, unto the case of some child that was fallen into a mill- pit, who though it could make some shift to scramble and sprawl in the water, yet because it could find neither hold for hand nor foot, therefore at last it must die in that condition. So soon as this fresh assault had fastened on my soul, that scripture came into my heart, This for many days. Dan. x. 14. And indeed I found ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... pitted like a colander, and who seemed to have been made on purpose to wait on Valerie, smiled meaningly in reply, and brought the dressing-gown. Valerie took off her combing-wrapper; she was in her shift, and she wriggled into the dressing-gown like a snake into a clump ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... fall into the hands of those who might bear him ill-will, made the best shift he could to passe through quietlie, yet were many of his servants made captive, and he himself came with but three men to Vienna. There causing his servants to provide meat for him more sumptuous and fine than was thought requisite for ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... he was not to blame for being President of the United States; that he had taken the oath of office, and was the man responsible to the people for the administration, and he could not, dare not, shift that obligation; and, more than that, he must give the "recognition" due friends to the men who had aided him in breaking down Mr. Conkling's policy at Chicago. If that was a crime he was a criminal. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... feathers dry and were ready to begin again. They had the fisherman's gift. The second, and even the third attempt might fail, but no matter; it was simply a question of time and patience. If the fish was caught, their first concern seemed to be to shift their hold upon it, till its head pointed to the front. That done, they shook themselves vigorously and started landward, the shining white victim wriggling vainly in the clutch of the talons. I took it for granted that they retired with their quarry to some ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... to do, and we can get along. We want work, not money," was the too frequent petition, for it was just this class of persons whom Mr. Chelm found it most difficult to assist. So many of them too were educated and intelligent young men and women, unaccustomed to hardships and to shift for themselves, driven out of work by the continued hardness of the times. For nearly five years business had been at a stand-still, Mr. Chelm told me, and as a consequence property had depreciated sadly in value, and an immense amount ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... set about changing his position with infinite labor. The left leg was helpless, and so was the right arm. Yet, after much labor, he managed to stuff a roll of the blankets into the corner and then shift himself until his back rested against this support. But his strength deserted him again. His pipe was dropped down in the left hand, ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... that there is nothing new to them in the whole history. Or what if it were a little insipid, there was no conjuring that I remember in "Pope Joan;" and the "Lancashire Witches" were without doubt the most insipid jades that ever flew upon a stage; and even these, by the favour of a party, made a shift to hold up their heads.[4] Now, if we have out-done these plays in their own dull way, their authors have some sort of privilege to throw the first stone; but we shall rather chuse to yield the point of dulness, than contend for it, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... is thus enabled to follow, and, if necessary, correct each one step by step. In this he is aided by the great powers of a mind that is able to free itself from absorbed concentration on the details of one problem, and instantly to shift over and become deeply and intelligently concentrated in another and entirely different one. For instance, he may have been busy for hours on chemical experiments, and be called upon suddenly to determine some mechanical questions. The complete and easy transition ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... She would consult Father Jean in the morning and take his advice. She had never seen such fine clothes. She took them off one by one, lovingly feeling their texture, and when she finally removed the last little shift and the little white thing lay exposed, Madame Lavigne sprang up with a cry and all but dropped it into the fire. For she saw by the mark that every Breton peasant knows that it was not a ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... tripped up the Stairs, And secretly to shift her Smock; But leard how loud her mother swears, O hast away Jenny, and ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... 1996, GDP showed negative growth (-1.4%) and remained negative through 1999. Serious problems include: high interest rates; increased foreign competition; the weak financial condition of business in general resulting in receiverships or closures and downsizings of companies; the shift in investment portfolios to non-productive, short-term high yield instruments; a pressured, sometimes sliding, exchange rate; a widening merchandise trade deficit; and a growing internal debt for government bailouts to various ailing sectors of the economy, particularly the financial ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... blessing, no doubt, for Lower Egypt, but a calamity for us, for during the night the river rose 2 feet, and overflowed its low, level banks. The water overran part of the camping ground, compelling many a drenched soldier to shift his quarters hurriedly. We got through the dark and troublous night somehow, though keenly vexed by the muttered discontent of the camels, and the persistent, blatant, variegated amorous braying of 500 donkeys. A cat upon the tiles, ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... felt that secret longing, that beckoning of the stars, but each time he had shelved the desire and turned to attaching his two wires of the tester to their proper terminals on each atomic engine, and then when his shift was up he turned homeward to face an existence ...
— The Odyssey of Sam Meecham • Charles E. Fritch
... considerable pain. Their skin and mucous membranes that were visible had a peculiar appearance. They had also comparatively little power over their limbs; so little, indeed, that they rested continually on one side, without the ability to shift their posture. When they were placed on their feet, their limbs gave way, and they fell the moment they were quitted. In despite of the care that was taken of them, they died on ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... and stump of sword clattered in the fireplace, whither she hurled it. A moment she caught her face in her hands, and a sob shook her almost fiercely. Then she came past his lordship, across the room to Mr. Caryll, Rotherby making no shift to ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... excites. This world must actually vanish very soon for each of us; and this is the point of view that counts with the Christian mind. Even if we consider posterity, the kingdoms and arts and philosophies of this world are short lived; they shift their aims continually and shift their substance. The prophecy of their destruction is therefore being fulfilled continually; the need of repentance, if one would be saved, is truly urgent; and the means of that salvation ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... many shifts whereby it striveth to keep itself alive in the world. And now hear a marvel: whereas thou sayest these two times that out of one man ye may get but one man's work, in days to come one man shall do the work of a hundred men—yea, of a thousand or more: and this is the shift of mastership that shall make many ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... lunch, we found that the surface became softer, and we were soon sinking to the knees at every step. The runners, too, sank till the decking rested on the snow, and it was as much as we could do to shift the sledge, with a series of jerks at every step. At 6 P.M. matters became desperate. We resolved to make a depot of everything unnecessary, and to relay ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... care, I go on to the next. I do not believe I am a real missionary, and I have a theory—it may not be a very noble one," and a soft color suffused her fine face, "that people who bring children into the world ought to be made to feel the responsibility of them and not shift them on society at large, trusting Providence ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... finest ships in the navy, had been taken in the battle of the 14th of February 1797; and, having since that period been almost constantly employed, was in need of a thorough repair. In February she became so leaky, that Sir James was obliged to shift his flag into the Prince of Wales, Captain Bedford, and send the San Josef into Plymouth to be repaired; and, it being ascertained that it would take more than a year before she could be ready, the officers and men were turned over to the Ville de ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... stopped, we had to shift the luggage to another coach. The driver, who was a slight man, was, for some time, looking rather puzzled at the trunks which lay on the road, and which he had to put on the coach: he tried to lift one of the largest, let it down again, ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... safety lieth rather in continuing forward. But see ye where this wide glade runneth down before us, and in the midst of it, these two score trees make like an island? There were their safety. An they but come sound as far as that, I will make shift to warn them. But my heart misgiveth me; they are but seven against so many, and they but carry crossbows. The long-bow, Jack, will have the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... whistled in the wind, Sometimes I angled, thought and deed Torpid, as swallows left behind That winter 'neath the floating weed: At will to wander every way From brook to brook my sole delight, As lithe eels over meadows gray Oft shift ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... thinking and shape them to lofty ideals. So will you infallibly, positively and immediately control your destiny. Control your thoughts and you can control the thoughts of all other men. The tone of your thoughts must always be lofty. You must change your Thought-Habits and shift your plane of consciousness from the lower to the higher life. I am going to give you hints ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... her daughter from out her market-basket. If they were a misfit, Fanny would have to suffer them as best she could. Or, in other cases, new shoes would be refused altogether, and she would be ordered to make shift with a pair her ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... Liverpool parson—very determined and very menacing. He had asked for the editor, but that gentleman had not yet come down, and the manager was the only person in authority visible, so he had to make shift with him. ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... of you: a little boy of eleven years, the son of Mr. **, my particular friend, is about to become an Etonian, and I should esteem any act of protection or kindness to him as an obligation to myself: let me beg of you then to take some little notice of him at first, till he is able to shift for himself. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... boat, never of the best material, was often sadly out of repair, and the boatmen were ready, when danger appeared, to throw themselves into the water and make for the shore, leaving the passengers to shift for themselves. There was, indeed, the pleasantness of sailing on a broad river; the air was very fresh; there was no leaving of the temporary abode from day to day; the trouble of a shifting camp was escaped, though occasionally there was inconvenience from the indispensable cook-boat not keeping ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... about the time when the war council rose after completing its plans, a sudden shift of the wind blew the poison gas out to sea, just when it appeared certain that it would reach the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... Dolly. "I've done all I can, anyhow. There isn't a thing to do now but hold her steady and trust to this shift of the wind to last long enough to ...
— A Campfire Girl's Happiness • Jane L. Stewart
... of prudence, and yet in this case, I've been fooled; so what shift shall avail unto me? If any could ease me of love and its stress, Of my might and my virtue I'd set myself free. But alas! my heart's lost in maze of desire, And no helper save God in my strait can ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the signal was given to change the motive power from the internal combustion engines to electricity, they could see the engine stop, and an attendant shift the clutch which engaged the electric motors. A dial swinging over a card alongside a pair of levers indicated the direction of movement, while another gave not only the inclination of the ship, but its ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward
... had arisen; but the surf continued to thunder upon the beach for many hours, while Emerson looked on with hopeless, sullen eyes. When at last they did set out—a week, to a day, from their arrival at Katmai—it was to find such a heavy sea running outside the capes that they had hard shift to make it back to the village, drenched, dispirited, and well-nigh dead from the cold and fatigue. Although Fraser had fully recovered from his collapse, he nevertheless complained upon every occasion, and whined loudly at every ache. He voiced his tortures eloquently, and bewailed the fate ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... passengers, and to take the vessel into Buenos Aires, or some other place on the banks of the River Plate. One of the men proposed killing them and throwing them overboard. Old Growles suggested that they should be put into a boat and allowed to shift for themselves, just as their officers were treated by the mutineers of the "Bounty." The boatswain said that he thought the best way of treating them would be to put them on shore on some desert island far-away to the ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... else; and if he was to go into orders, as he had some thoughts, he could get nothing but a curacy, and how was they to live upon that?—He could not bear to think of her doing no better, and so he begged, if she had the least mind for it, to put an end to the matter directly, and leave him shift for himself. I heard him say all this as plain as could possibly be. And it was entirely for her sake, and upon her account, that he said a word about being off, and not upon his own. I will take my oath he never dropt a syllable of ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... widout a shift to her back, and a betther husband never breathed the breath of life than I have been to her;" and then he paused, and pulling out his handkerchief, shed bitter tears. "I would love her still, if I could, sir; but, then, ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... wonder what's become of her!' she thought. 'He's dead, I expect, like Cyril!' She saw her father's face as he was marrying them, heard his voice: "For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do you part." And the moonlight on the Church seemed to shift and quiver-some pigeons perhaps had been disturbed up there. Then instead of that wedding vision, she saw Monsieur Barra, sitting on his chair, gazing at the floor, and Chica nursing her doll. "All mad, mademoiselle, a little mad. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... in the aristocratic class, which was still predominant although the growing importance of the House of Commons was tending to shift the centre of political gravity to a lower point, is, I think, sufficiently intelligible to be taken for granted. Pope, I have said, represents the literary version. The problem, then, is how this view of life is to be embodied in poetry. One answer is the Essay ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... the absence of the enemy's vessels, the enemy's guns on the Niagara shore were fixtures, unless the American army took possession of them. Between these various considerations Chauncey decided to shift the naval base from Black Rock to Erie; and he there assembled the materials for the two brigs, of three hundred tons each, which formed the backbone of Perry's squadron nine months later.[477] For supplies Erie depended upon Philadelphia and Pittsburg, there ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... little brandy mixed in a great deal of water, and then I made shift to tell him. Though faint, I was not confused, and I gave my story in brief, hurried, yet sufficient words. He made no sign till I mentioned the letter. Then ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... irritated beyond measure by its lack, painfully cognizant of its value. But he was too diffident to suggest a credit on the strength of the cheque which, upon reflection, he decided was merely delayed in the more or less uncertain mails. He could make shift with what he had for another month. Nor did he mention this slight difficulty ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... possessed, or a Chinese mirror which one had almost decided did not exist. Nor will they ever experience the joy of sudden decision in front of a picture by Matisse, which ends in the sale of a Delacroix. Nor can they feel the thrill which is part of the replacing of a make-shift rug by the rug of rugs (let us hope ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... rousing himself, "the dialogue is gay, the actors know their parts, the lights are brilliant; but—the scene—the scene cannot shift for me! Call it what you will, I am not deceived. I see the paint and the canvas, but—and yet, away these thoughts! Shall I fill ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a land of impermanence. Rivers shift their courses, coasts their outline, plains their level; volcanic peaks heighten or crumble; valleys are blocked by lava-floods or landslides; lakes appear and disappear. Even the matchless shape of Fuji, that snowy miracle ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... The cornstalks, stripped long since of fodder, stood with down-hanging ears like rows of soldiers at attention with knapsacks upon their lean backs. It was as if, overnight, Nature had suddenly got in a hurry to shift her scenes and change ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... man called upon his sweetheart, her parents sat in the presence of the two with apologetic eyes and presently disappeared leaving them alone together. When boys' and girls' parties were given in Caxton houses, parents went away leaving the children to shift for themselves. ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... pencil poised in air, grinned sympathetically. "It's sure a heavy load to carry," he observed solemnly. "How do you spell that second shift?" ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... generation of careless coloured folk must have been born and bred under its branches. When the soil became rank because of continuous residence and insects of diabolical activity pestered its occupants, the camp would shift to another site; but there existed proofs that the bin-gum-tree localised the thoughts of those aimless, unstable wanderers to whom a few bushes stuck in the sand as a screen from prevailing winds represent the home of the hour and all that the ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... and vigorous frame, lay stretched upon the straw. He was fully dressed even to his great riding-boots, and from the loose manner in which his back-and-breast hung now upon him, it would seem as if he had been making shift to divest himself of his armour, but had lacked the strength to complete the task. Beside him lay a feathered headpiece and a sword attached to a richly broidered baldrick. All about him the straw was clotted with brown, viscous patches of blood. The doublet which had been of ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... burning coals. As he gains on her, she casts behind her her gown, and bids him tear that. He seizes the gown and rives it to shreds, then again he pursues. This time she casts behind her her apron, next her petticoat, then her shift, and at last rums much in the condition in which she was born. Again the were-wolf approaches; she bounds out of the forest into a hay-field, and hides herself in the smallest heap of hay. Her father enters the field, runs howling about it in search of her, cannot find her, and begins ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... churches are full of soldiers. [Casts his eye round. And in the council-house, too, I observe, You're settled quite at home! Well, well! we soldiers Must shift and suit us in what way ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... employing a weapon to which women usually resort last. "You stand in the front and will not lead, you rouse men to deeds you will not do, you give men ideals in which you do not believe, and then you go back to the peace of your abbey of Clairvaux, and leave men to shift for themselves in danger and need. And if, perhaps, some trusting woman comes to you with overladen heart, you tell her that she is not in a state of grace. It must be easy to be a great man in ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... they were, the men set to work at once with their entrenching spades. It was in Egypt they had learnt the art of trench-making, but they found this rocky clay very different stuff to shift ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... a blighter like that to old Fritz's shells? We didn't shift when they was comin'. If you'll go, I'll go; ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... other obvious reasons, Lord Stanhope, though he had relieved Nuremberg of Kaspar (November 1831), and made ample provision for him, was deeply sceptical about his narrative. The town of Nuremberg had already tried to shift the load of Kaspar on to the shoulders of the Bavarian Government. Lord Stanhope did not adopt him, but undertook to pay for his maintenance, and left him, in January 1832, under the charge of a Dr. Meyer, at Anspach. He had a curator, and a guardian, ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... the roy, filled the camp, and the Hindoos began to disperse. The sultan entered the camp, and Dewul Roy's masters, hoping now for more valuable plunder than sugar-cane, hastened to join their own fronds, leaving him to shift for himself. Dewul Roy ran with his own troops, and about noon came up with some of his nobles, by whom he was recognised and received with great joy. His safety being made known, his army rallied into some order; but as he regarded the late accident as an ill omen, he ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... to hear it, sir,' replied the old man; 'I took a good deal o' pains with his eddication, sir; let him run in the streets when he was wery young, and shift for hisself. It's the only way to make a boy ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... female agents sent to cajole Paul I. during the latter part of his reign, was a Madame Bonoeil, whose real name is De F——-. When this unfortunate Prince was no more, most of the French male and female intriguers in Russia thought it necessary to shift their quarters, and to expect, on the territory of neutral Prussia, farther instructions from Paris, where and how to proceed. Madame Bonoeil had removed to Konigsberg. In the second week of May, 1801, when Duroc passed through ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... of her thoughts, she felt sure, could no longer be in Langres. Fortunately, one can shift his thought-scenes around the world in a twinkling. Paul, on the other hand, had spent some seven dragging hours on his journey ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... parliamentary troopers. The earl, of course, turned, and fled also: but his horse, jaded with the weight of dollars which he carried, refused to take the hill; so that the earl was fain to exchange with his attendant, leaving him with the breathless horse, and bag of silver, to shift for himself; which he is supposed to have done very effectually. Some of the dragoons, attracted by the appearance of the horse and trappings, gave chase to the smith, who fled up the Yarrow; but ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... we eleven—and two of us near death—were already half out of the body, for weariness and longing shift the mind from its moorings. I can hear yet Captain Bovill asking very gently of this greater treasure-house, and I can hear the priest, like one in a trance, speaking high and strange. 'It is the Mountain of God, he said, 'which lies a little way further. There may ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... living the life of a wild man of the woods in a savage, unfrequented region, while your state affairs are left to shift for themselves; and as for poor me, I am no longer master of my own limbs, but have to follow you about day after day in your chases after wild animals, till my bones are all crippled and out of joint. Do, my dear friend, let me have one ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... does their property pass out of the hands of the avaricious:—Because they are backward in paying the wages of their hired servants; because they altogether neglect their welfare; because they shift the yoke from themselves and lay the burden upon their neighbors; and because of pride, which is of itself as bad as all the rest put together; whereas of the meek it is written (Ps. xxxvii. n), "The ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... thousand acres of land, at the upset price of twenty shillings per acre. What has the purchaser obtained for this sum? One thousand acres of dense forest, to which there is no road. The one thousand pounds passes into the government chest, and the purchaser is no longer thought of; he is left to shift for himself and to make the ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... Beausejour there were no arms of war save such as Sir Lancelot had brought with him. Wherefore they made shift to fashion a harness out of kitchen gear, with a brazen platter for a breast-plate, and the cover of the greatest of all kettles for a shield, and for a helmet a round pot of iron, whereof the handle stuck down at Martimor's back like a tail. And for spear he got him a stout young fir-tree, the ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... forgetting my wounds, I tumbled from the horse, threw myself flat and drank and drank, more, I think, than ever I did before. Not in all my life have I tasted anything so delicious as was that long draught of water. When I had satisfied my thirst, I dipped my head and made shift to jerk my wounded arm into it, for its coolness seemed to still the pain. Presently Leo rose, the water running from his face and beard, and said—"What shall we do now? The river seems to be wide, over a hundred yards, and it is low, but there may be deep water in the ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... reach of the flames by the branch of the river upon the shore of which we were encamped, the heat had become so intense, that we were obliged to shift farther to the west. Except in the supply of arms and ammunition, we perceived that our booty was worth nothing. This Texian expedition must have been composed of a very beggarly set, for there was not a single yard of linen, nor a miserable worn-out ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... fair terms, beats him, and leaves him for dead in the lists. And though he manages to pay Rohart the Raven and his wife (who think to strip his body) in kind, he reaches Malpertuis dead-beat; and we feel that even his last shift and the faithful complaisance of Grimbart will never leave him quite ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... officer"; all which might be true, and yet in my humble opinion not quite so "satisfactory" as the answer which he afterwards gave to the Lieutenant Governor; for he might, I suppose, in an instant shift his station, and the soldiers, by a proper word of Command, might discharge their musquets without his falling a sacrifice or forfeiting the character of a soldier - Such a manner of reasoning upon their question, whether he intended ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... the swollen and discolored member with a grin. "Yis; ut'll be to-morry, all right. But 'tis a shame to waste so much toime. Av ye c'd git th' boss to put ye on noight shift icin' th' skidways, ye wudn't ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... both left home, too. Mr Snow did his best to make a farmer first of the one and then of the other, but he failed. To college they went in spite of poverty, and having passed through honourably, they went out into the world to shift for themselves. Norman writes hopefully from the far West. He is an engineer, and will be a rich man one day he confidently asserts, and his friends believe him ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... engine forward with a sudden grandeur of action that would certainly have sent that lady's heart into her throat. In a few seconds it reached and passed the place where the siding was connected with the main line, and where a pointsman stood ready to shift the points. Here the obedient spirit of the powerful steed was finely displayed. Will Garvie reversed the action of the engines by a process which, though beautifully simple and easily done, cannot be easily described. John let on a puff of steam, and the engine glided backwards as readily ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... the inside of Joseph Chestermarke's garden seized the detective. Near the door, partly overhanging the garden wall, partly overshadowing the path and the river-bank, was a tree: Starmidge, after listening carefully and deciding that no one was coming along the path, made shift to climb that tree, just then bursting into full leaf. In another minute he was amongst its middle branches, and peering inquisitively into the garden which lay between him and the gaunt ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... explaining the mysteries of great circle sailing, and why they had sailed due south, though the Mauritius was in the north-west, in order that they might catch the trade winds. Before reaching these there were days when the sailors did little else but shift the sails, trying to catch every breeze that fluttered about them, tacking all the while, with nothing to distract them but the monotonous albatross. The birds would come up the seas, venturing within a few yards of the vessel, and float away ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... clothes as long as they held together and looked pretty, without the least regard to their being many months out of fashion. Still, 500 pounds will not last two young people for ever; and they both knew, and Eliza felt as well, that they must shift for themselves in the end. She could quarter herself on Wimpole Street because it had come to be her home; but she was quite aware that she ought not to quarter Freddy there, and that it would not be good for ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... was so taken with the Novelty, and so desirous to make some use of an opportunity that was like to last so little a while, that though at that time I had no body to assist me but a Foot-Boy, yet sitting up late, I made a shift that Night to try a pretty number of such of the things that then came into my thoughts, as were not in that place and time unpracticable. And the next Day being otherwise imploy'd, I was fain to make ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... settled,' he said, 'I'm to go, Trixie; I shall have to shift for myself. They won't have me here ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... affirmative. "He shot the other one off oncet while he was a-gunnin' and, in a manner of speakin', it was the makin' of him. Until he lost his right hand an' had to figure out methods of doin' double shift with the left, he wasn't half as smart as what he is now. In a manner of speakin' it made a ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck |
