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Romance   /roʊmˈæns/  /rˈoʊmæns/   Listen
Romance

verb
(past & past part. romanced; pres. part. romancing)
1.
Make amorous advances towards.  Synonyms: court, solicit, woo.
2.
Have a love affair with.
3.
Talk or behave amorously, without serious intentions.  Synonyms: butterfly, chat up, coquet, coquette, dally, flirt, mash, philander.  "My husband never flirts with other women"
4.
Tell romantic or exaggerated lies.



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"Romance" Quotes from Famous Books



... duties of the quete; as it is called, about a dozen years ago, when I recollect minding that his manners and story struck Dr. Johnson exceedingly, who said that so complete a character could scarcely be found in romance. He had been a soldier, it seems, and was no incompetent or mean scholar: the books we found open in his cell, shewed he had not neglected modern or colloquial knowledge; there was a translation of Addison's Spectators, and Rapin's Dissertation on the contending Parties ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... And small wonder she thrilled again, not alone because of the fact that this great-hearted gentleman had sacrificed himself upon the altar of righteousness, but, further, that in the reasons for such self-immolation had entered thoughts of her. A real, perfectly delightful romance was being enacted, and she ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory

... happened, they were the ones who found the corpse, and Hawthorne's account in his diary of its recovery is a terribly accurate description,—softened down and poetized in the rewritten statement of "The Blithedale Romance." There is in fact no description of a death in Homer or Shakespeare so appalling as this literal ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns

... poems are taken from a well known manuscript in the Cottonian collection, marked Nero A. x, which also contains, in the same handwriting and dialect, a metrical romance,[1] wherein the adventures of Sir Gawayne with the "Knight in Green," are most ably ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various

... threats played with equal force. The episode of Dick Derosne's banishment had opened his eyes more fully to what the revelation might mean to his daughter; for, when he thought over the abrupt end that had been put to that romance, he could hardly fail to connect it with Benham or with Kilshaw. He shrank from the exposure to Daisy which he would have to undergo, and from the pain which he was doomed to inflict on her. Long years, no less than his own mode of thought, had veiled from him the character of what he would have ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope

... describe it in a word is impossible. To describe it in a few words is not easy. Froude himself called it in after life a "cry of pain," meaning that it was intended to relieve the intolerable pressure of his thoughts. It is not a novel, it is not a treatise, it is not poetry, it is not romance. It is the delineation of a mood; and though it was called, with some reason, sceptical, its moral, if it has a moral, is that scepticism leads to misconduct. That unpleasant and unverified hypothesis, soon rejected by Froude ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... fellow, fair-haired, blue-eyed, magnetic, debonair—of powerful build, splendid proportions, and athletic skill—we hold the gallant exemplar of the truly heroic life of the border. The story of his life, thrilling in the extreme, is rich in all the multi-colored elements which impart romance to the arduous struggle of American civilization in the ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson

... lonely, but with a passionate yearning for music, grows up in the house of Lafe Grandoken, a crippled cobbler of the Storm Country. Her romance is full of power and glory ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan

... of the knights of old. These he took for true and correct histories, and when his friends the curate of the village, or Mr. Nicholas the worthy barber of the town, came to see him, he would dispute with them as to which of the knights of romance had ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)

... behavior, we might find no gentleman, and no lady; for although excellent specimens of courtesy and high-breeding would gratify us in the assemblage, in the particulars, we should detect offense. Because, elegance comes of no breeding, but of birth. There must be romance of character, or the most fastidious exclusion of impertinencies will not avail. It must be genius which takes that direction: it must be not courteous, but courtesy. High behavior is as rare in fiction as it is in fact. Scott is ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... educated himself, and very badly at that, was impressed with the dangers of the education of his day. A mother having asked his advice, he took up the pen to write it; and, little by little, his counsels grew into a book, a large work, a pedagogic romance. ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... in some branches better even than in any single library in the countries themselves. No Italian collection can boast of such a splendid series of early editions of Ariosto's Orlando, one of Mr. Grenville's favourite authors, nor, indeed, of such choice Romance Poems. The copy of the first edition of Ariosto is not to be matched for beauty; of that of Rome, 1533, even the existence was hitherto unknown. A perfect copy of the first complete edition of the Morgante ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher

... thought it necessary to advert to the romance of JAMBULUS, the scene of which has been conjectured, but without any justifiable grounds, to be laid in Ceylon; and which is strangely incorporated with the authentic work of DIODORUS SICULUS, written in the age of Augustus. ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... was the Easter-morning of romance. There was a sweet passionate Sabbath-feeling everywhere. Sabbath-bells, and Sabbath-birds, and Sabbath-flowers. There was even a feeling of restful Sabbath-cheer about the old inn, where, at last, entering with much awe the village where Alice nightly slept—clothed ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard

... hours he walked the pavements—up through the Park; out along the edge of the river and back again. With every step there came to him the realization of the parallels existing between his own life's romance and that of Philip's. Some of these were mere creations of his brain; others—especially those which ended in the sacrifice of a man's career for what he considered to be right—had a certain basis of fact. Then a shiver crept over him: For honor he had ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith

... stated that this romance, though composed a century before, had only been lately published. The editor attributed it to Fontenelle, but (as the writer in the Encycl. Meth. thinks) probably without reason. The title of Berkeley to the authorship ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 49, Saturday, Oct. 5, 1850 • Various

... contented, and felt that she had consolation for it all in the fact that she was am. Aylmer. She read many novels, and it cannot but be supposed that something of regret would steal over her as she remembered that nothing of the romance of life had ever, or could ever, come in her way. She wept over the loves of many women, though she had never been happy or unhappy in her own. She read of gaiety, though she never encountered it, and must have known that the world ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope

... regards of kindred; and with a tolerably good grace he came forward to the duty, and took the orphan to the asylum, such as it was, to which his brother's death-bed prayer had recommended her. At first, there was something to her young mind savoring of the romance to which she had rather given herself up, in the notion of a woodland cottage, and rural sports, and wild vines gadding fantastically around secluded bowers; but the reality—the sad reality of such a home and its associations—pressed too soon and heavily upon her to permit her much ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... old servant of the house of Sperelli, having served Andrea's father for many years, and his devotion for the son reached the pitch of idolatry. No human being seemed to him so handsome, so noble, so worthy of devotion. He belonged to that ideal race which furnished faithful retainers to the romance writers of old, but differed from the servants of romance in that he spoke little, never offered advice, and concerned himself with no other business than that of carrying out ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio

... stock in high-falutin'. If you're trying to scare me by that dime-novel talk I guess you've hit the wrong man. You're like the sweep that stuck in the chimney, a bit too big for your job. I reckon you've a talent for romance that's just wasted in soldiering. But if you're going to play any ugly games on me I'd like you to know that I'm an American citizen, and pretty well considered in my own country and in yours, and you'll sweat blood for it later. That's a fair ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... become mothers and fathers. But in no case do I permit a grandfather or grandmother to entertain the hope that they may be rejuvenated to such an extent that they can procreate again if they wish. This is mere romance, with which I have nothing to do. Nor do I advise a young woman of forty who has not reached the menopause stage to take the operation if she is in good health, in spite of her belief that the goat-glands ...
— The Goat-gland Transplantation • Sydney B. Flower

... "A bit of romance for her in imitation of some favorite play or book. An emotional hour with the man from Africa—and now ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman

... particularly he wrote that for April last, and that for June last. He also every week writes an abridgment of Politics for the Whitehall Evening Post, and a Political Review every month for a Sunday paper entitled the Review and Sunday Advertiser. In a Romance, entitled 'Mammoth, or Human Nature Displayed, &c.,' Dr. T. has shown how mindful he is on all occasions of his engagements to those who confide in him. He has also occasionally moved other engines, which it would be tedious and might appear too trifling to mention. Dr. T. is ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... of their speed or praise their elegance. They were honest merchantmen, laborious, trustworthy, and of good courage, who took foul weather and peril in the day's journey and made no outcry. And with a sure instinct she saw the romance in the humble course of their existence and the beauty of an unboasting performance of their duty; and often, as she watched them, her fancy glowed with the thought of the varied merchandise they carried, ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham

... bold looks. But he saw that the one who now took her place on the platform was of a different nature. She advanced nervously, and as if quite strange to such a scene, and touched her guitar with trembling fingers. Then she began to sing a Spanish romance in a sweet, pure voice. There was a good deal of applause when it finished, for even the rough sailors could appreciate the softness and beauty of the melody. Then a half-drunken man shouted, "Give us something lively. Sing 'May the Devil fly ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty

... description, she will be a princess, and she knew me when I didn't know enough to appreciate her. Her eyes were blue in the old days, and her hair was almost black. Colors still obtain? Then we have her description in advance. Now, let's go on with the romance." ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon

... Coriolanus, and Timon are the records of an increasing bitterness and pessimism. Brandes and Frank Harris, following Thomas Tyler have, on the basis of the sonnets, constructed a fascinating, but quite fantastic romance. ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud

... proof of the antiquity of this notion may be found in St. Chrysostom's book de Sacerdotia, which exhibits a scene of enchantments not exceeded by any romance of the middle age: he supposes a spectator overlooking a field of battle attended by one that points out all the various objects of horror, the engines of destruction, and the arts of slaughter. [Greek: Deichnuto de eti para tois enantiois kai petomenous ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson

... themselves have taken different forms in different countries and ages, but the identity of their symbolism becomes clear under careful investigation. Together with this symbolism we always find the nomad character of the builders and that they are invested with an aura of mystery and romance such as we find nowhere else, though we always find it surrounding these builders, even in countries so far apart as India and Ireland. Then, as we pass beyond the merely monumental stage, we find threads of historical evidence connecting the different ...
— The Dore Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward

... and say with Mr. Grant Allen that everything high and ennobling in our nature springs directly from the fact of sex. He claims that to it 'we owe our love of color, of graceful forms, of melodious sound, of rhythmical motion, the evolution of music, of poetry, of romance, of painting, of sculpture, of decorative art, of dramatic entertainment. From it,' he says, 'springs the love of beauty, around it all beautiful arts circle as their centre. Its subtle aroma pervades ...
— Almost A Man • Mary Wood-Allen

... that catholicity of feeling which was required to sympathize as Scott did, with all ranks and all ages. Neither could he have so seized on the redeeming virtues of rude and half-barbarous times, and invested them with that halo of romance which Scott has thrown over them. This romantic and chivalrous colouring was an element altogether alien to Burns's character. But it may well be, that these very limitations intensified the depth and vividness of sympathy, with ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp

... unfailing lucid flash of humour may not be wanting, there lightens on my mind the memory of The Mysterious Pitchfork—a German satirical play which made a sensation in its time—and Herlossohn in his romance of Der Letzte Taborit (which helped George Sand amazingly in Consuelo), makes a Gipsy chieftain appear in a wonderfully puzzling light by brandishing, in fierce midnight dignity, this agricultural ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland

... cock-crow as they were going in for some golf-competition at a safe distance. Lucia might recommend doing nothing at all, and wish to continue enlightening studies as if nothing had happened. But Georgie felt that the romance would have evaporated from the classes as regards himself. Or again they might have to get rid of the Guru somehow. He only felt quite sure that Lucia would agree with him that Daisy Quantock must not be told. She with ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... the poem is that for the first time classic art is transferred into a Romance form. Dante is, above all, a great artist. Whether he describes nature, analyzes passions, curses the vices, or sings hymns to the virtues, he is always wonderful for the grandeur and delicacy ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... what you're going to call me, Reader. But I am not to be bullied and abashed by words. And after all, why not let oneself be dazzled and enchanted? Are not Illusions pleasant, and is this a world in which Romance hangs ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith

... of such fool-hardy conduct. For eventually it always culminated in Stella's being deeply surprised and grieved,—at a dance, for choice, with music and color and the unthinking laughter of others to heighten the sadness and the romance of it all,—she never having dreamed of such a thing, of course, and having always regarded you only as a dear, dear friend. Yes, and she used certainly to hope that nothing she had said or done could have led you to believe she had even for a moment considered such a thing. Oh, she did ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al

... cheese, in spite of its being a glorious morning, and the sun showering down in silver pencils through the overhanging boughs—in spite of the novelty of the scene, and the freedom, there did not seem to be so much romance in the affair as had been expected; and try how he would he could not help longing for a good hot cup ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn

... expected, one of the signs of the times in literature, not of one country but of all, is a grim change in its attitude towards war. The era of pomp and circumstance, as of genial make-believe, is gone by; more and more are our writers beginning to give us militarism stripped of romance, a grisly but (I suppose) useful picture. I have nowhere found it more horrible than in a story called The Secret Battle (METHUEN), written by Mr. A.P. HERBERT, whose initials are familiar to Punch readers under work of a lighter texture. This is an intimate study, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 4, 1919. • Various

... of Amiens, a young English officer, of the name of Lovelace, was presented at Buonaparte's levee. Instead of the usual question, "Where have you served, Sir?" the First Consul immediately addressed him, "I perceive your name, Sir, is the same as that of the hero of Richardson's Romance!" Here was a Consul. The young man's uncle, who was called Lovelace, told me this anecdote while we were stopping together at Calais. I had also been thinking that his was the same name as that of the hero of Richardson's ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... romantic. There never was any romance about me. Poor Mr. Trennahan will have something to do to live up to you. An altitude of eleven thousand feet is trying to most masculine constitutions. But I suppose he likes the variety of it, after twenty years of society girls. ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... remember the Bishop Goodloe romance, don't you?" asked Letitia, hopeful that she could get a small ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... of the ancient necropolis of Memphis; but he was suddenly obliged to alter his plan. This journey to the Pyramids, occasioned by the course of war, has given an opportunity for the invention of a little piece of romance. Some ingenious people have related that Bonaparte gave audiences to the mufti and ulemas, and that on entering one of the great Pyramids he cried out, "Glory to Allah! God only is God, and Mahomet is his prophet!" Now the fact is, that Bonaparte never even entered the great ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... everything to terms of business! Can't you see the romance of it—what it stands for? The wild free life of the plains, the daily battling with the elements, and the mastery of nerve and skill over blind brute force and fury! I love it! And tonight I'm going to a ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx

... it would,' replied Mr Folair, scratching his head, 'because there wouldn't be any romance about it, and he wouldn't be favourably known. To tell you the truth though, he didn't calculate much upon that, for you're always so mild-spoken, and are so popular among the women, that we didn't suspect you of showing fight. If you did, however, he has a way of getting ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... secure the existence of the human race in future times. The real aim of the whole of love's romance, although the persons concerned are unconscious of the fact, is that a particular being ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... tried to banish these thoughts. It seemed disrespectful to myself to entertain them so soon after other thoughts which I now wished to banish utterly. I am not a hero of romance. I am only a plain human being, and such is the constitution of my nature that the more troubled and disturbed is my soul, the more welcome ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton

... the young Lord and his father and mother would have changed even a Jew's heart; the picturesque description of the siege of the castle, so close that 'a swallow could not have flown away'; the sudden descent from romance to a judicial trial; the remarkable assumption by the foreman of the jury of the privileges of a judge; and the thoroughly satisfactory description of ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick

... very newness the history of the United States may seem less fascinating than that of the older countries, and, indeed, it is true that the glamour of romance that gathers around the stories of royal dynasties, orders of nobility, and ancient castles is wanting in American history. But there is much to compensate for this. The coming of the early settlers, often ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... the first fifty years of gospel preaching. The Roman empire was Christianised in three centuries! Recall the innumerable testimonies down to date; e.g. the absolute abandonment of idols in the South Sea Islands, the weakening of caste in India, the romance of missions ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... which awoke their sense of the ludicrous for the moment, they began to view him through a golden haze which the tone of his mind seemed to raise around him. Casterbridge had sentiment—Casterbridge had romance; but this stranger's sentiment was of differing quality. Or rather, perhaps, the difference was mainly superficial; he was to them like the poet of a new school who takes his contemporaries by storm; who is not really new, but is the first to articulate what ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... Gladys!" cried Lord Henry. "How can you say that? Romance lives by repetition, and repetition converts an appetite into an art. Besides, each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved. Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it. We can have in life but one ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde

... in more senses than one, Ireland was a land of romance. The happiest associations of his life were there. There he wooed and won his wife, the daughter of Mr Greer, M.P. for the County of Londonderry; and he and she loved to return with ever new pleasure to inhale the pure air of Castle-rock or Ballycastle, or to enjoy ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed

... for the great drama was wild and picturesque in the extreme. On one side stretched the long, gleaming lake, a lake of wildness and beauty associated with so much of romance and peril in American story. Over them towered the crest of the peak later known as Defiance. To the south and west was Lake George, the Iroquois Andiatarocte, that gem of the east, and, on all sides, save Champlain, circled ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler

... up my muff and walked on. The incident had occurred and was gone for me: it was an incident of no moment, no romance, no interest in a sense; yet it marked with change one single hour of a monotonous life. My help had been needed and claimed; I had given it: I was pleased to have done something; trivial, transitory though ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... daunted by the practical difficulties in the way or the dark uncertainty at the end. Her life could never be happy any more, but it must not, could not, be ignoble. And by a pathetic mixture of childish romance with her woman's trials, the philosophy which had nothing to do with this great decisive deed of hers had its place in her imagination of the future: so far as she conceived her solitary loveless life at all, she saw it animated ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... brilliant, original, exciting and absorbing novel, is the Sequel to "The Count of Monte-Cristo," Alexander Dumas' masterwork, and the continuation and conclusion of that great romance, "Edmond Dantes." It possesses rare power, unflagging interest and an intricate plot that for constructive skill and efficient development stands unrivalled. Zuleika, the beautiful daughter of Monte-Cristo and Haydee, is the heroine, ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg

... scorned to draw back, for he was a "hero of romance;" an enthusiast of the deepest dye, with an inquiring mind, a sanguine disposition, and a fervent belief in all things great and good and grand. He was also a six-footer in his socks, a horse in constitution, ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne

... entertain. Most of the great novelists were then dead, and the scientific school was in the ascendant. Fiction was entering upon its death grapple with sociology. Stevenson came, with his tales of adventure and intrigue, out-of-door life and old-time romance, and he recalled to every reader his boyhood and the delights of his earliest reading. We had forgotten that novels could ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman

... betwixt him and his fellow man, and that it were not good for the world for all its holiest men to don that habit and divide themselves from their brethren. Sir Galahad's spotless heart beat beneath his silver armour. Would he have been to story and romance the star and pattern he now is had he donned the monkish vesture and turned his armed quest ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... prince or potentate, mingled with, and hallowed and exalted, his military renown. Robert determined on making the pilgrimage. It was a distant and dangerous journey. In fact, the difficulties and dangers of the way were perhaps what chiefly imparted to the enterprise its romance, and gave it its charms. It was customary for kings and rulers, before setting out, to arrange all the affairs of their kingdoms, to provide a regency to govern during their absence, and to determine upon their successors, so as to provide for the very probable contingency of their ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... "is an evening borrowed from a romance." And yet overcome, despite himself, by a langourous charm, he sat down on a seat and ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger

... should have its career cut short by an angry settler's bullet, to avenge a few ordinary pigs or sheep, was a thing he could hardly contemplate with patience. To scatter the pack would be to rob the Quah-Davic solitudes of half their romance. He determined to devote himself to a study of the great wolf's personality and characteristics, and to foil, as far as this could be done without making himself unpopular, such plots as might be laid for ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts

... passed a cooler judgment upon the popular taste of his generation. We know that Chaucer despised the "false gallop" of chivalrous verse; we know that he had small respect for the marvels of Arthurian romance. And his admiration is at least as frank as his contempt. What poet has felt and avowed a deeper reverence for the great Latins? What poet has been so alert to recognize the master-spirits of his own time and his ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... he loves you," said Maria. Ellen shivered and drew a fluttering sigh of assent. Then the two girls lay in each other's arms, looking at the moonlight which streamed in through the window. God knew in what realms of pure romance, and of passion so sublimated by innocence that no tinge of earthliness remained, the ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... son of a small farmer, ran away on his father's death and engaged himself as a farm labourer. What he discovers in the next few years makes a typical Hocking Cornish adventure romance. ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... adapted into prose under the title of "Peg Woffington"—that Reade became famous as a playwright. From 1852 until his death, which occurred on April 11, 1884, Reade's life is mainly a catalogue of novels and dramas. Like many of Charles Reade's works, "Hard Cash, a Matter-of-Fact Romance," is a novel with a purpose, and was written with the object of exposing abuses connected with the lunacy laws and the management of private lunatic asylums. Entitled "Very Hard Cash," it first appeared serially in the pages of "All ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various

... a capable helpmeet, although—like himself —a dreamer of dreams and a private dabbler in romance. The first thing she did, after her marriage—child as she was, aged only nineteen —was to buy an acre of ground on the edge of the town, and pay down the cash for it—twenty-five dollars, all her fortune. Saladin had less, by fifteen. She instituted a vegetable garden there, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... girl-friend Pamela were very different. She was the elder by a couple of years, and much more mature. But Pamela's undeveloped powers, the flashes of daring, of romance, in the awkward reserved girl, the suggestion in her of a big and splendid flowering, fascinated Beryl, and in her humility she never dreamt that she, with her delicate pensiveness, the mingled subtlety and purity of her nature, was no ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... "Neither his genius nor his fortune yielded what they would have produced to a wiser and better man. . . . Hardly any other man has produced such masterpieces with so little effort." He was the author of "Vathek," an Oriental romance, and other works. He was an enthusiastic collector, and he made Fonthill, where he lived in later life in ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue

... of the larger mediaeval machines. Thus Abulfeda speaks of one used at the final capture of Acre, which was entrusted to the troops of Hamath, and which formed a load for 100 carts, of which one was in charge of the historian himself. The romance of Richard Coeur de Lion tells how in the King's Fleet an entire ship was taken up by one such ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... to escape. But still, he and his companions ought to have stopped to help them, and then—but here he paused, conscious of another reason he could scarcely voice then, or even now. Preble Key had not passed the age of romance, but like other romancists he thought he had evaded it ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte

... give him an outline of their adventures, which they had to repeat to Captain Grant himself, who shortly after came into the cabin. Meantime the steward had brought them some breakfast; for midshipmen are not heroes of romance, and require feeding before they are fit for much. After breakfast they felt wonderfully recovered, and were able to get up and go on deck. Hemming had before this explained to Captain Grant his promise to bring relief to the Spaniards, and the brig was accordingly ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... to talk (with a pen) to Fourteen. I am a female; and forty-four, as just hinted, is my age. Fourteen is also a female—just the age I was once. How I recollect that day! I was full of romance and hope; now I've no romance, little hope, and some wrinkles. It is a fine thing to be fourteen. I should like to go back there, and make a long visit. But that can't be. How much I wish it could! If only there were ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various

... coincidences which would be thought appropriate for romance, but which are more common, in fact, than the unobservant are disposed to confess, these two most brilliant events in the painter's life—his first successful work of art and the triumph of his scientific discovery—were brought ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various

... looked after him. "My first 'romance,'" she thought. "With a baby elephant! Slim is a dear boy and I hate myself now because I used to make such fun of him." And where the passionate laments of the girls had failed to move her, the thought of Slim's offered sacrifice brought the tears to her eyes. "'Oh, ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey

... I wondered? Some tragic romance or other concerning a woman had, I knew, overshadowed his life in the years before we had become acquainted. But the real facts he had never revealed to me. He had never before referred to the bitterness of the past, although I knew full ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux

... her life love had never taken the language of romance, sat still, but happy, her heart palpitating, and saying to herself that it was very difficult to escape such influence. For the first time Theodose had appeared in a pair of new trousers, with gray silk stockings ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... part is mere romance, but which nevertheless, contains a foundation of truth, relates that a certain Bjorn, who was obliged to quit Iceland in consequence of an unfortunate passion, took refuge in the countries beyond Vinland, where in 1027, he was found by some ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... Village Wife was no imagination of mine. She lives and suffers not so many miles from where I write. Indeed, you may say of our peasantry very much what French people will tell you of their marriage custom, that love at its best follows that ceremony. It is not bred by romance, but by intimacy. The romantic attachment flames up, and satiety quenches it. The other kind glows red-hot but rarely breaks into a flame. You may have which you choose: you are lucky indeed if ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett

... novelists would destroy for us the whole romance of life," he declared. "I will not listen to you any longer. I ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... history before that date. We may reasonably believe, however, that at some time the marshy ground in the forum gave way, as ground often does, and that there was difficulty in filling up the chasm. A grand opportunity was thus offered for a good story-teller to build up a romance, or to touch up the early history with an interesting tale of heroism. The temptation to do this would have been very strong to an ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman

... case I congratulated myself on this sort of indifference or literary penury; an indiscreet person, sustained by zeal or talent, might have wished to mortify me in a romance combined of satire ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... was taken prisoner, threatened with death, treated chivalrously by the "Red Prince" Friedrich Karl, released on the proclamation of peace, decorated with the Cross of the Legion of Honour, and retired to the little farm, where she ended her days. The spirit of this romance of the Franco-German War of 1870-71 lives in the picture by E.J. Delahaye. Chivalry was not then dead, and the "Red Prince," father of our popular Duchess of Connaught, although Juliette Dodu had hindered the German advance on Paris, shook her by the hand and said ...
— The Illustrated War News, Number 21, Dec. 30, 1914 • Various

... Where a Latin, geometry, or history lesson would be a healthy tonic, or nourishing food, the trashy, exciting story, the gossiping book of travels, the sentimental poem, or, still worse, the coarse humor or thin-veiled vice of the low romance, fills up the hour—and is at best but tea or slops, if not as dangerous as opium or whisky. Lord Bacon says most truly: "Too much bending breaks the bow; too much unbending, the mind." After labor, rest is sweet and healthful; but all rest is as ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... thread of magical romance again, Frank Nelsen looked up at the ribbed canvas top of the ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun

... even in the bygone days of knight and dame, the days of real romance, were more devoted to each other. With satisfaction he saw that Gabrielle's apparent indifference had now worn off. It had been but the mask of a woman's whim, and as such ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux

... warfare—prancing coursers, gilded trappings, burnished sabres, waving pennons, and glittering helmets—rank after rank of gallant riders—anon the blast of bugles, the drawing of sabres, the mighty rushing of a thousand steeds, the clash of steel, the shout, the victory? The chief romance of war attaches itself to the deeds accomplished by the assistance of the power and endurance of man's noblest servant. Every one has read so much poetry about valiant youths, mounted on fiery yet docile steeds, doing deeds of miraculous prowess in the ranks of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... as well as a remarkable career; and to be instructive, its subject should be exemplary in his aims, and in his mode of attaining them. The hero of this story comes fully up to the standard thus indicated. His career has been a romance. Born of parents of small means but of excellent character and repute; and bred and nurtured in the midst of some of the wildest and grandest scenery in the rugged county of St. Lawrence, close by the "Thousand Isles," where ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... Sisters do not like young ladies to fall in love with their brothers. It seems, if not presumptuous, silly, weak, a delusion, an absurd mistake. They do not love these gentlemen—whatever sisterly affection they may cherish towards them—and that others should, repels them with a sense of crude romance. The first movement, in short, excited by such discovery (as with many parents on finding their children to be in love) is one of mixed impatience and contempt. Reason—if they be rational people—corrects ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... pretend to plead the immunities of my order so highly as this; but neither will I allow that the author of a modern antique romance is obliged to confine himself to the introduction of those manners only which can be proved to have absolutely existed in the times he is depicting, so that he restrain himself to such as are plausible and natural, and contain no obvious anachronism. In this point of view, what can be more natural, ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... untruth, namely a discontent with the believed fact that a God exists, and a feeling that the obligation of reverence is onerous. It would steal if it could the fire of the Creator, and live apart from him and independent of him. The Prometheus Vinctus is the romance of skepticism. Not less true to all time are the details of that stately apologue. Apollo kept the flocks of Admetus, said the poets. When the gods come among men, they are not known. Jesus was not; Socrates and Shakspeare were not. Antaeus was suffocated by the gripe of Hercules, ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... and rhymed; discoursed on the corruption of the times, and on the means of their improvement. He published the first portion of his Life, and often talked amazingly about the Wandering Jew, and a romance of which he was to form the subject. The idea of making old Joannes a temporibus, the 'Wandering,' or as Schubart's countrymen denominate him the 'Eternal Jew,' into a novel hero, was a mighty favourite with him. In this antique ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... great a work of art as the Iliad, and is even more popular; for the Odyssey is a domestic romance, and as such appeals to a larger audience than a tale of war alone,—the romance of the wandering Ulysses and the faithful Penelope. Interwoven with it are the ever-popular fairy tales of Ulysses's wanderings and descriptions of ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... "Don't waste any romance on Babe, Hope," Hubert advised her. "I wondered about it, myself, for there is rather a gay crowd out there, and I didn't know what might be going on. I went out, one day. I found the others all in a bunch, and Babe tearing around the links all by herself, with her poor caddie trotting ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray

... contained herein was written by Charles Dickens in 1867. It is the first of four stories entitled "Holiday Romance" and was published originally in a children's magazine in America. It purports to be written by a child aged eight. It was republished in England in "All the Year Round" in 1868. For this and four other Christmas pieces Dickens ...
— The Trial of William Tinkling - Written by Himself at the Age of 8 Years • Charles Dickens

... Paris, 3 vols. 8vo.—These Travels, which have been translated into English, possess a wonderful charm in the narrative, attained, however, too often by the sacrifice of plain and unadorned truth, to the love of romance and effect. Notwithstanding this drawback, Levaillant's Travels are valuable for the light they throw on the natural history of the ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... herself, considering that her marriage is the affair of her parents, and that she has but to obey their wishes in that, as well as in all other cases; hence it is rarely found that a French young lady has aught of romance in her composition, but is on the contrary the mild, docile, obedient, and affectionate pupil, and often imitator of her mother. The English young lady is a little more rebellious; possessing a more independent spirit, she very soon takes the liberty of thinking ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve

... scene that if introduced into a modern play would have driven him from the theatre and tipped his pen with vitriol next morning, but it appealed to him, somehow, as a fitting episode in his own high romance. But he was asleep before his head touched the pillow, and did not lift an eyelash until the first bell roused him at seven o'clock. Then, however, he lay for some ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... sent to school in Europe. They spent scraps of holidays with us in Fourteenth Street, and I think my first childish conception of the enviable lot, formed amid these associations, was to be so little fathered or mothered, so little sunk in the short range, that the romance of life seemed to lie in some constant improvisation, by vague overhovering authorities, of new situations and horizons. We were intensely domesticated, yet for the very reason perhaps that we felt our young bonds easy; and they were so easy compared to other small plights ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... This great international romance relates the story of an American girl who, in rescuing her sister from the ruins of her marriage to an Englishman of title, displays splendid qualities of courage, tact and restraint. As a study of American womanhood of modern times, the character of ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford

... propaganda came not from an intention to realize the tenets of the propaganda, but from the kindling of Irish hearts by thoughts that came of the propaganda, thoughts of the great past of Ireland, of its romance of yesterday and to-day, ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt

... Jesus. They will persist in quoting Mill's farfetched eulogy, without referring to other passages in the essay On Liberty. But this is not all, nor even the worst. The sentimentalism of "popular" and "advanced" Christianity is turning Jesus Christ into a hero of romance. He is taking the place of King Arthur, of blameless memory; and we shall soon see the Apostles take the place of the Knights of the Round Table. Rancid orators and flatulent poets are gathering to the festival Jesus Christ will make a fine speech for the one set, and fine copy for the other. The ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote

... young and joyous princess gave a touch of romance to court life, and inspired men like Galeazzo and Niccolo da Correggio with a chivalrous devotion to her person. Every one was ready to obey her wishes, and eager to win her smiles and to earn ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright

... same feminine type; one a finished and complete portrayal, the other a hasty sketch, but the theme is essentially the same. Both women belong to a class, not large, but forever clamoring in our ears, that demands more romance out of life than God put into it. Mr. G. Barnard Shaw would say that they are the victims of the over-idealization of love. They are the spoil of the poets, the Iphigenias of sentiment. The unfortunate feature of their disease is that it attacks only women of brains, at least of rudimentary ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather

... have paused in his rapid meditations long enough to be aware that, here he was, dropped—plump—into the center of another ring of romance; nothing having separated him from his last love but two misdirected revolver shots, the warning boom of a gunboat's bow cannon, and a mad chase ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... improvement upon Bell's invention was the making of the transmitter, in 1877, by Emile Berliner. This, too, was a romance. Berliner, as a poor German youth of nineteen, had landed in Castle Garden in 1870 to seek his fortune. He got a job as "a sort of bottle-washer at six dollars a week," he says, in a chemical shop in New York. At nights he ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson

... How are you? how are you?" He kept shaking her hand in a way which proved the warmth of his friendship; but he repeated so often, as if to himself, "I should not have known you!" that any sentimental romance which I might be inclined to build was quite done away with by ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell



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