Coward

“ Zounds, ye fat paunch, an ye call me coward, by the Lord, I’ll stab thee.
FALSTAFF.
I call thee coward? I’ll see thee damned ere I call thee coward, but I would give a thousand pound I could run as fast as thou canst. You are straight enough in the shoulders, you care not who sees your back. Call you that backing of your friends? A plague upon such backing! Give me them that will face me.—Give me a cup of sack. I am a rogue if I drunk today. ”

“ I always hated coward souls, And meanness held in scorn. Now, each unworthy act At once through all my senses thrills; Each instance vile of human worthlessness, My soul with holy anger fills. This arrogant, this foolish age, Which feeds itself on empty hopes, Absorbed in trifles, virtue’s enemy, Which idly clamors for utility, And has not sense enough to see How useless all life thenceforth must become, I feel beneath me, and its judgments laugh To scorn. The motley crew, The foes of every lofty thought, Who laugh at thee, I trample under foot. ”

“ Here I was, a miserable, pining, starving wretch—and for no reason in the world but that I was a coward, but that I was a coward—a blind fool! Because I had not let the empty-headed and sodden, the placid and smug, the fat and greasy citizens of our great metropolis, tell me—the servant of the muses—how I ought to look, how I ought to act, what I ought to be! The very breath of my body is prayer—is effort—is vision; to dwell in my own light, to behold my own soul, to know my own truth—that is my one business in this world! ”

“ Though God will never forgive me, Though men make light of my name, Though my sin and my shame outlive me, I shall not outlast my shame. The coward, does he mean to miss me? His right hand shakes like a leaf; Shall I live for my friends to hiss me, Of fools and of knaves the chief? Shall I live for my foes to twit me? He has master'd his nerve again— He is firm, he will surely hit me— Will he reach the heart or the brain? One long look eastward and northward— One prayer—"Our Father which art"— And the cough chimes in with the fourth word, And I shoot skyward—the heart. ”

“ The coward, he does not even complain!'
'Coward!' said a veteran in a thoughtful air, after having long contemplated Jesus, although at first he had been one of his most cruel tormentors: 'No, he is no coward! no, to endure patiently all that we have made him suffer, requires more courage than to throw oneself sword in hand on the enemy. No!' he repeated, drawing aside, 'no, this man is no coward!'
And Genevieve fancied she saw a tear drop on the grey moustache of the old soldier. ”

“ I know that thou deemest me no less a fool than a coward; thou didst bring me the means of an honourable death, gavest into mine hands the dagger and the drug, and I have rejected both: we disputed, differed, parted, met again, and again renewed the subject; thou didst even deign to persuade the coward (so thou thoughtest him) to act like a man; but thy entreaties were unheeded and thy counsel rejected: he will die like a thief and a criminal—he will be hooted out of life; and curses will be the torches to give light to his memory, that it sink not into darkness and oblivion. ”

“ But this prospect which lies before him of ambling across a field with death singing about his ears, is a thing which tears with clawing fingers at the tuggs and toggles of his imagination until his flesh revolts to the point where it refuses the dare. It is such a man that courts-martial and the world at large miscall by the hateful name of coward. ”

“ And then I said to the warden this: 'You've struck me with a whip, in cold blood. You've tied me up hand and foot, to whip me like a dog. Well, whip me, then, till you fill your belly with it. You are a coward. You are lower, and meaner, and cowardlier than the lowest and meanest dog that ever yelped when his master kicked him. You were born a coward. Cowards will lie and steal, and you are the same as a thief and liar. No hound would own you for a friend. Whip me hard and long, you coward. Whip me, I say. See how good a coward feels when he ties up a man and whips him like a dog. ”

“ He knew I had looked straight to the bottom of his real self, and had seen the coward that is in every man who has been bred to appearances only. Up rose his vanity, the coward's substitute for courage. ”

“ Hast thou never seen a man turn pale from anger, as well as cowardice?"
"Of a truth, I have," said the veteran; "and, provided there be a steady countenance along with it, this sickly hue is ever a sight to be dreaded more than the woman's blush, which some men fall into in their anger. But a coward's mouth is always playing him dog's tricks: I have sometimes seen the nether lip shake in a brave man; but when the trembling is all up in the corners, as I have learned to know, after divers lessons, it is a sign the heart is in a flutter. ”

“ FALSTAFF.
You rogue, here’s lime in this sack too: there is nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man, yet a coward is worse than a cup of sack with lime in it. A villanous coward! Go thy ways, old Jack. Die when thou wilt, if manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the Earth, then am I a shotten herring. There lives not three good men unhanged in England, and one of them is fat, and grows old, God help the while, a bad world, I say. I would I were a weaver; I could sing psalms or anything. A plague of all cowards, I say still. ”

“ The reason now is off duty, or is fooling with duty, and all the mere animal instincts and sentiments are laid atrociously bare. The coward shows up more craven, the braggart more braggart, the bold more bold, the cruel more cruel, the ignorant more ignorant, the untruthful more untruthful, the carnal more carnal. ”

“ Your marriage, child! Good Heavens, you amaze me! but here we may be interrupted—this way with me. If this indeed be so all may be well again: for though he may be dead to feeling be assured he is alive to fear: the man who once descends to be a villain is generally observed to be at heart a coward. ”

“ God's blackest and deepest curse—"
"Oh, father! father!" broke in the young girl in a very wail of agony so pitiful that it must have moved any heart not calloused for the moment against all natural feeling, but that availed nothing to stop the impending curse or even to lower the voice that uttered it.
"—God's deepest and blackest curse 'light upon the coward! shame, sorrow, and quick death! He shall have neither house, home nor family from this moment! I disown this bastard of my blood! I devote him to ruin and to perdition!" ”

“ The coward never on himself relies, But to an equal for assistance flies; Man yields to custom as he bows to fate, In all things ruled—mind, body, and estate; In pain, in sickness, we for cure apply To them we know not, and we know not why ”

“ But when they have once seen a man play the coward, the silver tongue, with all its eloquent explanation and honeyed pleadings, will hardly banish from their eyes the peculiar expression wavering betwixt compassion and contempt. ”

“ Amazement fled before rage upon that furious face, perspiration streamed from every pore. His eyes shot this way and that like black bullets. No other man in the world can become so infuriated as the coward, for the brave man knows that he can satisfy his anger. ”

“ Your seeming hatred has been merely a mask for cowardice. You'd fight a giant, if need be—just as you have fought that giant, the sea, so often and so bravely. But, just the same, you're an arrant coward. ”

“ Coward!) Take the honest light and pray for grace. Where her lightning struck, where her pureness flowered, (Coward! Coward!) Dare to see her face.
Through the sea of lies—skies have always lowered!— (Coward! Coward!) Be she your horizon or your mist, Make straight on, though dawn be still undowered, (Coward! Coward!) Toward the timeless tryst.
One thing now you know for truth at least,
One thing more than groan of witless beast,
One thing more than jest at mumming feast,
Pain is still increased, increased, increased
Marking life like milestones toward Love's East. ”

“ Men called such a one as he a coward: it was but a word. Why coward, or simple and loyal and brave, or good and noble? It was all a matter of convention, of accepted meaning; the whole world was mere convention, a concept, an illusion of the brain. ”

“ I came to make sure that the great coward did not cheat us. Ey, and he called me 'doddering fool;' but look at him now! Stricken insensible by terror, but, ey, one might forgive him that who had heard your uncanny scream. ”

“ Did I not tell you that you are a coward, Dick, though I never thought that you would prove it out of your own mouth within five minutes. Only cowards put the burden of their own wrong-doing upon the heads of others. ”

“ A brave nature bound to a coward, a proud one leashed with dishonour—that is an agony that lies beyond words. When he saw me thus, so young, given this wealth and this power he had so vainly desired, a desire of vengeance entered him against me ”

“ When I wish you to avoid quarrelling and fighting, I by no means want you to become a coward, for I as much abhor a dastardly spirit as any boy in your school can possibly do; but I would wish you to convince them that you merited not that appellation, by showing through the whole of your behaviour, a resolution that despised accidental pain, and avoided revenging an affront for no other reason than because you were convinced it shewed a much nobler spirit to pardon than to resent. ”

“ There was not a man there whom you could have called a coward with impunity. Had they been all together—in line or column—they would have gone up the hill like a herd of buffaloes, with wild cheers and gleaming bayonets, and never given a thought to the dead and wounded. ”

“ You were trusted not to betray defenceless things. A coward was a person who betrayed defenceless things. George had said that the world's adoration of courage was the world's cowardice, its fear of betrayal. ”

“ To be through and through a coward does much enlarge the limits of calamity. If I or if you were to hate a man, for reasons good or bad, we would kill him. But a coward! What can he do? He has his own ways, not mine or yours. His claws are not of the make of mine. ”

“ If Heaven would work a miracle and give him the one thing that he lacks—bravery and patriotism,—even if he struck but one blow, to prove that he was no coward to fly before the enemies of his country,—I would go barefoot round the world to find him, and be his servant, his slave, if he would not forgive the past and make me his wife! ”

“ His countenance and the accent betrayed his alarm, so that the marshal himself was struck with it, and fearing to lose his revenge, he cried: “After all, he is a coward! The wretch had only the courage or the vanity of a fencer. This pitiful renegade—this traitor to his country—whom I have cuffed, kicked—yes, kicked, most noble marquis!—shame of your ancient house—disgrace to the rank of gentleman, old or new—ah! it is not hypocrisy, it is not calculation, as I at first thought—it is fear! You need the noise of war, and the eyes of spectators to give you courage—”
“Sir—have a care!” ”

“ But"—and here the spirit of the woman broke through the crust of sect and religious reserve and threw at him the true rebuke—"the wickedness that is in you it is for God to forgive, after you have made your peace with Him. Between you and me, Brother Paul, there is another matter. It is your cowardice. You have come to me with a coward's words to-night. You have asked me to be a coward with you. I have God and my faith between me and the world now. Would I be wise to exchange those blessed safeguards for a coward?" ”

“ O pitiful coward, thou
faintest, and I grow stronger; make me complain, make me bend, make me
yield if thou canst; encourage thy guards, cheer up thy executioners;
see, see they faint, and can do no more; arm them, flesh them anew, spur
them up"; truly, a man must confess that there is some phrenzy, some
fury, how holy soever, that at that time possesses those souls. ”

“ A manly declaration served to cloak a coward consciousness. His own soul told him that he had slipped back and back, that in the competition of the larger, older cities he could not win a place and must lag behind with the undistinguished. ”

“ Really, monsieur, I should regard you as a coward, and a traitor too, if I did not, with greater justice, regard you as a madman.” ”

“ But a man who lies and is a coward! who drinks whiskey in his room, and afterwards eats cloves! who pats animals in public, and viciously kicks them in private! whose wretched puling sins are afraid to stand on their own legs and assert themselves as sins—hiding behind doors, skulking in the darkness! ”

“ He sat up rigidly, as if my words had been a needle in his flesh, and instinctively I recoiled.
"I will be a man," he returned huskily—"I will be a man. You'll help me, won't you? I've been a miserable coward all these years. ”

“ Many a notorious coward, many a chicken-livered poltroon, coarse, brutal, degraded, has made his dying speech without a quaver in his voice and been swung into eternity with what looked like the calmest fortitude, and so we are justified in believing, from the low intellect of such a creature, that it was not moral courage that enabled him to do it. ”

“ As soon as all is not easy and troubles begin, he sneaks away like a coward—a coward that he is. He will never do that which is right, if right weighs over a couple of ounces. Coward! you who took from me my young hopes will take from me now my child. ”

“ To them a few such lessons as you could have given them with a stick from one of their own trees, would have been invaluable."
"I did not know they were cowards!"
"What difference does that make? The man who grounds his action on another's cowardice, is essentially a coward himself.—I fear worse will come of it! ”

“ High cultivation of the imaginative faculty, the habit of living too much within himself, and a constitutional predisposition in that direction, had made him painfully nervous—a weakness which to him, and eventually to others, assumed the shape of cowardice. ”