"Errant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you doing with my father? Where you going to take him to? Let him alone, I say. Let him alone!" Her voice rang out shrilly, as she came forward, trembling with anger, and her knight-errant looked up at her in a daze of ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... Riders, but Walkers, a still more ancient and honorable class, I trust. The Chivalric and heroic spirit which once belonged to the Rider seems now to reside in, or perchance to have subsided into, the Walker—not the Knight, but Walker, Errant. He is a sort of fourth estate, outside of Church and State ...
— Walking • Henry David Thoreau
... energy, but the heart plays often a bigger part than the head in an estimate of a fellow-creature, and Darsie's heart had a way of making excuses for the handsome truant, who smiled with such beguiling eyes, had such a pretty knack of compliment, and was—generally!—ready to play knight-errant in her service. She felt herself lucky in possessing so charming a friend to act the part of gallant, and to be at her service when she chose to call. And then quite suddenly she drew a sharp breath and said aloud in a trembling ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of which not a stick or a stone that one looks at is one's own, and whence one may be evicted or evade, with a week's notice or a week's rent, any day—this sort of life is natural and even delightful to some people. There are those who, like strawberry plants, are of such an errant disposition, that grow them where you will, they will soon absorb all the pleasantness of their habitat, and begin casting out runners elsewhere; may, if not frequently transplanted, would actually wither and die. Of such are the pioneers of society—the emigrants, the tourists, ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... Orion (Or, it may be, Charles his Wain) Tempts the tiny elves to try on All their little tricks again; When the earth is calmly breathing Draughts of slumber undefiled, And the sire, unused to teething, Seeks for errant pins his child; ...
— Green Bays. Verses and Parodies • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... instant the errant antonym evidently flashed upon her mental vision and her pencil hastened to record it and then flew on at ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... poor candle, it was touching and beautiful to see these boys—the tender patience of the elder lending itself to every whim of the younger—now building houses with cards—now telling stories of fairy and knight-errant—the sprightliest he could remember or invent. At length, as all was over, and Sidney was undressing for the night, Philip, standing apart, said to him, ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... alarm and uncertainty is their knack of submerging earlier and less dramatic passages in the lives of those whom Fate drags into their sweeping currents. Lest, therefore, the strangely contrived meeting between Sylvia and her knight errant should be neglected by the chronicler, it is well to return to those two young people at the moment when Sylvia was declaring her unimpaired power of standing ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... for the leave boat, just before Christmas, the Knight-Errant, who also was returning to the front, re-wrote the well-known hymn of Phillips Brooks for me, to make the time pass. ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... Salmon House he enlisted the stalworth Paddy Moran, with the information conveyed to that surprised reveller, that he was to sleep at 'Mrs. Nutter's house' that night; and so, at a brisk pace, the clerical knight, his squire, and demoiselle-errant, proceeded to the Mills. ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... manifesto." He strongly condemned the agreement made in 1859 between Napoleon III and Piedmont, because he foresaw its inevitable consequences. Mazzini, Garibaldi, and Cavour were a trio who largely influenced their country's destiny. Garibaldi has been called the knight-errant; Mazzini, the prophet of Italian unity; and Cavour was the hub which formed the centre of the wheel ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... Kingbirds are the knights-errant of the feathered tribes. They never attack another bird unless it is three times their own size; but when a few years older, the boy Hawthorne would probably have noticed that the kingbirds' powers of flight are so superior that all other birds ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... very ordinary creature, and is only remembered as the instrument chosen by chance to inspire 'Epipsychidion'. Finally there appeared, in January 1822, the truest-hearted and the most lovable of all Shelley's friends. Edward John Trelawny, a cadet of a Cornish family, "with his knight-errant aspect, dark, handsome, and moustachioed," was the true buccaneer of romance, but of honest English grain, and without a trace of pose. The devotion with which, though he only knew Shelley for a few months, he fed in memory on their friendship ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... lacrymas arcere paratae. Ergo non Lycidam jam lamentantur agrestes. Divus eris ripae, puer, hoc ex tempore nobis, Grande, nec immerito, veniens in munus; opemque Poscent usque tuam, dubiis quot in aestubus errant. Haec incultus aquis puer ilicibusque canebat; Processit dum mane silens talaribus albis. Multa manu teneris discrimina tentat avenis, Dorica non studio modulatus carmina segni: Et jam sol abiens ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... dimness of early morning when errant bats flitted home to cling to the ridge-pole, squeaking and fussy flutterings denoted unwonted disturbance. Daylight revealed a half concealed, sleeping snake, which seemed to be afflicted with twin tumours. A long stick dislodged the intruder, ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... infirm understanding, he is stated, by his veracious historian, Cid Hamet Benengeli, to have exchanged fields and farms for folios and quartos of chivalry. In this species of exploit, the good knight-errant has been imitated by lords, knights, and squires of our own day, though we have not yet heard of any that has mistaken an inn for a castle, or laid his lance in rest against a windmill. Mr. Oldbuck did not follow these ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... with a little satisfied sigh as she selected an ortolan, "is a very satisfactory place to be carried off to. And you," she added, leaning across the table and touching his fingers for a moment tenderly, "are a very delightful knight-errant." ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the owner of the name, turning his rather errant steps in the direction of the summons; "are you people still there? Must have heard everything cows got to say by this time. If you haven't, no use waiting. After all, it's a Russian legend, and Russian Chrismush Eve not due for 'nother fortnight. ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... in some inexplicable manner, Goldsmith, the pilgrim of improvidence and knight errant from the Order of Chivalrous Carelessness, still pursued his medical studies, and carried this training for the vocation of a doctor to some kind of completion. Italy is supposed to have conferred his diploma as a physician upon Goldsmith, and either ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... the female side, is an ever-present source of trouble and unhappiness among the Natives. The length to which a jealous Native wife will go in winning back the affections of an errant husband is often extraordinary, though the ways and means she adopts differ but little from those practised by the superstitious and credulous peasantry in Europe less than ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen
... seem to wonder and ask yourselves who is this modern Quixote. What mean this costume of by-gone centuries—this golden chariot—these richly caparisoned steeds? What is the name and purpose of this curious knight-errant? Gentlemen, I will condescend to answer your queries. I am Monsieur Mangin, the great charlatan of France! Yes, gentlemen, I am a charlatan—a mountebank; it is my profession, not from choice, but from necessity. You, gentlemen, created that necessity! ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... quite surprised that Winn had been so nice to her, particularly as he hadn't appeared at all a friendly kind of person; but she became more and more convinced that Winn was a knight errant in disguise and had been sent by heaven to ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... friend—Brynhild Ingmar. That problem must be met before I could take my way. I thought much of what might be said at parting. True, she had the deepest attraction for me, but true also that I now beheld a quest stretching out into the unknown which I must accept in the spirit of the knight errant. Dare I then bind my heart to any allegiance which would pledge me to a future inconsistent with what lay before me? How could I tell what she might think of the things which to me were now real and external—the revelation of the only reality that underlies ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... Prince Zerbino all the arms unites, And hangs like a fair trophy, on a pine. And, to preserve them safe from errant knights, Natives or foreigners, in one short line Upon the sapling's verdant surface writes, ORLANDO'S ARMS, KING CHARLES'S PALADINE. As he would say, "Let none this harness move, Who cannot with its lord ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... Charles Dickens The Angel's Story Echoes A False Genius My Picture Judge Not Friend Sorrow One by One True Honours A Woman's Question The Three Rulers A Dead Past A Doubting Heart A Student A Knight Errant Linger, oh, gentle Time Homeward Bound Life and Death Now Cleansing Fires The Voice of the Wind Treasures Shining Stars Waiting The Cradle Song of the Poor Be strong God's Gifts A Tomb in Ghent The Angel of Death A Dream The Present Changes Strive, Wait, and Pray ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... a sharp angle over the water, and the branches were so far up that it was necessary to climb out a short distance in order to reach them. Mr. Opp's soul was undoubtedly that of a knight-errant, but his body, alas! was not. When he found himself astride the slender, swaying trunk, with the bank dropping sharply to the river flowing dizzily beneath him, he went suddenly and unexpectedly blind. Between admiration for himself for ever having gotten there, and ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... people think of our antiknights-errant, who are ever in pursuit of adventures to reduce innocent virgins to distress, and to rob virtuous women of their honour; who regard beauty, youth, rank, nay virtue itself, as so many incentives, which inflame their desires, and render their efforts more eager; and who, ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... De Valette to himself, when a full examination had satisfied him,—"an errant fool; 'tis strange, that one image must be forever in my mind; that I should tremble at the very sound of a bridal, lest, perchance, ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... I mistake the clustered curls Upon his hated hyacinthine head? Have they not wiled from me the fickle heart Of perjured BANDOLINA! There, he stands Before my window, where a winsome form, Rotating slow with measured self-display, Has caught his errant eye. Now, demi-siren, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 24, 1887 • Various
... under your roof. 'It is an ill wind,' says the proverb, 'that blows nobody good;' and it is a clear case, my very kind hostess, that at this moment we are mutually ignorant of each other. I assure you, then, madam, that I am not a knight-errant travelling in disguise and in quest of adventure, but a plain gentleman, by name Woodward, step-son to a neighbor of yours, Mr. Lindsay, of Rathfillan House. I need scarcely say that I am Mrs. Lindsay's son by her first husband. ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... permanent question in the politics of the times. But the expenditure of enormous energies upon things of secondary and of even tertiary importance, to the neglect of others of prime and lasting interest, is supremely human. He was errant where all men go astray. But the schoolmaster of the nation was abroad, and was training this young man for the work he was born to do. These six months were, therefore, not wasted, for in the university of experience he did ever prove himself an apt scholar. One lesson he had ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... pleasant humor was always kept under the sway of a sweet spirit of candor and benevolence, and who has presented faithfully all the good points and services of his subject—Sparks's American Biography, Vol. VI. But the knight errant who has just centered the lists, brandishing his spear against all who have uttered a lisp against Cotton Mather, goes out of his way to strike at Doctor Peabody. He inserts, at the foot of one of his pages, this sneering Note: ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... slender, errant figure in the garden. Yes, she had taken it calmly,—more calmly than he could have hoped. How beautiful was the poise, even at this distance, of the delicate throat, and the head, with its wide crown of inky hair! Each motion of the slow-strolling ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... parve puer, cornu nunc suscipe cantum. Per segetes errant pecudes, per pascua vacc. Ah, ubi nunc ovium custos tam parvulus absit? En, gregis ...
— Chenodia - The Classic Mother Goose • Jacob Bigelow
... occasion had paraded her intimacy with Delafield, thenceforward said not a word of him, and Warkworth's jealousy had died for lack of fuel. In relation to Julie, Delafield had been surely the mere shadow and agent of his little cousin the Duchess—a friendly, knight-errant sort of person, with a liking for the distressed. What! the heir-presumptive of Chudleigh Abbey, and one of the most famous of English dukedoms, when even he, the struggling, penurious officer, would never have dreamed of such ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Indian; it was hard for her to make admissions about her husband. But then—we were like two errant school-girls, who had been caught m an escapade! "I don't know what I'm going to do about him," she said, with a wry smile. "He really won't listen—I can't make any ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... solve readily with the sweet milk of the breasts of the mother of many children? Has it too the old, ever-fresh forbearance and impartiality? Does it look with the same love on the last-born and on those hardening toward stature, and on the errant, and on those who disdain all strength of assault outside ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... first I must explain that I am no knight-errant. I am an almost penniless adventurer, and for urgent reasons of my own I seek to win fortune. Therefore, when the woman yonder," and he pointed to Soa, who was sitting watching them just out of ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... door, George Patterson must claim a line Among the men of auld lang syne; A man of very ancient fame, Who in old '27 came. One of the first firm doth remain, He is our worthy Chamberlain, Who ne'er in life's farce cut a dash On other people's errant cash; Who guards, as it is right well known, Better than e'er he did his own, The people's money, firm and sure, To the last cent, safe and secure. And opposite across the street, A friend or foe could always meet A man deserving hero's title, ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... dreadful antagonist. Like the Sleeping Beauty, this strange Problem lay in the midst of an enchanted land guarded by the wizard Aridity and those wonderful water-gods Erosion and Corrasion, waiting for the knight-errant brave, who should break the spell and vanquish the demon in his lair. No ordinary man was equal to this difficult task, which demanded not alone courage of the highest order, but combined with this courage a master-mind and the strategic ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... fed physically now by ear and eye, by large matter-of-fact experience, as he journeys from university to university; yet still, less as a teacher than a courtier, a citizen of the world, a knight-errant of intellectual light. The philosophic need to try all things had given reasonable justification to the stirring desire for travel common to youth, in which, if in nothing else, that whole age of the [242] later Renaissance was invincibly young. The theoretic recognition of that mobile spirit of ...
— Giordano Bruno • Walter Horatio Pater
... no more brush or chopping I set Pop to laying stone wall and said I would employ him steadily for a year. But that was a mistake. Old Pop was a free lance, a knight errant. Anything that savored of permanency smelled to him of vassalage. He laid a rod of stone wall—solid wall that will be there for Gabriel to stand on when he plays his last trump—blows it, I mean—in that neighborhood. But then he collected, one evening, and vanished, and I did not ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... of his school which attracted most attention, perhaps, was his scheme for the teacher's receiving punishment, in certain circumstances, at the hands of an offending pupil, whereby the sense of shame might be quickened in the mind of the errant child. The school was denounced in the press, was not pecuniarily successful, and in 1839 was given up, although Alcott had won the affection of his pupils, and his educational experiments had challenged the attention of students of pedagogy. The school is perhaps best described in ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... while Molly suddenly whirled down the street and pounced on the errant collie. Seeing this, Constable McSherry turned to continue ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... barn was larger than the house, but at the present time Judith's little blue car and an old red cow were its sole inhabitants. The hay loft, which was designed to hold many tons of hay, was empty. Sometimes an errant hen would find her way up there and start a nest in vain hopes of being allowed to lay her quota and begin the business of hatching her own offspring in her own way, but Judith would rout her out and force her to comply to community housekeeping ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... page of the paper the names in a brief item arrested his errant glance. It disclosed that Mr. Percival Bines had left New York the day before with a party of guests on his special car, to shoot quail in North Carolina. Mr. Milbrey glanced at the two shells of the orange which ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... into such blasphemous imaginations. Fool as I have been, and fool as I have declared myself upon the forefront of this very book, I have never said in my heart, THERE IS NO GOD; but much and loudly have maintained the affirmative. And although I have been sadly, wickedly, detestably errant from His way, there is one divine precept which I have never failed to keep, and that is, LOVE ONE ANOTHER. All other affections, additions, accidents, accessories of men, however, from the lowest, which is Money, ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... a moment on this matter. I do not believe that Raymond had ever thought, in seriousness, of any such gift. It must have been at best an errant fancy, and if concerned with commemorating anybody concerned with commemorating himself. But I will say this for him: he never was disposed to try getting things out of people, for he hated attempts at trickery almost as much ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... strain. She assumed an attitude of very haughty contempt toward the errant pair, devoted herself to Wiggins, and let them coldly alone. From this attitude Wiggins was the chief sufferer: the Terror had the princess and the princess had the Terror; Erebus enjoyed her display of haughty contempt, but Wiggins missed ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... of Emile a knight-errant, a redresser of wrongs, a paladin? Shall he thrust himself into public life, play the sage and the defender of the laws before the great, before the magistrates, before the king? Shall he lay petitions before the judges ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... terribly conventional, so cut and dried, and matter of fact, and safe, I might fall really and truly in love with you. But—Oh, I don't know! Here I am, twenty-three. And I suppose I'm a little fool and have never grown up. I like to read stories about knights errant, and burglars, and fair ladies, and pirates, and mysterious dark oriental-looking men. And I like to go to places where everybody don't go—only Dad won't let me and—— Why just think!" she exclaimed in sudden wrath, "I've been in California for three months and I've ridden over ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... redresser of grievances; there only wanted a lady in the way to be a knight-errant in form. This defect was soon supplied; I presently had two. I frequently went to see my father at Nion, a small city in the Vaudois country, where he was now settled. Being universally respected, the affection entertained for him extended ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... have in winter are cards, tables and dice, shovelboard, chess-play, the philosopher's game, small trunks, billiards, music, masks, singing, dancing, ule games, catches, purposes, questions; merry tales of errant knights, kings, queens, lovers, lords, ladies, giants, dwarfs, thieves, fairies, goblins, friars, ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... prettily with the white fence in front: the sloping fields of green painted with daisies, through which, unshackled, the buoyant breeze swept so peacefully. It was an invariable rule, in those days, to troop through the meadows at early morn and, like a young knight-errant, bear home in triumph "Marguerite," the peerless daisy, rescued from the clutches of unmentionable dragons, and now to beam brightly on us for the rest of the day from a neighboring mantel-piece. And it was with great reluctance ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... parted from his fellows at the Castle of Vagon, he rode many days through the forest without adventure, till he chanced upon a knight close by a little hermitage in the wood. Immediately, as was the wont of errant knights, they prepared to joust, and Launcelot, whom none before had overthrown, was borne down, man and horse, by the stranger knight. Thereupon a nun, who dwelt in the hermitage, cried: "God be with thee, ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... words against the code of honour; it was the constant object of vituperation on his part, even from the pulpit. His notions on this point, however, never gained ground with his hearers, who could not be brought to believe that their master (himself as true a knight errant as ever drew sword or pen,) was serious when he told them that the spirit of chivalry ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... machines I saw working along the southern frontier. Nevertheless it is a useful means of reconnaissance, nor is a journey in it devoid of interest. An armoured train! The very name sounds strange; a locomotive disguised as a knight-errant; the agent of civilisation in the habiliments of chivalry. Mr. Morley attired as Sir Lancelot would seem scarcely more incongruous. The possibilities of attack added to the keenness of the experience. We started at one o'clock. A company of the Dublin Fusiliers formed the garrison. Half were ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... power and protect him in the possession of it—may well be doubted." Brandeis had come to Apia in the firm's livery. Even while he promised neutrality in commerce, the clerks were prating a different story in the bar-rooms; and the late high feat of the knight-errant, Becker, had killed all confidence in Germans at the root. By these three impolicies, the German adventure in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... excitements of the journey. He would not have been willing to confess this interest, but it prompted him secretly so that he was often reminding himself of the old days when Lois had been his daily companion and their mutual confidences had been their mutual pleasure. Just as a knight-errant of the old time might set out to seek his mistress, so did Alban go to Warsaw determined to succeed. He would find Lois in this whirling wonderland of delight, and, finding her, would return ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... eternal lamp and hid the eternal hill, A world's destruction loading, the word went onward still— The blaze of creeds passed into it, the hiss of horrid fires, The headlong spear, the scarlet cross, the hair-shirt and the briars, The cloistered brethren's thunderous chaunt, the errant champion's song, The shifting of the crowns and thrones, the tangle ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... and north of the Great Lakes, but left French America, west of that river and south of the lakes, intact, which shows how the common consent of nations accorded to French valor in exploration the bulk of the North American continent. Essentially chivalrous, the French explorer proved the knight-errant among American discoverers. By the treaty of 1803, Napoleon ceded 1,171,931 square miles to the United States, a tract eight times as large as France itself. France, by rights acquired by discoveries, owned about two-thirds ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... his understanding, he unluckily stumbled upon the oddest fancy that ever entered into a madman's brain; for now he thought it convenient and necessary, as well for the increase of his own honor as the service of the public, to turn knight-errant, and roam through the whole world, armed cap-a-pie, and mounted on his steed, in quest of adventures; that thus imitating those knights-errant of whom he had read, and following their course of life, redressing all manner of grievances, and exposing himself to danger on all ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... Beheld her first in field, awaiting him, He felt, were she the prize of bodily force, Himself beyond the rest pushing could move The chair of Idris. Yniol's rusted arms Were on his princely person, but thro' these Princelike his bearing shone; and errant knights And ladies came, and by and by the town Flow'd in, and settling circled all the lists. And there they fixt the forks into the ground, And over these they placed the silver wand, And over that the golden sparrow-hawk Then Yniol's nephew, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... trade, and casts contempt upon all its sober realities. It renders the stock-jobber a magician, and the exchange a region of enchantment. It elevates the merchant into a kind of knight-errant, or rather a commercial Quixote. The slow but sure gains of snug percentage become despicable in his eyes; no "operation" is thought worthy of attention that does not double or treble the investment. No ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... you can be, Fanny, when you think it necessary to dub yourself any one's champion. Don Quixote was not a better knight-errant than you are. But is it not a pity to take up your lance and shield before an enemy is within sight or hearing? But that was ever the ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... said I in perfunctory acknowledgment, but with errant thoughts. "I trust, sir, that I shall always bear myself ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... visitors, it was with a report favorable to their tranquillity. The riot in the court of the palace, and the movement of the Dalmatians, had drawn all eyes in another direction; and although some errant gaze might have witnessed their entrance into the gate of the prison, it was so natural a circumstance, that no one would suspect females of their appearance of remaining there an instant longer than was necessary. The momentary absence of ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... dear fellow," said Roger, "on being once more a free man, with no one to suspect, except your own immediate relatives, the errant Captain Bates." ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... the Bellevue when they got back there; but they neither of them felt the want of other company. They had a very merry little dinner-party all to themselves, and Angus was able to look at the damsel errant he had rescued. Her beauty came upon him with a shock of surprise. He had seen many beautiful women in his time, but never anything so enchanting as the droop of her mouth, or the lovely curves of her throat, or the transparent candour of ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... office-boy-in-charge, who had quietly suppressed it. No one is a hero to one's own office-boy, and he evidently considered that a quarter of a million was an unwarrantable outlay for such a doubtfully advantageous object as the repatriation of an errant newspaper staff. So he drew the editorial and other salaries, forged what signatures were necessary, engaged new reporters, did what sub-editing he could, and made as much use as possible of the large accumulation of special articles that was held in reserve for emergencies. The articles ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... him thankfully. All the surgeon's serene confidence in himself returned in these emergencies, and he was doing invaluable work. People were grateful, but the man's ways and looks were so strange, his restlessness so tragic, that they dubbed him "le Juif Errant." ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... exertion Kellup Cobb come into our house of a errant, and I asked him if he was goin' to the exertion; and he said he would like to ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... fancy by some of the ladies' maids tripping about in neat morning dresses. After seeing for a long time little but rusticity, their lively manner, and gay inviting appearance, pleased me so much, that I thought, for the moment, I could have been a knight-errant ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... knight errant ye wit not of. But the tournament's not over yet, and this time I've got the rabbit: ...
— A Knyght Ther Was • Robert F. Young
... friend. Claire unhesitatingly declared that the new inspector was a very good fellow. When he passed in front of her, pursued by the coarse abuse of the others, she gave him a pleasant smile, sitting nonchalantly behind her stall, with unruly errant locks of pale hair straying over her neck and her brow, and the bodice of her dress pinned all askew. He also often saw her dipping her hands into her tanks, transferring the fish from one compartment to another, and amusing herself by turning on the brass ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... his Love of Mankind, would have animated him to have attack'd the Comick Poets with the same Spirit, with which he assaulted the prevailing Folly of his Age, the Romantick Atchievements of Knights Errant; his Wit and good Sense would have made those merry Authors as odious for poisoning the People with their loose and immoral Writings, as he made the others ridiculous for their extravagant and ...
— Essay upon Wit • Sir Richard Blackmore
... things actually degenerate. Our politeness loses all manliness because we forget that politeness is only the Greek for patriotism. Our policemen lose all delicacy because we forget that a policeman is only the Greek for something civilised. A policeman should often have the functions of a knight-errant. A policeman should always have the elegance of a knight-errant. But I am not sure that he would succeed any the better n remembering this obligation of romantic grace if his name were spelt phonetically, supposing that it could be spelt phonetically. Some spelling-reformers, I am told, in the poorer ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... of teeth. Why they snapped and closed and clinched is uncertain. To follow their operations is impossible for an outsider, but Mr Lawson always succeeds in convincing you that on the pretence of money-making he is attacking some lofty enterprise. He would persuade you that he is a knight-errant of purity. "Tremendous issues" are always at stake. The heroes of Wall Street are engaged in never-ending "battles." They are "fighting" for causes, the splendour of which is not dimmed in Mr Lawson's lurid prose. They have Americanised the language ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... blame no one. Pass over? I hope he will not pass over it, I only want an excuse like that for turning kempery-man—knight-errant, as those Norman puppies call it,—like Regnar Lodbrog, or Frithiof, or Harold Hardraade; and try what man can do for himself in the world with nothing to help him in heaven and earth, with neither saint nor angel, friend or counsellor, to see ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... of a Shoeing-Horn for several Years, and finding him unsuccessful in that Function, convert him at length into a Shoe. I am mistaken if your Friend Mr. WILLIAM HONEYCOMB, was not a cast Shoeing-Horn before his late Marriage. As for my self, I must frankly declare to you, that I have been an errant Shoeing-Horn for above these twenty Years. I served my first Mistress in that Capacity above five of the Number, before she was shod. I confess, though she had many who made their Applications to her, I always thought ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... gradually dying away in the distance. These strange, sudden, unaccountable sounds, caused in all probability by a boa-constrictor, a buck, or some other creature startled into quick movement by the scent of a human being, wafted to their nostrils by an errant draught of air, were even more startling to the nerves than the distant roar of the jaguar, or the call of the bell bird which irresistibly suggested the incongruous idea that at no great distance in those gloomy forest depths ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... opening doors, like the second Calender wanting an eye, in the castle of the hundred obliging damsels, until, like the said prince errant, she came to a stable. The Highland Pegasus, Rory Bean, to which belonged the single entire stall, was her old acquaintance, whom she had seen grazing on the baulk, as she failed not to recognise by the well-known ancient riding furniture and demi-pique saddle, which ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... sane than in their acceptance of names and emblems from outside their most beloved limits. The monastery would often not only take in the stranger but almost canonize him. A mere adventurer like Bruce was enthroned and thanked as if he had really come as a knight errant. And a passionately patriotic community more often than not had a foreigner for a patron saint. Thus crowds of saints were Irishmen, but St. Patrick was not an Irishman. Thus as the English gradually became a nation, ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... moments almost weird, genius-gifted eye, as that of Stevenson.' Sir George could fire imagination in the most ordinary mortal, carrying him off into enchanted realms. He sailed to strange skies, a knight-errant of a star, and he could tow the masses with him. He lifted them out of themselves, and put a label on their vague yearnings. They had imagination, the instinct upward, and were ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... the people fell down on their knees and cried King Arthur mercy. Mercy shall ye have, said Arthur: here may ye see what adventures befall ofttime of errant knights, how that I have fought with a knight of mine own unto my great damage and his both. But, sirs, because I am sore hurt, and he both, and I had great need of a little rest, ye shall understand the opinion betwixt you two brethren: As to thee, Sir Damas, for whom ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... exultation he broke into a run. So did Hillard. He was no longer bored. This promised to be interesting. People turned and stared, but none sought to intercept any of the runners. In Monte Carlo there are many strange scenes, and the knight-errant often finds that his bump of caution has suddenly developed. In other words, it is none of his affair. To look was one thing, to follow, to precipitate one's head into the unknown, was another. And there were no police about; they were on the Casino terraces, or strolling through ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... French a skin they desired to possess, retreated to the woods: her friends were distressed at her ill-nature. She, at last, complied. A pair of trousers were given in exchange; she stood between two Frenchmen, leaning on the shoulder of each, while they guided her errant legs into these novelties ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... statesman-soldier that he has had the credit of being, he never would have fought Edward until he had been joined by Margaret; and he must have known that her non-arrival was owing to contrary winds, he having been himself a naval commander. But he acted like a knight-errant, not like a general, gave battle, and was defeated and slain, "The Last of the Barons." Having triumphed at Barnet, Edward marched to meet Margaret's army, which was led by Somerset, and defeated it on the 4th of May, after a hardly-contested action at Tewkesbury. It was on that field that Prince ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... not commendable in an Embassadour. And I haue knowen in my time such of them, as studied more vpon what apparel they should weare, and what countenaunces they should keepe at the times of their audience, then they did vpon th'effect of their errant or commission. ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... breathing in the cool freshness of the dewy lawns, he felt himself assailed by all the passionate expectancy that transforms the soul of youth into the incoherent canvas of an unfinished romance of love. Long ago he had known such evenings, those evenings of errant fancy, when he had allowed his caprice to roam through imaginary adventures, and he was astonished to feel a return of sensations that did not ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... that party. Never could a man have stepped into the parlor a more perfect and predestined victim to the finished accomplishments of the Prime Minister. The Old World was tough in wickedness anyhow; the Old World's heart of stone might blunt the sharpest blade of the bravest knight-errant. But this blind and deaf Don Quixote was entering a cavern where the swift and glittering blade was in the hands of ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... human understanding to vacillate at hazard. There is an incontestable verity, there is an infallible method of knowing this verity, and by the knowledge of it, those who accept it as a rule may give their will a sovereign power that will make them the masters of all inferior things and of all errant spirits; that is to say, will make them the Arbiters and ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... were to be believed, not all castles were desirable places to seek hospitality in. As a matter of fact, knights errant were not persons to be believed—that is, measured by modern standards of veracity; yet, measured by the standards of their own time, and scaled accordingly, you got the truth. It was very simple: ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... dwelling, And out he rode a-colonelling, A wight he was, whose very sight wou'd Intitle him, Mirrour of Knighthood; That never bow'd his stubborn knee To any thing but chivalry; Nor put up blow, but that which laid Right Worshipful on shoulder-blade: Chief of domestic knights and errant, Either for chartel or for warrant: Great in the bench, great in the saddle, That could as well bind o'er as swaddle: Mighty he was at both of these, And styl'd of war, as well as peace, (So some ...
— English Satires • Various
... from the first the movement had been in the hands of turbulent feudatories, inspired by chivalry rather than religion. Their leader, Boniface of Montferrat, the patron of all the troubadours and knights-errant of the South, was a sworn friend of the Pope's worst enemy, Philip of Suabia, the brother and successor of the Emperor Henry VI. Boniface had been elected to the command without the sanction of the Pope; and from an early date was in league with Philip to turn the Crusade against Constantinople. ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... the errant breeze, with the rustle and glimmer abroad in the April sky. It sings of the first ache of youth in the world, when the first flower broke from the bud, and love went forth seeking that which it knew not, leaving all ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore
... this errant knight would not be stayed; and his loud musical voice swept over the waters, evidently attracting her notice, and for the first time. She drew back her dark hair, gazing on them for a moment, when she suddenly ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... this arrangement? You accept Maurice and Jean as your knights-errant? I am delighted with the arrangement, and I hope that Mlle. ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... an interesting fellow, young lady," the doctor said, with a rather slight twinkle of his eye. "A very knight-errant! But there is the house now; we shall soon see all ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... it matter what we think? We drift along, knowing nothing of one another, like the errant winds or the stars in the skies. We pass by hundreds, without so much as a glance, until fate as in a lightning flash brings us face to face with the one appointed. And then—in a moment we know that we belong to each other, we are drawn together by magnetic ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... in the Louisville Courier-Journal, early in 1901, said: "A remarkable transformation, or rather a development, has taken place in Mark Twain. The genial humorist of the earlier day is now a reformer of the vigorous kind, a sort of knight errant who does not hesitate to break a lance with either Church or State if he thinks them interposing on that broad highway over which he believes not a part but the whole of mankind has the privilege of passing in the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... dream-dazzled youth, striving like a knight-errant for the love of a lady and the glory of conquest, but he was also a born fighter, and in every emergency he had shown himself as able as ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... heap of dried leaves, laid his cloak upon them, and picked up Isoult to lay her upon the cloak. His arms about her woke her up. Scarce knowing what she did, dreaming possibly of her mother, she put up her face towards his; but if Prosper noticed it, no errant mercy from him sent her to bed comforted. He put her down, covered her about with the cloak, and patted her shoulder with an easy—"Good-night, my lass." This was cold cheer to the poor girl, who had to be content with his ministry of the cloak. ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... occasion the saint was more successful. Laurentia, a maiden of youthful years, placed by her father within the sheltering walls of a cloister, to assume ultimately monastic vows, was quickly captured by an errant demon. As an irrefutable demonstration of the impure origin of her infirmity, an annalist asserts, this spirit promptly answered in elegant Latinity all questions propounded; but the strongest confirmation ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... introductions goes on duly, a small staff of energetic professional gentlemen, styled M.C.'s (which in London, you know, stands for Master of the Ceremonies), flit ever hither and thither amongst the throng, now catching a wildly errant waltzing couple in politely resolute arms and sending them back into the regular ring, now getting up sets for Lancers and quadrilles, and at all points doing their best to keep the ball a-rolling. Useful members of society, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... his imagination was much occupied with two women, to neither of whom would he have held it possible that he should ever make love. Hans Meyrick had laughed at him for having something of the knight-errant in his disposition; and he would have found his proof if he had known what was just now going on in Deronda's mind about ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... puncturing. The master of the place was a tall Italian, lank and lean, all bone and muscle, with a Don Quixote visage, barring a certain villainous expression of the eyes, irreconcilable with the chivalrous knight-errant of distressed Dulcineas. But every man with a bad eye is not necessarily a rascallion, and Spedella, perhaps, was better than he looked. With a most melancholy glance he was now watching two combatants, novices in feats of arms. Dejection sat upon his brow; he yawned over a clumsy ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... send me her box key, and I was to secrete her letters for her. Important indeed, those letters must be, that she should go to such lengths to get them. Well, I had constituted myself her knight errant in that particular, and I would ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... many as he could muster, the burgesses from the towns, the clergy from all the great centres of the Church, on mules and soft-pacing palfreys, would gather for the meetings of Parliament. It scarcely wanted a knight-errant like the fourth James, with his chivalrous tastes and devices, to fill the noble town with brightness, for all these fine sights were familiar to Edinburgh. But the brightest day was ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... her idol. His first impression of nature was the silent solitude and vastness of the Hungarian plains, which probably helped to accentuate an inherent strain of melancholy. Led astray by a youthful errant passion, he is haunted by a feeling of guilt, of lost innocence, and Dame Melancholy becomes his faithful life companion. When later happiness in the guise of human love crosses his pathway, he does ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... man of letters, born at Bourg, in the department of Ain; was educated at Bourg and Lyons, went to Paris in 1820, and in 1823 produced a satire called "Les Tablettes du Juif-Errant," at which time he came under the influence of HERDER (q. v.) and executed in French a translation of his "Philosophy of Humanity," prefaced with an introduction which procured him the friendship of Michelet, a friendship which lasted with life; appointed to a post in Greece, he collected ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... only with the arrival of Penrod's mother, who had been having a painful conversation by telephone with Mrs. Jones, the mother of Marjorie, and came forth to seek an errant son. It is a mystery how she was able to pick out her own, for by the time she got there his voice was too hoarse to be recognizable. Mr. Schofield's version of things was that Penrod was insane. "He's a stark, raving lunatic!" declared the father, descending to the library ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... was a woman of strong character and, after the shock of hearing the report of her husband's death, took up her duties with composure, though the lines in her face seemed deeper, and Rodney saw that an errant lock of her hair, which he had always thought a part of the attractiveness of her fair face, was now quite gray, and, as she pushed it aside, a familiar way she had, he noticed how thin and white her hand was and saw that ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... Errant thoughts, light as summer fleece, drifted across her mind. Often, in such moments, she strove to realise that she was now mistress of herself; but never ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... long lean bar of silver spans The ebon-rippled water-way, And like a lost moon's errant ray Strikes on ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 9, 1914 • Various
... the Saint, who has lagged far in the rear, steps in the way, cajoles Shark into listening to his advice, and, with a big stick and a few of the most gorgeous expletives of which he is eminently the master, persuades the errant hound of his mistake. Deep and dire are the maledictions heaved at the unhappy Shark, and in which his companions, Rimu and Toto, Wolf and Katipo, have unjustly to share. For the row occasioned by the ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... horse belonging to Don Quixote who was the romantic and absurdly chivalric hero of a satirical Spanish novel entitled The History of the Valorous and Witty Knight Errant, Don Quixote of the Mancha ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... faintly crooning sabbath bells At evening in the golden fells I heard; the tinkle of the rills In haunts where childish fancy fed; I saw the orchard daffodils About the calm homestead; Ah, saddest thought that ever fills An errant heart that memory thrills, The heath-smell of his homeland hills To one whose loves are ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... Roseville, turning to a bending and blushing countenance beside her, which I then first perceived—"See what it is to be a knight errant; even his language, is worthy of Amadis of Gaul—but—(again addressing me) your adventures are really too shocking a subject to treat lightly. We lay our serious orders on you to come to our castle this ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... faith, our hatred of war and oppression. His great genius seemed to me to be always held firmly in hand by a sense of duty, and by the practical common sense of a shrewd man of business. He fought through life like an old knight-errant, but without enthusiasm. He had no personal ideals. I remember once how he remonstrated with me for my admiration for General Gordon. He looked upon that wonderful personality as a wild fighter, a rash adventurer, doing evil that good might come. He could not see him as I saw him, giving his life ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... invisible to our eyes, but very clear to the bright little minds for whom it was intended. Politics were evidently their grand interest; the Duke of Wellington their demi-god. All that related to him belonged to the heroic age. Did Charlotte want a knight-errant, or a devoted lover, the Marquis of Douro, or Lord Charles Wellesley, came ready to her hand. There is hardly one of her prose-writings at this time in which they are not the principal personages, and in which their "august father" does not appear as a sort of Jupiter ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... after her sudden flight, M. Fould received a letter from the errant diva, in which she demanded permission to return and fill her contract. M. Fould consented, and accepted her plea of "a misunderstanding," but the public were not so easily placated, and when she appeared on the stage as Valentine the ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... genial climes of the south, and under the blaze of romantic chivalry. Hence, during the dark ages, the invisible world was modelled after the material; and the saints, to the protection of whom the knights-errant were accustomed to recommend themselves, were accoutered like preux chevaliers, by the ardent imaginations of their votaries. With such ideas concerning the inhabitants of the celestial regions, we ought not to be surprised to find the inferior spirits, ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... sitting in my room alone, so, putting on my hat, I strolled into the streets, and finally found myself at the house in the Rue Crillon. Madame Coutance was at home, and she received me with high good-humour, calling me one of her knights-errant, and declaring I had helped to save her life, which ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... wont be blockheads in the common road. Do but survey this crowded house to-night:— Here's still encouragement for those that write. 30 Our author, to divert his friends to-day, Stocks with variety of fools his play; And that there may be something gay and new, Two ladies-errant has exposed to view: The first a damsel, travelled in romance; The t'other more refined; she comes from France: Rescue, like courteous knights, the nymph from danger; And kindly treat, like ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville |
