"Poltroon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... asked, in an unconcerned tone of voice—"How came the fellow here?—Speak, you staring fool!" he added, addressing the nearest dragoon, "unless you would have me think you such a poltroon as to fear ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... to be found out, I know from my own experience, must be painful and odious, and cruelly mortifying to the inward vanity. Suppose I am a poltroon, let us say. With fierce moustache, loud talk, plentiful oaths, and an immense stick, I keep up nevertheless a character for courage. I swear fearfully at cabmen and women; brandish my bludgeon, and perhaps knock down a little man or two with it: brag of the images which I break ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of bleeding wounds and violent death that his heart fails him. Yet his pride revolts at the idea of being beaten; for a moment he is filled with rage, but his courage all disappears with the first blows he receives, and he finally shows himself to be the poltroon that he himself despises. This method it appears to me is far superior to the absurd grimaces, trembling legs, and exaggerated gestures, by which indifferent actors endeavour to excite the laughter of their audience—but meantime lose sight entirely ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... vagabond skewed such a brutal eagerness in seizing it with his filthy hands, and making not the least acknowledgment, that when they got out of the house, Morgante was ready to fell him to the earth. He called him scoundrel and poltroon, and said he had ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... the bravery of true champions of the pit, stood for a little while and stared at this shifty foe. He must have decided that he was dealing with a poltroon with whom science and prudence were not needed. He stuck out his neck and ran at Long-legs, evidently expecting that Long-legs would turn and flee in a panic. Long-legs jumped to let him pass under, and came down on the unwary P.T. with the crushing force of his double bulk. The splay feet ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... bashful fear so irresistibly funny, that it roared again. Also, when the little cow-herd with a crown on his head, lifted his hand or foot toward his partner, and then shrank trembling away, it roared yet more at the poltroon ...
— The Field of Clover • Laurence Housman
... poltroon of a bargeman was coming up from Liffey-side, lurching and yawing like a Dutch hooker in a gale; and seeing them in a little bunch on the cobblestones, he took an anger at them in his wooden head, and, whether purposely or not I know not, but he elbowed up against ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... in the army shook hands with a gallant lieut.-colonel (who had distinguished himself in the Peninsula) at one of the West End gaming houses, and Lieut. N—, who was present, upbraided the colonel with the epithet of "poltroon." On a fit opportunity the colonel inflicted summary justice upon the lieutenant with a cane or horse-whip. This produced a challenge; but the colonel was advised that he would degrade himself by combat with the challenger, and he therefore declined it, but promised similar chastisement ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... he is going to turn tail, as I always thought he would,—the cursed cowardly traitor!" replied the latter, gnashing his teeth. "But let him, and that pitiful poltroon of a Redding, go where they please. We will see to matters ourselves. I don't believe it is any thing more than a mere mob, who will scatter at the first fire. So follow me, Gale; and all the rest of ye, that aint afraid of your own shadows, follow ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... questioned without result, until the German was reached whom Frank had arrested at the point of his pistol. All his insolence and braggadocio had vanished. He was evidently a poltroon at heart, for he showed every evidence of being willing to betray his comrades and tell all that he knew on condition that his own lot would be ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... was too sudden for my self-possession to remain. But when I saw that the little English angel began to weep afresh at this exclamation, I longed for one moment to be able to get out of my own body, that I might chastise a poltroon so un-philosophical. I took her by the hand instead, and led her into this room and made her sit down, and, whilst I sponged the picture with cold water, made her tell me how the accident had happened. For I thought, in my Machiavellian Italian way, ...
— The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... said he, "that little Prosper Leclere! He thinks himself one of the strongest—a fine fellow! But I tell you he is a coward. If he is clever? Yes. But he is a poltroon. He knows well that I can flatten him out like a crepe in the frying-pan. But he is afraid. He has not as much courage as the musk-rat. You stamp on the bank. He dives. He swims ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... leading men either to good or to evil, takes in this case the evil part. Mere animal bravery has, unfortunately, such charms in the female eye, that a successful duellist is but too often regarded as a sort of hero; and the man who refuses to fight, though of truer courage, is thought a poltroon, who may be trampled on. Mr. Graves, a member of the American legislature, who, early in 1838, killed a Mr. Cilley in a duel, truly and eloquently said, on the floor of the House of Representatives, when lamenting the unfortunate ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... compassion which often preserves from ruin, even a guilty villain, forever actuate the noble bosoms of Americans! But let not the miscreant host vainly imagine that we feared their arms. No, those we despised; we dread nothing but slavery. Death is the creature of a poltroon's brains; 'tis immortality to sacrifice ourselves for the salvation of our country. We fear not death. That gloomy night, the pale-face moon, and the affrighted stars that hurried through the sky, can witness that we ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... done, they preferred to leave the ranks, and rush forward to loot and enrich themselves at our expense. Now, if 13 this conduct were to be the rule, general ruin would be the result. I do not deny that I have given blows to this man or the other who played the poltroon and refused to get up, helplessly abandoning himself to the enemy; and so I forced them to march on. For once in the severe wintry weather I myself happened to sit down for a long time, whilst waiting for a party who were getting ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... war was imminent, would it not have been far better to have made your preparations in quiet, and when you found the war rumor blown over, to have said nothing about what you intended to do? Fie upon such cheap Lacedaemonianism! There is no poltroon in the world but can brag about what he WOULD have done: however, to do your Royal Highness's nation justice, they brag ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")
... the result of a cowardly fright, I would not have remained one minute where I was, and my hurried flight would no doubt have opened the eyes of my two dupes, who could not have failed to see that, far from being a magician, I was only a poltroon. The violence of the wind, the claps of thunder, the piercing cold, and above all, fear, made me tremble all over like an aspen leaf. My system, which I thought proof against every accident, had vanished: I acknowledged an avenging God who had ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... "I wish I had a chance to open school here and teach manners," and without more deliberation he set his horse to an amble, designed to betray neither complacency nor a poltroon's terrors. ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... you what of that," said Mr. Rousseau, who then proceeded to strike Mr. Grinnell about the head and shoulders with a rattan, stopping occasionally to lecture him, and saying, "Now, you d——d puppy and poltroon, ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... flight, though he will "return with shame" to Mycenae. Menelaus is of much better cheer: "Be of good courage, [blank space] ALL THE HOST OF THE [misprint]"—a thing which Agamemnon does habitually, though he is not a personal poltroon. As Menelaus has only a slight flesh wound after all, and as the Trojans are doomed men, Agamemnon is now "eager for glorious battle." He encourages the princes, but, of all men, rebukes Odysseus as "last at a fray and first ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... nor is Mrs. Pryor, nor is Mrs. Gill herself, yet I only hemmed and opened my eyes a little wide when I saw butchers' bills whose figures seemed to prove that fact—falsehood, I mean. Caroline, you may laugh at me, but you can't change me. I am a poltroon on certain points; I feel it. There is a base alloy of moral cowardice in my composition. I blushed and hung my head before Mrs. Gill, when she ought to have been faltering confessions to me. I found it impossible to get up the spirit even ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... despise, at the same time that they fear firearms, declaring them to be cowardly weapons [15] with which the poltroon can slay the bravest. ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... therewith." The luxurious breakfast at Roselands was partaken of with very little enjoyment that morning; by Walter especially, who had to bear contempt and ridicule; threats also: he was called a Yankee, coward, poltroon, traitor; and threatened with disinheritance and denouncement unless he would declare himself for the Confederacy and enlist in ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... of all the world found bashful; and in general she wasted the golden hours with much excellent fooling. Nor would she, perhaps, ever have found herself a heroine, but that her respectable father was a poltroon. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... regiment who survived the carnage of Waterloo. And yet this man, who had been familiar with death more than half his life, and who at times talked as though he were a perfect tornado in the field, was as arrant a poltroon as ever skulked. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... was a knave who held, somehow, the keys to a courtlier and nobler world. These tales made living seem a braver business, for all that they were written by a poltroon. Was it pure posturing? Patricia, at least, thought it was not. At worst, such dexterous maintenance of a pose was hardly despicable, she considered. And, anyhow, she preferred to believe that Charteris had by some miracle put the best of himself ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... rewards bestowed upon it by the fair sex, who value it above all others, is so wholly out of our control, that when suffering under sickness or disease, it deserts us; nay, for the time being, a violent stomach-ache will turn a hero into a poltroon. ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... you have a bad heart," said the poet. "You have laughed insolently at a man whose misfortune is none of his own making. You are a poltroon and a coward!" ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... Harry, springing to his feet. "Stand off; my lords! Far be from me such disgrace as that, like a poltroon, I should stain my arms by flight. If the prince flies, who will ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... who was a British officer, once horsewhipped Paul Jones,—Jones being a poltroon. How singular it is that the personal courage of famous warriors should be ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... And she was too clever and too good a woman not to make a speedy and a heart-breaking discovery of the fatal mistake she had committed. Poor Jane Campbell soon wakened up to the discovery that she had exchanged the name and the family of a brave and noble house for the name and the house of a poltroon. No wonder that Rutherford's letters to her are so often headed: 'To Lady Kenmure, under illness and depression of mind.' Could you have kept quite well had you been a Campbell with John Gordon for a husband? Think of ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... his life. "His meanest creatures," says Arthur Symons, "have in them a touch of honour, of honesty, or of heroism; his heroes have always some error, weakness, or mistake, some sin or crime, to redeem." What is Lord Jim, scoundrel and poltroon or gallant knight? What is Captain MacWhirr, hero or simply ass? What is Falk, beast or idealist? One leaves "Heart of Darkness" in that palpitating confusion which is shot through with intense curiosity. Kurtz is at once the most abominable of rogues and the most fantastic of dreamers. ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... he said. "I have a mind, then, to thrash you where you stand, you canting poltroon! Do you hear me?—here, ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... rear, you cowardly poltroon!" shouted Washington, thoroughly aroused and indignant over the ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... a poltroon, indeed, was Narcissus beside you at that moment. You ready to stake your life on the throw, he temporising and bargaining as over the terms of a lease. Surely, if he could for one moment have seen himself in the light of your greatness, he had been crushed beneath the misery ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... it down that Alexander was a poltroon; a phthisicky professor, holding at every word a bottle of sal volatile to his nose, lectures on strength. Fellows who faint at the veriest trifle criticise the tactics of Hannibal; whimpering boys store themselves with phrases out of the slaughter at Canna; and ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Major, "a knave, a poltroon, a simpleton! And he came to me with no tale of having been outwitted by a stripling." Whereupon Major Colfax began to shake, gently at first, and presently he was in such a gale of laughter that I looked on him in amazement, Colonel Clark joining ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... contemptible opinion of you." "That does not surprise me," returned the Doctor; "all your opinions are contemptible." What is worthless or weak is contemptible. Despicable is a word that expresses a still more intense degree of the contemptible. A traitor is a despicable character, while a poltroon ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... international appeal, it is clear that nations must fight, and ought to fight. Not being convinced, it is base to pretend that you are convinced; and failing to be convinced by your neighbor's arguments, you confess yourself a poltroon (and moreover you invite injuries from every neighbor) if you pocket your wrongs. The only course in such a case is to thump your neighbor, and to thump him soundly for the present. This treatment is very serviceable ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... your age, as beautiful and attractive as you, and I had dared a man to kiss me, I should feel slighted, to say the least of it, and regard him as a poltroon, if he failed to take up my challenge," commented Lady Fermanagh drily. "You can't mean to say you did not expect Don Carlos to carry out the threat or promise he made in his note, particularly as you made no protest against ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... "What a poltroon!" he cried contemptuously. "But I'll see you get no harm by this right-about face. He is mistaken if he thinks his treachery will give him a hold ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... have said to you, I would say before him, were he not skulking in his cabin, afraid of justice. He is a pig of a poltroon!" cried his Excellency. "I wish he were here now, and I would ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... bell and the flunkey's appearance, he had clearly seen what he was capable, and what he was incapable, of doing. And the correction of England's error was among his incapacities. He could not face the Dean. He could not face any one. He was a poltroon in all these things; a poltroon. No use arguing! He ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... with which a gaping rent had been carefully gummed together, that you might not see it, has melted and given way. The thought of these things makes a man feel like Vesuvius on the eve of an eruption; but you must wait for relief till Dhobie day next week, and then the poltroon has stayed at home, and sent his brother to report that he is suffering from a severe stomachache. When the miscreant makes his next appearance in person, he stands on one leg, with joined palms and a piteous bleat, and pleads an alibi. He was absent about the marriage of a relation, and his ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... He was full of the fire of the hunt. He hated Pip for a poltroon. Snatching the boat-knife from its sheath, he suspended its sharp edge over the line, and turning towards Stubb, exclaimed interrogatively, "Cut?" Meantime Pip's blue, choked face plainly looked, Do, for God's sake! ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... too. And what I loved you for was your truth and purity and courage. I have given you a treasure which was greater than I could keep.—Where is it that you live now, Jacqueline? I am not yet such a poltroon that I am afraid to conduct you. I think that I should have the courage to protect you to-night, if you were in any immediate danger. Come, lead ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... The idea of being yet able to escape gave me fresh strength and served as a spur to me. I ran and laid hold of the bridle, which was fast in the hand of a man lying on the ground, whom I supposed dead; but, what was my surprise when the cowardly poltroon, who was suffering from nothing but fear, dared to remain in the most horrible fire to dispute the horse with me, at twenty paces from the enemy. All my menaces could not induce him to quit the bridle. Whilst we were disputing, a discharge ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... correspondence he vented his rage in terms similar to those used of the Danish commodore after Copenhagen. "You will have seen Monsieur La Touche's letter of how he chased me and how I ran. I keep it; and, by G—d, if I take him, he shall eat it." He is a "poltroon," a "liar," and a "miscreant." It may be added that no admiral, whether a Nelson or not, could have abandoned the "Excellent" under ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... too evident to be mistaken) that the cowardly Mexican man had, on his leaving, pulled off from her horse Mrs. Carson and her child, and having mounted the animal himself, was making good his escape. The Indians wished to keep up the ruse, pursue, Attempt to overtake and punish the poltroon; but Kit Carson was too thankful that matters had gone so well; therefore, he said that he felt that he could excuse such dastardly conduct, and requested the Indians to let it pass unnoticed. It is hardly necessary to add that ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... not comfort the poor man about the rencounter between him and that poltroon Metcalfe? He acted in that affair like a man of true honour, and as I should have acted in the same circumstances. Tell him I say so; and that what happened he ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... pronouncing this challenge rose erect in his stirrups. His countenance, noble and defiant, presented a strange contrast to the aspect of vulgar ferocity that characterised the features of the man thus addressed. The insult was point blank, and would have aroused the veriest poltroon; but Arroyo possessed only the ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... unmolested, I fear I should have totally forgotten Miss Eliza. But that was no part of her plan: at least it was no part of her practice. Our knees soon became very intimate, and had frequent meetings of a very sentimental kind: for, she being courageous enough to advance, could I be the poltroon to retreat? They were however very good and loving neighbours, and the language they spoke was peculiarly impressive. The whole subject before us was love, and intrigue, and the way to torment the jealous. Whenever a significant passage occurred, and that was ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... eagerness to go with them on the wild and sudden campaign would reinstate him in their good graces, but it failed utterly. "Any man would seek that," was the verdict of the informal council held by the officers. "He would have been a poltroon if he hadn't sought to go; but, while he isn't a poltroon, he has done a contemptible thing." And so it stood. Rollins had cut him dead, refused his hand, and denied him a chance to explain. "Tell him he can't explain," was the savage reply he sent by the adjutant, ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... shot to his third," said Griffith, sternly; "he will not decline, unless he is a poltroon, as well ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... break the bones of his body," I promised in a tone entirely new to me. And then to him—"The truth now, poltroon!" I ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... not given to every man to have that greater love which will make him lay down his life for a friend, but it is the sheer poltroon and craven who will watch a friend linger and expire in agony without lifting a finger to save him. Knave or fool—what does it matter when either is submerged ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... had proved often enough that she was no coward, but even the brave turn poltroon when they fight without a sense of justification. Her pride told her that she ought to cross over to Lady Clifton-Wyatt and demand that she speak up. But her sense of guilt robbed her of her courage. And ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... her sex—fond, lively, sad, tender, teasing, humble, haughty, beautiful, the devil!—coquettish to the last, as well with the "asp" as with Antony. After doing all she can to persuade him that—but why do they abuse him for cutting off that poltroon Cicero's head? Did not Tully tell Brutus it was a pity to have spared Antony? and did he not speak the Philippics? and are not "words things?" [2] and such "words" very pestilent "things" too? If he had had a hundred ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... call her, when that poltroon of an Anderson Walkley, who had stolen back into the house after running from it, crept behind me and struck me back of the ear with a shaving mug. I dropped unconscious. In the resulting confusion, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... would, then, it's Carver that would quake like the aspin leaf—I know that. It's no malice at all in him; only just he's a mighty great poltroon. ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... them, we should say that Pitt was a strutting, ranting, mouthing actor, Charles Townshend an impudent and voluble jack-pudding, Murray a demure, cold-blooded, cowardly hypocrite, Hardwicke an insolent upstart, with the understanding of a pettifogger and the heart of a hangman, Temple an impertinent poltroon, Egmont a solemn coxcomb, Lyttelton a poor creature whose only wish was to go to heaven in a coronet, Onslow a pompous proser, Washington a braggart, Lord Camden sullen, Lord Townshend malevolent, Secker an atheist who had shammed Christian for a mitre, Whitefield an impostor who swindled ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... more robust than I, this I who took possession of the door by force, this I who made me slope off, this I who wishes to be the only I, this I who is jealous of myself, this valiant I, whose anger made itself known to this poltroon of an I, in fact, this I who is at our house, this I who has shown himself to be my master, this I who ...
— Amphitryon • Moliere
... Bernadotte, in fact, the total defect of heroic minds amongst the French of that day, neutralized the defects and more than compensated the blunders of Napoleon. But these were advantages that could not be depended on: a glass of brandy extraordinary might have emboldened the greatest poltroon to do that which, by once rousing a movement of popular enthusiasm, once making a beginning in that direction, would have precipitated the whole affair into hands which must have carried it far beyond the power of any party to control. Never, ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... brother. And so, having drunk his death in a popish potion, he died unlamented. For his character, in all respects in nature, feature and manners, he resembled the tyrant Tiberius; and for all the numerous brood of bastards begot on other men's wives, he died a childless poltroon, having no legitimate heir to succeed him of his own body, according to the divine malediction, Write this man childless: for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting on the throne of David, and ruling any more ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... letter is still urged upon me, and well as I know what penance its acceptance would entail in some points, I also know the advantage it would bring in others. My conscience tells me it would be the act of a moral poltroon to let the fear of suffering stand in the way of improvement. But suffer I shall. ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... dangerous for ever. Men fear them, and are fascinated by them. They know how to show their teeth charmingly; the more enlightened of them have perfected a superb technique of fascination. It was Nietzsche who called them the recreation of the warrior—not of the poltroon, remember, but of the warrior. A profound saying. They have an infinite capacity for rewarding masculine industry and enterprise with small and irresistible flatteries; their acute understanding combines with their capacity for evoking ideas of beauty to make them incomparable companions ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... hand is the best who gets his horse to do what he wishes with the least force, whose indications are so clear that his horse cannot mistake them, and whose gentleness and fearlessness alike induce obedience to them. The noblest animal will obey such a rider, as surely as he will disregard the poltroon, or rebel against the savage. I say the noblest, because it is ever the noblest among them which rebel the most. For the dominion of man over the horse is an usurped dominion. And in riding a colt, or a restive horse, we should never forget that he has by nature the right ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... frequently defying and inviting the vengeance of banded Rocky Mountain cut-throats by shooting down their comrades and leaders, and never offering to hide or fly, Slade showed that he was a man of peerless bravery. No coward would dare that. 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 liked 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. Then, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Khujistah Akhtar Jahan-Shah and Rafi-ash-Shan, and placed the surviving of the four sons of Bahadur [i.e. Mu'izz-ud-din] on the throne with the title of Jahandar ("World-owner"). The new Emperor was an irredeemable poltroon and an abandoned debauchee.' (The History of the Moghul Emperors of Hindustan illustrated by their Coins, Constable, 1892, and in Introd. to B. M. Catal. ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... replied to the lawyer's attack, pronouncing him to be "destitute of delicacy, decency, good manners, sound judgment, honesty, manhood, and humanity; a poltroon, a cat's-paw, the infamous tool of a party, a partisan, a ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... pilgarlic, vagabond, knave, rogue, scoundrel, caitiff, miscreant, scapegrace, villain, rascal, renegade, reprobate, rake, scullion, poltroon, varlet, ronion, libertine, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... editor, backing out upon the sidewalk and drawing his repeater, "I denounce you as a traitor, a poltroon, and a coward!" Men darted away, dodged, ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... you, are the faintest creatures in the world when you cry in your agony, "Come and help me!" Oh, assuredly Wellington was infamously used at that time, especially by your traders in Radicalism, who howled at and hooted him; said he had every vice—was no general—was beaten at Waterloo—was a poltroon—moreover, a poor illiterate creature, who could scarcely read or write; nay, a principal Radical paper said bodily he could not read, and devised an ingenious plan for teaching Wellington how to ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... have the privilege of judiciously matching their children. Were daughters left to choose for themselves, there are those who would prefer their father's serving-man, or throw themselves away on some fellow they might chance to see in the street, mistaking, perhaps, an impostor and swaggering poltroon for a gentleman, since passion too easily blinds the understanding, so indispensably necessary in deciding on that most important point, matrimony, which is peculiarly exposed to the danger of a mistake, and therefore needs all the caution that human prudence can supply, ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... in the poltroon's calendar," cried Murray, seeing by the countenance of Wallace that his resolution was not to be moved; "yet I must gallop off from your black-eyed Judith, as if chased by the ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... intentions should fail or my self-control not hold out. But the knowledge that you are acquainted with my resolve, and regard it with an undeserved sympathy, may suffice to sustain me, and I should certainly be a base poltroon if I should disappoint ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... tyro at fence, or such a poltroon as to be afraid to meet him? No, Hyacinth, I go with you to Dover, or I stand my ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... was a beggar named Irus, gluttonous and big-boned but a coward. Encouraged by the winkings and noddings of the suitors he bade Odysseus begone. A quiet answer made him imagine he had to deal with a poltroon and he challenged him to a fight. The proposal was welcomed with glee by the suitors, who promised on oath to see fair play for the old man in his quarrel with a younger. But when they saw the mighty limbs and stout frame of Odysseus, they deemed ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... the provisional government, but an adventurer of fierce and reckless spirit, in manner and appearance a romantic outlaw, a man after his own heart. Henceforth Byron is reckoned at best a dupe, and at worst a sluggish poltroon; while Trelawny, it is said, imitated his hero so loyally that "he ate, dressed, and even spat in his manner." When the poet died Trelawny spoke with ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... she asked. "When that door falls, this point enters my heart. There is nothing beyond that door, with thou, poltroon, to which death in this little chamber would ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... madman in pursuit of me, and he threatens my life. An hour ago he got me to swear solemnly, and to put my hand to the oath, that I would renounce all pretensions to you, and never even speak to you again. I was a poltroon to submit to it. I know that well enough, and you cannot despise me more than I despise myself. But there is this to be said: until I consented to that declaration I never knew that I loved you. Perhaps, indeed, I had not done so. At any rate, now I know that I do love you—love you beyond measure, ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... to his State Room to weep over the Situation, and the British Subject said: "The American is a Poltroon, for he will not defend his own ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... threatened the Duke of La Rochefoucauld; whereupon the latter said that, if he had them outside, he would strangle them both; to which the coadjutor replied, "My dear La Franchise (the duke's nickname), do not act the bully; you are a poltroon and I am a priest; we shall not do one another much harm." There was no fighting, and the Parliament, supported by the Duke of Orleans, obtained from the queen a declaration of the innocence of the Prince of Conde, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... tried to do, and called upon him in Constantinople for that purpose; but Captain Ringgold is a coward, a poltroon! He keeps himself shut up in his cabin, and refuses to give my ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... Our elder blood flows in the veins of cowards: The gray-hair'd sneak, the blanch'd poltroon, The feign'd or real shiverer at tongues, That nursing babes need hardly cry the less for— Are they to be our ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... Selene and Helios, appear as quite distinct from Artemis and Apollo; Gaea, the Earth, is equally distinct from Demeter. The Hymn to Ares is quite un-Homeric in character, and is oddly conceived in the spirit of the Scottish poltroon, who cries to his friend, "Haud me, haud me, or I'll fecht!" The war-god is implored to moderate the martial eagerness of the poet. The original collector here showed lack of discrimination. At no time, however, was Ares a popular ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... General, looking scornfully at his son, whom terror had robbed of strength to stand. "You have the courage to plan cold-blooded murder, but when the time comes to face your own death you show yourself a miserable poltroon. Fear nothing: you shall not die. I have passed a sleepless night, struggling between duty and parental affection. But were it known in St. Petersburg that I had shown you mercy, I would answer for ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... tyranny on his own account, he has no right to stand tamely by and see gross oppression and cruelty exercised towards his family, and neighbours, and country. At least, if he does so, he earns for himself the character of an unpatriotic poltroon. True patriotism consists in a readiness to sacrifice one's-self to the national well-being. As far as things temporal are concerned, the records of the Scottish Covenanters prove incontestably that those long-tried men and women ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... said, gathering her skirts as though she intended to take her departure instantly. "But it will be a fine story that Signor Fenshawe cables from Aden when he tells how the Governor of Massowah aided and abetted this half-crazy poltroon in onslaughts on defenseless women. It was not enough that Italian law should be misused to further his ends, but the scum of the bazaar is enlisted under his banner, and he is supported by the authorities in an act that would be reprobated by ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... Hector has called a council, and asked for a volunteer spy to seek intelligence among the Achaeans. He offers no black ewes as a reward, but the best horses of the enemy. This allures Dolon, son of a rich Trojan, "an only son among five sisters," a poltroon, a weak lad, ugly, but swift of foot, and an enthusiastic lover of horses. He asks for the steeds of Achilles, which Hector swears to give him; and to be lightly clad he takes merely spear and bow and a cap of ferret skin, with the pelt of a wolf for covering. Odysseus sees him approach; he and ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... friends to lead him into the very hottest of the conflict. Elmham records his address: whether they are the very words he (p. 175) uttered, or such only as he was likely to have used, they certainly suit his character: "My lords, far be from me such disgrace, as that, like a poltroon, I should stain my noviciate in arms by flight. If the Prince flies, who will wait to end the battle? Believe it, to be carried back before victory would be to me a perpetual death! Lead me, I implore you, to the very ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... in the name of common sense, study the Koran, or some less ascetic tome. Don't be gulled by a plausible slave, who wants nothing more than to multiply professors of his theory. Why don't you read the Bible, you miserable, puling poltroon, before you hug it as a treasure? Why don't you read it, and learn out of the mouth of the founder of Christianity, that there is one sin for which there is no forgiveness—blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, hey?—and that sin I myself have heard you commit ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... ready to receive back Tamyra as his wife, though her sole motive in rejoining him is to precipitate vengeance on his head. Nor had anything in the earlier play prepared us for the spectacle of him as a poltroon, who has "barricado'd" himself in his house to avoid a challenge, and who shrieks "murther!" at the entrance of an unexpected visitor. In the light of such conduct it is difficult to regard as merely assumed his pusillanimity in the final scene, where he at first grovels before Clermont ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... any day of the year. She must help him. Whether he could see her from the stage, she did not know. She doubted it. But he knew where she was sitting. He might look for her at such a moment. He might miss her if she were hidden away in the shadow like a poltroon. ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... cable instantly to be cut, and the yacht to be pulled out to sea by the oars. They were soon beyond the reach of the guns. It was now night, serene and beautiful; the sea was smooth as glass, and the stars shone with unusual splendor in the clear sky. The poltroon monarch of all the Russias had not yet ventured upon deck, but was trembling in his cabin, surrounded by his dismayed mistresses, when the helmsman entered the cabin and said ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... feelings which are entirely distinct—personal fear and political fear. If I am afraid of voting against this bill, because a mob may gather about the House of Lords—because stones may be flung at my head—because my house may be attacked by a mob, I am a poltroon, and unfit to meddle with public affairs. But I may rationally be afraid of producing great public agitation; I may be honourably afraid of flinging people into secret clubs and conspiracies—I may be wisely afraid of making the aristocracy hateful to the great body of ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... nor deceit; instead of loading you with praise, he will point you to the better way. I scoff at Cleon's tricks and plotting; honesty and justice shall fight my cause; never will you find me a political poltroon, a prostitute to ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes
... starvation or surrender to the Iroquois. Throwing down his weapons, he gave himself up to what he knew would be certain torture. Had he winced or whined as they tore the nails from his fingers and the hair from his head, the Iroquois would probably have brained him on the spot for a poltroon; but the young man, bound to a stake, pointed to a gathering storm as sign of Heaven's displeasure. The high spirit pleased the Iroquois. They unbound him and took him with them in their wanderings for ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... poltroon was in his turn superseded by a brave veteran, General Dugommier, and Napoleon could at last count on having his efforts backed. But, for the second time, the Representatives did their best to ruin his undertaking. The siege had ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... fortunate. Had it been Monsieur Dampierre it would not have been a fist but a bullet through his head that would have punished him. Now mark me, Jean Diantre," and she moved a pace forward, so suddenly that the man started back, "you are a known assassin and poltroon. If at any time harm befalls Monsieur Dampierre I will stab you with my own hand. If you ever dare to speak to me again I will hold you up to the scorn of the women of the quarter. As it is, your comrades have heard how mean and cowardly a scoundrel you ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... cried out for water like the rest. Bababalouk, whose olfactory nerves were more familiarized to magical odors, readily conjecturing that Carathis was engaged in her favorite amusements, strenuously exhorted them not to be alarmed. Him, however, they treated as an old poltroon; and forbore not to style him a rascally traitor. The camels and dromedaries were advancing with water, but no one knew by which way to enter the tower. Whilst the populace was obstinate in forcing the doors, a violent east wind drove such a volume of flame against ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner |
