"Dastard" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 'Thou dastard!' Katharine screamed aloud. She tried to speak but she choked; she grasped Udal's hand as if to wring from him the denial of his foolish lies, but a sharp and numbing pain shot up her maimed wrist to her shoulders and leaped across ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... you're executing at this minute. He said—what very few men, thank God, will say of a woman, even when it's true, and what it takes a dastard to say when it's not true. Even in the case of the fallen woman there's a chivalrous human pity that protects her; while there's something more than that due to the most foolish of our sex who has not fallen. I took it for granted that, ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... more Count Roland turned To speak the scorn that in him burned. "Ha! deem'st thou, dastard, of dastard race, That I shall drop the glove in place, As in sight of Karl ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... to the proud demand. Presuming of his force, with sparkling eyes Already he devours the promis'd prize. He claims the bull with awless insolence, And having seiz'd his horns, accosts the prince: "If none my matchless valor dares oppose, How long shall Dares wait his dastard foes? Permit me, chief, permit without delay, To lead this uncontended gift away." The crowd assents, and with redoubled cries For the proud ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... wish the former ill; myself I am not of them. Colonel Burr desired that duel; he lay in wait for the affront which should be his opportunity; he murdered Hamilton. He risked his own life—very true, the majority of murderers do the same. The one who does not is a dastard in addition—voila tout! ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... the fate of Captain Scraggs at the hands of the towboat men. He was aware that Captain Scraggs had failed ignominiously to rally to the Gibney appeal to repel boarders, and in his own expressive terminology he hoped that what the enemy would do to the dastard would be "a-plenty." ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... think of nothing else when they convey me to yonder still more dreadful place of confinement; it is his, and it is but meet that it should be his son's.—And thou, Alice Bridgenorth, the day that I renounce thee, may I be held alike a traitor and a dastard!—Go, false adviser, and share the fate of seducers and ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... thou hadst not the courage openly to face. And dost thou dare to condemn me for doing the very same thing thou wast doing thyself? Was not my claim to love her as good as thy own? Or what, O cowardly dastard, does that man deserve, who screens himself behind the clothes of a woman to strike at a foe? I will answer the question, and show thee, by ocular proof, very soon. But now in the meantime, I will open thy eyes, and tell thee, from the very beginning, ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... chosen (without my counsell) a young man to your lover, who as me seemeth, is dull, fearefull, without any grace, and dastard-like coucheth at the frowning looke of your odious husband, whereby you have no delight nor pleasure with him: how farre better is the young man Philesiterus who is comely, beautifull, in the flower of his youth, ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius
... carried off into captivity. The child proved to be a source of annoyance to the blood-thirsty savages, and its angel spirit was released from earth by their cruel ferocity. Before the eyes of its captive mother the fatal tomahawk was raised, and by one dastard blow its keen edge was made to mingle with its brains. The horrid work failed not to bring the bitter woes and anguish of despair to the breast of the unhappy mother. It was then thrown into Red River, which was the stream nearest to the scene ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... Drake: who answered Valdez that he was not now at laisure to make any long parle, but if he would yeeld himselfe, he should find him friendly and tractable: howbeit if he had resolued to die in fight, he should prooue Drake to be no dastard. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... German blue-jackets. It was said they had broken and run before their enemies, and that they had huddled helpless like sheep in the plantation house. Small wonder if they had; small wonder had they been utterly destroyed. But the fact was heroically otherwise; and these dastard calumnies cut to the blood. They are not forgotten; perhaps they will ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... be excused the walking in procession; but he, as it seems in mockery of his cowardice and love of life, answered, "That was formerly in his own hands, and is now if he pleases." Meaning that death was preferable to dishonour; but the dastard had not spirit enough for that, but buoyed up by some hope, became a part of his ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... while all men will bear watching, married men will bear a most minute scrutiny. Mrs. Pennycook knew that as a wife she was approaching the unlovely age when fickle husbands tire and cast about for younger and prettier women. Hence she decided to trim her mental lamps and light the dastard Daniel out of temptation. ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... factious viper! whose envenom'd tooth, Would mangle still the dead, in spite of truth, What though our "nation's foes" lament the fate, With generous feeling, of the good and great; Shall therefore dastard tongues assail the name Of him whose virtues claim eternal fame? When PITT expired in plenitude of power, Though ill success obscur'd his dying hour, Pity her dewy wings before him spread, For noble spirits "war not ...
— Fugitive Pieces • George Gordon Noel Byron
... you were Queen of England, Madame, I would call you an insolent dastard, to try and bribe me against my own flesh and blood. You are a very Judas, to think of such a thing. Good blood! fine family! indeed! If your son is like yourself, I'm not caring for him coming into ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... soldier's grave, Hearts will break, but fame will love thee, Canonized among the brave! Listen, then! thy country's calling On her sons to meet the foe! Rather would I view thee lying On the last red field of strife, 'Mid thy country's heroes dying, Than become a dastard's wife! ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... especially. Do you suppose I care for being beaten? Bah! I no more care for a flogging than a boy does at Eton: and only let the flogger beware—I will be a match for him, I warrant you. The man who beats me is a coward; for he knows I won't resist. Let the dastard strike me then, or leave me, as he likes; but, for a choice, I prefer abusing women, who have no brothers or guardians; for, regarding a thrashing with indifference, I am not such a ninny as to prefer it. And here you have an accurate ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various
... brake, and he stopp'd not for stone, He swam the Esk river where ford there was none; But ere he alighted at Netherby gate, The bride had consented, the gallant came late: For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war, Was to wed the ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... announced that the American Union must be dissolved by foreign intervention, because, if reunited, it would be too strong, and bully the world—therefore France and England combined must strike us when we were supposed to be weak and divided. It is not the author of such atrocious and dastard sentiments that would lead the banner of France or of England anywhere except to humiliation and disgrace. 'Non talis auxilii, nec defensoribus ipsis.' No, when England seeks leaders, it will not be the sycophants of power, those who worship alternately democracy ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... cried, "is this the price you pay me for my fealty to you? Ill have you done by your friends, for sons of yours as yet unborn will feel the weight of this deed. You have vented your spite on my body; but for this dastard crime all ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... different. A summons had come to his loyalty, to the fundamental manhood of him. If he left David Dingwell to his fate, he could never look at himself again in the glass without knowing that he was facing a dastard. ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... at least among his intimates, that he was named Gorman; but not one of the number knew what his Christian name was. A few were aware that he signed himself "D. Gorman"; but whether the "D" represented David, dastard, drunkard, or demon, was a matter of pure speculation to all, a few of his female acquaintance excepted (for he had no friends), who asserted roundly that it represented them all, and some were ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... no dastard flight of steeds thy car betrayed, No empty shadow turned them back from facing of the foe, But thou thyself hast leapt from wheel and let ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... that you have my father's permission to speak to me," she answered, "but he would never counsel me to play a dastard's part and dishearten my fellow-citizens, whom I am bound to encourage. Understand, Ernst Van Arenberg, sooner would I remain among those who are stricken down every day by famine and pestilence, and share their fate, if God so wills ...
— The Lily of Leyden • W.H.G. Kingston
... She has accepted you at her mother's instance; and were I base enough to keep from you your father's inheritance, her mother would no more give her to you now than she would to me then. This is true; and if you know it to be true—as you do know—you will be mean, and dastard, and a coward—you will be no Fitzgerald if you keep from me that which I have a right to claim as my own. Not fight! Ay, but you must fight. We cannot both live here in this country if Clara Desmond become your wife. Mark my words, if that take place, ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... devote yourself to the great cause of civil and religious Liberty, to be the Soldier of all that is just, right, and true; in the midst of pestilence to deserve your title of Knight Commander of the Temple, and neither there nor elsewhere to desert your post and flee dastard-like from the foe. In all this, you assert the superiority and right to dominion of that in you which is spiritual and divine. No base fear of danger or death, no sordid ambitions or pitiful greeds or base considerations can tempt a true ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... leader, his earnestness and deliberation revealed a man whose hand did not hesitate to lead a revolt and whose heart did not fail in the face of a certain revolution. He acted up to his own words, repeated a short while later: "He who dallies is a dastard; he ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... green meadow beyond the church they wooed me as such. This one came and that one, and at last a fellow, when I said him nay and bade him begone, did dare to seize my hands and kiss my lips. While I struggled one came and flung that dastard out of the way, then asked me plainly to become his wife, and there was no laugh or insult in his voice. I was wearied and fordone and desperate.... So I met my husband, and so I married him. That same day I told him a part of my secret, and when my Lord Carnal was come I told him all.... ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... was never more fully-shewn than in its treatment of this writer—its love of paradox and change, its dastard submission to prejudice and to the fashion of the day. Five-and-twenty years ago he was in the very zenith of a sultry and unwholesome popularity; he blazed as a sun in the firmament of reputation; no one was more ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... safety in a sudden and inglorious dive under the table. Yet quick as he was, the old retainer was quicker. His heavy axe came down with a sweep, and never more would the fickle Stanley have played the dastard had not a carved chair arm stayed, for an instant, the weapon's fall. Ere it had shorn its way through the oak, Stanley was safe from death, though the edge scraped his head glancingly, sending the blood flying and leaving him unconscious on ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... a year!" she said fiercely. "You mock me with such words. I tell you again that my forbearance will last but little longer. More of this laggard love, and I will shame you before your fellow-men as an ingrate and a dastard! I will; by ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... to lead us astray from the lessons of history and from the Spirit of God. An irresistible and solemn duty impels me to this deed, ever since I have recognised to what high destinies the German; nation may attain during this century, and ever since I have come to know the dastard and hypocrite who alone prevents it from reaching them; for me, as for every German who seeks the public good, this desire has became a strict and binding necessity. May I, by this national vengeance, indicate to all upright and loyal consciences where the true danger lies, and ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... loud: the mighty heart Of Peleus' son leapt into flame of wrath. A sudden buffet of his resistless hand Smote 'neath the railer's ear, and all his teeth Were dashed to the earth: he fell upon his face: Forth of his lips the blood in torrent gushed: Swift from his body fled the dastard soul Of that vile niddering. Achaea's sons Rejoiced thereat, for aye he wont to rail On each and all with venomous gibes, himself A scandal and the shame of all the host. Then mid the warrior Argives cried a voice: "Not good it is for baser men to rail On kings, or ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... Crazy Horse and Gall to reinforce Sitting Bull, Hawk had held aloof. "The people of Red Cloud," said he, "have no grounds for war. The Great Father has done everything he promised them and more," and Red Cloud called him dastard and squaw; but when an Indian girl was missing from her lodge, and the gossips told how she had been lured by a white soldier to the distant banks of the Laramie, Hawk rode thither, rode into the presence of the post commander and told her story and his, and found and brought ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... first word he could utter as he literally gnashed his teeth. 'Away! What brings you here? Liar, scoundrel, dastard, thief!' ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... an effect upon my fears, as if I had: And here is the bull; it has as effectually frightened me, as if I had been hurt by it instead of the cook-maid; and so these joined together, as I may say, to make a very dastard of me. But my folly was the worst of all, because that deprived me of my money: for had I had that, I believe I should have ventured both ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... cheek, and, overcoming his modesty, he broke forth with a generous warmth: 'I know not, cavaliers,' said he, 'what is passing in your minds, but I believe this pilgrim to be an envoy from the devil; for none else could have given such dastard and perfidious counsel. For my own part, I stand ready to defend my king, my country, and my faith. I know no higher duty than this, and if God thinks fit to strike me dead in the performance of it, his ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... the hills of the earth I sprang from the godhead's seed. And e'en as my birth and my waxing shall be my waning and end. But thou on many an errand, to many a field dost wend Where the bow at adventure bended, or the fleeing dastard's spear Oft lulleth the mirth of the mighty. Now me thou dost not fear, Yet fear with me, beloved, for the mighty Maid I fear; And Doom is her name, and full often she maketh me afraid And even now meseemeth on my life her ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... friends, for I rejoice and triumph in that stigma - my friends whose hard but honest beds are made in toil, and whose scanty but independent pots are boiled in hardship; and now, I say, my friends, what appellation has that dastard craven taken to himself, when, with the mask torn from his features, he stands before us in all his native deformity, a What? A thief! A plunderer! A proscribed fugitive, with a price upon his head; a fester and a wound upon the noble character of the Coketown operative! ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... arse maketh buttons now, and who lusteth to feel, Shall find his heart creeping out at his heel, Or else lying hidden in some corner of his hose, If it be not already dropped out of his nose. For, as I doubt not but you have heard beforne, A more dastard coward ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... thy saying, I will inquire The fate of a poor dastard, of mean worth, But ever shrewd and ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... lovest then thy half-god. But no, ye gods! No, I believe thee, Nanna! It is for mine, for Hother's death, thou fearest. Then think'st thou me so weak, so wholly powerless, And lov'st me still? When e'er lov'd maids the dastard? ...
— The Death of Balder • Johannes Ewald
... dared so to treat her had her father been alive or had we been blessed with a brother," says Miss Priscilla, sternly. "He proved himself a dastard ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... Steele's famous cipher; he showed it to me a week ago; and so, evidently, do you, in spite of the fact that you have had barely fifty words with him since he came to the house. Let me read—ah!—give over that piece of paper you have there, Steele, if you would not have me think you as great a dastard as we ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... who had abandoned him, and El Zagal, from being their idol, became suddenly the object of their execration. He had sacrificed the army; he had disgraced the nation; he had betrayed the country. He was a dastard, a traitor; he was unworthy ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... delight In childhood's heart, when on some winter's night, As stormy winds low whistle through the vale, It shuddering lists the thrilling ghostly tale. It seems but now that blood was spilt, whose stain Proclaims the dastard soul—the bloody reign Of the Eighth Harry—vampire to his wife, Who traffick'd for his divorce with her life; So fresh, so moist, each ruddy drop appears Indelible through centuries of years! And who is this whose beauteous ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... tormenting fire. Vs martireth this blinde desire To staie our life from flieng! How ceasleslie our minds doth rack, How heauie lies vpon our back This dastard feare of dieng! Death rather healthfull succor giues, Death rather all mishappes relieues That life vpon vs throweth: And euer to vs doth vnclose The doore, wherby from curelesse woes Our wearie soule out goeth. What Goddesse else more milde then shee ...
— A Discourse of Life and Death, by Mornay; and Antonius by Garnier • Philippe de Mornay
... will all die ere they shall touch a hair of thy bonny head," cried the honest farmer, signing to his men to come and be ready. "If there's a man in this troop dastard enough to lay a hand upon thee, he shall settle accounts with Gaffer Hood ere he leaves the place. A farmer can fight, ay, and give good ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... obtaining it after the fashion not of the gentleman, but of the bravo. Day by day, week by week, month by month he practised himself in pistol shooting, until he considered that his skill was sufficient to enable him to take the dastard's hazard in a duel. He seized the opportunity of the debate on November 15th to describe the writer in the North Briton as a "coward and a malignant scoundrel." When Wilkes, on the following day, avowed the authorship of the paper, Martin sent ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... friends of Jackson, with the intimation that Clay would support the general on similar terms. When the friends of Jackson spurned these overtures, Clay sold out to Adams. With quite unnecessary heat Clay branded the author of this letter as "a base and infamous calumniator, a dastard, and a liar." His first instinct was to challenge the author whoever he might be; but when Representative George Kremer, an odd character who was chiefly conspicuous by reason of the leopard-skin coat which he wore avowed himself the writer of the offensive letter, Clay ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... up the lonely sea, But all was sable as his wayward fate. A storm dispers'd them, and Sardinia's isle Receiv'd the bark that held the hapless king, And morn beheld it on the main again; But far apart his faithful followers. Calabria's beach was gain'd; where Murat stood Amidst the dastard throng that hemm'd him round, With heart of adamant, and eye of fire. There is a majesty in kingly hearts Which changing time nor fickle fate can quell: He stood—reveal'd from his own lips, "The King Of fallen ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various
... they sing the song of Sigurd and the face without a foe, And they sing of the prison's rending and the tyrant laid alow, And the golden thieves' abasement, and the stilling of the churl, And the mocking of the dastard where the chasing edges whirl; And they sing of the outland maidens that thronged round Sigurd's hand, And sung in the streets of the foemen of the war-delivered land; And they tell how the ships of ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... all portions of our Empire. She has sorrowed with the sorrow of the great commonwealth, whose chief has been struck down, in the fulness of his strength, in the height of his usefulness, in the day of universal recognition of his noble character, by the dastard hand of the assassin. We have felt in this as though we ourselves had suffered, for General Garfield's position and personal worth made his own and his fellow citizens' misfortune a catastrophe for all English-speaking races. The bulletins telling of his calm and courageous struggle against cruel ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... the clear-sighted children of the Republic be cajoled into a friendly attitude towards this blood-thirsty dastard, because that, in the feebleness and fear that have now overtaken her, she essays to gloze over the infamous acts of which she stands convicted before the nations, and assumes an air of friendship towards them. Had the Union fallen, through her infernal ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... Christ draws near, and says, "Lift up your gates, ye princes, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in." The portals fly asunder. Satan shouts up to his friends, "Dyng the dastard down;" but Beelzebub replies, "That is easily said." Jesus and the devil soon meet, face to face. A long colloquy ensues, in the course of which the latter tells the former that he knew his Father well by ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... a coward, the dastard that he is! For one hour he has been running about from room to room as though pursued by invisible spectres. How cunningly he has devised the whole affair in his own interest. Julio is to kill poor Geronimo! ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... heard these words, Ghatotkacha, filled with grief on account of the fall of his son, and with eyes red as copper in wrath, approached Aswatthaman and said, "Am I a dastard in battle, O son of Drona, like a vulgar person, that thou dost frighten me thus with words? Thy words are improper. Verily, I have been begotten by Bhima in the celebrated race of the Kurus. I am a son ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... that, while the friends of Jackson would not descend to "such mean barter and sale," a bargain with the Adams forces had been duly closed. Clay's rage was ungovernable. Through the columns of the National Intelligencer he pronounced his unknown antagonist "a base and infamous calumniator, a dastard and a liar," called upon him to "unveil himself," and declared that he would hold him responsible "to all the laws which govern and regulate men ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... replied Captain N——, with almost frightful vehemence, 'as every trickster and swindler IS. You are a contemptible dastard—a despicable, damned villain! Draw your sword, sir, and defend your life, or every post and pillar in this town shall ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... me! What a shame she had put upon me! I could not credit. "You shall not—I tell you, you sha'n't. I won't have it—it's monstrous, preposterous. You sha'n't go, I sha'n't go. But wherever we go we'll go together. We'll stand them off. Then if they can take us, let 'em. You make a coward of me—a dastard. You've no right ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... was reared," he answered, and put aside his pipe, which had gone out. "The spirit of revenge was educated into me until I came to look upon revenge as the best and holiest of emotions; until I believed that if I failed to wreak it I must be a craven and a dastard. All this seemed so until the moment came to set my hand to the task. ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... "Mercy—mercy!" cried the dastard, falling on his knees before his stern antagonist—"I am rich, let me depart in safety, and I'll give you a cheque for ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... strongly advises any woman who is struck by a ruffian to strike him again; or if she cannot clench her fists, and he advises all women in these singular times to learn to clench their fists, to go at him with tooth and nail, and not to be afraid of the result, for any fellow who is dastard enough to strike a woman, would allow himself to be beaten by a woman, were she to make at him in self-defence, even if, instead of possessing the stately height and athletic proportions of the aforesaid Isopel, she were as diminutive in stature, and had a hand as delicate and a foot ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... "Young Lochinvar." In arranging the dramatis persona some difficulty had arisen from the fact that none of the girls was willing to represent the elderly bridegroom so unflatteringly described as "a laggard in love and a dastard in war." It was not an ingratiating character, and Nancy and Barbara flatly refused to personate it. Susan could do it, she was the smallest, and would best look the part. For two minutes on end Susan stoutly refused to do anything of the ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey |
