"Recreant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... been looking everywhere for you. Come with me, and don't sit starving here," said Tom, with a scornful look from her empty plate to that of her recreant escort, which was piled with ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... curse upon us—curse because we made mock of the Sun. The sacred fire died out on our altars, while recreant priests slept, and so there came upon the nation a breath of pestilence from the sky which swept away the people as if by fire. It has been told to me that our dead lay everywhere; that whole villages were destroyed in a single night; that those who survived wandered in the woods foodless, ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... through his own wounded heart. Meantime, some of his ecclesiastical constituents will suspect him, in his local ethics, of leniency to wide-spread corruption; and professed philanthropists will brand him as a trimmer and coward, recreant, fawning, and dumb,—the term spaniel having been flung at one of the best men and most conscientious ministers that ever lived, simply because he could not vituperate as harshly as some of his neighbors. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... my father's side; for once, I mind, he said No child that stained his spotless name should share his mortal bed. Old friends would look beyond his grave, to my dishonored one, And hide the virtues of the sire behind the recreant son. And I can fancy, if there my corse its fettered limbs should lay, His frowning skull and crumbling bones would shrink from me away; But I swear to God I'm innocent, and never blood have shed! And they'll hang me to the gallows, ...
— Farm Ballads • Will Carleton
... thing is the preservation and perpetuity of their own liberties and institutions. And if they shall think as I do, that the extension of slavery endangers them more than any or all other causes, how recreant to themselves if they submit The question, and with it the fate of their country, to a mere handful of men bent only on seif-interest. If this question of slavery extension were an insignificant one, one having no power ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... institutions. Should each county in the State of Missouri only do its duty, the question will be decided quietly and peaceably at the ballot-box. If we are defeated, then Missouri and the other Southern States will have shown themselves recreant to their interests and will deserve ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... mis-government.... We remonstrated; we were derided.... We were goaded on to madness, and were compelled to show that we had the spirit of resistance to repel injuries, or to be deemed a captive, degraded and recreant people. We took up arms, not to attack others, but to defend ourselves."—Letter to Lord Durham from Dr. Wolfred Nelson and others, confined at Montreal, ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... under the governor's plighted pledge of protection. Hyrum fell first; and Joseph, appearing at one of the windows in the second story, received the leaden missiles of the besieging mob, which was led by a recreant though professed minister of the gospel. But the brutish passion of the mob was not yet sated; propping the body against a well-curb in the jail-yard, the murderers poured a volley of bullets into the corpse, and fled. Thus was the unholy vow of the mob fulfilled, that ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage
... story quite honourable to both parties. It was for the sake of her rouge friends that she approached the President at all, and she has used the hand he stretched out to her only on behalf of persons in prison and distress. The same, being delivered, call her gratefully a recreant. ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... not be able to tell you; everything might seem so untrue. She became pregnant. I had already long felt dismay at my own weakness and meanness. Shame, despair, dread of the world, waged war within my soul, and made me their recreant slave. I sent her away in my distress, provided for her, richly, prodigally; but my heart was turned to stone. Grief, sadness, doubts in herself and in God, bitter mortification that she had forfeited my love, or was unworthy of it, while she burst into fearful accusations ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... maunay learn that there is nae rule wi'out its aicciptions." And then he added, "A pledge to a boy in play, like to ours of yester-eve, Baby Charles, is not to be kept when matters of state conflict." Then turning to the Spanish ambassador, he said: "Rest content, my lord count. This recreant Raleigh ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... lay a horse-pistol. As the fingers approached it, their trembling increased. Twice they hesitated, craven flesh rebelling against a recreant will. They shook so frightfully upon encountering the butt that it seemed as if to grasp it were beyond their power. Once they had seized it, however, the trembling left them and passed ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... back, I plucked it from his breast with my own hands." It boots not to ask if the lady was sorrow-stricken to receive such tidings of her best beloved. But after a while she said:—"'Twas the deed of a disloyal and recreant knight; for if I, unconstrained by him, made him lord of my love, and thereby did you wrong, 'twas I, not he, should have borne the penalty. But God forbid that fare of such high excellence as the heart of a knight so true and courteous as Sieur Guillaume de Cabestaing be followed by aught else." ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... straight brows and lashes of the same light shade; a clever, impudent nose and a wide, laughing mouth; a pointed, prominent chin with a cleft in it. Now, can you imagine this as the description of a nineteen-year-old girl's recreant parent, a ruined bankrupt returning to a house deserted by ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... had; he stored his brain with all sorts of knowledge, collecting material and stealing legends to write a book. I went with him part of the way, but became so tired of my companion, that I turned recreant and fled, to enjoy a more spirited excursion of my own. I tell him, whenever I want a lecture on all subjects, I shall come to him. I call him the Walking Cyclopaedia, and only fancy such a personage dancing a quadrille. What lady can have the courage to turn over the leaves ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... Church as a bride, and Christ as the husband (2 Cor. 11:2; compare Rev. 21:2). To be spiritually adulterous, as the rabbis construed the utterances of the prophets, was to be false to the covenant by which the Jewish nations claimed distinction, as the worshipers of Jehovah, and to be wholly recreant and reprobate. Convicted on such a charge those sign-seeking Pharisees and scribes understood that Jesus classed them as worse than the idolatrous heathen. The words "adultery" and "idolatry" are of related origin, each connoting the act of unfaithfulness and the turning away after false objects ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... a recreant, and witness such a spirit! Hundreds of warriors have I witnessed in their blood, but never a firmer ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... that fiery blaze, Which makes it boil along the throbbing veins.— Albion, displeas'd, her own lov'd Spring surveys Passing, with volant step, o'er russet plains; Sees her to Summer's fierce embraces speed, Pale, and unrobed.—Faithless! thou well may'st hide Close in his sultry breast thy recreant head, That did'st, neglecting thy distinguish'd Isle, In Winter's icy arms so long abide, While Britain vainly languish'd for ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... severe reflections on herself for caring a straw about it, Cecil had forgiven him, and a deceitful sunbeam peeped through in the prospect of meeting at luncheon, only to be again overcast, as the Colonel returned without the recreant Bertie. ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... lost to self-respect as to accept appointments against the known and expressed wish of the people, and so craven and degraded as to need an army to protect them in their position, we feel that we should be recreant to every principle of self-respect, honor, integrity, and patriotism to bow tamely to such high-handed tyranny, a parallel for which is only found in the attempts of the British government, in its most corrupt stages, against ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... might be! For O! I wish my Sara's frowns to flee, 5 And fain to her some soothing song would write, Lest she resent my rude discourtesy, Who vow'd to meet her ere the morning light, But broke my plighted word—ah! false and recreant wight! ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... viciousness of that "I wish it had rained!" I wonder if that man beats his wife, or if he just converses with her as he does with a recreant fare! ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... before him, looking like an angry queen about to condemn a recreant vassal to death. And Esterhazy, with the mien and gait of a culprit, carne into her presence with a bow ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... suffered from the indiscretion of the lover who made public the story of the famous pledge given la Chatre, she lost her fancy for the recreant, and though friendly, refused any closer tie. He knew that he had done Ninon an injury and begged to be reinstated in her favor. He was of charming manners and fascinating in his pleading, but he made no impression ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... to where Quinton Edge stood, softly smiling and holding out his womanish white hands. She would have rejoined him, but once again Constans forced her back. The dangling rope of the alarm-bell grazed his hand; he clutched at it, and a clang re-echoed through the court-yard, rousing the recreant warders from their slumbers. In that same instant Quinton Edge blew ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... time In children's children recurrent appears The ancestral crime. When the dark hour comes that the gods have decreed And the Fury burns with wrathful fires, A demon unholy, with ire unabated, Lies like black night on the halls of the fated; And the recreant Son plunges guiltily on To perfect ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... terrors that they conjured up, the Jomsvikings continued to fight, though their decks were slippery with blood and melting hail. Only one coward appeared among them, their chief Earl Sigvalde, who suddenly turned his ship and fled. When Vagn Aakesson, the most daring of the Jomsvikings, saw this recreant act he was frantic ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... at one ladder and the free-trader at the other, in order to be certain that none proved recreant in so trying a moment. Near them were Alida, Seadrift, and the Alderman, with the ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... with an excuse, he continued, more seriously: "Pardon me, but it is far too late, and the road far too lonely, for a young lady to go unattended. If you prefer it, I will go to the White House, and bring out the recreant Evans by force." ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... discoveries you little dream of, dear cousin Jack. You speak of its being time to cease roving, of settling yourself at last, of never parting, and, prodigal as you are, of making Eve the future mistress of your fortune. Now to all this, recreant, confess, or I shall never again ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... breast. "Why stay'st thou, Turnus? Wherefore this delay? Fierce arms, not swiftness, must decide the day. Shift as thou wilt, and every shape assume; Exhaust thy courage and thy craft, and pray For wings to soar with, or in earth's dark womb Sink low thy recreant head, and ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... figures of the circumcised, in sackcloth and ashes, stand by the wailing wall. M. Shulomowitz, Joseph Goldwater, Moses Herzog, Harris Rosenberg, M. Moisel, J. Citron, Minnie Watchman, P. Mastiansky, The Reverend Leopold Abramovitz, Chazen. With swaying arms they wail in pneuma over the recreant Bloom.) ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... days you will fall off from God, and you will kindle the wrath of Levi, and rise in rebellion against Judah, but you will not accomplish aught against them, for the angel of the Lord is their guide, and Israel will perish through them. And if you turn recreant to the Lord, you will execute every kind of evil thing, and do the abominations of the heathen, committing unchastity with the wives of the godless, while the tempter spirits are at work among you. Therefore you will be carried away into ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... peeped over again, the two men were disputing in a whisper, the one of them in violent agitation and terror, and the other upbraiding him, and urging him on to some desperate act. At length I heard the young man in the Highland garb say indignantly, 'Hush, recreant! It is God's work which you are commissioned to execute, and it must be done. But, if you positively decline it, I will do it myself, and do you beware ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... said to me, 'get you gone to the witch, Cicely Foterell, and to the recreant monk, Bolle, whom I curse and excommunicate from the fellowship of Holy Church, and tell them to watch for the first light of dawn, for by it, somewhat high up, they'll see Christopher Harflete hanging black against ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... share his labours, and save him, if so it must be, at the expence of my life. Yet I dreaded to witness the anguish which my resolve might excite in Idris. I had vowed to my own heart never to shadow her countenance even with transient grief, and should I prove recreant at the hour of greatest need? I had begun my journey with anxious haste; now I desired to draw it out through the course of days and months. I longed to avoid the necessity of action; I strove to escape from thought—vainly—futurity, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... children's sake preferred to foil inquiry rather than confront the truth and challenge it. He might not have meant to go so far, at first beginning with it; but, starting once, might be driven on by grievous loss, and bitter sense of recreant friends, and the bleak despair of a homeless world before him. And serving as the scape-goat thus, he might have received from the real culprit a pledge for concealment of the ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... who engages a maid without such credentials is regarded as recreant to her order. In England, too, the former mistress is held partly responsible for the mischief done, if she turn loose upon other households a ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... Saint Clare replied; and he confessed that, through having proved recreant to the ideals that had once so clearly presented themselves, he was not the man ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... letter for you in the mail-department of this office." It was so droll. It was unlike anything she had ever heard of. A personal inquiry column, where Cupids and Psyches billed and cooed, and anxious Junos searched for recreant Jupiters! The merest chance had thrown the original inquiry under her notice. Her answer was an impulse to which she had given no second thought till too late. She ought to have ignored it. But since she had taken the first step she might as well take the second. She was lonely; the ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... fear.] Cowardice. — N. cowardice, pusillanimity; cowardliness &c. adj.; timidity, effeminacy. poltroonery, baseness; dastardness[obs3], dastardy[obs3]; abject fear, funk; Dutch courage; fear &c. 860; white feather, faint heart; cold feet * [U. S.], yellow streak*. coward, poltroon, dastard, sneak, recreant; shy cock, dunghill cock; coistril[obs3], milksop, white liver, lily liver, nidget[obs3], one that cannot say " bo" to a goose; slink; Bob Acres, Jerry Sneak. alarmist, terrorist|!, pessimist; runagate &c. (fugitive) 623. V. quail &c. (fear) 860; be cowardly &c. adj., be a coward &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... prey Of all those energies that lift the soul To her congenial climes above the pole I know the various pangs that rend the heart; I know that noblest souls receive the dart Without defence, when Reason drops the shield And, recreant, to her foe resigns the field.— I saw the archer in his airy flight, I saw him when he check'd his arrow's flight: And when it reach'd the mark, I watched the god, And saw him win his way by force ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... last words, thou recreant boy; Sweyn will send for thee early in the morning before the assembled host; it will be the day of St. Brice; and even were he not now mad with rage, there would be no mercy for a Christian on that day. Thou must yield, or die by the ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... she was largely indebted for the fortune to which she had succeeded, the captain of her. The steam-yacht was the Viking, and Mrs. Scoble sailed in her to New York, and then to England, where she obtained a divorce from her recreant husband, and became the wife of Captain Sharp, who was now in command of the Blanche, the white steamer that sailed abreast of the Guardian-Mother when the wreck in the ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... who are the enemies of David's greater Son? Is Jesus in a minority? Are there those who work with you who delight in making assaults upon your faith? Do they insult your God? Stand up for Jesus! Be faithful when others are recreant or hostile. A working man the other day, who has to win his bread among those who hate the name of God, and who profane the air with their blasphemies, said to one who was cursing, "Draw it mild there, that's the name of my best friend." Let us play the man even though we ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... the ladies, which he bore with great good humour and was at last left alone with his young companion for life; while some of the fair guests sang wedding songs to the intense delight of their friends. Nor were the men-folk idle. They sat down to a sumptuous feast prepared for the recreant bridegroom's family, nor ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... Montgomery, reducing it to its harshest terms for Phil's contemplation. It was in Phil's mind that she had nothing to do with those things; that the woman against whose cheek she had laid her own was not Thomas Kirkwood's recreant wife, but another and very different person. She did not know how to express this; it seemed preposterous to insist to her father that his former wife was not the same woman that she had held speech with ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... a small French ship, which landed him safely at Ambleteuse, a few miles north of Boulogne; while the army of William marched into London amidst loud congratulations, and William himself took possession of the Palace of St. James's, which the recreant King had ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... meal the young men sat outside in the shed-room, and smoked and lazily talked together. Their words reached the silent group at the table. Kirkwood's companions were deriding him as a recreant sportsman. He puffed his short-stemmed pipe and looked at them tranquilly. He was not dissatisfied with his share of ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... knights we'll hack, and so thou shouldest not alter the article of thy gentry. The punishment of a recreant or undeserving knight, was to hack off his spurs: the meaning therefore is; it is not worth the while of a gentlewoman to be made a knight, for we'll degrade all these knights in a little time, by the usual form of hacking off their spurs, and thou, if thou ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... forcibly to Fielding's readers the cruel results of the pleasures (or speculations) of the needy gambler,—the 'Destruction of Familys,' thereby incurred, no less than the breeding of highwaymen. Who does not remember "that famous scene when Amelia is spreading, for the recreant who is losing his money at the Kings Arms, the historic little supper of hashed mutton, which she has cooked with her own hands, and denying herself a glass of white wine to save the paltry sum of sixpence, 'while her Husband was paying a Debt of several Guineas ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... like these, the dance inspire; Or wake th' enlivening notes of mirth, Oh shivered be the recreant lyre, That gave the base idea birth; Other sounds I ween were there, Other music rent the air, Other waltz the warriors knew, When they ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... rises—wild and overwhelmed with terror, recreant to Ireland, and quailing before Michael, who has ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... Giles! I burn here unaided! To the rescue— to the rescue, brave Bois-Guilbert, valiant De Bracy! It is Front-de- Boeuf who calls! It is your master, ye traitor squires! Your ally—your brother in arms, ye perjured and faithless knights! All the curses due to traitors upon your recreant heads, do you abandon me to perish thus miserably! They hear me not—they cannot hear me—my voice is lost in the din of battle. The smoke rolls thicker and thicker, the fire has caught upon the floor below. O, for one draught of the air of heaven, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... creature, sitting opposite to me, never asking what I write, or to whom, but ready to throw aside her work and talk the moment the pen is out of my hand. Talk—and what about? Heaven knows! But I would rather hear that talk, though on the affairs of a hamlet, than babble again with recreant nobles and blundering professors about commonwealths and constitutions. When I want to see how little those last influence the happiness of wise men, have I not Machiavelli and Thucydides? Then, by and by, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... they smote together that both their swords met even together. But the sword of the knight smote King Arthur's sword in two pieces, wherefore he was heavy. Then said the knight unto Arthur, Thou art in my daunger whether me list to save thee or slay thee, and but thou yield thee as overcome and recreant, thou shalt die. As for death, said King Arthur, welcome be it when it cometh, but to yield me unto thee as recreant I had liefer die than to be so shamed. And therewithal the king leapt unto Pellinore, and took him by the middle and threw him down, and raced off his ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... was at the foot of the accommodation-ladder. Ghita now descended; and as soon as her uncle and she were seated, the skiff, for it was little more, whirled away from the ship's side, though two or three more, who had also been left by recreant boatmen for better fares, called out to him to ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... happiness. We are surrounded, Sir, by a cloud of witnesses. The gaze of the sons of liberty, everywhere, is upon us, anxiously, intently, upon us. They may see us fall in the struggle for our Constitution and government, but Heaven forbid that they should see us recreant. ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... should build somewhere over the horizon; for the sake of the civilization that was to be planted, of the nation that must arise, of the manhood and womanhood of to-morrow—she would be brave. Deep in her heart she swore she would be brave, even while a recreant tear stole forth unbidden and froze into a little pearl ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... the strange knight, "for you are wholly in my power and I can slay or release you as I will. Yield now to me as a recreant knight or I will slay you as ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... Clara, the moment she entered the room, "I am a wretch. It was I who compelled Medwin to promise me, upon his honor as a man, that he would not fight Allington; and now that all the world has frowned upon him, I, too, have turned recreant, and cast him off. Mother, speak to me no word of command or remonstrance. I will never see Mr. Allington again; and I will this very hour go to Medwin, and throw myself on my knees before him. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... receding form of the mercenary, as the sun, now setting, shone slant upon his glittering casque, and said bitterly to himself—"Unfortunate city, fountain of all mighty memories—fallen queen of a thousand nations—how art thou decrowned and spoiled by thy recreant and apostate children! Thy nobles divided against themselves—thy people cursing thy nobles—thy priests, who should sow peace, planting discord—the father of thy church deserting thy stately walls, his home a refuge, his mitre ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... that this wretch was a Swiss will be a matter of no surprise. The despicable valor of these republicans has everywhere formed the best defense of tyrants, and their fidelity has always been at the service of the highest bidder. The recreant was a lieutenant in the Swiss Guard of the Duke; and when he had led the Germans into Mantua, and received the reward of his infamy, two German soldiers, placed over him for his protection, killed him and plundered ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... dreading what might come from the disclosures he had just made. He had reason to distrust the tactics such men might employ. His relief arising from the show-down was tinged with regret; he was still sorry for the innocent losers in Egypt. To employ two escaped convicts and a recreant prison guard in his efforts to prevail on Britt and secure the rights due an innocent man promised to ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... anger from the tower. But he went right heavily, since he must leave behind his friend. In his train rode all those knights who had drawn together to that town for the great tournament. Not a knight of them all but plighted faith to follow where he led, and to hold himself recreant and shamed if ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... "Nearer my God to Thee," he discussed as a boy his religious difficulties, and in proposing his own doubts drew forth her latent scepticism as to the orthodox beliefs. "It was in answering Robert Browning;" she wrote, "that my mind refused to bring forward argument, turned recreant, and sided with the enemy." Something of this period of Browning's Sturm und Drang can be divined through the ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... where are flown thy wits? Go plait rush-baskets, lop the olive-boughs To feed thy lambkins—'twere the shrewder part. Chase not the recreant, milk the willing ewe: The world hath Galateas ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... have willed on the very outset to inculcate this truth on the mind of every man,—no barren and inconsequential dogma, but an effectual, ever influencing and productive rule of life,—that he is born a debtor, lives a debtor—aye, friend, and when thou diest, will not some judicious bystander,—no recreant as thou to the bonds of nature, but a good borrower and true—remark, as did his grandsire before him on like occasions, that thou hast 'paid the debt of nature'? Ha! I have thee 'beyond the rules', as one ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... flesh, amenable to stripes, miscalled Incorrigible: such title do we give To the poor shrinking stuff wherewith we are walled; And, taking it for Nature, place in ban Our Mother, as a Power wanton-willed, The shame and baffler of the soul of man, The recreant, reptilious. Do thou build Thy mind on her foundations in earth's bed; Behold man's mind the child of her keen rod, For teaching how the wits and passions wed To rear that temple of the credible God; Sacred the letters of her laws, and plain, Will shine, to guide thy feet and hold thee firm: Then, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... she had come to give me wholly undeserved thanks for revenging her upon her recreant husband. I tried to look civil and courteous, but I felt that my face was darkening—her very presence forced forward things I had been keeping in the far background of my mind, "How can I be of service to you, Madam?" ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... relate their adventure. And the emperor summoned Greeks and Germans alike to horse. Through all the host the barons speedily arm themselves and mount. But the Saxon knight, all armed, his visor laced, has continued to pursue Cliges at a gallop. Cliges, who never wished to have aught in common with a recreant or coward, sees him come alone. First of all the knight has assailed him with words: he stoutly calls him baseborn fellow, for he could not conceal the mind he had of him. "Fellow," quoth he, "here wilt thou ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... a corner sharply, skidding on the wet asphalt and all but grazing the rear wheels of a recreant taxicab. ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... across, or some such homely bridge. We ourselves possess one of the most beautiful; so that the strange pleasure of property, that instinct which makes Lizzy delight in her broken doll, and May in the bare bone which she has pilfered from the kennel of her recreant admirer of Newfoundland, is added to the other charms of this enchanting scenery; a strange pleasure it is, when one so poor as I can feel it! Perhaps it is felt most by the poor, with the rich it may be less intense—too ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... this reason, then, for this reason, when they yesterday saw Cleonymus the recreant, on this account they became stags, because they saw ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... are absent from us this morning—from the whole parish there are but five, I believe, who have not readily come forward to proclaim their zeal for their God, their King, and their Church: those five, I doubt not, will be here when we proceed to check the names. Let it not be said that there was one recreant in Echanbroignes—one man afraid to answer when called for by his country. Is there danger in the bloody battle we have before us?—let us all share it, and it will be lighter. Is it a grievous thing for you to leave your wives and your children?—let no man presume to think that he will ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... Failer, acknowledge yourselves a couple of recreant knights: Sir Timorous is mine: I have won him ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... king was successful in preventing the worship of idols in public, his subjects knew how to deceive him. Josiah sent out his pious sympathizers to inspect the houses of the people, and he was satisfied with their report, that they had found no idols, not suspecting that the recreant people has fastened half an image on each wing of the doors, so that the inmates faced their household idols as they closed the ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... you've thought fit to come back," said Colonel Blythe, rather grumpily. Since war and sickness had decimated his battalion he looked upon every absentee, from whatever cause, right or wrong, as a recreant deserter. ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... pushed far enough becomes incoherence. The psychologist prefers vision and it would display none to believe that she did it. In the abstract, that is to be regretted. A lovely assassin! A beautiful girl slaying a recreant lover! A future prima donna killing a local millionaire! Monty Paliser murdered by the Viscountess of Casa-Evora! And at the opera! If I had ever put anything of the kind in my copy, reviewers would have indolently asked: "Why doesn't this ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... againe; Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled? Speake in some bush: Where dost thou hide thy head? Rob. Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars, Telling the bushes that thou look'st for wars, And wilt not come? Come recreant, come thou childe, Ile whip thee with a rod. He is defil'd That drawes a sword ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... join us farther on. Fortunately Mr. Stevenson was up to the wiles of the native, and he at once scented the favourite device for two to take the travelling allowance, and then, by some amicable arrangement, for only one to go. So messengers were sent in haste to look up the recreant, who finally joined us with cheerful face at the West Gate, which we reached by a rough path ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... truly said that in these recreant days we cannot expect to find the majesty of St. Paul beneath the cassock of a curate. If we look to our clergymen to be more than men, we shall probably teach ourselves to think that they are less, and can hardly hope to raise the character of the pastor ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... A recreant Harp, that sings of fear And heaviness in Clifford's ear! I said, when evil Men are strong, No life is good, no pleasure long, A weak and cowardly untruth! Our Clifford was a happy Youth, And thankful through a weary time, 110 That brought him ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... Lassalle's political career. Except for his work as one of the early leaders of the liberal movement in Germany, it has perished, and his name has been almost forgotten. As a lover, his story stands out forever as a warning to the timid and the recreant. Let men do what they will; but there is just one thing which no man is permitted to do with safety in the sight of woman—and that is ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... a manner which his knowledge of the world had not taught him to foresee, endeavoured with all possible address and expedition to make his separate peace with Lady Angelica. Her ladyship, however, was proud to show that she had too much sense and spirit to accept again the homage of this recreant knight. He had not time to sue for pardon—his adventure might have ended in a jail; so forthwith he took his departure from Hungerford Castle, undetermined whether he should again haste to court to beg a place, or bend his course to the city, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... ... ... it is not possyble ... ... ... ... ... The smoothe face of the wanton lovelye Richard Should promise more true fortytude in love Then tourne a recreant to perswatyons. ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... smile of high and spiritual beauty, of nobility and unworldliness, of tenderness most touching. All that was most winning in the character of the man was embodied in the look which he fixed upon his recreant disciple, a look pleading and wistful, yet full of dignity and strength. He leaned forward, laying the tips of his thin fingers almost caressingly on ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... explanation, Babbalanja. You must allude, then, to those recreant tribes; which, while in their own eyes presenting a sublime moral spectacle to Mardi,—in King Bello's, do but present a hopeless example of bad debts. And these, the tribes that ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... often in private in this city, and in many instances with complete success. What a cause for rejoicing would it be then, if the proper degree of 'impressibility' were general with those who have failing and recreant teeth, that the dentist and his magnetiser might be one and indivisible? Surgery in all its branches would be benefitted by the same connection; but this strange physical condition is not an invariable concomitant of the mesmeric state; ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... applause not only by the popular, but by the Conservative party: by persons of the highest rank as well as by the general mass of the community; and every Government that pretended to adhere to the Treaty of 1852 was denounced as recreant to the cause of Germany. In this state of affairs the Governments of Austria and of Prussia took a somewhat singular and not very defensible course. In the beginning they declared in the Diet that, having a majority in favour of this declaration, they would proceed to Federal Execution—thereby, ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... not bear to be observed. It seemed to him that every one would see in his face that he was a recreant priest, perjured and forsworn. And so great had been his spiritual pride! So removed he had deemed himself from the weakness of humanity! And he had yielded at the first temptation, and the commonest ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to the laws of the Union, and not the other? Why, sir, if the people of Pennsylvania could sustain a distinction so odious, the very shades of their ancestors would rise from the battlefields of the Revolution, from Paoli and Germantown, and call their children bondmen of Carolina, vassals and recreant slaves! I speak not now of the whiskey insurrection, when, at the order of Washington, the militia of Virginia and of other States moved against the people of Western Pennsylvania, under the command of the Governor of Virginia and Carolina, and the nation approved the deed; but I speak of the period, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... man and a poet; and if his faith in the gregarious advancement of men was afterward shaken, he only held the more firmly by his belief in the individual, and his reverence for the human as something quite apart from the popular and above it. Wordsworth has been unwisely blamed, as if he had been recreant to the liberal instincts of his youth. But it was inevitable that a genius so regulated and metrical as his, a mind which always compensated itself for its artistic radicalism by an involuntary leaning toward external respectability, should recoil from whatever was convulsionary and destructive ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... more fashionable life!) had assembled at Charliesl hope to witness the event of this memorable evening. Finding the punch-bowl was so often replenished, that there was some danger of their gracious presence being forgotten, they rushed in valorously upon the recreant revellers, headed by our good Mistress Ailie, so that Venus speedily routed Bacchus. The fiddler and piper next made their appearance, and the best part of the night was gallantly consumed in dancing to ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... Though the body may shirk labour, the brain is not idle. If it do not grow corn, it will grow thistles, which will be found springing up all along the idle man's course in life. The ghosts of indolence rise up in the dark, ever staring the recreant in ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... master." The Lord took it ill of Isaac that he cheered him with such kind words. "To Mine enemy," He reproached him, "thou sayest, 'What shall I do for thee, my son?'" Isaac replied, "O that he might find grace with Thee!" God: "He is a recreant." Isaac: "Doth he not act righteously when he honors his parents?" God: "In the land of uprightness will he deal wrongfully, he will stretch his hand forth in days to come against the Temple." Isaac: "Then let him enjoy much good in this world, that he may not behold the ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... room through which they had to pass, was full of men; among them, Mr Dennis in safe keeping; and there, had been since yesterday, lying in hiding behind a wooden screen which was now thrown down, Simon Tappertit, the recreant 'prentice, burnt and bruised, and with a gun-shot wound in his body; and his legs—his perfect legs, the pride and glory of his life, the comfort of his existence—crushed into shapeless ugliness. Wondering no ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... wiles of that strategy which he would be called upon to support. And in such case the quarrel with him would be more internecine than with other foes, such as English members, Scotch members, Conservative Irish members, and Liberal Irish members, not sworn to follow certain leaders. A recreant one out of twenty friends would be regarded with more bitter hatred than perhaps six hundred and thirty ordinary enemies. It might be, therefore, that a time of tribulation was in store for Mr. O'Mahony, but he did not consider these matters very deeply when the cheers rang ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... of chivalry and knightly honor, and for this cause had he been condemned to suffer death. Great sorrow reigned among all the lords and dames, and Queen Guinevere, on bent knees, had sued the king's pardon for the recreant knight. At length, after many entreaties, Arthur's generous heart relented, and he gave the doomed life into the queen's hands to do ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... northward, though scarcely with steerage way. The three others remained in contact with their heads to the southward. While this melee was in progress, the French flagship "Bucentaure" surrendered, at five minutes past two; but, before hauling down the flag, Villeneuve made a signal to his recreant van,—"The ships that are not engaged, take positions which will bring them most rapidly under fire." Thus summoned, the ten vessels which constituted the van began to go about, as they should have done before; and, although retarded by the slack wind, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... with unquestioning faith, I went on to inquire whether he felt himself equal to the delicate duty of hanging about the yard of the Black Swan, and watching the doors of exit from that hotel, with a view to following my recreant nephew wherever he might go, even if considerably beyond the limits of Ullerton. I saw that the lad's intelligence was likely to be equal to this transaction, unless there should arise any difficult or complicated position ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... became known as "the Witling of Terror." He was an able-bodied and enterprising liar who never told the truth unless by accident; but in his most demoniac moods it did not occur to him to prove recreant to his race, to torture children that he might enjoy their agony, to brand innocent girls, who could scarce look upon their own budding bosoms without a blush, as the depraved paramours of syphilitic Senegambians. Ah ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Venus appears in the midst of the rosy atmosphere, Venus holding out to the recreant knight her perfect arms. "Welcome, faithless man! Has the world condemned and rejected you? And do you, finding no mercy anywhere, come seeking love now in my arms?" Wolfram speaks exorcisms rapid and vigorous ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... loved Jackson; we loved the name, association and people of Virginia. Hatton, Forbes, Anderson, Gilliam, Govan, Loring, Ashby and Schumaker were names with which we had been long associated. We hated to leave all our old comrades behind us. We felt that we were proving recreant to the instincts of our own manhood, and that we were leaving those who had stood by us on the march and battlefield when they most needed our help. We knew the 7th and 14th Tennessee regiments; we knew the 3rd Arkansas, ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... may still leave us beast-like; With unchangeable purpose we're men. We must drive the nail home—and then clinch it Or storms shake it loose again. In things of great import, in trifles, We our recreant souls must subdue Till the evil we would not we do not And the good that we would ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... was especially anxious not to say anything which might offend the burgomaster by openly differing from him; but his remarks encouraged others connected with certain persons, their relations or friends, recreant Hollanders, who had sided with the Spaniards and professed to have returned to the Faith of Rome. These men were familiarly called Glippers; their object was to induce their countrymen to follow their example. A few holding their opinions remained in ...
— The Lily of Leyden • W.H.G. Kingston
... to say, the character of the blithe Adele, notwithstanding the terrible nature of her early associations, seems to fuse more readily into agreement with the moral atmosphere about her than does that of the recreant boy. There may not be, indeed, perfect accord; but there are at least no sharp and fatal antagonisms to overcome. If the lithe spirit of the girl bends under the grave teachings of the Doctor, it bends with a charming grace, and rises again ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... place the murderers of Alton side by side with Otis and Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I thought those pictured lips [pointing to the portraits in the hall] would have broken into voice to rebuke the recreant American—the slanderer ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... spoiled. Our great man was alarmingly taken by it, was saying his prayers all day and had nearly marched back again: had it not been for the excellence of the rum and water at our quarters, the champion of the Charter would have proved a pious recreant." ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... field: So some fell lion whom the woods obey, Roars through the desert, and demands his prey. Paris he seeks, impatient to destroy, But seeks in vain along the troops of Troy; Even those had yielded to a foe so brave The recreant warrior, hateful as the grave. Then speaking thus, the king of kings arose, "Ye Trojans, Dardans, all our generous foes! Hear and attest! from Heaven with conquest crown'd, Our brother's arms the ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... for a curse upon his head Who dares insult the noble dead, And basely scrawl his worthless name Upon the records of their fame! Nelson, arise! thy country gave A heartfelt tear, a hallow'd grave: Her eyes are dry, her recreant sons Dare to profane thy mould'ring bones! And you, ye heroes of the past, Who serv'd your country to the last, And bought her freedom with your blood, Cornwallis, Duncan, Collingwood! Rise, if ye can, and mark the wretch Who dares his impious arm to stretch And scrawl upon ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various |
