"Courtier" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... back in spirit and recall that noble sea, reposing among the snow-peaks six thousand feet above the ocean, the conviction comes strong upon me again that Como would only seem a bedizened little courtier in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... entire life was a protest against the pretensions of birth over mind. His predecessors, to a great extent subjugated by their social superiors, sought only to please. Nothing further was expected of them. This mental attitude is apparent in their work. The language of the courtier is usually polished, but will never have the virility that characterizes the speech ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... courtier, laughing, in order that he might seem to comprehend the quotation, "your majesty may be perfectly right in relying on the good feeling of France, but I fear I am not altogether wrong in ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... obliged to any correspondent who will supply the name of the courtier referred to in the following anecdote, which is to be found in Burckhardt's Kirchen-Geschichte der Deutschen Gemeinden in London, Tub. 1798, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 192, July 2, 1853 • Various
... entirely new to the imagination, and yet the pleasure is not diminished on this account. A simple man, who has never seen the interior of a palace, never looked on royalty, never beheld even a veritable courtier, feels no embarrassment when he is suddenly called to witness the pomps ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... dazed, crosses the room to the courtiers, and is received with marked deference, each courtier making him a profound bow or curtsey before withdrawing through the central doors. He returns each obeisance with a nervous jerk, and turns away from it, only to find another courtier bowing at the other side. The process finally reduced him to distraction, as he bumps into ...
— Great Catherine • George Bernard Shaw
... man and consummate villain," says Beaufort, with a gloomy smile. "The fine fleur of our aristocracy, a maker of tender rhymes, a singer of tender songs, a good swordsman, a brilliant wit, a perfect courtier, a lucky gambler—in a word, just that fortunate combination of noble and ignoble qualities most likely to fascinate Madame de St. Andre," and a shadow settled for a moment on the debonair face ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... on the death of his father, Montaigne, then thirty-eight years old, retired from the practise of law at Bordeaux, and settled himself on his estate. Tho he had been a man of pleasure, and sometimes a courtier, his studious habits now grew on him, and he loved the compass, staidness, and independence of the country gentleman's life. He took up his economy in good earnest, and made his farms yield the most. Downright and plain-dealing, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... hence he is not reported; he seldom said the sharp short things that Johnson almost always did, which produce a more decided effect at the moment, and which are so much more easy to carry off.[1] Besides, as to Burke's testimony to Johnson's powers, you must remember that Burke was a great courtier; and after all, Burke said and wrote more than once that he thought Johnson greater in talking than writing, and greater in Boswell than ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... Oxford, as we saw, the evening of Saturday, February 21st. That night he reached a village called Corkthrop,[75] where he lay concealed till Wednesday; and then, not in the astrologer's orange-tawny dress, but in "a courtier's coat and buttoned cap," which he had by some means contrived to procure, he set out again on his forlorn journey, making for the nearest sea-port, Bristol, where the police were looking out to receive him. His choice of Bristol was peculiarly unlucky. ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... in pursuit of fame—the statesman whose watchful days and sleepless nights are spent in devising schemes to promote the welfare of his own—perhaps the ruin of other countries, as if this globe was insufficient for us all—and the courtier who is always watching the countenance of his prince in the hope of catching a gracious smile—can have very little conception. I have not only retired from all public employments, but am retiring within myself, and ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... having ascertained that the duke favored the alliance of his niece with the American artist, was too good a subject-or rather, too experienced a courtier-to attempt openly before his master to oppose the matter, taking good care to avoid any interference with one whose wish, when expressed, was law. His opposition to the proposed marriage was, however, none the less rigorous; and he determined, ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... delicacies of the English language ought to have the Bible at his fingers' ends.' " That Macaulay practised his own preaching you would quickly find by referring to his essays. Take three sentences from the Essay on Milton: "The principles of liberty were the scoff of every growing courtier, and the Anathema Maranatha of every fawning dean. In every high place worship was paid to Charles and James, Belial and Moloch, and England propitiated these obscene and cruel idols with the blood of her best and brightest children. Crime ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... value on such occasions. The substitution of "Highness" for "Majesty" was not devoid of significance; for Stampoff, though loyal to the backbone, was no courtier. ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... a different guise. Whereas, that was the giant in its rude, primary dynamic strength, this was the courtier, whose no less deadly arms were concealed by velvet and lace. For the liquid in the tumbler and in the syringe that the physician carefully filled was now a solution of glonoin, the most powerful heart stimulant ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... not? since you may often find poverty under them: nay, they are commonly the signs of it. And, therefore, why may not a poet be seen in them as well as a courtier? ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... Temples, The manner of swearing in hot Oyl. How they exact. Fines. Of their Language. Titles given to Women according to their qualities. Titles given to Men. No difference between a Country-man and a Courtier for Language. Their Speech and manner of Address is courtly and becoming. Their Language in their Address to the King. Words of form and Civility. Full of Words and Complement. By whom they swear. Their way of railing and scurrility. Proverbs. Something ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... Aleck lifted the hand which he held, touched it gently with his lips and laid it back beside its fellow on Melanie's lap. Then he rose and lifted both hands before her, half in fun and half in earnestness, as if he were a courtier doing ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... must end their temporal course pretty much as they began it; nor will the thoughtful repine at this dispensation. In lands where nature in the many is not trampled upon by injustice, feelingly may the peasant say to the courtier— ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... But Tennyson was, of course, no Birthday poet. Since the exile of the House of Stuart our kings in England have not maintained the old familiarity with many classes of their subjects. Literature has not been fashionable at Court, and Tennyson could in no age have been a courtier. We hear the complaint, every now and then, that official honours are not conferred (except the Laureateship) on men of letters. But most of them probably think it rather distinguished not to be decorated, or to carry titles borne by many deserving persons unvisited ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... he died rich. And if his eyes were blurred With big films—silence! he is in his grave. Greatly he suffered; greatly, too, he erred; Yet broke his heart in trying to be brave. Nor did he wait till Freedom had become The popular shibboleth of courtier's lips; He smote for her when God Himself seemed dumb And all His arching skies were in eclipse. He was a-weary, but he fought his fight, And stood for simple manhood; and was joyed To see the august broadening of the light And new earths heaving ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... is the monument (52), an altar tomb with shields and initials, of Bishop Salcot (or Capon), whose notoriety as a "time-serving courtier" is mentioned ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... his wife having already given him an heir, the most sanguine imagination could hardly view Odo as being brought much nearer the succession; yet the change in his condition was striking enough to excuse the fancy of those about him for shaping the future to their liking. The priestling was to turn courtier and perhaps soldier; Asti was to be exchanged for Turin, the seminary for the academy; and even the old chief of Donnaz betrayed in his grumbling counsels to the boy a sense of the exalted future in which they ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... the cordiality of this invitation, and Yates, whose natural gallantry was at once aroused, responded with the readiness of a courtier. Mrs. Bartlett led the way into the house; but as Yates passed the farmer the latter cleared his throat with an effort, and, throwing his thumb over his shoulder in the direction his wife had taken, said in a ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... hand, was scarcely a comfort to the royal lovers. At first his uncle had called him "our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son," trying to smooth over matters; but Hamlet would have none of it. Therefore, one day, when the young prince abruptly announced his intention to go abroad, neither the king nor the queen placed impediments in his way, though, some months previously, ...
— A Midnight Fantasy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... news of the king's execution, and when he heard it Montrose vowed that the rest of his life should be spent in the service of his son, and in avenging his master. Charles II. did not like him; he was too grave and too little of a courtier; and besides, the new king had listened and believed the stories to his discredit brought by men whose fortunes had been ruined in their own country, and who sought to build them up in Holland! Charles soon found ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... produced a sobering and clarifying effect. The inner storm and stress gradually subsided, and the new Goethe—statesman, scientific investigator, man of the world, courtier, friend of princes—came to see that after all feeling was not everything, and that its untrammeled expression was not the whole of art. Form and decorum counted for more than he had supposed, and revolution was not the word of wisdom. Self-control was the only basis of character, and limitation ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... functions were free; but at that period, partly for financial reasons, a system of licensing was adopted at the suggestion of the chancellor, l'Hopital. Among the other revolutionary measures of the year 1791, the professions of agent and courtier were again opened to the public. Many of the financial convulsions of the ensuing years, which were due to more serious causes, were attributed to this indiscriminate removal of restrictions, and they were ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... am not the author of the book called the Scottish Fiddle, which I have barely seen. The name alone, if you had known me, would have convinced you that I could not have been the author. I had made quite mistakes enough about Sir Walter, not to have to answer for this too. I took him for a mere courtier and political bigot. When I read his novels, which I did very lately, at one large glut (with the exception of the Black Dwarf, which I read before), I found that when he spoke so charitably of the mistakes of kings and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various
... VIII. (not Benedict IX., as Vasari has it), wishing to employ Giotto, sent a courtier to obtain some proof of his skill. The latter requesting a drawing to send to his Holiness, Giotto took a sheet of paper and a pencil dipped in red color; then resting his elbow on his side, to form a compass, with one turn of his hand he drew a circle so perfect and ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... are talking of the Virgin Mary," said the king, who by chance had come to watch them, disturbed by a gleam of jealousy, cast into his heart by a Sicilian courtier, who was furious at the sudden favour which the ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... like a courtier in the palace of the Sleeping Beauty. He shook himself, and rose stiffly from ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... their society was that of the last trouble and convulsion through which the Early Middle Ages struggled into the Renaissance, so long delayed with us. Ascham was one of our chief representatives of the Renaissance itself—that is to say, of a type at once scholarly and man-of-the-worldly, a courtier and a diplomatist as well as a "don" and a man of letters; a sportsman as well as a schoolmaster. And while from all these points of view his letters have interest, there is one thing about them which is perhaps more interesting ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... of society is himself, Gulielmus Temple, Baronettus. One sees him in his retreat; between his study-chair and his tulip-beds,(38) clipping his apricots and pruning his essays,—the statesman, the ambassador no more; but the philosopher, the Epicurean, the fine gentleman and courtier at St. James's as at Shene; where, in place of kings and fair ladies, he pays his court to the Ciceronian majesty; or walks a minuet with the Epic Muse; or dallies by the south wall with the ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hob-nobs with the thief; the pure and pious sit down to the same tray with the pander and the procuress; where the professional religionist, the learned Koranist, and the strictest moralist consort with the wicked magician, the scoffer, and the debauchee-poet like Abu Nowas; where the courtier jests with the boor, and where the sweep is bedded with the noble lady. And the characters are "finished and quickened by a few touches swift and sure as the glance of sunbeams." The whole is a kaleidoscope where everything ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... impressed some of his school-fellows as having no ambitions higher than to be a courtier, had forsaken "pigtail Toryism," as he called it, and was developing along liberal lines. He had been a consistent advocate of Catholic emancipation, an admirer of Canning's broad views, and hospitable to moderate propositions for the reform of Parliament. When Lord Grey's government was ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... the little Prince, bowing low with true courtier-like grace and suavity, "I will, with your permission, crave my boon as a Christmas favor at wassail ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... she hid them. Perhaps that we owned to being escaped captives explained much to her—else she had surely wondered that the tattered Dalfin claimed to be a prince. Yet he was princely, both in look and bearing, as he rose up and made himself known, with a bow which none but a courtier ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... boy laughed incredulously. The printer caught in his tone his courtier's contempt for the artificer's home, and his courtier's reverence ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... from the ground once more, he seized the monarch's rein, Amidst the pale and wildered looks of all the courtier train; And with a fierce, o'ermastering grasp, the rearing war-horse led, And sternly set them face to face,—the king before ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... and was told to me by a highly intelligent man, who, being a diplomatist and a courtier, was very likely to make the best of national evils: A planter had occasion to send a female slave some distance on an errand. She did not return so soon as he expected, and he grew angry. At last he gave orders that she should be ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... she clung to it with a fierce tenacity. She hunted, she danced, she jested with her young favourites, she coquetted and scolded and frolicked at sixty-seven as she had done at thirty. "The Queen," wrote a courtier a few months before her death, "was never so gallant these many years nor so set upon jollity." She persisted, in spite of opposition, in her gorgeous progresses from country-house to country-house. She clung to business as of old, and rated in her usual fashion "one who ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... to increase, a scarcely perceptible, contemptuous smile played on the lips of this man, and a flash of hatred, and, withal, of scorn burst from his eyes. But this never lasted longer than a moment; his pale and sickly face immediately resumed its impenetrable aspect, and the smile of a polite courtier reappeared on his lips. This was Talleyrand, first minister of the emperor—Talleyrand, who had originally served the Church as a priest, then the republic as a minister—who had deserted and betrayed both to become minister of the empire, and to combat and deny all the principles he had ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... duke lived with his loving friends, who had put themselves into a voluntary exile for his sake, while their lands and revenues enriched the false usurper; and custom soon made the life of careless ease they led here more sweet to them than the pomp and uneasy splendour of a courtier's life. Here they lived like the old Robin Hood of England, and to this forest many noble youths daily resorted from the court, and did fleet the time carelessly, as they did who lived in the golden age. In the ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... of eloquence exhibited by Raleigh in pleading his own cause, by raising the admiration of all present, proved the means of introducing him to the presence of the queen. His comely person, fine address, and prompt proficiency in the arts of a courtier, did all the rest; and he rapidly rose to such a height of royal favor as to inspire with jealousy even him who had long stood foremost in the good graces ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... Sir Iltyd opened the door and bowed with his old-time courtier-like dignity, and Dartmouth passed ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Place, and the Marquise, who was quite an elegante. The Marquis was not tall, but thin, upright, and rather formal. He was distinguished in his manners, and I thought there was a little of the courtier in them, perhaps from having been so much at the court of the Emperor Napoleon, who had the highest regard for him. Though incomparably superior to Arago in mathematics and astronomical science, he was inferior ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... frequently, and Nan at first painfully apprehended hearing some time of a deadly duel between her truculent Gap admirer and her persistent town courtier—who was more considerate and better-mannered, but no less dogged and, in fact, a good ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... happy situation. She knew the meaning of his refusal: she, an upstart, having got within the gates of Castle Moyna by some servility, when her proper place was a shebeen in Cruarig, offered him charity from a low motive. She felt a rebuke from a priest as a courtier a blow from his king; but keeping her temper, she made many excuses for him in her own mind, without losing the firm will to teach him better manners in her own reverent way. The Countess heard of it, and made a sharp complaint to Captain ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... But does the courtier, does the citizen lay aside his pack of habits, as well as his pack of cares, when he becomes a temporary denizen of the country? Would that it were so! He is cast in a mould—his mind has been warped: his body requires moistening with the freshest ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... our histories of many people who have atoned for an error by the surrender of their fortune; who have resigned a mistress; or preferred a mother to the object of their affection; but never before did I hear of a courtier who spoke favorably of a disgraced minister that labored under the displeasure of his sovereign. I give to each of those whose generous actions have been now recited twenty thousand pieces of gold; but the ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... Brigitte (who taught her to say "Aunt Brigitte"), and by Madame Thuillier and her own mother, Celeste imbibed the highest idea of the ex-beau of the Empire. The house in the rue Saint-Dominique d'Enfer produced upon her very much the effect of the Chateau des Tuileries on a courtier of the ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... Privy Seal, and Thomas Howard, afterwards Duke of Norfolk, Lord Treasurer of the kingdom. Soon, however, these trusted and loyal advisers were obliged to make way for a young and rising ecclesiastical courtier, Thomas Wolsey[1] (1471-1530), who for close on twenty years retained the first place in the affections of his sovereign and the chief voice in the direction of English affairs. As a youth, Wolsey's marvellous abilities astonished his teachers ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... coming when Witham had to lose its prior. Geoffrey (son, not of fair Rosamond, but of Hickenay) had resigned in January, 1182. After sixteen months' hiatus, Walter de Coutances, a courtier, was elected, ordained, and consecrated, and enthroned December, 1183; but in fifteen months he was translated to the then central See of Rouen and the wretched diocese had another fifteen months without a bishop, during which time (April 15, 1185, on holy Monday) an earthquake cracked ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... thoroughly; and Wilmet could tolerate a great deal when either Felix or Alda enjoyed. He was much too busy with Christmas accounts to undertake any part that needed learning, but he was pressed into the service as a courtier, only with a dispensation from either speaking or rehearsing; while Wilmet utterly scouted any idea of taking any share in the drama, having enough to ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... upon his splendid court, And dames, and chiefs, of princely port. He was the Polish Solomon, So sung his poets, all but one, Who, being unpensioned, made a satire, And boasted that he could not flatter. 150 It was a court of jousts and mimes, Where every courtier tried at rhymes; Even I for once produced some verses, And signed my odes 'Despairing Thyrsis.' There was a certain Palatine,[257] A Count of far and high descent, Rich as a salt or silver mine;[258] And he was ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... Power, any Force that could tear me from thee? You might sooner tear a Pension out of the Hands of a Courtier, a Fee from a Lawyer, a pretty Woman from a Looking-glass, or any Woman from Quadrille. —But to tear ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... chairs around, only yours," she continued. Then, with a quick gesture of the hand: "No, don't get up. Set right still now. One o' your friends here can get me a chair, I guess," and she looked very meaningly into the face of a foppish young courtier who stood near her, ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... "How happy we shall be!" he murmured tenderly, kissing her cheek and thinking how hard it was to be practical and keep remote benefits in mind when she was so beautiful and so tempting and so trustful. He said aloud: "I am impatient, soul's delight! Is it strange?" And he bowed like a stage courtier to a ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... palace of the king:— 4000 He rioted in festival the while, He and his guards and priests; but Plague did fling One shadow upon all. Famine can smile On him who brings it food, and pass, with guile Of thankful falsehood, like a courtier gray, 4005 The house-dog of the throne; but many a mile Comes Plague, a winged wolf, who loathes alway The garbage and the scum that strangers make ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... beginning of the reigne of Muleyhassel, whose sone reigneth at present, the greatest courtier at the court of Grenade was Morayzell; and tho their ware many brave Dames, yet none could captivate his heart, so that long tyme he was called le bel insensible. On a tyme on of his friends called Almadam came and invited him to a feigned fight ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... gave his arm to his aunt with the air of a courtier; Fitz and I disposed ourselves on each side; Chad, with reverential mien, screwed his eyes up tight; and the colonel said grace with an increased fervor in his voice, no doubt remembering in his heart the blessing ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Cardinal, in which the latter was dismissed to his diocese with a few perfunctory expressions of regard and recognition for his services. Cardinal Ximenez breathed his last a few hours after reading this heartless communication and Las Casas was left to begin anew his life as a courtier and to cultivate the good-will of the all-powerful Flemish favourites. He was fortunate, at this time, in securing the friendship of a brother of Fray Antonio de Montesinos, named Reginaldo, who was also a Dominican and proved a staunch and ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... Hector. They were his death sentence, not to be recalled, signed by the tyrant whose obsequious courtier he had ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... plausible words did not in the least affect his hearers. General Antuna, the comandante, a square-faced man with the airs of a courtier, but with the bold, hard eyes of a ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... bard, named Caradoc of Menwygent, whose rising fame was likely soon to vie with the established reputation of Cadwallon, and summoned him to sing something which might command the applause of his sovereign and the gratitude of the company. The young man was ambitious, and understood the arts of a courtier. He commenced a poem, in which, although under a feigned name, he drew such a poetic picture of Eveline Berenger, that Gwenwyn was enraptured; and while all who had seen the beautiful original at once recognized the resemblance, the eyes of the Prince confessed at once his passion for the subject, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... were alive to hear the answer of Achilles Tatius. He was too good a courtier, however, to make any imprudent reply. "It was my duty," he replied, "to desire to be as near your Imperial Highness as your faithful Follower ought, wherever you might wish ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... spent in her charming society, a change came over Bigot. He received formidable missives from his great patroness at Versailles, the Marquise de Pompadour, who had other matrimonial designs for him. Bigot was too slavish a courtier to resent her interference, nor was he honest enough to explain his position to his betrothed. He deferred his marriage. The exigencies of the war called him away. He had triumphed over a fond, confiding woman; but he had been trained among the dissolute spirits of the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... to the rare aristocratic privilege of riding in the king's carriages at Versailles, laughed at as the Princess Elizabeth's living specimen of inoculation, the incipient courtier and embryo revolutionist was awakened from his delightful vision to find himself suddenly transferred from his regal residence and gayeties, to the sombre solitude of a country jail. He had been guilty of a passionate attachment to a young lady ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... "Dialogue which Franciscus von Sickingen held fore heaven's gate with St. Peter and the Knights of St. George before he was let in." This was published in 1523, almost immediately after the death of Sickingen. "A Talk between a Nobleman, a Monk, and a Courtier" (1523). "A Talk between a Fox and a Wolf" (1523). "A Pleasant Dialogue between Dr. Martin Luther and the cunning Messenger from Hell" (1523). "A Conversation of the Pope with his Cardinals of how it goeth with him, and how he may destroy the ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... one to Brutus, written previously to the triumvirate. Suetonius also makes mention of them, and says that Julius Caesar, in his consulship, ordered the diurnal acts of the senate and the people to be published. Tacitus relates a speech of a courtier to Nero to induce him to execute Thrasea, and among other things he says: 'Diurna populi Romani per provinciam per exercitus accuratius leguntur ut noscatur quid Thrasea non fecerit.' Seneca and the younger Pliny also allude to them. Dr. Johnson, in the preface to the tenth ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... professors. In former days, said he, knights of the road were a kind of military order into which none but decayed gentlemen presumed to intrude themselves. If a younger brother ran out of his allowance, or if a young heir spent his estate before he had bought a tolerable understanding, if an under-courtier lived above his income, or a subaltern officer laid out twice his pay in rich suits and fine laces, this was the way they took to recruit; and if they had but money enough left to procure a good horse and a case of ...
— 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
... treating of those enormous habiliments, that were not only slashed and gallooned, but artificially swollen out on the broader parts of the body, by introduction of Bran,—our Professor fails not to comment on that luckless Courtier, who having seated himself on a chair with some projecting nail on it, and therefrom rising, to pay his devoir on the entrance of Majesty, instantaneously emitted several pecks of dry wheat-dust: and stood there diminished to a spindle, ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... the gaudy knights of the second Richard's Court, who wore the points of their shoes tied round their waists; they even ridicule the tight, choking, padded coats worn by George IV., that pattern father of his people; but I see in the stumbling courtier and the half-asphyxiated wearer of the padded Petersham coat two beings who act under the demands ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... creatures at first clearly evinced the emotions of fear, dismay, consternation, and grief; afterwards, they just as clearly showed fortitude and joy; for, after the supporting pillar had been built, I saw the queen, surrounded by a crowd of courtier-bees, on the comb near it, and am fully convinced that she had been brought out by her rejoicing subjects to view the results of their brave struggle against an utterly unforeseen but now ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... by profession, the sleek courtier Horace spared the emperor's vice, contenting himself with only declaring that play was forbidden.(27) The two following verses of his, usually applied to the effects of gaming, really refer only ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... I congratulate you," said the latter. "You will, I am sure, after a little experience become a perfect courtier." ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston
... thought my mother would have been more to the purpose, but the Queen wanted to show the effect of the handi-work. However, Nan disliked the notion very much, and showed it so plainly in her face that the Queen exclaimed: 'You are no courtier, Mademoiselle de Ribaumont. Why did you not marry her to her Roundhead cousin, and leave her in England, Madame? Come, my god- daughter, you at least have learnt the ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Frenchman smiled in acquiescence, and, taking off his glazed hat with the air of a courtier, said, "Pardieu! certainly; why not? Jean Marie would lose his pilotage rather ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... prizes for him. There will be a knife and fork at my table at five o'clock, where, if you are not engaged, I hope to see you." He then withdrew. If I had not known this gallant officer's character as a courtier, I should have been highly flattered by his compliments. Had anyone else stood in my shoes, his language would most likely have been the same. However, it put me in good humour, for who is there that does not like to be commended ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... of war at all seasons of distress, O Bharata! One who is of high descent, who, treated with honour by thee, always exerts his powers to the utmost on thy behalf, and who will never abandon thee in weal or woe, illness or death, should be entertained by thee as a courtier. They that are of high birth, that are born in thy kingdom, that have wisdom, beauty of form and features, great learning, and dignity of behaviour, and that are, besides, devoted to thee, should be employed as officers of thy army. Persons of low descent and covetous ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... large increase: When love was all an easy monarch's care, [536] Seldom at council, never in a war Jilts ruled the state, and statesmen farces writ; Nay, wits had pensions, and young lords had wit: The fair sat panting at a courtier's play, And not a mask went unimproved away: [541] The modest fan was lifted up no more, And virgins smiled at what they blushed before. The following license of a foreign reign, [544] Did all the dregs of bold Socinus drain, [545] Then unbelieving priests reformed the nation. And taught ...
— An Essay on Criticism • Alexander Pope
... the inequality between the forces and chances of the two rivals became quite manifest, and Francis I. could no longer affect the same serenity. He had intrusted the management of his affairs in Germany to a favorite comrade of his early youth, Admiral de Bonnivet, a soldier and a courtier, witty, rash, sumptuous, eager to display his master's power and magnificence. Charles of Austria's agents, and at their head his aunt Margaret, who had the government of the Low Countries in his absence, were experienced, deliberate, discreet, more eager to succeed in their purpose than to make ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... widow's meal or the descent of the fire of heaven to consume the altar and the wood; for it is expressly said that "John did no miracle." Not that he owed anything to the adventitious circumstances of wealth and rank; for he was not a place-loving courtier, "clothed in soft raiment or found in kings' courts." Not that he was a master of a superb eloquence like that of Isaiah or Ezekiel; for he was content to be only "a cry"—short, thrilling, piercing through the darkness, ringing over ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... lien beau tems; c'est quelque chose. It has come late, and to make us only a short visit I suppose, and to tell us that we shall have a better autumn than we have had a summer; no courtier cajoles one like a fine day. Yesterday was a fine day also, and I completed, as they call it, my seventy-first year. I dined at your sister's.(289) Mr. Campbell and Car and Mie Mie were to have been of the party; they had an apology to make, ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... with his approbation; on the contrary, it clearly appears that he held them in derision. Hamlet says, in the scene with the Gravedigger, "By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken note of it: the age is grown so picked, that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe." And Lorenzo, in the Merchant of ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... shirt worked a spell peculiarly their own. They carried with them an air of polish and authority. Hamilton, though of obscure birth and small stature, is represented by those who knew him to have been dignity and grace personified; and old Ben Franklin, even in woolen hose, and none too courtier-like, was the delight of the great nobles and fine ladies, in whose company he made himself as much at home as though he had ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... Orford had betted his having a child before Sir James Lowther, who had been married the night before to Lord Bute's eldest daughter; the King told Lord Orford he should be glad to go his halves. The bet was made with Mr. Rigby. Somebody asked the latter how he could be so bad a courtier as to bet against the King? He replied, "Not at all a bad courtier; I betted ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... relations with her father are idyllic. She is more necessary to him than Eppie to Silas Marner; she is a continual negotiator of peace in his divided house, and 'in this she could not have displayed more courtier-like sagacity had she been an old-world changeling with centuries of experience respecting rich fathers of uncertain testamentary inclinations.' In her limited knowledge of things outside Piper's Hill, 'street-crossings and railway-platforms presented themselves to her in the ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... a courtier, Although they wear their faces to the bent Of the king's looks, hath a heart that is not Glad at the thing they scowl at. 418 SHAKS.: ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... cream buckskin, garnished with gold braid like any courtier's, with a deep collar of otter. Unmindful of manners, I would have turned again to stare, but he bade me guide the horse ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... on every side the old cry of the courtier and the parasite. At every new aggression, at every additional outrage, new advocates rise to defend the source of patronage, wealth and fame—the department of the Executive! Such assistance has always ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... probably time enough for that. Many of these officers wear decorations in advance. The colonel's manly breast bears at least eight of them. He has much to make up. Some of them—for instance, the two stately Swedes with their bland courtier eyes—are looking rather pale; perhaps they have been wounded as well as decorated ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... both men and women, and the delicate treatment of the drapery, so that it is small wonder that the work brought Giotto such renown in that city and elsewhere; that Pope Benedict IX., who was proposing to decorate St Peter's with some paintings, sent a courtier from Treviso to Tuscany, to see what manner of man Giotto was, and to report on the quality of his work. On the way the courtier learned that there were other excellent masters in painting and mosaic in Florence, and he interviewed a number of artists at ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... outcry, made by a man who was really in despair, the young courtier gave a bound, dagger in hand, and reached the landing. But the myrmidons of the grand provost were accustomed to such proceedings. When Georges d'Estouteville reached the stairs they seized him dexterously, not surprised by the vigorous thrust he made at them with his dagger, ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac
... old writers, especially those who wrote on religious emblems. It was to them the emblem of constancy in affection,[157:2] and sympathy in joy and sorrow, though it was also the emblem of the fawning courtier, who can only shine when everything is bright. As the emblem of constancy, it was to the old writers what the Sunflower was ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... an evil day for new-born Protestantism, when a French artilleryman fired the shot that struck down Ignatius Loyola in the breach of Pampeluna. A proud noble, an aspiring soldier, a graceful courtier, an ardent and daring gallant was metamorphosed by that stroke into the zealot whose brain engendered and brought forth the mighty Society of Jesus. His story is a familiar one: how, in the solitude of his sick-room, a change came over him, upheaving, like an earthquake, all the forces ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... about 1640 we find still in the same personal opposition fifty years after, but an opposition resting on far different principles: insensibly the principles of their antagonists had reached even them: and a courtier of 1689 was willing to concede more than a patriot of 1630 would have ventured to ask. Let me not be understood to mean that true patriotism is at all more shown in supporting the rights of the people than those of the king: as soon as both are defined and limited, the last are as ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... surprised to hear her say that others had spoken of it. To an exceptionally fine presence, she added unusual intelligence and brilliant power of repartee. I have often heard the story that at a social function at the White House an accomplished courtier was enlarging to Miss Lane upon her shapely hands—"hands," he ejaculated, "that might have swayed the rod of empire." Her retort came without a moment's hesitation, "or wake to ecstasy the living lyre." Emily Schomberg, who married Hughes Hallett of England, ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... Everybody knows I have the highest opinion of you as an officer, and you know I love you as a friend. No man, in the progress of the campaign, had equal merit with yourself." The officer who wrote those lines was not a courtier nor a diplomatist, but a blunt and honest soldier who had seen Lee's bearing in the most arduous straits, and was capable of appreciating military ability. Add Washington's expression of his "love and thanks," in a letter written in 1789, and the light in which he was regarded by his ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... for an upstart Courtier; or, a quaint Dispute between Velvet Breeches and Cloth Breeches, &c. 1620 ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... not excel as a man of affairs, yet he had a good fund of sense. The effect of this irresolution is very visible, though we do not know its cause. He never was a warrior, though a true soldier. He never was a courtier, though he had always a good mind to be one. He never was a good party man, though his whole life was engaged in partisanship. He was very timorous and bashful in conversation, and thought he always stood in need of apologies, which, considering that his "Maxims" showed not great regard for ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... gravely told Bishop Burnet, "God would make a man miserable for taking a little pleasure out of the way." Accordingly he followed the free bent of his desires, and his whole life was soon devoted to voluptuousness; a vice which an ingenious courtier obligingly describes as a "warmth and sweetness of the blood that would not be confined in the communicating itself—an overflowing of good nature, of which he had such a stream that it would not be restrained within the banks of ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... and massive as a smith's. Frank laid his own upon it, and sighed; and Amyas looked down, and started at the contrast between the two—so slender, bloodless, all but transparent, were the delicate fingers of the courtier. Amyas looked anxiously into his brother's face. It was changed, indeed, since they last met. The brilliant red was still on either cheek, but the white had become dull and opaque; the lips were pale, the features sharpened; the eyes glittered with unnatural fire: and when Frank told Amyas ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... an adroit but sincere courtier, Racine has won the regard of posterity by his life as well as its admiration by his literary genius. As a poet, he was endowed with the purest gift of expression ever granted to a mind imbued with the works of the classical writers ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... the Spanish ambassador and his wife, the consul and prominent people connected with the Vatican visited his studio. They denied his talent, attributing these distinctions to Josephina's position. They called him a courtier and a flatterer, alleging that he had married to better his position. One of his most constant visitors was Father Recovero, the representative of a monastic order that was powerful in Spain, a sort of cowled ambassador who enjoyed great ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... hole, Seems more adapted for a mole Than 'tis for you; Oh! could you see My residence, how charm'd you'd be. Instead of bringing up your brood In wind, and wet, and solitude, Come bring them all at once to town, We'll make a courtier of a clown. I think that, for your children's sake, 'Tis proper my advice to take." "Well," said his host, "I can but try, And so poor quiet hole ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... and turns back in alarm for he fancies a goblin in yonder Bakula tree. The goblin turns out a starling. The courtier remarks, "she says, give the Brahman something to eat." The king observes, "something to eat is ever the burden of the glutton's song. Come, say truly, what does she utter. The friend listens and repeats, "Who is this ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... refined voluptuousness they have in them. Ronsard loves, or dreams that he loves, a rare and peculiar type of beauty, la petite pucelle Angevine, with golden hair and dark eyes. But he has the ambition not only of being a courtier and a lover, but a great scholar also; he is anxious about orthography, about the letter e Grecque, the true spelling of Latin names in French writing, and the restoration of the letter i to its primitive liberty—del' ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... looking men in England," "with a brilliant and handsome appearance, and something of nobility, not to say haughtiness in his manners." He mentions circumstances, showing him bold, free, amorous, and, strange for a courtier, punctual in payment of debts. Yet this man, so full of refinement, and so trained, is described by King as addressing the Irish Privy Council thus:—"I have put the sword into your hands, and God damn you all if ever you ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... was a favorite of Kaunitz and a thorough courtier. At an earlier period, when ambassador at Petersburg, he wrote French comedies, which were performed at the Hermitage in the presence of the empress Catherine. The arrival of an unpleasant despatch being ever followed by the production of some amusing piece as an antidote ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... Berlin for greater honors, he had been ambassador at Rome. He had married a Sicilian lady, and was accustomed to spend part of each year in Rome and on his wife's Sicilian estates. The prince was a finished courtier and a charming host. At this juncture his house in Rome became a center of neutralists, and Von Buelow began overtures to Baron Sonnino, the new Italian Foreign Minister, to discover what territorial concessions the Italian Government would demand as recompense for ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... though harmless opposition to the tyrant of Rome. Their legal studies were influenced by the various colors of their temper and principles. Labeo was attached to the form of the old republic; his rival embraced the more profitable substance of the rising monarchy. But the disposition of a courtier is tame and submissive; and Capito seldom presumed to deviate from the sentiments, or at least from the words, of his predecessors; while the bold republican pursued his independent ideas without fear of paradox or innovations. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... he was entering into a bargain with a man who would make quite sure that he was getting his money's worth; and he knew in his heart that he had something better to do than to play, however successfully, the part of a courtier. Nor was he personally attached to Frederick; he was personally attached to no one on earth. Certainly he had never been a man of feeling, and now that he was old and hardened by the uses of the world he had ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... (1632-1640) was Dean of Westminster in 1605. Lord Burghley was his patron, and he became Bishop of Rochester, Lichfield, Lincoln, Durham, and Winchester; more sees than any other English bishop has ruled over. He was a supporter of Laud, and a courtier. ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock
... most popular of all Italian composers. With his white moustache, pink and white complexion, and large bright blue eyes, his dandified dress, his eyeglass and buttonhole, he had the fresh, fair look of an Englishman, the dry brilliance of a Parisian, the naivete of a genius, the manners of a courtier, and behind it all the diabolic humour of the Neapolitan. He was small, thin and slight, with a curious dignity ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... Boswell will inform me of your motions. It will be cruel to deprive me an instant of the honour of attending you. As I value you more than any King in Christendom, I will perform that duty with infinitely greater alacrity than any courtier. I can contribute but little to your entertainment; but, my sincere esteem for you gives me some tide to the opportunity of ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... Aucusan for Leith, and seems to have been shipwrecked, and detained by illness in the "holy isle" in Northumberland, near Barwick. On his recovery he delivered his letters, and received kind treatment from the Scots; but as he had no money, which was needed to make his way as a courtier, he ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... he relieved the situation by taking Betty's and looking into her eyes, which looked tearfully back at him. Stooping, as if irresistibly drawn to her, he touched her fingers with his lips, and then lightly her hair. It was done with the grace of an old courtier, and he was gone, disappearing in ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... dores on the leads and in closetts, into places to which there is no other access."[1] The easy-going king had to make some external show towards an attempt to capture his erring son, therefore instructions were given with this purpose, but to a courtier and diplomatist who valued his own interests. Toddington Place, therefore, was ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea
... the work. The author is unknown, but that he was a Northman and lived in Nummedal, in Norway, and wrote somewhere between 1140 and 1270, or, according to Finsen, about 1154; and that he had in his youth been a courtier, and afterwards a royal councillor, we infer from the internal evidence the work itself affords us. Kongs-skugg-sio, or the royal mirror, deserves to be better known, on account of the lively picture it gives us of the manners and customs of the North in the twelfth century; the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... by with only a gracious bow, as any courtier might, for he was in a hurry to reach the side of his beloved Gretchen. She was only a peasant maid, but in his eyes she was more ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey |
