"Recreant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had twitched so that the astonished palfrey reared. "I design torture," the Queen said; "ah, I perfect exquisite torture, for you have proven recreant, you have forgotten the maid Ysabeau,—Le Desir du Cuer, was it not, my Gregory, that you were wont to call her, as nowadays this Rosamund is the desire of ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... than innate love, These to my wish must recreant prove; Nor whilst an impulse here remain, Can ever hope the soul to gain; For memory scanning all the past, Relaxes her firm bonds at last, And gives to candor all the grace The heart can in its ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... "Where is this recreant knight?" said Francesca. There was something in the tone of Miss Altifiorla's voice which grated against Cecilia's ears, and almost made her angry. But she knew that in her present condition it behoved her to be especially careful. Had she ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... art!" replied Henry; "no dunghill cock, the most recreant that has fought this Fastern's Eve, would ruffle his feathers at ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... their muskets and retreated with a quick step towards the main body. Vanderhorst and his men gave them three huzzas! but did not at that distance fire a shot. Thus a British officer was met on his own boasted ground and proved recreant. The next morning Major M'Ilraith abandoned his heavy baggage, left his fires burning, and retired silently from the ground, along the river road towards Singelton's mill, distant ten miles. Near day Marion discovered his movement, and ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... manner, entered the room, and announced to the astonished members of the council the alarming tidings that one of their own body, and, until that day, an active participator in their discussions, had proved a Judas, and was now, with a band of his recreant neighbors, on his way to the British camp. The news fell like a thunder-clap on the council, producing, at first, a sensation not often witnessed in so grave an assemblage. But no formal comments were offered; and, after the commotion had subsided, ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... and works miracles and holds out his arms at the goal. We have come shuddering to the awful mystery of being; strange and terrible words have been spoken—words never to be forgotten—"phenomenon," and "thing-in-itself"; not knowing what these words mean, you are ignorant and recreant to the truth; knowing what they mean, you tug no more at the veil. Also we have learned that time and change are our portion, "the plastic dance of circumstance"; we talk no more of immortality. We have turned our hopes to the new birth of time, to the new goal ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... quoth Robert with a hard smile, "when they dangled him up with a line out of the moat. Change and adventure are meet for all men. And I look that I do a good deed, when I restore a recreant shepherd to the fold." The priest went off, crying unworthy tears and cursing the new lord, to try and find a priest's office if he could; and Robert rode grimly away, back to his uncle, and told ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... be cultivated as well as the active capacities, and required to be nourished and enriched as well as guided. I did not, for an instant, lose sight of, or undervalue, that part of the truth which I had seen before; I never turned recreant to intellectual culture, or ceased to consider the power and practice of analysis as an essential condition both of individual and of social improvement. But I thought that it had consequences which required to be corrected, by joining other kinds of cultivation ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... space between me and the house where I designed to stop, and the time between then and sun-down, were somewhat disproportionate; so I pricked gallantly forward; as gallantly at least as could be expected from a tired horse, and a knight whose recreant thoughts were intensely fixed on dollars and cents, supper, and other trifling affairs. By dint however of much patience in the steed, and much impatience in the rider, we got over the ground, and approached a house that had been in sight ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... Viscellinus, the author of the earliest agrarian law, passed, but never carried into execution. He was condemned to death,—probably a victim to the rancorous opposition of the patrician order, of which he was regarded as a recreant member by virtue of his advocacy of the rights or just claims of the plebs. Cicero in early life was by no means so hostile to the principle underlying the agrarian laws, and to the memory of the Gracchi, as he was after ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... marked the campaign of 1600 in Munster. On the other hand, O'Donnell had twice exercised his severe supremacy over southern Connaught, burning the Earl of Thomond's new town of Ennis, and sweeping the vales and plains of Clare, and of Clanrickarde, of the animal wealth of their recreant Earls, now actively ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... the sake of her rouge friends that she approached the President at all, and she has used the hand he stretched out to her only on behalf of persons in prison and distress. The same, being delivered, call her gratefully a recreant. ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... with a unanimity of purpose never apparent in their short married life, rising from their common tomb and hastening to that other tomb at the end of the alley, and falling at the feet of the one to whom in life he had been recreant in love, ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... he looks forward to be the lord of a first-rate embassy; and a poor novelist, when he attempts to rival Dickens or rise above Fitzjeames, commits no fault, though he may be foolish. Sydney Smith truly said that in these recreant days we cannot expect to find the majesty of St. Paul beneath the cassock of a curate. If we look to our clergymen to be more than men, we shall probably teach ourselves to think that they are less, and can hardly hope to raise the character of the pastor by denying to him the right to entertain ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... something more than a brilliant heathenism. No wonder that Amos of the text, having heard these two anthems of the stars, put down the stout rough staff of the herdsman and took into his brown hand and cut and knotted fingers the pen of a prophet, and advised the recreant people of his time to return to God, saying: "Seek Him that maketh the Seven Stars and Orion." This command, which Amos gave 785 years B.C., is just as ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... his mind than he became bitterly angry with himself for having indulged in it. How recreant, how base an idea! ... how incompatible with the adoring homage he felt for his friend! What!—Sah-luma,—a Poet, whose songs of Love were so perfect, so wildly sweet and soul- entrancing—HE, to be ignorant ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... people's rights) to crush the people's liberties, and compel them to receive officials so lost to self-respect as to accept appointments against the known and expressed wish of the people, and so craven and degraded as to need an army to protect them in their position, we feel that we should be recreant to every principle of self-respect, honor, integrity, and patriotism to bow tamely to such high-handed tyranny, a parallel for which is only found in the attempts of the British government, in its most corrupt stages, against the rights, ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... being Leo's very sincere friend, and knowing that the supreme moment of her facial triumph is when, like a startled fawn, she opens her eyes wide in horrified amazement at some inconceivable heresy, do you suppose I am so recreant to loyalty as to fail in providing her occasionally with the necessary Gorgon, ethical or archaeolegical, as ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... the throbbing veins.— Albion, displeas'd, her own lov'd Spring surveys Passing, with volant step, o'er russet plains; Sees her to Summer's fierce embraces speed, Pale, and unrobed.—Faithless! thou well may'st hide Close in his sultry breast thy recreant head, That did'st, neglecting thy distinguish'd Isle, In Winter's icy arms so long abide, While Britain vainly ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... familiar as these. In Speght's Chaucer (1667), there is a long list of "old and obscure words in Chaucer explained"; including 'anthem', 'blithe', 'bland', 'chapelet', 'carol', 'deluge', 'franchise', 'illusion', 'problem', 'recreant', 'sphere', 'tissue', 'transcend', with very many easier than these. In Skinner's Etymologicon (1671), there is another list of obsolete, words{86}, and among these he includes 'to dovetail', 'to interlace', 'elvish', 'encombred', 'masquerade' ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... to never intrust to any hands but their own, that thing is the preservation and perpetuity of their own liberties and institutions. And if they shall think as I do, that the extension of slavery endangers them more than any or all other causes, how recreant to themselves if they submit The question, and with it the fate of their country, to a mere handful of men bent only on seif-interest. If this question of slavery extension were an insignificant one, one having no power to do harm—it might be shuffled aside in ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... rejoined. "Or possibly he has returned home. I no longer take account of his existence. Felix, I shall never leave my wife. I had rather prove recreant to the oath I took before I realized the worth of the woman whose happiness I vowed to destroy. This is what I have come to tell you. Make it easy for me, Felix. You are a man who has loved and suffered. Let us bury ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... Babbalanja. You must allude, then, to those recreant tribes; which, while in their own eyes presenting a sublime moral spectacle to Mardi,—in King Bello's, do but present a hopeless example of bad debts. And these, the tribes that boast of ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... there is nae rule wi'out its aicciptions." And then he added, "A pledge to a boy in play, like to ours of yester-eve, Baby Charles, is not to be kept when matters of state conflict." Then turning to the Spanish ambassador, he said: "Rest content, my lord count. This recreant Raleigh ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... more fashionable life!) had assembled at Charlie's Hope to witness the event of this memorable evening. Finding the punch-bowl was so often replenished that there was some danger of their gracious presence being forgotten, they rushed in valorously upon the recreant revellers, headed by our good mistress Ailie, so that Venus speedily routed Bacchus. The fiddler and piper next made their appearance, and the best part of the night was gallantly consumed in dancing ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... at me again, and sickened me with her unmeaning laughter. I remembered the object of my visit, and struggled for composure. Had I become a recreant so quickly? Had I not a word to say for my Master? Nothing to offer the needy creatures, perishing, perhaps, of spiritual want? Alarmed at my own apathy, and eager to throw it off, I turned to the poor girl, and spoke to her. I asked her ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... moment she entered the room, "I am a wretch. It was I who compelled Medwin to promise me, upon his honor as a man, that he would not fight Allington; and now that all the world has frowned upon him, I, too, have turned recreant, and cast him off. Mother, speak to me no word of command or remonstrance. I will never see Mr. Allington again; and I will this very hour go to Medwin, and throw myself on my knees before him. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... will never a recreant turn, While the knightly badge on his arm is borne; And long, beneath the Syrian sun, He fasted and ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... made on that evening. Mr. Gresham delivered an oration of which men said that it would be known in England as long as there were any words remaining of English eloquence. In it he taunted Mr. Turnbull with being a recreant to the people, of whom he called himself so often the champion. But Mr. Turnbull was not in the least moved. Mr. Gresham knew well enough that Mr. Turnbull was not to be moved by any words;—but the words were not ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... flesh has been cooked, it is shared out in like manner among all the people, everybody partaking of at least a morsel; not to partake of the feast would be equivalent to excommunication, it would be to place the recreant outside the pale of Aino fellowship. Formerly every particle of the bear, except the bones, had to be eaten up at the banquet, but this rule is now relaxed. The head, on being detached from the skin, is set up on a long pole beside the sacred wands (inao) outside of the house, where ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... word from Frank which should say that he was ready to defy his mother, and abide by his first promise. But no such letter came, and at last, when she could bear the suspense no longer, Ethelyn wrote herself to her recreant lover, asking if it were really so that hereafter their lives lay apart from each other. If such was his wish, she was content, she said, and Frank Van Buren, who could not detect the air of superb scorn which breathed in every line of that letter, felt somehow aggrieved ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... to say, the character of the blithe Adele, notwithstanding the terrible nature of her early associations, seems to fuse more readily into agreement with the moral atmosphere about her than does that of the recreant boy. There may not be, indeed, perfect accord; but there are at least no sharp and fatal antagonisms to overcome. If the lithe spirit of the girl bends under the grave teachings of the Doctor, it bends with a charming grace, and rises again smilingly, when sober speech is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... flight of William, viscount of Melun, surnamed the Carpenter, from the weighty strokes of his axe; and the saints were scandalized by the fall [971] of Peter the Hermit, who, after arming Europe against Asia, attempted to escape from the penance of a necessary fast. Of the multitude of recreant warriors, the names (says an historian) are blotted from the book of life; and the opprobrious epithet of the rope-dancers was applied to the deserters who dropped in the night from the walls of Antioch. The emperor Alexius, [98] who seemed ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... truth, beausire; and in all this do I see the malice and device of this false Atheling, the friend of your rebellious brother, Duke Robert, as you do know him to be; and I do brand him here, in this presence, as traitor and recreant to you, ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... fear some recreant thought, Which now I all forget, That painful feeling in me wrought Of ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... 'mid the cannons' thunder, Whistling shot and bursting bomb, When my brothers fall around me, Should my heart grow cold and numb?' But the drum Answered, 'Come! Better there in death united, than in life a recreant,—Come!'" —BRET HARTE. ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... disclosures he had just made. He had reason to distrust the tactics such men might employ. His relief arising from the show-down was tinged with regret; he was still sorry for the innocent losers in Egypt. To employ two escaped convicts and a recreant prison guard in his efforts to prevail on Britt and secure the rights due an innocent man promised to involve him ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... the soul of a skunk, he'll foller and close in upon 'em before they have a chance to get into the brush." Having thus relieved himself of his duty as an enforced noncombatant, and allowed all further responsibility to devolve upon his recreant fellow employees, he relapsed into his usual taciturnity, and drove a trifle less recklessly to the station, where he grimly set down his bruised and discomfited passengers. As Key mingled with them, he could not help perceiving ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... when pushed far enough becomes incoherence. The psychologist prefers vision and it would display none to believe that she did it. In the abstract, that is to be regretted. A lovely assassin! A beautiful girl slaying a recreant lover! A future prima donna killing a local millionaire! Monty Paliser murdered by the Viscountess of Casa-Evora! And at the opera! If I had ever put anything of the kind in my copy, reviewers would have indolently asked: "Why doesn't this ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... Rielle,'" she exclaimed, "you think you are entitled to pursue a recreant sheep of the flock even over here! Oh! it is not on account of the storm—I know that—that you follow me! I have seen this coming for some time, and ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... plead their cause at the bar of the convention. In contrast with this, Fillmore had no support from New York. The Whigs of that State had sent a delegation to impeach him before the nation for faithlessness to principle, and to demand that votes of other States should not impose on New York a recreant son to confound ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... be the last administered to him by the Amazonian young person, who after her mate feared to approach the dead blackamoor must have known him to be cowardly as Cairenes generally are. Moreover, he had no shame in his poltroonery like the recreant Fellah-soldiers, in the wretched Sawkin campaign against the noble Sdni negroids, who excused their running away by saying, "We are Egyptians" i.e. too good men and Moslems to lose our lives as becomes you Franks and dog-Christians. Yet under ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... unquestioning faith, I went on to inquire whether he felt himself equal to the delicate duty of hanging about the yard of the Black Swan, and watching the doors of exit from that hotel, with a view to following my recreant nephew wherever he might go, even if considerably beyond the limits of Ullerton. I saw that the lad's intelligence was likely to be equal to this transaction, unless there should arise any difficult ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... I whispered, as tenderly as I could, "I would not be worthily your husband if I went not to meet those who are fighting to save us all this night. They have come from far to deliver us. I were false and recreant if I ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... so; Yet now I know thee, I do lie that say it, For if she be a villain like thyself, A perjur'd traitor, recreant, miscreant, Dog—a dog, a ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... place the murderers of Alton side by side with Otis and Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I thought those pictured lips (pointing to the portraits in the Hall) would have broken into voice to rebuke the recreant American— the slanderer of the dead. The gentleman said that he should sink into insignificance if he dared to gainsay the principles of these resolutions. Sir, for the sentiments he has uttered, on soil consecrated by the prayers of Puritans and the ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... original consciousness of the people, and to be a part of their earliest memories. We send our children to Sunday-school, and we go to church and learn how God's rewards or punishments fell upon the men of old, as they were faithful or recreant; but we don't seem to be like the men of old, for we are neither very good nor very bad—hardly worth God's while to sort us over for any uncommon lot. Only once, in the case of John Markley, did the Lord reach into our town and show His righteous judgment. And that judgment was ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... only did he share the mountain dweller's wariness of question, but he instantly conceived the idea that the stranger had heard gossip and he was in arms to defend his own. His ancestors, who long ago had shielded the recreant great-aunt, were no keener than Peter now was to protect and preserve the honour of the little girl who, by her recent acts—and Greyson had only Jed's words and the mountain talk to go by—had aroused in him all that was fine enough to suffer. ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... commotion, as the ladies flocked with the children into the hall, with many exclamations of astonishment and reproach, surrounding the recreant young men. Mr. Errol, the Captain, the veteran, and even Mr. Perrowne, came to learn what was the matter. When they heard the intentions of the pair, Mr. Thomas and the parson were prepared to make the most ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... native, and he at once scented the favourite device for two to take the travelling allowance, and then, by some amicable arrangement, for only one to go. So messengers were sent in haste to look up the recreant, who finally joined us with cheerful face at the West Gate, which we reached by a rough path outside the ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... him, looking like an angry queen about to condemn a recreant vassal to death. And Esterhazy, with the mien and gait of a culprit, carne into her presence with a bow that was almost ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... people and all their chattels" went deep into the forests of Cratloe and the rocky fastnesses of the County Clare; and there they lived the life of robber chieftains, harassing and plundering the Danes of Limerick and their recreant Irish allies, and guarding against frequent surprise and attack. But so hazardous and unsettled a life was terribly exhausting, and "at length each party of them became tired of the other," and finally King Mahon made peace with the Danes ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... not doubt her sincerity. But with the injustice of a passionate, jealous love she did not so much blame her recreant lover. Some charm, some art, must have been used, perhaps by a third person, and the girl be guiltless. And if she could send her away and remain ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... worthless recreant, and in thickest fight Blot out thy guilty purpose: know thy life Depends on this day's daring; and its deeds And wounds alone, won in the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... would be spoiled. Our great man was alarmingly taken by it, was saying his prayers all day and had nearly marched back again: had it not been for the excellence of the rum and water at our quarters, the champion of the Charter would have proved a pious recreant." ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... we parted for three months, and I hurried to meet my lover, who had promised to join me in Vermont, where my mother had gone to recruit her failing health. For the first time Maurice proved recreant, and wrote that imperative business detained him in New York. Did I doubt him, even then? Not in the least; but endeavored by cheerful letters to show him how patiently I could bear the separation that might result in pecuniary advantage ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... was thrown wide open and my recreant guests reappeared half-dragging, half-pushing before them a matchless Adonis in glazed tarpaulin trousers and ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... ere the Colonel joined me. He had been to the jobbing-tailor's to be sewn up in several places, and attributed our defeat to the refusal of the detested Drowvey to fall. Finding her so obstinate he had said to her in a loud voice, "Die, recreant!" but had found her no more open to reason on that ...
— The Trial of William Tinkling - Written by Himself at the Age of 8 Years • Charles Dickens
... and rebellion at "the inexorable trend of things," I entered the car, and when from its window I looked back upon my grieving mother, my throat filled with a suffocating sense of guilt. I was deserting her, recreant to my blood!—That I was re-enacting the most characteristic of all American dramas in thus pursuing an ambitious career in a far-off city I most poignantly realized and yet—I went! It seemed to me at the time that my duty lay in the way of giving up all my selfish ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... other? Why, sir, if the people of Pennsylvania could sustain a distinction so odious, the very shades of their ancestors would rise from the battlefields of the Revolution, from Paoli and Germantown, and call their children bondmen of Carolina, vassals and recreant slaves! I speak not now of the whiskey insurrection, when, at the order of Washington, the militia of Virginia and of other States moved against the people of Western Pennsylvania, under the command of the Governor of Virginia and Carolina, and the nation approved the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... already stolen so much. In fact it presented the further theft as a sort of duty. This sum, large as it was, really amounted to nothing in comparison with the sum he owed the company; but it formed his only means of restitution, and if he did not take it and use it to that end, he might be held recreant to his moral obligations. He contended, from that vestibule of his soul where he was not a thief, with that self of his inmost where he was a thief, that it was all most fortunate, if not providential, as it had fallen out. Not only had his broker ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... the whole parish there are but five, I believe, who have not readily come forward to proclaim their zeal for their God, their King, and their Church: those five, I doubt not, will be here when we proceed to check the names. Let it not be said that there was one recreant in Echanbroignes—one man afraid to answer when called for by his country. Is there danger in the bloody battle we have before us?—let us all share it, and it will be lighter. Is it a grievous thing for you to leave your wives and your ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... words to them in the native tongue. In a moment more—almost before I could realize my good fortune, every Indian had melted away into the forest. I heard Mackenzie cry out with baffled rage and furiously curse his recreant allies. Then a silence fell, broken only by the dull roar of ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... read and re-read what was the fullness of their woe. And she couldn't help hating King Mark, even if he was Isoud's lawful lord, because he proved himself such a recreant and false traitor to true love. Of course, he WAS Isoud's husband; and Missy lived in Cherryvale, where conventions were not complicated and were strictly adhered to; else scandal was the result. But she told herself that this situation was different ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... theirs upon which to thrust the blame of their helplessness. "Criminal helplessness," he called it, mutteringly. He tried to define the idea—or the idea tried to define itself—that they had somehow been recreant to their social caste, by getting down into the condition and estate of what one may call the alien poor. Carondelet street had in some way specially vexed him to-day, and now here was this. It was bad enough, he thought, for men to slip into riches through dark back windows; but here was ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... MY DEAR RECREANT LAGGARD: If you are not too busy playing Sir Lancelot to fair dames in distress, or splintering lances with the doughty husbands of these same ladies, I pray you deign to allow your servant to feast her eyes upon her lord's face. Hopefully and gratefully ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... Bernard teasingly, alluding to the recreant Jim. "I wouldn't have a dog that was ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... the pretty superior smile of a young empress pardoning a recreant subject, and suffered him to draw her again, but with more gentleness, into his embrace. She put up her lips to meet his—I looked on like a man in a dream! I saw them cling together—each kiss they exchanged was a fresh stab ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... had occurred, especially as some of the yells indicated that somebody had come to grief. This caused him a very laborious run, and he arrived thoroughly blown, and with a natural desire to kick the recreant villager ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... recreant cavalier she went on to rage against life built on a man-made plan for the benefit of man. Women were hurt, no matter what they did. Being good wasn't any use. You got hurt all the worse if you were good. It was silly even to try. It was better to shut ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... you should renounce your arms; your reputation has suffered from it. Every one used to say not long ago that in all the world there was known no better or more gallant knight. Now they all go about making game of you—old and young, little and great—calling you a recreant. Do you suppose it does not give me pain to hear you thus spoken of with scorn? It grieves me when I hear it said, and yet it grieves me more that they put the blame for it on me. Yes, I am blamed for it, I regret to say, and they all assert it is because I have so ensnared ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... wife?" she asked, arranging her scarf. "I never desire to be with him, or with any man recreant to his work." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... was lost by a majority of three, recreant Liberals again helping to defeat the just claim of a man whom they disliked; and Bradlaugh did not take his seat until the new Parliament in 1886 admitted, without a division, the right which the old Parliament had denied. Meanwhile, a few ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... compromise. God does not commit His testimony to the Church, while in such condition; nor to the faithful in the Church, whose voice and actions are weakened or neutralized by majorities. This important and hazardous task throughout the ages has not been committed to a Church, that is recreant at any point; nor to individuals, that are true at every point; but to a distinctive body of earnest, faithful, and fearless believers. For this purpose the Lord has divided, and sub-divided, His people time and again. He will have a testimony by a Church that is distinct from every retrograde ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... up a small piece of silver, in a moment the light boat was at the foot of the accommodation-ladder. Ghita now descended; and as soon as her uncle and she were seated, the skiff, for it was little more, whirled away from the ship's side, though two or three more, who had also been left by recreant boatmen for better fares, called out to him to receive ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... and yet could hardly believe her eyes, her ears, her instincts—could not realize that in this rough, disordered, unkempt figure, with the torn clothes and the dark stains on his ragged sleeve, she saw the handsome, graceful, debonair lover of her girlhood, the recreant bridegroom who had left her on the very threshold of ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Burleigh's shaking hands. "Up with you, man!" he cries. "It's your scalp you're fighting for. Here, take a drink of this," and his filled canteen is glued to Burleigh's ashen lips. A long pull, a gasp, and hardly knowing what he does, the recreant officer kneels at the nearmost rock, aims at a painted savage leaping to the aid of a fallen brother, and the chance shot, for a marvel, finds its mark, and with a howl the ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... Diana, placing her fore-finger on her mouth,—"Hush! no more of that. Forsake the faith of my gallant fathers! I would as soon, were I a man, forsake their banner when the tide of battle pressed hardest against it, and turn, like a hireling recreant, ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... he directed himself to be brought once more on the deck. There, in spite of the agony he was suffering, he continued to give his orders. One of the last he issued was to direct the other captains to "keep the line and behave like men." Great was his grief, vexation, and rage, when the recreant captains came on board and declared that enough had been done, and that it would be dangerous to follow the enemy. In vain the old admiral pleaded with them. They persisted that by so doing they would ensure the destruction of their ships and ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... appreciative foreigners. The general tendency of those years after the Italian disaster was unfavourable to the Slav. In southern Hungary the Serbian duchy was dissolved, despite their protests, after an existence of eleven years. But as Francis Joseph was no longer able to bestow caresses on the recreant Italians he transferred his love to the Dalmatian autonomists, who now began to call themselves the Italian party. It is probable that he smiled on these 21/2 per cent. of the province, not only because of his family traditions, his leaning towards Italian ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... his breast. "Why stay'st thou, Turnus? Wherefore this delay? Fierce arms, not swiftness, must decide the day. Shift as thou wilt, and every shape assume; Exhaust thy courage and thy craft, and pray For wings to soar with, or in earth's dark womb Sink low thy recreant head, and hide thee ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... John. Time hastens, and I reply. Your knight of the silver mantle I proclaim a recreant, as treacherous as he is base. Sir John, for my—no, for your ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... magic, and play tricks on the credulity of ignorant people by his knowledge of some simple secrets of chemistry; that he should pretend to prophetic gifts which in his heart he knew to be fraud, and should be recreant to his ancestral faith, proved him to deserve the penetrating sentence which Paul passed on him. He was a trickster, and knew that he was: his inspiration came from an evil source; he had come to hate righteousness of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... avenge his death, for wife and children's sake preferred to foil inquiry rather than confront the truth and challenge it. He might not have meant to go so far, at first beginning with it; but, starting once, might be driven on by grievous loss, and bitter sense of recreant friends, and the bleak despair of a homeless world before him. And serving as the scape-goat thus, he might have received from the real culprit a pledge for concealment ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... however, soon carried him away from the actual brink of the precipice. "But how about the dragon," said she, "or rather about the dragon's brother, at whom you were bound to go and tilt on my behalf? Have you tilted, or are you a recreant knight?" ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... A recreant Harp, that sings of fear And heaviness in Clifford's ear! I said, when evil Men are strong, No life is good, no pleasure long, A weak and cowardly untruth! Our Clifford was a happy Youth, And thankful through a weary time, 110 That brought him up to manhood's prime. —Again he wanders ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... Resolution is proved recreant; the Countenance hath changed his copy; and the passionate knight is shedding funeral ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... themselves in their eagles and pets, and the Eighty-sixth too, had long since concluded she "paid too dear for the whistle," not to cherish it in lasting remembrance. In years hence, when all things else will seem to have passed away, memory will not prove recreant to the faithful friend of all—the ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear
... articulations of his body, the wind of a spirit not wholly his; that his mind rebels; that another girds him and carries him whither he would not. It came now to Herrick, with the authority of a revelation. There was no escape possible. The open door was closed in his recreant face. He must go back into the world and amongst men without illusion. He must stagger on to the end with the pack of his responsibility and his disgrace, until a cold, a blow, a merciful chance ball, or the more merciful hangman, should dismiss him from his infamy. There were men who ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... within the mead; Four grooms impelled the coursers on,— A fearful ending for Ganelon. His every nerve was stretched and torn, And the limbs of his body apart were borne; The bright blood, springing from every vein, Left on the herbage green its stain. He dies a felon and recreant: Never shall ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... flame; a glow of light held at arm's length by the recreant follower of Destiny illuminating a tableau which shall end the ignominious chronicle—a maid with unkissed, curling, contemptuous lips slowly lifting the lamp chimney and allowing the wick to ignite; then waving a scornful and abjuring hand toward the staircase—the unhappy Tansey, erstwhile ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... scope for the problem element in teaching and we are recreant to our opportunities and do violence to child-nature if we fail to utilize this method. We are much given to the analytic in our teaching, whereas the pupil enjoys the synthetic. He yearns to make things. Constructing problems in arithmetic, ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... frowned the King in sore despite; "A murrain seize that traitrous knight, For that he lies!" he cried— "A base, unchristian paynim he, Else, by my beard, he would not be A recreant to ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... those look avow, The mantling cheek, the knitting brow: I could not hope it did he live, But now, O! now, ye must forgive! Most recreant they who dare offend One who has lost her only friend! De Stafford's widow here appears— For him, my Eustace, flow these tears! Ye may not blame me! ye have wives, Who yet may sorrow for your lives! ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... later the recreant lover reappeared and finally married poor disappointed Mary, who died very complaisantly in a short time and left him free to marry his first love, which he quickly did. We find the Judge after his daughter's death higgling over her marriage portion with Mr. Gerrish, Sr., and see that ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... not angrily, as was the case the previous night when she walked away her head high in the air after seeing Sally Salisbury—of all women in the world!—in his arms. She was in a tumult of passion, and when that subsided tears of indignation rushed to her eyes. She made no excuses for her recreant lover, no allowances for accidents and misadventures. She did not, indeed, think he had set out to insult her, but the unhappy fact was patent that he knew the wanton Sally, and that he had a tender regard for her. Lavinia's reading of the thing was that in her ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... Put struck up the muskets of his men was always visible in the thickest of the fight, waving in air, descending with resounding whacks—the flat of it—upon recreant soldiers' shoulders; held threateningly against the breast of cowardly artillerymen, when, their cartridges proving inadequate, they ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... we had in Rome first heard through that soldier a rumor of his being yet alive—but at the same time, that he had renounced his country and become a Persian Satrap. I told him of thy faith in him and of Portia's that he would never prove a recreant to his country—of thy instant journey to Palmyra, with purpose to cross the desert thyself and risk all the dangers of Ecbatana to accomplish his deliverance, and of the counsel of Gracchus, which caused thee to make me ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... alike to horse. Through all the host the barons speedily arm themselves and mount. But the Saxon knight, all armed, his visor laced, has continued to pursue Cliges at a gallop. Cliges, who never wished to have aught in common with a recreant or coward, sees him come alone. First of all the knight has assailed him with words: he stoutly calls him baseborn fellow, for he could not conceal the mind he had of him. "Fellow," quoth he, "here wilt thou leave the forfeit for my ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... Kilshaw declared. But far worse remained: in the capital itself, in that very Park in which they were, there was to be an immense meeting: the Premier himself would speak, and the thousands who listened were to threaten the recreant Legislature with vengeance if it threw out the ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... antic shapes I take; The stoutest heart at my touch will quake. The miser dreams of a bag of gold, Or a ponderous chest on his bosom rolled. The drunkard groans 'neath a cask of wine; The reveller swelts 'neath a weighty chine. The recreant turns, by his foes assailed, To flee!—but his feet to the ground are nailed. The goatherd dreams of his mountain-tops, And, dizzily ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... army's entry into Gaul, have run away from their old masters and betaken themselves to new ones. Let them be restored to their rightful owners. Rights must not be confounded under the rule of justice, nor ought the defender of liberty to favour recreant slaves. [Probably an allusion to the office of the Assertor Libertatis in the Liberalis Causa, as set forth in the Theodosian Code iv. 8.] Let other kings desire the glory of battles won, of cities taken, of ruins made; ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... not bear to be observed. It seemed to him that every one would see in his face that he was a recreant priest, perjured and forsworn. And so great had been his spiritual pride! So removed he had deemed himself from the weakness of humanity! And he had yielded at the first temptation, and the commonest of all temptations! Thank God, he had not quite yielded. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... stood. Where there was discontent, I see contentment; where there was turbulence, I see peace, where there was disloyalty, I see loyalty." Then the fury of party anger burst upon him, and bowing to the storm, Robert Peel went forth while men hissed after him such words as "traitor," "coward," "recreant leader." Nor did he foresee that in losing an office he had gained the love of ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... to trespass upon the time of the Conference at this stage of the debate. But statements have been made upon this floor to-day which I cannot permit for a single hour to remain unanswered. I should be recreant to my conscience, and especially to my State, if I did not answer ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... yield, The stern Atrides rages round the field: So some fell lion whom the woods obey, Roars through the desert, and demands his prey. Paris he seeks, impatient to destroy, But seeks in vain along the troops of Troy; Even those had yielded to a foe so brave The recreant warrior, hateful as the grave. Then speaking thus, the king of kings arose, "Ye Trojans, Dardans, all our generous foes! Hear and attest! from Heaven with conquest crown'd, Our brother's arms the just success have found: Be therefore now ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... knight smote King Arthur's sword in two pieces, wherefore he was heavy. Then said the knight unto Arthur, Thou art in my daunger whether me list to save thee or slay thee, and but thou yield thee as overcome and recreant, thou shalt die. As for death, said King Arthur, welcome be it when it cometh, but to yield me unto thee as recreant I had liefer die than to be so shamed. And therewithal the king leapt unto Pellinore, ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... to Alister to seem for a moment to follow the example of the recreant chiefs whose defection to feudalism was the prelude to their treachery toward their people, and whose faithlessness had ruined the highlands. But unlike Glengarry or "Esau" Reay, he desired to sell his land that he might ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald |
