"Stoop to" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the son neglects the father. All modesty is banished; they become far too liberal for that. No difference is made between the citizen and the alien; the master dreads and cajoles his scholars, and the scholars despise their masters. The young men assume the gravity of sages, and sages must stoop to the follies of children, lest they should be hated and oppressed by them. The very slaves even are under but little restraint; wives boast the same rights as their husbands; dogs, horses, and asses are emancipated in this outrageous excess of freedom, and run about so violently that ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... no real courage—but he did not do it gracefully. He said that if we were mean and cowardly and false-hearted enough to stoop to such a shabby trick, he supposed he couldn't help it; and that if I didn't intend to finish the whole bottle of claret myself, he would trouble me to spare him a glass. He also added, somewhat illogically, that it really did not matter, seeing both Ethelbertha and Mrs. Harris were women of sense ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... in their two different positions, their two points of view—would either leave for any argument of the other? Then he wondered if he could, in the face of a girl who wore an expression like that, stoop to make an argument, for the utter blindness and deafness of her very soul to any explanation of his position was too ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... pathless tracts. So the man with whom we are dealing could not have been in search of pleasure; neither was his manner that of a fugitive; not once did he look behind him. In such situations fear and curiosity are the most common sensations; he was not moved by them. When men are lonely, they stoop to any companionship; the dog becomes a comrade, the horse a friend, and it is no shame to shower them with caresses and speeches of love. The camel received no such token, not a touch, not ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... far more inclined to caution than are his Western rivals. The Indian private banker undoubtedly is honest in ordinary banking transactions and anxious to maintain his commercial credit, but he will often stoop to the most discreditable devices in the purchase of a coveted estate, the foreclosure of a mortgage, and the like. His books, nowadays, are certainly not 'appealed to as holy writ', and many merchants keep a duplicate set for income-tax purposes. ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... of some of our false trails we came upon fascinating little settlements: groups of houses inside brush enclosures, with low wooden gateways beneath which we had to stoop to enter. Within were groups of beehive houses with small naked children and perhaps an old woman or old man seated cross-legged under a sort of veranda. From ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... end, Where the bowed welkin slow doth bend, And from thence can soar as soon To the corners of the moon. Mortals, that would follow me, Love virtue; she alone is free. She can teach ye how to climb Higher than the sphery chime; Or, if Virtue feeble were, Heaven itself would stoop to her. ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... continued Madam Conway, "the sooner it is broken the better. I am astonished that you should stoop to such an act, and I hope you are not ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... stoop to the obvious retort. His pardner came round the pile and his eyes fell on their common sleeping-bag, the two Nulato rifles, and other "traps," that meant more to him than any objects ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... banditti and caterans," retorted Murdoch, "and would not stoop to accept it.—What I demand to know from you, in exchange for your liberty, is, where the daughter and heiress of the Knight of Ardenvohr is now to ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... life with the label of lily, balm or heart's-ease tagged to them, when they are nothing better than wild onion at heart. There are lives sown in out of the way places, and carelessly passed by as weeds, whose blossom angels might stoop to wear in the whiteness of their own pure breasts. Oh, to rid the world of its shams! To sweep away the "Chadbands" with a feather duster, as the new girl removes dust; to open the windows and shoo away the traitors as one drives flies, to hoe out society plats as one hoes garden ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... all's said, you're too noble to stoop to the frivolous cant About crimes irresistible, virtues ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... have the first good living that falls to my disposal, had he stopped to have taken care of me I would never have given him any thing:" his grace being delighted with an ardour similar to his own, or with a spirit that would not stoop to flatter. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 390, September 19, 1829 • Various
... understated, but I accept it as the aphidavit of another noted helminthologist. I might have imagined Nature had a special grudge against me if I had not recalled Emerson's experience. He says: "With brow bent, with firm intent, I go musing in the garden walk. I stoop to pick up a weed that is choking the corn, find there were two; close behind is a third, and I reach out my arm to a fourth; behind that there ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... aim of every youth to lift aloft this glorious banner, and soar upward to a surpassing excellency. Let them seek to excel in all tilings high, and good. Let them never stoop to do an evil act, nor degrade themselves to commit a wrong. But in their principles, purposes, deeds, and words, let their great characteristics be Truth, Goodness, ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... mother. "I mean every word I said!" cried she. "If I hadn't admired and appreciated him, I'd certainly not have acted as I did. I couldn't stoop to such hypocrisy." ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... then be as much below me as thou art now above. Too humble to mate with the Heracleid, I am too proud to stoop to the ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... send them for next to nothing. He was right, and the telegraph, the telephone, and the postcard have completed the destruction of the art of letter-writing. It is the difficulty or the scarcity of a thing that makes it treasured. If diamonds were as plentiful as pebbles we shouldn't stoop to pick them up. ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... have a patent for taking away from others the means of a happy and respectable existence, and for consuming them in riotous and unmeaning extravagance." Is this the reward that ought to be offered to virtue, or that virtue should stoop to take? Godwin is at his best on this theme of luxury: "Every man may calculate in every glass of wine he drinks, and every ornament he annexes to his person, how many individuals have been condemned to slavery and sweat, incessant drudgery, unwholesome food, ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... "began to taunt and to scoff. 'Holloa!' he shouted across the stream, 'will a genius like you stoop to be directed by a woman! Duty is for slaves, and Patience for donkeys. Kick aside that miserable plank, and clear the brook with a bound, as you've ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... in establishing churches. Whatever churches they set up were pastored by men of learning and character. They were unwilling to stoop to the people, but sought to bring the people up to them. Everything was done according to the custom of the most intelligent and cultured. The preaching was of a high order, yet adapted to the needs of the people. The music was the very best. ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... door was flung open. Philip knew that it was the master of Adare House who stood on the threshold—a great, fur-capped giant of a man who seemed to stoop to enter, and in whose eyes as they met Philip's there was a wild and half-savage inquiry. Such a man Philip had not expected to see; awesome in his bulk, a Thorlike god of the forests, gray-bearded, deep-chested, ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... irreflective nature to believe the die irrevocably cast, and the responsibility of decision over? Or why did she ask forgiveness of the only one whom she was not offending, but because there was a sense of need of pardon where she would not stoop to ask it. ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... one, it is only in the pains which she herself takes to improve herself. As for me, I wanted to achieve simplicity and I looked for it as one looks for a spot that is difficult to reach and easy to miss. For a long time, I wandered beyond it. Rather than stoop to false customs, to lying conventions, I followed the strangest fancies.... Now it ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... his commander if he took him for a "procurator" of Russian serfs, and reminded him that his certificate of competency was a qualification for certain duties which he was willing to perform; but as this did not come within the scope of them, he would see him to blazes before he would stoop to the level of becoming the engager of a ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... cried I, 'and is this the employment of poets now! Do men of their exalted talents thus stoop to beggary! Can they so far disgrace their calling, as to make a vile ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... respect and admire them, and think they are like that all through. And the day comes when they are not quite straightforward, or are guilty of some petty meanness, which a man who is not fit to black their boots would never stoop to." ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... Of course all shipowners are relegated to these parts when they do anything to excite the anger of Jack. But the owner of whom I am writing had put himself beyond all forgiveness; he was an unspeakable wretch who would stoop to the most revolting methods of sensuality. The sanctity of homes was invaded by the fiend who carried on a double game of starving his men and destroying all that was dear to them. The curses that were continuously poured forth upon him from all parts of the world cannot be spoken; ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... from her, and she was made ready to go for Aunt Janet the following morning. The rest of the day went rapidly by, Allan had many visits to make, and some special tokens of regard to leave. Then they had tea together at Maggie's fire-side, and Allan watched her once more stoop to the glowing turf, and light the little iron cruisie, and rise with the light from it on her beautiful face. The simple household act was always one of meaning and interest to him. He renewed in it that moment of strange delight when he had first seen her. This evening he tried ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... persuade myself that their neglecting to take care for such provisions as these, and finding all the other things they employed themselves in (as they use to say of virtue) but insipid and dry, and being wholly set upon pleasure, and the body no longer supplying them with it, give them occasion to stoop to do things both mean and shameful in themselves and unbecoming their age; as well when they refresh their memories with their former pleasures and serve themselves of old ones (as it were) long since dead and laid up in pickle for the purpose, when they cannot have fresh ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... in another minute were at the office door. There they sat down on the stoop to rest and talk; but only a few minutes had passed when they heard the sound of approaching footsteps; and a small but very erect figure appeared, carrying an old-fashioned musket of the vintage of '61 ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... latter is invariably evil, as is evinced by the large number of such sensitives who have gone either morally or psychically to the bad—some becoming epileptic, some taking to drink, others falling under influences which induced them to stoop to fraud and ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... Even with such materials he determined to work out his country's redemption, though already satisfied that before such a thing were possible, their habits, feelings, passions and hearts should be entirely changed. In order to do this, it was necessary he should stoop to the level of their conceptions and capacities. Thus for many weary months, with his energies, as it were, chained down to a cold stone, toiled and strove Thomas Davis. His influence first began to be felt as chairman of a sub-committee on the registers. This position afforded ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... though I were like to make myself a mere sport for ballad-mongers, such as Lady Elleen is always mooning after; or as if I would stoop to borrow a following of the English blackguard, to bolster up my state like King Herod in a mystery play. If my father lists, he may send me out a band, but the Douglas shall have Douglas's men, or none ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with indignant apostrophes addressed to his hero. The patriot awoke in him, more perhaps when he told of the Emperor's defeats than of the Battle of Jena. He would stop to shake his fist at the river, and spit contemptuously, and mouth noble insults—he did not stoop to less than that. He would call him "rascal," "wild beast," "immoral." And if such words were intended to restore to the boy's mind a sense of justice, it must be confessed that they failed in their object; for childish logic leaped to this conclusion: "If a great ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... eyes fixed stupidly on the litter of papers scattered at his feet. The rain was beginning to convert them into sodden pulp, but he did not stir. The idea occurred to Sylvia that he might be ill, and she advanced to help him. As he saw her stoop to pick them up, he said in French, in a toneless voice, very indifferently: "Don't give yourself the trouble. They are of no value. I carry them only to make the Library attendants think I am a bona-fide reader. I go there to sleep because I have ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... sung the players all raise their arms without unclasping the hands, and place them around their companions, who stoop to step inside. They will then be standing in a circle with arms around each other's waists. The game finishes by dancing in this position around the ring, repeating ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... you would want it," she said in the faintest whisper, "so I smuggled it in last night. I had no idea you would stoop to such a thing, but—but I felt so sorry for you, ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler
... daily life"; but when she remembered the malice that had instigated report, the unlovely lives of the malicious fault-finders, the evil stains that lie even upon the best lives, she burst out, "There is not one in our community, Ephraim, who would stoop to a cruel act either in word or deed. There is not one of us, even among those who have recently repented from very wicked lives, who would try to take the life of a defenceless man when he was, at a great cost to himself, pursuing what he thought ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... sobrecargo at once," he cried, and seeing the boy stoop to pick up the note, which fell to the deck, ran ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... the dim forms of her husband's clothes, pitched anyhow on an ottoman. No! She could not stoop to theft! ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... can I stoop to fret And lie and haggle in the market-place, Give dross for dross, or everything for nought? No! let me sit above the crowd, and sing, Waiting with hope for that miraculous change Which seems like sleep; and though I waiting starve, I cannot kiss the idols that are ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... said Emily, as these recollections returned—'is it possible, that a mind, so susceptible of whatever is grand and beautiful, could stoop to low pursuits, and ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... spirit that used to make me tremble, and to which I never could look up without awe, except in those animating cases, where his guilty attempts, and the concern I had to preserve my innocence, gave a courage more than natural to my otherwise dastardly heart: when this impetuous spirit could stoop to request one whom he had sunk beneath even her usual low character of his servant, who was his prisoner, under sentence of a ruin worse than death, as he had intended it, and had seized her for that very purpose, could stoop to acknowledge the vileness ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... little can be said respecting their sincerity. The very common sins of lying and avarice are so universal also, that no European who has not witnessed it can form any idea of their various appearances: they will stoop to anything whatsoever to get a few cowries, and lie on every occasion. O how desirable is the ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... Vane has heard that I have been insulted. A man like him does not stoop to love for a woman who has known an insult. I do not blame him; I honour him the ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... said Mrs Delvile, "I would it were possible to make you take yourself seriously; for could you once see with clearness and precision how much you lower your own dignity, while you stoop to depreciate that of others, the very subjects that now make your diversion, would then, far more properly, ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... "but tell me, wouldn't you stoop to any trickery—any meanness, if you had a voice like mine, and saw no chance of getting ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... "had not the lord regent power to punish? And if he see right to hold his hand, those who strike for him invade his dignity. I should be unworthy the honor of protecting a brave nation, did I stoop to tread on every reptile that stings me in my path. Leave Lord de Valence to the sentence his commander has pronounced, and as an expiation for your having offended both military and moral law this day, you must remain at Stirling ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... their shops with complacent content and a smile for both the day ended and for the morrow, elated by the lively and constant thrills of profits increased, by the growing jingle of the cash-box. They have stayed behind in the heart of their own firesides; they have only to stoop to caress their children. We see them beaming in the first starlights of the street, all these rich folk who are becoming richer, all these tranquil people whose tranquillity increases every day, people who are full, you feel, and in spite of all, of an unconfessable prayer. They all go ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... matter of fact, a thin chimney grew out of the earth itself, for all the world like a smoking tree stump. The hovel was a squalid, beggary thing that might have been built over night somewhere back in the dark ages. Its single door was so low that one was obliged to stoop to enter the little room where the dame had been holding forth for three-score years, 'twas said. This was her throne-room, her dining-room, her bed-chamber, her all, it would seem, unless one had been there before and knew that her kitchen was beyond, in the side of the hill. The one window, ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... thee happy? Having known me, could you ever Stoop to marry half a heart, and little more than ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... tell you, never!" cried Roland, who, faithful to the honour and integrity of spirit which conducted the men of that day, the mighty fathers of the republic, through the vicissitudes of revolution to the rewards of liberty, would not stoop to the meanness of falsehood and deception even in that moment of peril and ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... justifications. In either event the spiritual mission was at an end: it would have perished in shouts of derision, from which there could have been no retreat, and no retrieval of character. The greatest of astronomers, rather than seem ostentatious or unseasonably learned, will stoop to the popular phrase of the sun's rising, or the sun's motion in the ecliptic. But God, for a purpose commensurate with man's eternal welfare, is by these critics supposed incapable ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... through the unlatticed window peep. Nay, shrink not back, the inmate is asleep; Sunk 'mid yon sordid blankets, till the sun Stoop to the west, the plunderer's toils are done. Loaded and primed, and prompt for desperate hand, Rifle and fowling-piece beside him stand, While round the hut are in disorder laid The tools and booty of his lawless trade; ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... water in peaty lagoons is observable elsewhere than in the delta of the Mississippi. What can be more transparent than many a pool surrounded by quaking bogs, fringed, as they are in Ireland, with a ring of white water-lilies, which you dare not stoop to pick, lest the peat, bending inward, slide you down into that clear dark gulf some twenty feet in depth, bottomed and walled with yielding ooze, from which there is no escape? Most transparent, likewise, is the water ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley
... people from the old country would almost starve. Their intimate knowledge of the country, and of the circumstances of the inhabitants, enables them to turn their money to great advantage; and I must add, that few people from the old country, however avaricious, can bring themselves to stoop to the unscrupulous means of acquiring property which are too commonly resorted to in this country. These reflections are a rather serious commencement of a sketch which was intended to be of a more lively description; one of my chief objects in writing this chapter ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... Virginia's respect for her elders, and affection for her aunt through Clarence, held in check. Only a moment since Mrs. Colfax had beheld her niece. Now there had arisen in front of her a tall person of authority, before whom she deferred instinctively. It was not what Virginia said, for she would not stoop to tirade. Mrs. Colfax sank into a chair, seeing only the blurred lines of a newspaper the girl had thrust into ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... done more," he said. "His love for you passes ours infinitely. Then if you have not wearied out ours, can you possibly exhaust his? He can stoop to you in all your misery and sinfulness, if you will but stretch out your hand toward Him. There is no sin He will not forgive, and none He cannot conquer, if you will but rouse yourself to work with Him. Against your own will He cannot ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... I will often stoop to range On the fields where my youth was spent, And my feet shall smite the cliffs of change With the rush of ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... as I have done, and he won't starve. Do you think, if I were a man," she said, disdainfully, "that I would stoop to ask help ...
— Frank and Fearless - or The Fortunes of Jasper Kent • Horatio Alger Jr.
... you all the same; but I think we'd better go on with it now," replied Titmouse, impetuously. "Do you think I can stoop to go back to that nasty, beastly shop, and stand behind that odious counter?—I'd almost as lieve ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... the hollow aching void that is left in your lonely heart shall be sacred, Di. No stranger's image shall pollute it. You shall not sacrifice your own peace to your father's selfishness. No, dear, no! With mamma and me you will always have a home. You need stoop to no cruel barter ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... only one way of restoring peace; but it involved a sacrifice on God's part which the most sanguine had never dared to hope for. If the Lord of heaven and earth, veiling His glory, would assume our nature, would take the form of a servant, would stoop to the work of a subject, would die the death of a sinner, we might be saved—not otherwise; if He would leave heaven, we might enter it—not otherwise; if He would die, we might live—not otherwise; if He ...
— The Angels' Song • Thomas Guthrie
... shaking his hand over the bit of massive wood, with energy, "this spar is of more importance to us than our mother's milk in infancy. It is our victuals and drink, life and hopes. Let us swear we will have it in spite of a thousand Arabs. Stoop to your hand-spikes, and heave at the word—'heave as if you had a world to ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... instant, I would stoop to seek your protection? I would die first! You have had things your own way too long, Mr. Brute MacNair! You think yourself secure, in your smug egotism. But the end is in sight. Your petty despotism is doomed. You have hoodwinked the authorities, bribed the police, connived ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... Barnabas start forward, bareheaded, to meet her who came swift and light of foot; to see her pause before him, quick-breathing, blushing, sighing, trembling; to see how glance met glance; to see him stoop to kiss the hand she gave him, and all—without a word. Surprised? not a bit of it, for to a really observant finger-post all humans (both he and she) are much ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... in which you may exercise all your powers, in order each of you to be the first in his way. If any man shall be master of such a transcendant, commanding, and ductile genius, as to enable him to rise to the highest, and to stoop to the lowest flights of art, and to sweep over all of them unobstructed and secure, he is fitter to give example ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... don't pretend to vouch exactly - 'Tis to King Philip: and our patriarch - I often wonder how this holy man, Who lives so wholly to his God and heaven, Can stoop to be so well informed about Whatever passes ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... one of the most deplorable things in the history of literature to see a man endowed with Diderot's generous conceptions and high social aims, forced to stoop to these odious economies. In reading his Prospectus, and still more directly in ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... why may I ask, were you selected for an office that by your own confession, no one else would stoop to perform? I'll tell you, because from your youth and inexperience, your innocence was deemed a fit victim to the heartless sneers of a cold and unfeeling world." And here Tom broke forth into a very ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... great wealth do stoop to husbandry, it multiplieth riches exceedingly' and wiser words were never uttered. Yet these are the men who are singled out for attack by agitators, who are only listened to because the greater number of modern Englishmen are ignorant of the land ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... like William of Nassau could stoop to deceit and falsehood for any political purpose, it is easy to understand that a man like Harley would make free use of the same arts, and for personal objects as well. Harley's political changes were so many and so rapid that they could not possibly ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... that proud head, Encircled by the tiara; and he sees, Like God, all under him in murmured prayer Or silence, blesses them, and passes on. What wonder if he will not deign to touch The earth I tread on with his haughty foot! He gives it to be kissed of kings; I too Must stoop to the vile act. ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... we have them all 'at one fell swoop,' Instead of being scatter'd through the Pages; They stand forth marshall'd in a handsome troop, To meet the ingenuous youth of future ages, Till some less rigid editor shall stoop To call them back into their separate cages, Instead of standing staring all together, Like garden gods—and not so ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... a shout of laughter. The young hostess stopped Eugene, who would have gone on, and he had no choice but to stoop to ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... a stoop to his massive shoulders. His great arms dangled loosely at his sides, the palms ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... left the bench to stoop to their level, tumbling them over on their backs; playfully boxing their ears, working them up to a wild state of ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... door was locked, but he found another further on which opened to his hand. The air was very hot and moist inside, and the place was so filled with broad-leaved, umbrageous tropical plants that he had to stoop to make his way through to the end. The next house had a more tolerable atmosphere, and contained some blossoms to which he gave momentary attention. In the third house, through the glass-door, he could see a man—evidently a gardener—lifting ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... his father that they should open the chest, thereby exciting a most unwonted burst of ire. "I pry into poor Jamie's accounts while he's lost his mind of grief about that girl!" (For also to him Mercedes, now nigh to forty, was still a girl.) "I would not stoop to doubt him, sir." Yet, on the other hand, Mr. Bowdoin would probably have never condoned a theft, once discovered; and James Bowdoin wasted his time in hinting they ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... actually went to Monsieur de Grandville and asked for the pardon of his uncle's murderer if the latter would make restitution of the hundred thousand francs. The procureur-general replied that the majesty of the crown did not stoop to such compromises. ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... with Lord Beltham; I asked him, over the telephone, to come to my place one day. He came. We had an animated discussion; he got warm and I answered angrily; then I lost control of myself and in a moment of madness I killed him! I am profoundly sorry for my crime and stoop to crave pardon for it; but I cannot tolerate the suggestion that the murder I committed was in the remotest way due to sentimental relations with a lady who is, I repeat, entitled to the very highest ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... men, Pembrooke could use a stile invincible. Lov'dst thou a towne, Ide teach thee how to woo her With words of thunder-bullets wrapt in fire,[109] Till with thy cannon battry she relent And humble her proud heart to stoop to thee. Or if not this, then mount thee on a steed Whose courage never awde an yron Bit, And thou shalt heare me hollow to the beast And with commanding accents master him. This courtship Pembrooke knows, but idle love, The sick-fac't object of an amorous brayne, Did never clothe mine ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... Hogarth a little behind him: and at the instant when the officer was a-stoop to lift the spade, Hogarth took the vials from his breast, and laid them upright in the little pocket of Black's tunic, near his bayonet-sheath and cartridge-box, above ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... Budget interesting. "He talked shop," it was said, "like a tenth muse." He could apply all the resources of a glowing rhetoric to the most prosaic questions of cost and profit; could make beer romantic and sugar serious. He could sweep the widest horizon of the financial future, and yet stoop to bestow the minutest attention on the microcosm of penny stamps and the monetary merits of half-farthings. And yet, extraordinary as were these feats of intellectual athletics, Mr. Gladstone's unapproached supremacy as an orator was not really seen until ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... heat. "The word of honour of a man who'd stoop to a trick as vile as I have doesn't amount to a continental shinplaster. I'll rather be dishonoured by breaking it than ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... my attorney says, I must sign in hotel registers from Sioux Falls—If I do the clerks will stoop to pick cockle burrs and tumble weeds off my skirts and help me to loosen my Indian wampum—whatever ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... Madame, the lady of the mansion, made a set speech to him, at the conclusion of which she rushed on him with open arms, and kissed him on both cheeks, "Au nom de la Republique." Even the ethereal Madame de Fontenai condescended so far to stoop to human feelings, as to move from her couch, advance, drooping her fine eyes, and, with her hand on her bosom, like a sultana bend her magnificent head in silent homage before him. I watched the pantomime of this matchless creature, with a full acknowledgment of its ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... excitement of a common danger; not for glory or for a bright future—but solitary, in ignominy, in the light of a calm sunrise, with the eyes of a condemning multitude upon them. Without protest, without supplication—as it appears, without objection—they stoop to death at his word." ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... of the Daily Mail. You tossed them into that basket as of no account. May I suggest that you rescue those copies, as I have a rather startling matter to make clear to you?" Too grand an official to stoop to a waste-basket, he nodded to the constable. The latter brought the papers; and, selecting one from the lot, I spread it out on the table. "The issue of July ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... valeant humeri quid ferre recusent [Lat.]. look after the main chance; cut one's coat according to one's cloth; live by one's wits; exercise one's discretion, feather the oar, sail near the wind; stoop to conquer &c (cunning) 702; play one's cards well, play one's best card; hit the right nail on the head, put the saddle on the right horse. take advantage of, make the most of; profit by &c (use) 677; make a hit &c (succeed) 731; make a virtue ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... trout had spoken what was certainly whispered in his own mind, the fisherman silently changed his gilded, glittering figure on his hook for one of browner plumage—one of the autumn tribe of flies which stoop to the water from the overhanging trees, and glide off for twenty paces in the stream, to dart up again to the trees, in as many seconds, if not swallowed by some watchful fisher-trout, like the one then before the eyes of ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... birth bestows, Distort the truth, accumulate the lie, And pile the Pyramid of Calumny! These are his portion—but if joined to these Gaunt Poverty should league with deep Disease, 80 If the high Spirit must forget to soar, And stoop to strive with Misery at the door,[101] To soothe Indignity—and face to face Meet sordid Rage, and wrestle with Disgrace, To find in Hope but the renewed caress, The serpent-fold of further Faithlessness:— If such may be the Ills which men assail, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... are interested in mines," he said, with an easy change of subject. "Well," with a short laugh, "as far as they are concerned, I happen to be in the position of a man who sees a spring of water in the desert and may not stoop to ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... had met with the approval of Rolph and the Baldwins led to the belief among non-professional people that he was sound on the legal question, and that he had been driven from the bench because he would not stoop to corruption. The case of Judge Thorpe was exhumed from the dust of twenty years, and the amoval of Judge Willis was believed to be a mere re-enactment of that forgotten iniquity. As for Judge Willis himself, he determined ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... crawling to my feet, she clutched the air as if trying to reach my hands with her own, and then fell forward, flat upon the floor, unconscious. If in that moment she appeared a groveling thing, it was only for a moment. Before I could stoop to raise her, she had regained her senses with two or three sharp inhalations and a fluttering of her eyelids, had thrust my hands from her and struggled to ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... course of human events (he began) it becomes necessary for men holding our lofty and responsible position to stoop to the chastisement of pretentious ignorance and imbecility, we shall not be found to shrink from the task. The writer of the above letter is Mr. Henry Benson, a young man of property, and a Federal Whig. He insinuates that we are very stupid. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... man an instinct of revolt, an enemy of all law, a rebel which will stoop to no yoke, not even that of reason, duty, and wisdom. This element in us is the root of all sin—das radicale Boese of Kant. The independence which is the condition of individuality is at the same time the eternal temptation of the ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the sort of man who would stoop to petty evasion of the truth. It was as though a statue of Praxiteles, miraculously gifted with life, should express its emotions, not in Attic Greek, but in the ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... as any means of carrying on the fight are at my disposal. If you were my wife to-morrow I should expect to use your money, if it were needed, in struggling to obtain a seat in Parliament and a hearing there. I will hardly stoop to tell you that I do not ask you to be my wife for the sake of this aid;—but if you were to become my wife I should expect all your cooperation;—with your money, possibly, but certainly with your ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... blocking up the passage behind Gwynplaine as with a bung. The passage narrowed. Now Gwynplaine touched the walls with both his elbows. In the roof, which was made of flints, dashed with cement, was a succession of granite arches jutting out, and still more contracting the passage. He had to stoop to pass under them. No speed was possible in that corridor. Any one trying to escape through it would have been compelled to move slowly. The passage twisted. All entrails are tortuous; those of a prison as well as those of a man. Here and there, sometimes to the right and sometimes ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... to hide, if possible, the difference between their ranks of life; ever willing to assist those around him, he is neither unkind, haughty, nor over-bearing. In the mansions of the rich, the correctness of his mind induces him to bend to etiquette, but not to stoop to adulation; correct principle cautions him to avoid the gaming-table, inebriety, or any other foible that could occasion him self-reproach. Gratified with the pleasures of reflection, he rejoices to see the gaieties of society, and is fastidious upon no point of little import. Appear only ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... would vanish. O, I should not stoop to murder; that is a vulgar word and practice. I should place a sword in your hand and give you the preference of a gentleman's death. I see nothing to prevent me from carrying out that this very night," with a nod toward the rapiers which hung from ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... of colours and sent to rot in a hole at the bottom of the province. Accustomed as I am to Courts, I cannot but feel it is no atmosphere for a plain soldier; and I could never hope to advance by similar means, even could I stoop to the endeavour. But our friend has a particular aptitude to succeed by the means of ladies; and if all be true that I have heard, he enjoyed a remarkable protection. It is like this turned against him; for when I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Avon, were not of the most enthusiastic description. I had no money and no friends; I had sent to America for a remittance, but in the interval of six weeks required for a reply, must eat and drink and lodge, and London was wide and pitiless, even if I dared stoop to beg assistance. ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... hands. "Why, that's just what Martha said to him, and he quite quarrelled with her. He said it was his duty as the village constable to apprehend all vagabonds, and that if his sister did not know how to pay him more respect he should not stoop to come and speak ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... with a different talent writes, One praises, one instructs, another bites. Horace could ne'er aspire to epic bays, Nor lofty Maro stoop to lyric lays. ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... burdens on the head gives them erectness of figure, even where physically disabled. I have seen a woman, with a brimming water-pail balanced on her head,—or perhaps a cup, saucer, and spoon,—stop suddenly, turn round, stoop to pick up a missile, rise again, fling it, light a pipe, and go through many evolutions with either hand or both, without spilling a drop. The pipe, by the way, gives an odd look to a well-dressed young girl on Sunday, but one often sees ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... with some relief that Dr. Rogers came in and sat down at the table, apparently to wait for a call to the bedroom. A man this of ostentatious gloom,—too grave to deign to be witty, too sanctified to stoop to be cheerful, and therefore not the man I could have wished to see as the medical adviser, and perhaps the religious confidant, of my friend and his wife. A temperate man, too, by his own confession, pronounced over the top of a bottle; and he ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... guess at his age. His face was emaciated; his hair was white and hung in straggling masses on his shoulders; his hooked nose bore apparently the infallible stamp of extreme age. Yet there was a strange and uncanny strength and quickness in his movements. There was no stoop to his shoulders. His head was set squarely. His eyes were as keen as steel. It would have been impossible to have told whether he was fifty or seventy. Eagerly he smoothed out the abused missive and evidently succeeded even in the failing light, in deciphering much of ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... called to the post of Keeper of the Archives of Foreign Affairs. It is well known that, with a noble disregard of his interests, he resigned, some years later (1878), rather than that the impartial pen of history should stoop to the demands of our present rulers. But deprived of his beloved archives, the author has turned his leisure to good account. In two years he has given us the last three volumes of his history, and announces shortly New Lights on Galileo, based upon documents extremely ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet |
