"Errant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a Creature, thou wilt endure any thing for the lucre of her Fortune; 'tis that thou hast a Passion for: not that thou carest for Money, but to sacrifice to thy Leudness, to purchase a Mistress, to purchase the Reputation of as errant a Fool as ever arriv'd at the Honour of keeping; to purchase a little Grandeur, as you call it; that is, to make every one look at thee, and consider what a Fool thou art, who else might pass unregarded ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... an Indian; it was hard for her to make admissions about her husband. But then—we were like two errant school-girls, who had been caught m an escapade! "I don't know what I'm going to do about him," she said, with a wry smile. "He really won't listen—I can't make any ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... will not go about seeking other adventures, my dear child," wrote her mother, with gentle raillery. "What with your announcement of the presentation of the medal, and Mrs. Mason's enthusiastic letter, your father and I begin to believe that we have a kind of female knight errant for a daughter. I am afraid we never shall get our little Nan ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... But learning accidentally that the scroll had been pawned to the merchant from whom he had obtained it, he instituted inquiries as to its owner, and ultimately restored the scroll to him with the addition of five gold ryo. The owner was a knight-errant (ronin) named Imagawa Motome, who thereafter entered Masamune's service and ultimately rose to be a general of infantry (ashigaru). The sympathy which taught Masamune to estimate the pain with which the owner of the scroll must have parted ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... suppose. The artistic possibilities of these simple objects flashed across him. In his mind's eye he saw this prosaic tub sublimed into a romantic pool, and girdled by a rockery, in whose mossy crannies errant trickles of water might lose themselves, and perhaps fertilize exotic flora yet unborn. At this moment I espied a wheelbarrow in the distance, and went for it with that purposeful briskness, which may sometimes be used ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... Richard had determined to go as a Crusader to the rescue of the Holy Land. From his mother, who had herself taken part in the Second Crusade, he had heard many stories of the East,—that land of wonders and marvelous adventures. Richard was by nature a rover, a warrior, a knight-errant. So it seemed to him a most delightful prospect to travel, to see strange lands and peoples, to fight in a holy war; and thus to indulge his own love of adventure and of battle while advancing the glory of God. Nay, to do him justice, Richard was religious too, in the strange fierce fashion ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... side, is an ever-present source of trouble and unhappiness among the Natives. The length to which a jealous Native wife will go in winning back the affections of an errant husband is often extraordinary, though the ways and means she adopts differ but little from those practised by the superstitious and credulous peasantry in Europe less than a hundred ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen
... glory, what hast thou to yield? How long, deluding phantom, wilt thou blind, Mislead, debase, unhumanize mankind? Bid the bold youth, his headlong sword who draws, Heed not the object, nor inquire the cause; But seek adventuring, like an errant knight, Wars not his own, gratuitous in fight, Greet the gored field, then plunging thro the fire, Mow down his men, with stupid pride expire, Shed from his closing eyes the finish'd flame, And ask, for all his crimes, a deathless name? And when ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... again ride knee to knee in the pomp of squadron line, With head-ropes white as a mountain drift and curb chains all a-shine? Will they dawn no more, those glorious days when the world seemed all our own, Who rode as scouts on an errant quest, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 17, 1920 • Various
... lagged far in the rear, steps in the way, cajoles Shark into listening to his advice, and, with a big stick and a few of the most gorgeous expletives of which he is eminently the master, persuades the errant hound of his mistake. Deep and dire are the maledictions heaved at the unhappy Shark, and in which his companions, Rimu and Toto, Wolf and Katipo, have unjustly to share. For the row occasioned by the ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... went abroad for her health—that is, her husband was obliged to place her under restraint. Her malady was pronounced incurable, though her life might be prolonged. The second son, Laurence, had distinguished himself at Oxford, and had become a knight-errant of the Society of Antiquaries. His father said he would traverse a continent to look at one old stone. He was hardly persuaded to relinquish his liberty and choose a wife, when the failure of heirs to Frederick disconcerted the squire's expectations, and, with the proverbial ill-luck ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... They have their own affairs and interests, and if these touch ours it is generally through the desire to inherit what we have. So Elsa went her way alone. From her father she had inherited a remarkable and seldom errant judgment. To her, faces were generally book-covers, they repelled or attracted; and she found large and undiminishing interest in the faculty of pressing back the covers and reading the text. Often battered covers ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... hereditary transmission to explain these things. We know this, however, that, side by side with that law which decrees the transmission of defects as well as excellences, there exists another law which restrains deviations from the normal type, which extinguishes the errant traits, and reestablishes the primitive characters of the organism. The combined and alternate action of these two laws may produce some of the inscrutable ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... sense the hundreds of thousands of American soldiers who go to France are modern crusaders. Like the valiant men of the Middle Ages who traveled far to fight in strange lands for the ideal that possessed their souls, these twentieth-century knights-errant go to defend the ideals of liberty and right and honor which are the issues of this war and which our Allies have successfully upheld ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... forth as a knight-errant, with few followers, but a great name. Tears came into his eyes as he looked back upon his home, its doors open, its hall deserted, no hawks upon the perches, no horses in the stalls. "My enemies have done this," he said. "God be praised for all ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... valour his profession; and who, if you deprived him of his honour, was like to be deprived of his bread at the same time.—Ha, ha, ha! it reminds one of Don Quixote, who took his neighbour, Samson Carrasco, for a knight-errant." ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... chief of the Importants. Amongst the earliest to swell the ranks of that faction were two other personages who had played a very conspicuous part during the reign of Louis XIII. The first of these, Madame de Montbazon's step-daughter, was the witty, beautiful, and errant Duchess de Chevreuse, whom Louis had judged so dangerous that he had expressly forbidden by his will, when on the point of death, that she should ever be recalled from exile to Court. By the same prohibition ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... deposed, the errant one, seen sliding out of the swinging door, and summoned in a loud, clear voice to come back, had flatly disobeyed and had gone upon his ways 'Grinning at me,' said the aggrieved Mr Gregory, 'like a dashed ape.' A most unjust description of the sad, sweet smile ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... these are strange times,' observed the President, 'when a doctor of divinity and an undergraduate set forth, like a knight-errant and his squire, in search of a stray damsel. Methinks I am an epitome of the church militant, or a new species of polemical divinity. Pray Heaven, however, there be no such encounter in store for us; for I utterly forgot ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... Patrick's down went, Like two arrand Deans, two Deans errant I meant; So that Christmas appears at Bellcampe like a Lent, Gives the gamesters of both houses great discontent. Our parsons agree here, as those did at Trent, Dan's forehead has got a most damnable ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... out in the hall telephoning Henrietta. We could hear his cheerful voice: 'No, Pettikins, no! It doesn't ache a bit. What's that? Of course I still do! You are the only woman that ever meant anything to me. What? What's that? Oh, I may have errant fancies now and again, like the best of men—you know yourself how sensitive I am to a certain type of flowerlike beauty—but it never touches my deeper nature. Yes, certainly, I shall be right up the very minute good old Ben ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... the King-maker been the statesman-soldier that he has had the credit of being, he never would have fought Edward until he had been joined by Margaret; and he must have known that her non-arrival was owing to contrary winds, he having been himself a naval commander. But he acted like a knight-errant, not like a general, gave battle, and was defeated and slain, "The Last of the Barons." Having triumphed at Barnet, Edward marched to meet Margaret's army, which was led by Somerset, and defeated it on the 4th ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... improved upon knights errant of old," she said slowly. "You seize your guerdon before paying your devoir." She pointed to the chasm, which was about eight feet across at the spot where they were standing. ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... Michelet have made the history of France both highly suggestive as regards the development of civilization, and picturesque and dramatic as a narrative, the greatest allowance for brilliant theorizing, political sympathies, and an errant fancy are indispensable in order to attain to a clear view of genuine facts and absolute principles. It has been said that "leading ideas" are fatal to accuracy of statement; and these dominate in the minds of French philosophical annalists; while ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... dear, and have brought my heart safe thro' such a continued fire as never poor knight errant was exposed to; waited on at every stage by blooming country girls, full of spirit and coquetry, without any of the village bashfulness of England, and dressed like the shepherdesses of romance. A man of adventure might make a ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... fragrance of a flower will sometimes turn the tide of a day for me and make me square my shoulders and go at my task with renewed vigor; or a casual glimpse of a face in the street turn my attention away from my errand and settle my mind into a brown study. Usually I am alert enough to control these errant reactions, but I am keenly aware of their demands upon my mind, and frequently it is only with conscious effort that I am kept upon my way unswerved by them, though ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... the favorite folk songs sung to the children of a half century ago was "Run Nigger Run, or the Patty Roll Will Get You." Few of the children of today have ever heard this humorous ditty, and would, perhaps, be ignorant of its meaning. To the errant negro youths of slave times, however, this tune had a significant, and sometimes tragic, meaning. The "patty rolls" were guards hired by the plantations to keep the slaves from running away. The following story is told by ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... princes cheered their leisure. Or he was traversing the country in quest of adventure, professedly bent on redressing wrongs and enforcing rights, sometimes in fulfilment of some vow of religion or of love. These wandering knights were called knights-errant; they were welcome guests in the castles of the nobility, for their presence enlivened the dulness of those secluded abodes, and they were received with honor at the abbeys, which often owed the best part of their revenues ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... wolfskin bunda, and with a large astrachan cap on his head drawn down over his eyes. Inside it one could make out nothing but the face. It was a peculiar face, with eyes that looked strangely at you. An errant spirit seemed to dwell in them; they spoke of a mind that had been destined for great, for amazing things. But fate, environment, and neglect had here been too much for destiny, and the man had grown content to be extraordinary in mere trifles, and seemed quite ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... winter quarters on Salmon River. This partisan appeared at the rendezvous without his party, and a sorrowful tale of disasters had he to relate. In hunting the Crow country, he fell in with a village of that tribe; notorious rogues, jockeys, and horse stealers, and errant scamperers of the mountains. These decoyed most of his men to desert, and carry off horses, traps, and accoutrements. When he attempted to retake the deserters, the Crow warriors ruffled up to him and declared the deserters ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... intimacy with Delafield, thenceforward said not a word of him, and Warkworth's jealousy had died for lack of fuel. In relation to Julie, Delafield had been surely the mere shadow and agent of his little cousin the Duchess—a friendly, knight-errant sort of person, with a liking for the distressed. What! the heir-presumptive of Chudleigh Abbey, and one of the most famous of English dukedoms, when even he, the struggling, penurious officer, would never have dreamed ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... host became tired of his dumb visitor, and leaning on his axe he said, "Look here, Sis, what have you come for? What's your errant? Do you want apples? Or cider? Or what? Speak out, or ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the lives of the domestic staff intolerable by insisting upon search for the missing key being made in the most unlikely and inaccessible places, although in his own mind he was convinced that it had been stolen by the errant Japanese. ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... his understanding and his heart: his devotion stooped to admire and imitate the begging friars of Francis and Dominic: he pursued with blind and cruel zeal the enemies of the faith; and the best of kings twice descended from his throne to seek the adventures of a spiritual knight-errant. A monkish historian would have been content to applaud the most despicable part of his character; but the noble and gallant Joinville, [94] who shared the friendship and captivity of Louis, has traced with the pencil of nature the free portrait of his virtues as well ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... of a compound noun, whether it precedes or follows the descriptive part, is in most cases the noun that changes in forming the plural; as, mothers-in-law, knights-errant, mouse-traps. In a few compound words, both parts take a plural form; as, man-servant, ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... period of strain. She assumed an attitude of very haughty contempt toward the errant pair, devoted herself to Wiggins, and let them coldly alone. From this attitude Wiggins was the chief sufferer: the Terror had the princess and the princess had the Terror; Erebus enjoyed her display of haughty contempt, but Wiggins ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... Equestrians or Chevaliers, not Ritters or riders, but Walkers, a still more ancient and honorable class, I trust. The chivalric and heroic spirit which once belonged to the Rider seems now to reside in, or perchance to have subsided into, the Walker,—not the Knight, but Walker Errant. He is a sort of fourth estate, outside of ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... I in my tale? And if this present errant discourse be forgiven, surely I will not transgress again, but drive my team straight to the furrow's end and then back again, like an honest ploughman that has his eye ever upon the ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... comes floating with the errant breeze, with the rustle and glimmer abroad in the April sky. It sings of the first ache of youth in the world, when the first flower broke from the bud, and love went forth seeking that which it knew not, leaving ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore
... You accept Maurice and Jean as your knights-errant? I am delighted with the arrangement, and I hope that Mlle. ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... pictures. All the women lose their heads over him. He always spends something like a hundred thousand francs a year, and no creature can discover that he has an acre of land or a single dividend warrant. The typical knight errant of our salons, our boudoirs, our boulevards, an amphibian half-way between a man and a woman—Maxime de Trailles is a singular being, fit for anything, and good for nothing, quite as capable of perpetrating a benefit as of planning a crime; sometimes base, sometimes noble, ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... That's well; You improve apace;—two changes in an instant, 490 And you are old in the World's ways already. But bear with me: indeed you'll find me useful Upon your pilgrimage. But come, pronounce Where shall we now be errant? ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... from which my future life was to be reckoned. I was dressed and sent out to conquer, with a heart beating like that of an old knight-errant at his first sally. Scholars have told me of a Spartan matron, who, when she armed her son for battle, bade him bring back his shield, or be brought upon it. My venerable parent dismissed me to a field, in her opinion of equal glory, with a ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... sloping fields of green painted with daisies, through which, unshackled, the buoyant breeze swept so peacefully. It was an invariable rule, in those days, to troop through the meadows at early morn and, like a young knight-errant, bear home in triumph "Marguerite," the peerless daisy, rescued from the clutches of unmentionable dragons, and now to beam brightly on us for the rest of the day from a neighboring mantel-piece. And it was with great reluctance that we refrained from decapitating the whole ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... Elect, as they are called, made miserable, and the Non-elect, happy. I think we may challenge the whole World, to shew on this mad Principle the contrary; and why, as well as any thing else, such an Economy may not be resolved into Sovereign Pleasure. If God to Isaac conveyed such errant Falshoods, by the Instrumentality of Jacob's Mouth, Why not make the same deceitful Use of the Bible, or even of his own immediate Word, in regard to the Elect? If God, as Mr. Gill (I think) observes, has two Wills, "One ...
— Free and Impartial Thoughts, on the Sovereignty of God, The Doctrines of Election, Reprobation, and Original Sin: Humbly Addressed To all who Believe and Profess those DOCTRINES. • Richard Finch
... roof. 'It is an ill wind,' says the proverb, 'that blows nobody good;' and it is a clear case, my very kind hostess, that at this moment we are mutually ignorant of each other. I assure you, then, madam, that I am not a knight-errant travelling in disguise and in quest of adventure, but a plain gentleman, by name Woodward, step-son to a neighbor of yours, Mr. Lindsay, of Rathfillan House. I need scarcely say that I am Mrs. Lindsay's ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Suggested by the Cover of a Volume of Keats's Poems Apples of Hesperides Azure and Gold Petals Venetian Glass Fatigue A Japanese Wood-Carving A Little Song Behind a Wall A Winter Ride A Coloured Print by Shokei Song The Fool Errant The Green Bowl Hora Stellatrix Fragment Loon Point Summer "To-morrow to Fresh Woods and Pastures New" The Way Diya {original title is Greek, Delta-iota-psi-alpha} Roads Teatro Bambino. Dublin, N. H. The Road to Avignon New York at ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... be called unworthy, no matter how it manifested itself—nothing less than the reinstatement before the world of the family her mother had disgraced, the once-proud Kildares of Storm. She was going forth to do battle alone for the tarnished honor of her name, a gallant little knight-errant, tight-lipped and heavy-hearted, and far more afraid than she ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... knight errant ye wit not of. But the tournament's not over yet, and this time I've got the rabbit: he ...
— A Knyght Ther Was • Robert F. Young
... responsible for the unusual mental ability of certain Delcasars. Dona Ameliana, a beautiful but somewhat unruly girl, went into a convent in Durango, Mexico, at the age of fifteen. At the age of eighteen she eloped with a French priest named Raubien, who was a man of unusual intellect and a poet. The errant couple came to New Mexico and took up lands. They were excommunicated, of course, and both of them were buried in unconsecrated ground; but despite their spiritual handicaps they raised a family of eleven comely daughters, all of whom married well, several of them into ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... in payment for it, yearly ye shall receive of Sir Ontzlake a palfrey; for that will befit you better to ride than the knightly war-horse. And look ye well to it, on pain of death, that ye lie no more in wait for errant knights, but amend your life and live peaceably ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... few besides Americans can say; and when it can be said truly, in parts of the country where the arts of life have spread, and amid the blessings of civilization, it becomes the foundation of a sentiment so profound, that I do not wonder those adventurers-errant who are flying about the face of the country, thrusting their hands into every man's mess, have not been able to find it among their other superficial discoveries. Nothing can be less like the ordinary cravings of avarice than the feeling that is thus engendered; and I am certain ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... man manliest;—not puny resolve, not crude determination, not errant purpose, but that strong and indefatigable will which treads down difficulties and danger as a boy treads down the heaving frost-lands of winter,—which kindles his eye and brain with a proud pulse-beat toward the unattainable. Will makes men giants. It made Napoleon an emperor ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... you know what you're doing, you're starting out to reform the world by force if necessary and pausing on your way to tell the large man in the corner that, if he looks at you like that, you will knock his head off. What I mean is, she made me feel alert and dashing, like a jolly old knight-errant or something of that kind. I felt that I was with her in ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... a dream-dazzled youth, striving like a knight-errant for the love of a lady and the glory of conquest, but he was also a born fighter, and in every emergency he had shown himself as able as his ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... am like the bold knight-errant, From his castle who would roam, Trusting her, my faithful steward, For a strict account of home; And each day I toil, and hazard All that any man may dare, For a resting-place at even, And the ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... thought— Into an emptiness you know not of— A night profounder that it late has held Marsh-lights of promise. My last altar lies Smoking in ruins; and I stand alone Of all the universe. But my Will be done! My errant tortured Will, my bitter Will, ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... of energy, bravery and aptitude for his profession, had fought his way to military rank and honour. After seeing much service on the continent, and passing through as many adventures as a knight-errant of old, he was transferred to British North America. His gallant services in this country are imperfectly recorded in various accounts of the War of 1812, and in Tupper's "Life of Brock." Every Canadian ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... stopped at Mrs. Morpher's to inquire after his errant pupil that night, he found Aristides in bed, smelling strongly of soap and water, and sinking into a feverish sleep. As he muttered from time to time some incoherent sentence, tossing restlessly in his cot, the master ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... their noses against the pane. A short, thick-set man of German build was waddling toward the gate and the trolley car. They gazed with wide, horrified eyes, and turned without a word to meet Patty as she trudged upstairs lugging her errant suit-case. A glance told her that they had seen, and dropping on the top step, she leaned her head against the ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... and pressing his horse close beside the opposite fence, he passed them with gravely uplifted hat and a serious, preoccupied air. But in that single, seemingly conventional glance, Mr. Hamlin had seen that they were both pretty, and that one had the short upper lip of his errant little guide. A hundred yards farther on he halted, as if irresolutely, gazed doubtfully ahead of him, and then turned back. An expression of innocent—almost childlike—concern was clouding the rascal's face. It was well, ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... bargain, leap in the dark, leap of faith, fool's paradise; too many eggs in one basket. desperado, rashling[obs3], madcap, daredevil, Hotspur, fire eater, bully, bravo, Hector, scapegrace, enfant perdu[Fr]; Don Quixote, knight- errant, Icarus; adventurer; gambler, gamester; dynamitard[obs3]; boomer [obs3][U. S.]. V. be rash &c. adj.; stick at nothing, play a desperate game; run into danger &c. 665; play with fire, play with edge tools. carry too much sail, sail too near the wind, ride at single anchor, go out of one's ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... reading it that, in Mr. Froude's words, the rough simplicity is gone, and has been replaced by a tone of sentiment which is almost mawkish. "Giants, dragons, and angelic champions carry us into a spurious fairyland where the knight-errant is a preacher in disguise. Fair ladies and love-matches, however decorously chastened, suit ill with the sternness of the mortal conflict between the soul and sin." With the acknowledged shortcomings of ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... done for an honorary member of the club of fat people recorded in the Spectator; and we looked, with disdain on the level territory on the banks of the Usk, and longed for hills to climb, and walls to get over, and rocks to overcome, like knights-errant in search of adventures. No walk was too great for us. We thought of challenging Captain Barclay to a match against time, or of travelling through England as the Pedestrian Wonders. Walker, the twopenny ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... arrival in Boston, our errant knight, before setting out upon his quest for the Fame and Fortune to whose service he was sworn, spent some hours in wandering about the old town, with mind open to the quickening influences of historic association and eye to the ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... sleepy, shady street he had never been down before. Halfway along it was an open-air eating place of some kind, with tables placed about under the trees. There seemed to be no customers at the moment but he stopped, anyway, to take a closer look for errant guards. ...
— The Helpful Hand of God • Tom Godwin
... you see me without bruise or scratch. Only Yorick and I got tangled up with a herd of buffaloes on the Kajiar Road. In his fright, the little fool slipped half over the khud, and if a knight-errant had not fallen from heaven, in the nick of time, we should both be lying somewhere in the valley by now, 'spoiling a patch ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... glorious in the crimson and amber sky. Below, a point of silver light quivered, reflected in the crimson and amber waters of the "lick." The fire-flies were flickering among the ferns; he saw about him their errant gleam. The shadowy herds trooped down ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... blockheads in the common road. Do but survey this crowded house to-night:— Here's still encouragement for those that write. 30 Our author, to divert his friends to-day, Stocks with variety of fools his play; And that there may be something gay and new, Two ladies-errant has exposed to view: The first a damsel, travelled in romance; The t'other more refined; she comes from France: Rescue, like courteous knights, the nymph from danger; And kindly treat, like well-bred ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... Francisco Pizarro, and the small remains of the colony left by Ojeda at St. Sebastian. He heard the story of their misfortunes and the departure of their commander, but nothing daunted, the worthy gentleman of the robe assumed the courageous bearing of a knight errant, and determined to pursue the adventures on which he had embarked. Having heard of a great sepulchre not far in the interior, where the natives were said to be buried with all their ornaments of gold, he determined at once ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... come an errant knight On a barbed charger clothed in mail: His archers scatter iron hail. At brow and breast his mace he aims; Who therefore hath not arms of proof, Let him live locked by door and roof; Until Dame Summer on a day That ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... nations of the world, and that precisely the fear of losing their trade and markets has been, as they constantly assert, a chief cause that has driven them to war, they speak as though Germany were a kind of knight-errant, innocent of all material ambitions, wandering through the world in the pure, disinterested service of God and man. On the other hand, because England is a great commercial Power, they suppose that ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson
... smiled:—'Since to your home A destined errant-knight I come, Announced by prophet sooth and old, Doomed, doubtless, for achievement bold, I 'll lightly front each high emprise For one kind glance of those bright eyes. Permit me first the task to guide Your fairy frigate o'er the tide.' The maid, ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... Mr Tapley; a hasty interchange of farewells, and of something else which the proverb says must not be told of afterwards; a white hand held out to Mr Tapley himself, which he kissed with the devotion of a knight-errant; more farewells, more something else's; a parting word from Martin that he would write from London and would do great things there yet (Heaven knows what, but he quite believed it); and Mark and he stood on the outside of ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... very errant rogue, sir, and a cheater, Employ'd here by another conjurer That does not love the doctor, and would cross him, If ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... to be believed, not all castles were desirable places to seek hospitality in. As a matter of fact, knights errant were not persons to be believed—that is, measured by modern standards of veracity; yet, measured by the standards of their own time, and scaled accordingly, you got the truth. It was very simple: you discounted a statement ninety-seven per cent; the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of Harvard in his day and the rather pedantic spirit with which classical studies were there pursued. Moreover, he had brought from Europe a new manner, full of the affections of ardent youth, and this he wore without ease in a society highly satisfied with itself; the young knight-errant was therefore subjected to considerable ridicule. A little volume of poetry, translations and original pieces, published in 1823 gave its author no fame. As time passed, and custom created familiarity, his style, personal and literary, was seen to be the outward symbol of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... we almost held it, The love we so desired; But our shut eyes saw not, and fate dispelled it Before our pulses fired To flame, and errant fortune bade us stand Hand almost ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... are detected to practice it are held most vile and infamous, as being plainly the most pernicious and perilous instruments of injustice, the most desperate enemies of all men's right and safety that can be. But also out of the court there are many knights-errant of the poet, whose business it is to run about scattering false reports; sometimes loudly proclaiming them in open companies, sometimes closely whispering them in dark corners; thus infecting conversation with their poisonous breath: these ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... bound for the leave boat, just before Christmas, the Knight-Errant, who also was returning to the front, re-wrote the well-known hymn of Phillips Brooks for me, to make the time pass. ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... principal word, rather than in the adjunct; but where the terms differ little in importance, the genius of the language obviously inclines to a variation of the last only. Thus we write fathers-in-law, sons-in-law, knights-errant, courts-martial, cousins-german, hangers-on, comings-in, goings-out, goings-forth, varying the first; and manhaters, manstealers, manslayers, maneaters, mandrills, handfuls, spoonfuls, mouthfuls, pailfuls, outpourings, ingatherings, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... their cards with fleurs de lis, their royal emblem. The Spanish kings, in conformity to the martial spirit of the times when cards were introduced, were all mounted on horseback, as befitted generals and commanders-in-chief; but their next in command (among the cards) was el caballo, the knight-errant on horseback—for the old Spanish cards had no queens; and the third in order was the soto, or attendant, that is, the esquire, or armour-bearer of the knight—all which was exactly conformable to those ideas of chivalry which ruled the age. It ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... Scudery, or any other Writer of Romance, had introduced a Necromancer, who is generally in the Train of a Knight-Errant, making a Present to two Lovers of a Couple of those above-mentioned Needles, the Reader would not have been a little pleased to have seen them corresponding with one another when they were guarded by Spies and Watches, or separated ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... a heap of dried leaves, laid his cloak upon them, and picked up Isoult to lay her upon the cloak. His arms about her woke her up. Scarce knowing what she did, dreaming possibly of her mother, she put up her face towards his; but if Prosper noticed it, no errant mercy from him sent her to bed comforted. He put her down, covered her about with the cloak, and patted her shoulder with an easy—"Good-night, my lass." This was cold cheer to the poor girl, who had to be content with his ministry of the cloak. It was too ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... a loss what to think, when, Hippolito coming into the Room to give the Lady an Account of his Errant, was no less astonished to find she was departed, and had left Two Old Signiors in her stead. He knew Don Fabio's Face, for Aurelian had shewn him his Father at the Tilting; but being confident he was not known to him, he ventur'd to ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve
... the child's heart, fresh from God, see and feel more clearly and more justly than we do. For this much is sure—Jeanette was right in keeping to the end the image of Colonel Martin Culpepper as a knight-errant, who needed only a bespangled steed, a little less avoirdupois, and a foolish cause to set him battling in the tourney. As it was, in this humdrum world, the colonel could do nothing more heroic than come rattling down Main Street into the ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... transactions of life. Thus in the Golden Age, there was something very comical in human creatures eating acorns, like pigs. The Augustan Age was comical enough, if we may trust some of Horace's satires. Much comicality was displayed in the Middle Ages, in the proceedings of the knights errant, the doings in Palestine, and the mode adopted by the priests of inculcating religion on the minds of the people. In the Elizabethan Age several comic incidents occurred at court; particularly when any of the courtiers were guilty of personal impertinence to their virgin ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh
... reproach. It expressed the pain Mademoiselle Pictet had felt at his unceremonious departure, and his own affliction at the ingratitude of one to whom he had never refused a request. Finally, as the trustee of his estate till his majority, the guardian assures the errant youth that he will aid him with pecuniary resources as far as possible, without infringing upon the capital, and within the sworn obligation of his trust. Letters of recommendation to distinguished Americans were also forwarded, and in these it is found, to ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... invention." Scoffers will not be slow to find in Volapk and the White Knight's inventions a common characteristic—their fantasticness. Perhaps there really is some analogy in the fact that both inventors had to mount their hobby-horses and ride errant through sundry lands, thrusting their creations on an unwilling world. But the particular kind of white night of which Volapk was born is the nuit blanche, literally "white night," but ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... I would have you make is against forty cowards and scoundrels who are sucking the very life out of the country—the forty who represent the high council of the magnates. Let it be a personal fight, a tourney; you the Knights Errant ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... organism man builds for his own habitation? The idea of knighthood still stirs us and the deeds of chivalry and the courtesy and the honour of the social Knights of the Round Table, Crusaders and knights errant, the quest of the Holy Grail, rescue and adventure, the fighting with paynims and powers of evil, still stir our blood and arouse in our minds strange contrasts and antinomies. Princes and fair chatelaines in their wide domains with castle and chase and delicate pleasaunce, ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... helps many people under similar circumstances. It did not occur to him to toss up, nor was he aware of the value of turning round three times with his eyes closed and then marching straight before him. Had he been an errant knight, of course his horse would have settled the question; but as it was, he was not a knight and had not a horse. He had a dog, though. He had found Julius in possession of the caretaker at his guardian's house, and had begged her to let him ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... red head lovingly as it leant against the motherly bosom upon which had so often rested errant ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... checks the fiery soul of James? Why sits that champion of the dames Inactive on his steed, And sees between him and his land, Between him and Tweed's southern strand, His host Lord Surrey lead? What 'vails the vain knight-errant's brand? O, Douglas, for thy leading wand! Fierce Randolph, for thy speed! O for one hour of Wallace wight, Or well-skilled Bruce, to rule the fight, And cry 'Saint Andrew and our right!' Another sight had seen that morn, From Fate's ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... you Americans are a wonderful people. You seek adventures with as much gusto as a knight-errant of the olden times. If I had a dozen such as you two under my charge, I'd soon free this neighborhood ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... listened, meditated, and replied, in general terms, that he took a great interest in English affairs, and would keep his attention fixed on them. [224] Whatever his purpose had been, it is not likely that he would have chosen a rash and vainglorious knight errant for his confidant. Between the two men there was nothing in common except personal courage, which rose in both to the height of fabulous heroism. Mordaunt wanted merely to enjoy the excitement of conflict, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... loopholes, and being in every way inferior to the powerful machines I saw working along the southern frontier. Nevertheless it is a useful means of reconnaissance, nor is a journey in it devoid of interest. An armoured train! The very name sounds strange; a locomotive disguised as a knight-errant; the agent of civilisation in the habiliments of chivalry. Mr. Morley attired as Sir Lancelot would seem scarcely more incongruous. The possibilities of attack added to the keenness of the experience. We started at one o'clock. A company of the Dublin Fusiliers formed the ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... thankfully. All the surgeon's serene confidence in himself returned in these emergencies, and he was doing invaluable work. People were grateful, but the man's ways and looks were so strange, his restlessness so tragic, that they dubbed him "le Juif Errant." ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... touch of cynicism. Conjecture as to its meaning was not difficult, but, in the utter absence of information, certainty there could be none. Under any circumstances, it was to be expected that Rhoda would think and speak of Mrs. Widdowson no less severely than of the errant Bella Royston. ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... he was wrong, though six years were to pass before they met: the mystic, Israel Kensky, Cherry Bim the modern knight-errant, ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... morning dresses. After seeing for a long time little but rusticity, their lively manner, and gay inviting appearance, pleased me so much, that I thought, for the moment, I could have been a knight-errant for them. [Footnote: On reflection, at the distance of several years, I wonder that my venerable fellow-traveller should have read this ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... when the Spaniards organized a cavalcade of the Quixote, he undertook to represent the knight Pentapolin—"him of the rolled-up sleeves,"—and in the Corso there were applause and cries of admiration for the huge biceps that the knight-errant, erect on his horse, revealed. When the spring nights came, the artists marched in a procession across the city to the Jewish quarter to buy the first artichokes—the popular dish in Rome, in the preparation of which an old ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... bride, the lovely Princess Sabra, in his castle near Coventry, soon levied a powerful army; and, setting sail, no longer as a knight-errant, but as a renowned general, he arrived with his forces on the coast of Portugal, where he was joined by the other six Champions, who each brought troops in proportion to the size of his country. So enchanted were the Portuguese with ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... knights-errant slept, they never set out on their journey on the morrow without first hearing Mass; and if they had been riding all night and came to a chapel in the morning they "avoided their horses and heard Mass." There are many allusions to devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and on one occasion a tournament ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... plight, whistles and shouts for his people, and imprecations on their tardiness, until Stephen was near enough to show that the hawk had been recovered, and then he joyfully called out, "Ha! hast thou got her? Why, flat-caps as ye are, ye put all my fellows to shame! How now, thou errant bird, dost know thy master, or take him for a mud wall? Kite that thou art, to have led me such a dance! And what's your name, my brave lads? Ye must have been bred ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... have you go forth as a knight-errant, Micah,' said Reuben, laughing. 'You might chance to get your own skin beaten and ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... smiled: "Since to your home A destined errant-knight I come, 475 Announced by prophet sooth and old, Doomed, doubtless, for achievement bold, I'll lightly front each high emprise, For one kind glance of those bright eyes. Permit me, first, the task to guide 480 Your fairy frigate o'er the tide." The maid with ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... happily, not loud enough to interfere with the easy flow of conversation all over the room. The second flutist, while looking over his shoulder angrily at the garrulous audience, executed a false note, which almost threw the first (and only) violinist into fits. In turning round to rebuke the errant performer, the violinist struck his elbow against a similar projection of the other flutist, and knocked a false note out of that gentleman too, besides momentarily ruffling his temper. This little episode diffused unhappiness over the ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... a raw wound in his ear. A piece of tile, splintered by an errant bullet, had pierced it, he said, as the Germans drove him before them. Another man told us his father—and the father must have been an old man, for the speaker himself was in his fifties—had been shot through the thigh. ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... dear Octavio, you left me pursuing, like a knight-errant, a beauty enchanted within some invisible tree, or castle, or lake, or any thing inaccessible, or rather wandering in a dream after some glorious disappearing phantom: and for some time indeed I knew not whether I slept or waked. I saw daily the good old Count ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... a woman of strong character and, after the shock of hearing the report of her husband's death, took up her duties with composure, though the lines in her face seemed deeper, and Rodney saw that an errant lock of her hair, which he had always thought a part of the attractiveness of her fair face, was now quite gray, and, as she pushed it aside, a familiar way she had, he noticed how thin and white her hand was and saw that ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... spirits that forces to rapid and continuous expression, has ever been suspect of the English mind. He was "highly caressed in France." To Evelyn Sir Kenelm was a "teller of strange things," and again the Diarist called him "an errant mountebank"—though Evelyn sought his society, and was grateful for its stimulus. Lady Fanshawe, who met him at Calais, at the Governor's table, says he "enlarged somewhat more in extraordinary stories than might be averred.... That was his infirmity, though otherwise a person of most ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... they came whooping and dancing round the corner with such rejoicing cruelty as only boys or uncivilised men can feel. The little girl was sobbing, half in distress, and half because of the haste she had made, and Master Richard's juvenile soul burnt within him at the sight like that of a knight-errant. He had read a great deal about knights-errant for the time which had been as yet allowed him for the pursuit of literature, and he was by nature a boy of much fire and gentleness, and a very sympathetic imagination. So the big heart in the small body swelled with pity ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... crest of the hill, a solitary, lonely figure outlined darkly against the clear blue background of sky and distance. He gazed unseeingly into space; thought and movement alike were suspended. He was only conscious of pain. He knew all was ended. Thus his errant forbear from the north may have stood five hundred years ago, leaning upon his lance, a sword in his ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... will I cause thee to wit who be all my friends. This on my left hand is Master Hugh Calverley, Mistress Maude (for thou art now of good degree, and must be spoken unto belike); he is mine especial friend, and a very knight-errant in succour of all unceli [distressed, ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... never before held a command or seen much service, when he set out on that series of extraordinary campaigns which came so near replacing the Austrian house in possession of Spain and the Indies. Peterborough has been called the last of the knights-errant; but, in fact, no book on knight-errantry contains anything half so wonderful as his deeds in the country of Don Quixote. Sir Eyre Coote, who had so boldly supported that bold policy which led to the victory of Plassey, nearly a quarter ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... to prevent Warwick's invasion, and rated King Edward sharply for his supineness in not preparing suitably against so formidable a foe. The gay and reckless presumption of Edward, worthier of a knight-errant than a monarch, laughed at the word invasion. "Pest on Burgundy's ships! I only wish that the earl would land!" [Com, iii. c. 5] he said to his council. None echoed the wish! But later in the day came a third ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
