"Fret" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the way with all young men, marm. I always sez to ma she needn't fret her gizzard. Young men will sow their wild oats. Oh, 'tain't nothin'. Mr. Newt knows that ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... is,' returned Mrs. Peet, with a heavy sigh, as she gazed at her son with tears in her eyes, 'and he is so patient! Why, you never so much as hear a grumble, nor a fret! Now, what do you think his great wish is—what he is ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... store-house are, And the granaries bowed beneath The blessed golden grain; There, in undulating motion, Wave the corn-fields like an ocean. Proud the boast the proud lips breathe:— "My house is built upon a rock, And sees unmoved the stormy shock Of waves that fret below!" What chain so strong, what girth so great, To bind the giant form of Fate?— Swift ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... up with you, please. If I walk in with you, he won't have time to fret about it. I won't stay if he doesn't wish it, but I want to ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... a-comin' yet," she said, "'cos I knows his step; but he'll be 'long soon—ye see if he don't! I knows as how he will, 'cos he's that kind; so don't ye fret, mother—the doctor 'ill be here in no time. There now! Susan Keats giv' me some tea for ye, and I'll get the water from her and bring you some prime and 'ot—ye see if I don't!" So saying, the child ran off and went into a room next door, ...
— Little Frida - A Tale of the Black Forest • Anonymous
... their carriages early, and were doing their best to go, solicitous for their servants and horses. The countess and her noble brood were among the first to leave, and as regarded the Hon. George, it was certainly time that he did so. Her ladyship was in a great fret and fume. Those horrid roads would, she was sure, be the death of her if unhappily she were caught in them by the dark of night. The lamps she was assured were good, but no lamp could withstand the jolting of ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... thou has any; Tho' friends I fear there isn't many; But yet the dam for her, wi' Johnny, Will fret to-day, And think her ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... be suffered, saieth that man? And so muttrynge and chydyng, they came to the gate to goe oute; but they coulde not. For it was faste lockt, and Qualitees had the key away with him. Now begynne they a freshe to fret and fume: nowe they swere and stare: now they stampe and threaten: for the locking in greeued them more than all the losse and mockery before: but all auayle not. For there muste they abide, till wayes ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... 'Don't fret your eyelids on that score,' said the young gentleman. 'I've got to be in London to-night; and I know a 'spectable old gentleman as lives there, wot'll give you lodgings for nothink, and never ask for the change—that is, if any genelman he knows interduces ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... convenience, and secretly determined she shouldn't wed if he could help it. Little by little he poisoned her mind against matrimony, praised the independent women and showed how such were better off every way, with no husband and family to fret their lives and ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... spirit! Not but what Charles has been the best of sons to us—I don't mean that—no one could be better or more easy to please! But Harry had a different way with him." Her eyes filled with tears, which she brushed away. "No," she added, "I won't fret about him. I daresay he is happier where he is—I am sure he is—and thinking of his mother ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the cricket-bat he first began to wield, And "Heads or Tails?" re-echoed for the Innings through the field. He sternly scorned to toss the coin, howe'er his friends might fret— Our good Attorney-General who never made ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 31, 1891 • Various
... "Do not fret your pretty eyes over that pair of hypocrites in black, yonder," one of them exclaimed loudly and speaking directly at the Benedictines; "they are holy only in a crowd. If they met you when none else were near, they would tear off each other's gowns ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... bustle thus about your door, What means this bustle, Betty Foy? Why are you in this mighty fret? And why on horseback have you set 10 Him whom you love, your ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... be wrong, or when I caught him neglecting his duties, conniving at injustice, shirking inquiry, or evading the truth, I in no way spared him. The incident just related is an illustration of the treatment he often received at my hands. Fret, fume, stamp, storm, as he might, I cared nothing for him. His anger to me was as indifferent as his friendship. I despised both equally. Occasionally he would imagine, after there had been no storm between ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... had ordered, for the master's room. Just as she was about to knock at the door Mr. Wethered was coming out of the room. Mary stopped with the tray in her hand, and at the door Mr. Wethered turned and said quite loudly: 'Now, don't fret, don't be anxious; do try and be calm. Your will is safe in my pocket, nothing can change it or alter one word ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... glanced towards Kathryn, but fortunately the puzzled fret of the girl's forehead was even at the moment melting into a smile as a young man of much attraction descended upon her with smiles of his own and carried her into the Tango or Fox Trot or Antelope Galop, ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... hours crept by, and day by day They watched the Potomac Army at bay. Defeat and defeat! It was here, just here, In the very height of the fret and fear, ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... Don't you fret. That trip, I tell you, made another man of me. It lifted; why, commodore, it made me ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... Richmond, is your sure objective point. If he comes towards the Upper Potomac, follow on his flank and on his inside track, shortening your lines while he lengthens his; fight him, too, when opportunity offers. If he stays where he is, fret him, and fret him." ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... having rather a hard time of it to conceal his dismay at the blow to all the plans and preparations so finely in progress for the garden party. "Well, it means we must make the best of it all, and not fret." ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... eorum natura a nostra, quapropter daemonibus: and so belike that we have so many battles fought in all ages, countries, is to make them a feast, and their sole delight: but to return to that I said before, if displeased they fret and chafe, (for they feed belike on the souls of beasts, as we do on their bodies) and send many plagues amongst us; but if pleased, then they do much good; is as vain as the rest and confuted by Austin, l. 9. c. 8. de Civ. Dei. Euseb. l. 4. praepar. Evang. c. 6. ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... thy breast? Why all this fret and flurry? Dost thou not know that what is best In this too restless world is rest ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... paltry things which men call success and honor are worth forgetting, if their place be taken by those ends of living which Christ has taught us to be really great and good. We need not fret if we lose them; we need not care if we never win them. Seeking greater prizes, why should we repine if the baubles and tinsel are not had? I say to you, forget them. Go higher up. Seek wisdom and righteousness, truth and character. Lay up treasures ...
— Joy in Service; Forgetting, and Pressing Onward; Until the Day Dawn • George Tybout Purves
... veil of mist between me and the scenes of my youth, adding a poetic glamour to every rememberable form and fact. Each spring when the smell of fresh, uncovered earth returned to fret my nostrils I thought of the wide fields of Iowa, of the level plains of Dakota, and a desire to hear once more the prairie chicken calling from the ridges filled my heart. In the autumn when the wind swept through the bare branches of the elm, I thought of the lonely days of ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... The pale high-altar. On the prayer-worn floor, By surging worshippers thick-thronged of yore, A few brown crones, familiars of the tomb, The stranded driftwood of Faith's ebbing sea— For these alone the finials fret the skies, The topmost bosses shake their blossoms free, While from the triple portals, with grave eyes, Tranquil, and fixed upon eternity, The cloud of witnesses ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... am I," said Frank; "it almost made me cry to hear the poor birds fret so. When I took it away, one of them flow close around my head, and when I ran on to get away from it, I hit my foot against a stone, and stumbled down, and I am afraid I hurt the bird. All the way across the ...
— Frank and Fanny • Mrs. Clara Moreton
... truly, get up, and not fret a bit, if you'll only help me look. Please come now to dress me, and see if you can find what makes ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... all made her feel in those tense moments, gazing at the serenely flowing river, that had she a child she would be borne away on the smooth silver water with her little one, out of the fret and turmoil, to some quiet nest in the cliffs at its mouth ; and there for the years that were left her she would fill her days with the peaceful, homely joys that had never ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... arrived earlier than he had expected it, and this gave him time to lie and fret and listen again for the striking of the clock in the room downstairs. The waiting became too long, and as his fever increased he became insanely impatient and could not restrain himself. To lie and listen for his visitor's footsteps upon ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the hilly Flowerless brakes where wells abound Out of all men's sight; Or in lower pools that see All their marges clothed all round With the innumerable lily, Whence the golden-girdled bee Flits through flowering rush to fret White or duskier violet, Fair as those that in far years With their buds left luminous And their little leaves made wet From the warmer dew of tears, Mother's tears in extreme need, Hid the limbs of Iamus, Of thy brother's seed; For his heart ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... "Don't fret about that, Tod," said Budge. "Don't you know papa says that the Bible says something that means 'don't worry till you ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... in North Russia that the war was over and asked us what we were fighting for. They did it cleverly, as will be told elsewhere. Yet the doughboy only swore softly and shined his rifle barrel. He could not get information straight from home. He was sore. But why fret? His best answer was the philosophic "We're here because we're here" and he went on building blockhouses and preparing to do his best to save his life in the inevitable winter campaign which began (we may say) about the time of ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... the theatre, as you may well believe, that poets live and die most like the blithesome grasshoppers. The poor players, marvellous compounds of tin, feathers, and tiffany, fret but a brief hour; but the playwright, less considered alive, is sooner defunct. I have not Dodsley's Plays by me, but, if my memory does not deceive me, not one of them keeps the stage; nor did dear Charles Lamb make many ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... remember all the things. Don't you fret yourself. I can't take your place, but I'll see that the young gentlemen have their buttons sewed on, and plenty of good food. But I'm hoping you won't be gone long. Most likely you'll find your uncle better—I hope that, indeed I do, ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... when, at certain long, distant intervals, he deposits the secretion of his tobacco in an ornamental utensil which may probably be placed in the farthest corner of the hall. But during all this time he is happy. It does not fret him to sit there and think and do nothing. He is by no means an idle man—probably one much given to commercial enterprise. Idle men out there in the West we may say there are none. How should any idle man live ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... am past my sportive days, the sound of a street organ, if any, would inflame me to a fox-trot. Even a surly tune—if the handle be quickened—comes from the box with a brisk seduction. If a dirge once got inside, it would fret until it ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... the concurrence of Domestick Evils, and the Cares which attend a married State. Yet when I seriously reflected upon the Conduct of France in regard of King James and the Pretender, I have often observ'd my self to sweat and fret my self into a violent Fever with the very Thoughts of it; but I never was so sensibly touch'd upon this Head as after the Battle of Malplacket. which was follow'd with the Surrender of several Towns, so that there was nothing but the poor Barrier of Landrecy left to save the Capital, ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... don't fret! Edward won't forget you. I've known him long; he has got a heart as true ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... finishing these sketches to say something about the society of Constantinople. As one cannot always be out shooting, it is very important to our happiness to have something to fall back upon in the social way. I was told once by a very great friend of mine, who saw that I was inclined to fret, 'to take everything as a joke.' If one's liver is in good order it is very easy to do so, but sometimes the contrary is the case, and it makes one at times quite savage to see the airs that are temporarily put on by those that form the so-called upper ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... this hour forth it is a duel between that Perrin and me. Now, Josephine—Rose—don't you cry and fret like that: but just look quietly on, and enjoy the fight, both ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... with you at once," said Rose, as she hastily caught up and drew a shawl about her head and shoulders. "Grandpap," she called softly through the door to the old man's bedroom, "I'm ergoin' out fer er leetle time. One of ther neighbors air sick. Don't fret, fer I'll ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... woven branches of the pine, The soft dry needles like a carpet spread, And high above the arching boughs did shine In frosty fret of silver, that the red New dawn fired into gold-work overhead: Within that vale where Paris oft had been With fair OEnone, ere the hills he fled To be the sinful ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... knotty limbs over the slim youths of yesterday. Anterior to this era a neglected fire had scorched a portion of its trunk. Decay set in. A huge cavity gradually appeared, betokening vital injuries. The soft though tough wood does not patiently endure the annihilating fret of time. Far up in a recess of this cavity a toy boomerang was found, placed there by some provident but forgetful piccaninny. At the date of the discovery of the missile the age of the resident blacks had passed away; but still the tree stood, stout of limb, ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... will gather in a soft little roll, with the touch almost of floss silk. The machine-made net is hard, stiff, and wiry, and remains perceptibly so in this test. Also, the mesh of machine-made lace is as regular as though made with a fine machine fret-saw, that of hand-made lace being of varying sizes, and often following the pattern of ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... have been content to go without it. He was king of all Israel, and what was one small vineyard more or less to him? But prosperity had spoilt him; he must needs have every toy on which he set his heart, and he was weak enough to fret that he could not get more, when he had too much already. But he knew that he could not get it; that, king as he was, Naboth's property was his own, and that God's everlasting Law stood between him and the thing he coveted. Well for him if he had been ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley
... no occasion for it to suggest anything. Some women and a man are reposing in a forest in the sunlight. Does not that suffice? Don't fret, there's enough in it to make ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... little person," he returned. "Scold not, nor fret. William will be himself again ere yet the morrow's sun shall clear the horizon. Let us avoid recrimination. The tongue is, or would seem to be, the most vital weapon of modern society. Therefore let us leave the trenchant blade quiescent in ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... might be better spent; To waste long nights in pensive discontent; To speed today, to be put back tomorrow; To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow; To have thy prince's grace, yet want her peers; To have thy asking, yet wait many years; To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares; To eat thy heart through comfortless despairs; To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run; To spend, to give, to ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... and another the troops became sources of irritation. The Patriots, mainly William Cooper, the town clerk, prepared a chronicle of this perpetual fret, which contains much curious matter obtained through access to authentic sources of information, private and official. This diary was first printed in New York, and reprinted in the newspapers of Boston and London, under the title ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... an arm left waved it, and filled the air with their "hurrah!"—of Mrs. Hodge, who came from Chicago with blankets and with pillows, until the men shouted: "Three cheers for the Christian-Commission! God bless the women at home!" then sitting down to take the last message: "Tell my wife not to fret about me, but to meet me in heaven; tell her to train up the boys whom we have loved so well; tell her we shall meet again in the good land; tell her to bear my loss like the Christian wife of a Christian ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... of happiness is in grasping the significance of living, to learn that we live for things other and higher than those mad follies and fading prizes for which men sell their bodies and souls and fret out their nerves and hearts. No man can be happy whose heart is set on the changing fashion of things or who looks for satisfaction ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... lies tangled in a net, So fasten'd in her arms Adonis lies; 68 Pure shame and aw'd resistance made him fret, Which bred more beauty in his angry eyes: Rain added to a river that is rank Perforce will force it ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... Standish snapped as Sally, with a low cry of dismay, sank stunned into a chair. "There's nothing for you to fret about—you're all right, here, with me, under my protection. Nobody's going to look for you here; but think how fortunate it was I had the wit to change your name. No, it's I who have ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... always plannin' to go out when summer come; but there, I couldn't pick no day's weather that seemed to suit her just right. I never set out to worry her neither, 'twa'n't no kind o' use; she was so pleasant we couldn't have no fret nor trouble. 'Twas never 'you dear an' you darlin'' afore folks, an' 'you ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... many a curve my banks I fret By many a field and fallow, And many a fairy foreland set With ...
— Beauties of Tennyson • Alfred Tennyson
... to me, Jamie," he said; "and we will stand together always, for the sake of our bonnie Christina." And Jamie could not speak for happiness; but the three went forward with shining eyes and linked hands, and Andrew forgot his own fret and disappointment, in the joy ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... fields about this city faire Were all with roses set; Gillyflowers, and carnations faire, Which canker could not fret. RITSON'S ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... he said. "If it weren't me it would be someone else—or possibly a closer vision of Himself. There is always something—something to which later you will look back and say, 'That was His lamp in the desert, showing the way.' Don't fret if you can't pray! I can pray for you. You just keep on being brave and patient! ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... a mean, old brute, but don't you fret! I got a hunch how to make him cancel my contract in a perfectly refined an' ladylike manner. Right now I start in bantin' and dietin' in the scientific-est manner an' the way I can lose three or four hundred ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... consults his own case and convenience, to be liberal of his money to all that sort of people; and even to wink at the imposition of aubergistes on the road, unless it be very flagrant. So sure as you enter into disputes with them, you will be put to a great deal of trouble, and fret yourself to no manner of purpose. I have travelled with oeconomists in England, who declared they would rather give away a crown than allow themselves to be cheated of a farthing. This is a good maxim, but requires a great share of resolution and self-denial to put it in practice. ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... Dinah, "but she's seemed more comforted to-day. Her son Adam's been at home all day, working at his father's coffin, and she loves to have him at home. She's been talking about him to me almost all the day. She has a loving heart, though she's sorely given to fret and be fearful. I wish she had a surer trust to comfort ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... forward: standing on the pyramid of the Dagda, he began measuring and reconnoitering the army. His spirit, or his mind, or his thoughts did not fret over them at all. He brought their description with him to the place in which ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... you what money you need, and if at any time you should want more than your ordinary allowance, for presents or any special purpose, just tell her about it, and she will understand. You can have anything in reason; I want you to be happy. Don't fret, dearie. I shall be with father, and the time will pass. In three years I shall be back again, and then, Peg, then, how happy we shall be! ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... him, her heart going down the while, and cheered him, though she was like to despair at the thought of the lonely winter. Ah, the pathos of it! Did God help them that day? Ay, and for many a day after. And may He forgive all people whose lives overflow with plenty of everything, and who fret ...
— Beyond the Marshes • Ralph Connor
... some of the lower mouldings and damper recesses, especially amid the tombs and in the aisles, to a decomposing mildew, which eats into it in fantastic map-like lines of mingled black and gray, so resembling Runic fret-work, that I had some difficulty in convincing myself that the tracery which it forms,—singularly appropriate to the architecture,—was not the effect of design. The choir and chancel of the edifice, which at the time of my visit were still employed as the parish church of Kirkwall, and had become ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... little foster-sister of Jan's who sickened first. She died within two days. Her burial was hasty enough, but Mrs. Lake had no time to fret about that, for a second child was ill. Like many another householder, the poor windmiller was now ready enough to look to his drains, and so forth; but it may be doubted if the general stirring up ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... they should ever be that, Millicent. As it is we have both sufficient for anything any man or woman could reasonably want, and neither of us need fret over it if the treasure is never found. Still, he wished us to have it, and it is properly ours, and I don't want it to go to enrich someone who has not a shadow of ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... your own choice; so don't go and pretend to fret over it. And as to sparing you, you've been spared a deal too much, and I've been a fool to do it. And just bethink you, Faith, that if we are now to make one family with my Lady Lettice and Edith, you'd best be thinking how you can spare them. My Lady Lettice is a deal newer ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... not show thee through the power Of herbs and words I have, as dark as night, My self turn'd to thy Amoret, in sight, Her very figure, and the Robe she wears, With tawny Buskins, and the hook she bears Of thine own Carving, where your names are set, Wrought underneath with many a curious fret, The Prim-Rose Chaplet, taudry-lace and Ring, Thou gavest her for her singing, with each thing Else that she wears about her, let me feel The first fell stroke of ...
— The Faithful Shepherdess - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10). • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... comfort her. "Don't you fret about them," he said. "They're as dead as they can be, all of 'em, and in purgatory or a worse place, and you can't get 'em out no matter how hard you pray. Come on; let's go look ...
— The Italian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... Bele: "These are my last commands. On you, O Helge, my eldest son, I place a father's care. Guard and love your sister Ingeborg. Be gentle and guide her with loving words. Noble spirits fret under harshness, but loving and gentle manners win all to ...
— Northland Heroes • Florence Holbrook
... was taken with spasms in the heart, and went off like a flash. Parthenia is young to bring the baby up by hand. But you must be careful, and not get anxious or excited. Keep quite calm, and don't fret about anything. Of course, things can't go on jest as if you were down-stairs; and I wondered whether you knew your little Billy was sailing about in a tub on the mill-pond, and that your little Sammy was letting your little Jimmy ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... icebergs that drift from Greenland in May and June. This is no realm of spices and gold. Land looms through the mist the last week in June, {4} rocky, surf-beaten, lonely as earth's ends, with never a sound but the scream of the gulls and the moan of the restless water-fret along endless white reefs. Not a living soul did the English sailors see. Weak in numbers, disappointed in the rocky land, they did not wait to hunt for natives. An English flag was hastily unfurled and possession taken of this Empire of the North for England. The woods of America for ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... presentation of the fact as something known by others, and requiring only to be studied and learned by the child, rules out such conditions of fulfilment. It condemns the fact to be a hieroglyph: it would mean something if one only had the key. The clue being lacking, it remains an idle curiosity, to fret and obstruct the mind, a ...
— The Child and the Curriculum • John Dewey
... him out of the blue. He could bear poverty, neglect, hardships, even death itself; but imprisonment, with a disgraceful execution as the only end of it, that he was not at first prepared to endure. He had tasted captivity in the Tower once before; he knew the intolerable tedium and fret of it; and the very prospect maddened him. Nor would his thoughts be only or mainly of himself. He would reflect that if he were once condemned, nothing but financial ruin and social obloquy would attend his wife and children; and this it was which inspired ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... Then it would fret between its banks until the spangled frills of the mimulus were all tattered with its spray. Often at the end of the summer it was worn quite thin and small with running, and not able to do more than reach ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... know of, but we'll rake one up somewhere, don't you fret. And, I say, this is a fine way to welcome a visitor; you haven't even said how-do to your host and hostess. I'm ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... led the way up to the Children's Ward, a white-capped nurse came forward between the rows of little beds each with its child occupant, her finger on her lips. "He is so much weaker to-day," she explained, "I would say he had better not see any one, except that he will fret, so please stay only a few moments," and she led them to where Joey lay, his white bed shut off from his little neighbors by a screen. His eyes were closed and a young resident physician ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... lonely country," said the voice, with the vim of water-fret against an obstinate stone. "Wonder what it's like in the Mandane land! I'm sure ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... have a pass; I will travel without being disturbed. Let but the first opportunity offer, and come what will, I am off. Meanwhile, I will try to bear up under the yoke. I am not the only slave in the world. Why should I fret? I can bear as much as any of them. Besides, I am but a boy, and all boys are bound to some one. It may be that my misery in slavery will only increase my happiness when I get free. There is ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... Babel. Arab guides lit up the Sphinx with flaring magnesium, an impertinence that should have made hideous with hate the insulted features, but instead turned them for a thrilling instant of suspense into marble. Indeed, none of our petty vulgarities could jar or even fret the majestic calm of the desert and the stone Mystery among its billows. The Sphinx gazed above and past us all. She was like some royal captive surrounded by a rabble mob, yet as undisturbed in soul as though her puny, hooting tormentors had no existence. It was not so much that she scorned us, ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... a cot in the room next to ours," responded Ma'ame Pelagie, "and live as we do. She knows how we live, and why we live; her father has told her. She knows we have money and could squander it if we chose. Do not fret, Pauline; let us hope La Petite ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... Balzac, "are apparently at peace in the deep bed that they have made for themselves, where they seem to sleep, though all the while they never cease to fret ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... twentieth anniversary of his joining Her Majesty's army with gladness in his heart. After he had found the column and had got into the Lilliputian forest with its stunted, bushy trees and its sandy soil, he was brought face to face with the greatest enemy that can harass, fret, and wear down nerves of steel—absence of water. A commander whose mind is racked by the difficulty, perhaps the impossibility, of finding water for his troops is like the man haunted day and night, waking and ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... fretted as much as one of his buoyant nature could fret under this forced inactivity. The sunshine, the beautiful surroundings, and the presence of friends, made him forget France at times, and think only of the present. And Denise absorbed his thoughts of the present and the future. She was a constant puzzle ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... so closely bind, Scarce can the Tweed his passage find, Though much he fret, and chafe, and toil, Till ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... icy and out-fain, the Atheling's ferry. There then did they lay him, the lord well beloved, The gold-rings' bestower, within the ship's barm, The mighty by mast. Much there was the treasure, From far ways forsooth had the fret-work been led: Never heard I of keel that was comelier dighted With weapons of war, and with weed of the battle, With bills and with byrnies. There lay in his barm 40 Much wealth of the treasure that with him should be, And he into the flood's might afar to depart. ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous
... Chook, that is too much, You have soiled your apron too much. Well, Prisko, don't you fret, Wipe it off, then, if you're wet! ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... overrated, and perhaps none overrate them more extravagantly than teachers. We confound the trouble they give us with their real moral turpitude, and measure the one by the other. Now if a fault prevails in school, one teacher will scold and fret himself about it day after day, until his scholars are tired both of school and of him; and yet he will do nothing effectual to remove it. Another will take efficient and decided measures, and yet ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... burnt-out pipes, and say "Good-night," and, lulled by the lapping water and the rustling trees, we fall asleep beneath the great, still stars, and dream that the world is young again - young and sweet as she used to be ere the centuries of fret and care had furrowed her fair face, ere her children's sins and follies had made old her loving heart - sweet as she was in those bygone days when, a new-made mother, she nursed us, her children, upon her own deep breast - ere the wiles of painted civilization had ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... to give us a good push on our way here," he told Jack, when the latter continued to fret and hint about "cutting off corners" in order to hasten their getting away. "We're bound to do our part of the job right up to the handle. Besides, what do ten or twenty minutes ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... of the earth's surface by a passing comet. It will come from the unfolding of the race mind, the process being now under way. Are not the signs of mental unrest and discomfort becoming more and more apparent as the days go by? The pain is growing greater, and the race is beginning to fret and chafe, and moan. It knows not what it wants, but it knows that it feels pain and wants something to relieve that pain. The old things are beginning to totter and fall, and ideas rendered sacred by years of observance are being brushed aside with a startling display ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... foolish of the good lady to fret like this because Austin was so different from what she thought he should be. She did not see that his nature was infinitely finer and subtler than her own, and that it was no use in the world ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... seriously," he said gently. "His very frankness disclaims any heart interest in Ta-user. Besides, she is as old as I—three whole Nile-floods older than the prince. She thinks on him as Senci looks on me—he regards her as a lad looks up to gracious womanhood. Nay, fret ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... were, as Mr. Gilburn expresses it in his last speech, as bare as a bird's arse, so no time was to be lost, and accordingly that very night they made their second expedition. Nobody coming in their way, Gilburn began to fret, and at last falling into a downright passion, swore he would rob the first man he met. He was as good as his word, and the booty he got proved a tolerable ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... do, sir; but still I know that I should fret; and, sir, it will be four months at least before the Circe is ready for sea and I may just as well be appointed to her, and I can decide whether I do go to sea or ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... are mixed in a fusion indistinguishable. What we call Fate is even, heartless, and impartial; not a fiend to kindle bigot flames, nor a philanthropist to espouse the cause of Greece. We may fret, fume, and fight; but the thing called Fate everlastingly ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... now don't you—don't you," Clint comforted. "He cayn't do us any harm. Ellison's hot on his trail. I'll give him six months, an' then he's through. Don't you fret, sweetheart. Daddy will look out for ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... are not fortunate or calamitous so much in themselves, as they are in their effect on our feelings. An event which is met by one with equanimity or indifference, will fret another with vexation, or overwhelm him with sorrow. Misfortunes encountered with a composed and firm resolution, almost cease to be evils; it is, therefore, less our wisdom to endeavor to control external events, than to regulate the habitual temper of our ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... sweetness of the moonlit Hill a strange and sudden sound. It is louder than theology. It is more solemn than the professor's system. Insistent, urging everything before it—the toil of strenuous study, the fret of little trouble, and the dreams of dawning love—the call stirs on. It is the beat ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... 'He's enough to fret a man's heart out,' replied the hostler. 'He is the most wicious rascal—Woa then, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... But there is mercy with Him, therefore shall He be feared. And how to fear God I know not better than by working on at the special work which He has given us, trusting to Him to make it of use to His creatures, if He needs us. Therefore fret not nor be of doubtful mind, but just do ...
— Out of the Deep - Words for the Sorrowful • Charles Kingsley
... awful leap With a merry chansonette; Push them blithely off the steep; We'll forgive them and forget. Toss them, like a cigarette, To the far Plutonian floor. Drop them where they'll cease to fret— Thrust them ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... self-preservation, I care not what you call it, which so often makes the American farmer a far better politician than nine tenths of the best read European political philosophers—works under all this tumult and confusion of tongues. The newspapers and politicians fret and fume and shout and denounce; but the great mass, the nineteen or twenty millions, work away in the fields and workshops, saying little, thinking much, hardy, earnest, self-reliant, very tolerant, very indulgent, very shrewd, but ready whenever the government needs it, ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... principle of interruption? And a variety of the nuisance there is, which I consider equally bad. Men, that do not absolutely interrupt you, are yet continually on the fret to do so, and undisguisedly on the fret all the time you are speaking. To invent a Latin word which ought to have been invented before my time, 'non interrumpunt at interrupturiunt.' You can't talk in peace for such people; and as to prosing, which I suppose you've a right to do by Magna Charta, it is quite ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... riots," and the great English journal that exercises a sort of censorship over governments and nations has gravely complimented us on the national progress we have made, as evidenced in the existence here of a starving population! One hardly knows whether to fret or to smile over so provoking a specimen of congratulation. Certainly, if a nation cannot grow old without bringing the producing classes to beggary, the best thing that could happen to it would be to die young, like men loved of the gods, according to the ancient idea. Whether such is the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... have told you my mind, but I shall ACT just as I used to do. I'm not proud of this spite I have taken against you, don't you fancy that. There—there, don't let us fret about what can't be helped; but just tell me what I ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... And, knowing this, I wonder less That she's so scorn'd, when falsely dight In misery and ugliness. What's that which Heaven to man endears, And that which eyes no sooner see Than the heart says, with floods of tears, 'Ah, that's the thing which I would be!' Not childhood, full of frown and fret; Not youth, impatient to disown Those visions high, which to forget Were worse than never to have known; Not worldlings, in whose fair outside Nor courtesy nor justice fails, Thanks to cross-pulling vices tied, Like Samson's foxes, by the tails; Not poets; real things are dreams, When dreams ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... Proctor, called Peachy for short. Oh, yes, I knew all about you beforehand, although you happen to be the newest girl. Dad wrote me a whole page—wonderful for him!—and said he'd stayed at your house in London, and I was to tack myself on to you and show you round, and see you didn't fret and all the rest of it. Are you wanting a crony, temporary or otherwise? Then here I am at your service. Link an arm and we'll parade the place. I guess by the time we've finished there's not much you won't ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... writing. It was a labored effort, not for want of skill, but for the reason he had no desire to fret the heart of the wife to whom it ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... this court by an opposite door, and saw, through the vistas of marble pillars and the wonderful fret-work which seems a thing of air rather than of earth, the Fountain of the Lions. Thence I entered in succession the Hall of the Abencerrages, the Hall of the Two Sisters, the apartments of the Sultanas, the Mosque, and the Hall of the Ambassadors. These places—all that is left of the renowned ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... nature yields to art, And life is hurt by daily jar and fret, 'Tis best to shut such dreams down in the heart And go our ways alone, love, ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... their designs and general decorative work. The Japanese joiner is unsurpassed, and much of the lattice work, admirable in design and workmanship, is so quaint and intricate that only by close examination can it be distinguished from finely cut fret work. ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... missing an important engagement I may modify the dominance of the thought by reflecting that I cannot expect to be wholly immune from the misfortunes of mankind; it is due me, at least once in a lifetime, to miss an important engagement,—why fret because this happens to be the appointed time? Why not occupy my thoughts more profitably than in rehearsing the varied features ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... fret yourself about that, Jem Backstay. The skipper knows what he's a-doing, and has got a heap o' 'sponsibility on them shoulders o' his'n—a fine ship and a valuable cargo to get home safe to old h'England with a short crew, and a lot o' murderin', ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... been spent by Mr. Edmonstone in a fret to get away from Recoara, and his wife was hardly less desirous to leave it than himself, for she could have no peace or comfort about Amabel, till she had her safely at home. Still she dreaded proposing the departure, and even more the departure itself; and, in ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... order and beauty of it, the signs of loving care. It gave him a key, he fancied, to the lives the cultured English led, for there was no sign of strain and fret and stress and hurry here. Everything, it seemed, went smoothly with rhythmic regularity, and though it is possible that a good many Englishmen would have regarded Garside Scar as a very second-rate country house, and seen in Major ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss |
