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Volunteer   /vˌɑləntˈɪr/   Listen
Volunteer

noun
1.
(military) a person who freely enlists for service.  Synonyms: military volunteer, voluntary.
2.
A person who performs voluntary work.  Synonym: unpaid worker.
3.
A native or resident of Tennessee.  Synonym: Tennessean.



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"Volunteer" Quotes from Famous Books



... determined men. The Blue Jacket, in a private conversation with the recruiting officer, soon gave him my status; when, turning to me, the officer said, with the air of a man who expects to carry his point, "Well, young man, I learn you have come to volunteer; glad ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson

... must be enough men to work all the guns at one time. And thus, in order to have a sufficiency of mortals at hand to "sink, burn and destroy;" a man-of-war, through her vices, hopelessly depraving the volunteer landsmen and ordinary seamen of good habits, who occasionally enlist—must feed at the public cost a multitude of persons, who, if they did not find a home in the Navy, would probably fall on the parish, or linger out ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... officers who escaped from Libby Prison at Richmond, on the night of the 9th of February, 1864, was my esteemed friend, General Harrison C. Hobart, then Colonel of the Twenty-first Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry. His name is mentioned quite frequently in the preceding pages. Ten years after the war closed, he spent a few days at my house, and while there was requested to tell the story of his capture, imprisonment, and escape. My ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty

... taught in a country school, and later went into journalism in New York, Brooklyn, and New Orleans. The first edition of "Leaves of Grass" appeared in 1855, with the remarkable preface here printed. During the war he acted as a volunteer nurse in the army hospitals, and, when it closed, he became a clerk in the government service at Washington. He continued to write almost till ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... of resources or interest on the part of municipalities and the central government, services of a public nature have frequently been assumed by private initiative. Many clubs and lodges maintain schools. Firemen's corps, where there are any, are volunteer organizations. For charity work, hospitals, educational work, etc., local committees are formed which raise funds by private subscription or by lottery, and in a number of towns the embellishment of the plazas is in charge of ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich

... of our extensive Canadian frontier depended mainly upon the volunteer militia force of the scattered Provinces, and to their patriotism and gallantry in springing to arms when their services were needed to defend their native land, may be ascribed the glory of frustrating the attempts of the Fenian invaders to ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald

... adequately-protected coaling stations; third, the value of superior speed for the cruiser class, and especially for the more weakly-armored vessels; fourth, the naval defense of seaports by gunboats and the raising of the naval volunteer corps as an integral portion of the naval reserve forces; fifth, that great importance be attached to a steady gun platform for quick-firing guns, looking to the small number of hits compared with numerous ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall

... temper 'tween the chinks Of some new shop a-building, French and fine. He stood and watched the cobbler at his trade, The man who slices lemons into drink, The coffee-roaster's brazier, and the boys That volunteer to help him turn its winch. He glanced o'er books on stalls with half an eye, And fly-leaf ballads on the vendor's string, And broad-edge bold-print posters by the wall. He took such cognizance of men and ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning

... a haste which equalled the king's desire; and as he did not again ask her name, and as she did not volunteer to give it, and as she brought no dowry to her husband and received none from him, she was called Becfola, ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens

... account of the Volunteer Review in Hyde Park is given in Sir Theodore Martin's admirable Life of the Prince Consort, Vol. V., pp. 105-6, Am. Ed. The Prince himself, in responding to a toast the same evening, speaks of it as "a scene which ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... and his friends forgot everything else just then in this new excitement. Stanhope had a volunteer fire department, like most small towns in that section of the country. Stanhope was proud of its fire laddies, who had, on numerous previous occasions, proved their skill at fighting the flames. Already loud ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren

... controlled by "the whore," are the multitudes whom the apostate church of Rome commands to volunteer in the wars of the ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele

... case, and received a proper amount of sympathy. One offered to row me herself, while another said something about 'twenty florins and a life,'—which, whatever it may have meant, brought a blush to the cheek of the pretty little volunteer. At this juncture the boatmen arrived, and on my assurance that I was perfectly satisfied with the company to which they had driven me, which my looks, I suppose, did not belie, they came to terms. Leaving the bay at its NW. extremity, where the Kerka flows into it, we proceeded ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot

... use, Roland, pretending abandonment, for you will not abandon. I thoroughly favor choking the life out of Kurzbold, and one or two of the others, and will myself volunteer for the office of headsman, carrying, as I do, the ax, but let everything be done decently and in order, that a dignified execution may follow on a ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... not, however, volunteer any explanation. Aggie and I were driven to speculation, in which we indulged on our way home, Aggie being my guest at the time, on account of her janitor's children having measles, and Aggie never having had them, although recalling ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... awoke on the following morning, and realized that the day was Sunday. Even schoolteachers have two days of rest in every seven, thought Mrs. Burton to herself, and no one doubts that they deserve them. How much more deserving of rest and relief, then, must be the volunteer teacher who, not for a few hours only, but from dawn to twilight, has charge of two children whose capacity for both learning and mischief, surely equals any school-full of boys? The realization that she was attempting, for a few days ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton

... and hailed in French. Not receiving an answer, she fired a volley of musketry at us. The strokesman of my boat fell shot in the brain, and two others were seriously wounded in the arm and leg. We had three marines, two additional seamen and my volunteer messmate in our boat. This last had smuggled himself in without the first lieutenant's leave. We cheered and stretched out. The killed and wounded were placed in the bottom of the boat, and the extra men took their oars. The barge was nearly alongside ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... studies, by which means he acquired a degree of learning, that entitled him to the character of a fine scholar. But not content with that acquisition, our noble author extended his views yet farther, and restless in the pursuit of distinction, we find him at a very early age entering himself a volunteer in the second Dutch war; and accordingly was in that famous naval engagement, where the duke of York commanded as admiral, on which occasion his lordship behaved himself so gallantly, that he was appointed commander of the royal Katherine, a ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber

... Minnesotian, and in a short time Dr. Foster was compelled to surrender to its enterprising projectors, they having purchased the entire plant. This ended the rivalry between the two Republican dailies. Dr. Foster and Maj. Newson, some time afterward, received commissions in the volunteer service of the army during the Civil war, and George W. Moore was appointed collector of the port of St. Paul, a position he held for more ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore

... high, said, as he slowly riz: "Our organist is kept' to hum, laid up 'ith roomatiz, An' as we hev no substitoot, as brother Moore ain't here, Will some 'un in the congregation be so kind's to volunteer?" ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... the matter in that light. It would seem that I might be chargeable at least with want of candour, if not of fidelity, were I to make use of a situation in which their confidence has placed me to become a volunteer in giving a public wound, as they would deem it, to an interest on which they set so great a value. I am the less inclined to disregard this scruple as I am not sensible that the event of the petition would in the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... "Volunteer hussars or lancers, raised at the time of war breaking out, may be nearly as valuable as the Cossacks, if they are well officered and move freely about ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini

... occupation, nay, even its hardships and difficulties, which Plato holds so light that in his Republic he makes women and children share in them, are delightful to you. You put yourself voluntarily upon particular exploits and hazards, according as you judge of their lustre and importance; and, a volunteer, find even life ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... last they were to meet the foe, none was so eager for the fray as Dan. In spite of Scotty's admonitions, he went to one of his officers to beg permission to join the advance the next morning. The request was promptly refused, and the volunteer bidden with scant ceremony to go back to his boat and mind his own business. But Mr. Murphy was convinced that his business lay with the front rank of the advancing column. He had not been trained to army discipline and ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith

... joined a volunteer corps while in college, and was forward in all its doings. The first time he was under fire was when this corps was engaged in removing guns from the Battery. The fire of a man-of-war was opened on it, doing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various

... roused by the other man's arrogance, had considerable to do with his stand in the matter, but underneath there was protest at the world's injustice. He felt that he had been having personal experience with that injustice. He knew that he had not come out to Hue and Cry to volunteer as the champion of these unfortunates, but now that he was there and had spoken out it was evident that he must allow himself to be forced into the matter to some extent; the agent had declared in the hearing of all that this interference had settled the doom ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... whom Durward thus addressed, scarce deigned to look at him while he was speaking, and took no notice whatever of the claim he preferred to prior acquaintance. He barely turned to one or two of the peasants who were now come forward, either to volunteer their evidence against the prisoners, or out of curiosity, and said gruffly, "Was yonder young ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... Their loyalty, like the disloyalty of the other side, is sometimes interested and evanescent, more often sincere and tenacious; they are given to desertion, like Washington's troops, like Lee's and Grant's troops nearly a century later, like the Boer troops and like all Volunteer levies, which have somehow to combine war with the duty of keeping their homes and business afloat. We find, too, that a counter-current of desertion flows from the British, and still more from the German, regulars, also ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... Mack, who has been for many years secretary of the Chicago Bible Society, and who is the volunteer superintendent of this Sunday-school, is just now out in our Times-Herald with an article from which I get these statistics. He also says there are some 2,000 Chinese in this city and for them ten Chinese mission schools—the number of pupils depending ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 54, No. 3, July, 1900 • Various

... and be a little less rhapsodic. "I have emancipated you," I cried; "do not, therefore, throw away the freedom you have been six years sighing to obtain. You are now your own agent—a volunteer—" ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... can know, but I well know, how the gist of this fiercest and most resolute of the world's war-like contentions resided exclusively in the unnamed, unknown rank and file; and how the brunt of its labor of death was, to all essential purposes, volunteer'd. The People, of their own choice, fighting, dying for their own idea, insolently attack'd by the secession-slave-power, and its very existence imperil'd. Descending to detail, entering any of the armies, and mixing with the private soldiers, we see and have seen august spectacles. ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... while they hold a drawn sword in the other. There is no security to be found in any corner of the State; and no projects, formed for the future of its people. To be sure, certain parties prate and jabber about the Volunteer Service and national defenses; but what have they to defend? If their frontier were bristling to-morrow with forts and bayonets, all they could hope to accomplish would be the shutting out of American liberty and national prosperity from the people. This must be self-evident to any individual ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh

... organized, in Asia Minor, a military expedition, made up largely of hired Greek troops. At Cunaxa, not far from Babylon, Cyrus fell in the combat with his brother. The Persians enticed the Greek generals to come into their camp, and slew them. Xenophon, an Athenian volunteer who had accompanied the army, conducted the retreat of his countrymen, with whom he encountered incredible hardships in the slow and toilsome journey through Armenia to Trapezus (Trebizond), and thence to Byzantium. The story of this march, through snow, over rugged mountains, and ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... The President must rely upon the representations of others, and these are often made inconsiderately and without any just sense of responsibility. I have a right, I think, to insist that those who volunteer or are invited to give advice as to appointments shall exercise consideration and fidelity. A high sense of duty and an ambition to improve the service should characterize all ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison

... volunteer, and myself. Before turning the boat loose, the engine was tried. It was a success. The paddle-wheel churned the water at a great rate, sending the boat upstream as far as the ropes would let her go. We would try a preliminary run in the ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb

... are five in number, Magdalena, San Pedro, Dominica, Santa Cristina, and Hood Island, the latter so called after the volunteer who first discovered it. Santa Cristina is divided by a chain of mountains of considerable elevation, to which the hills that rise from the sea lead. Deep, narrow, and fertile valleys, filled with fruit-trees, and watered ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... unfortunately, there has never been a professor at West Point. His after life does not seem to have been favorable to its acquirement. Withal, the hauteur characteristic to Cadets clung to him, and on many occasions rendered him unfortunate in his intercourse with volunteer officers. Politeness with him, assumed the airs and grimaces of a French dancing-master, which personage he was not unfrequently and not inaptly said to resemble. Displeasure he would manifest by the oddest of gestures and volleys of the latest oaths, uttered in a nervous, half stuttering manner. ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong

... country and ran parallel with them,—that the same excitements which agitated the minds of the people in England were industriously fomented here, where no similar reason for them existed, as the volunteer work of demagogues who saw in them the means of promoting their own interest,—that, in fact, this opposition to the Proprietary grew out of a failing in our ancestors which has not yet been cured in their descendants, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various

... respects my adversary plainly has the advantage of me. First, we have not the same interests at stake; it is by no means the same thing for me to forfeit your esteem, and for AEschines, an unprovoked volunteer, to fail in his impeachment. My other disadvantage is, the natural proneness of men to lend a pleased attention to invective and accusation, but to give little heed to him whose theme is his own vindication. To my adversary, ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... risen to be a body of national importance. They were reviewed in public, and complimented by Parliament. But they were patriots. On the 28th of December, 1781, a few of the leading members of the Ulster regiments met at Charlemont, and convened a meeting of delegates from all the Volunteer Associations, at Dungannon, on the 15th of February, 1782. The delegates assembled on the appointed day, and Government dared not prevent or interrupt their proceedings. Colonel William Irvine ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... such rapidity that a breach was soon effected. Colonel Mackillicut the governor demanded a parley, and hostages were exchanged; but he rejected the conditions that were offered, and hostilities recommenced with redoubled vigour. The duke of Grafton, who served on this occasion as a volunteer, was mortally wounded in one of the attacks, and died regretted as a youth of promising talents. Preparations being made for a general assault, the besieged thought proper to capitulate, and surrendered themselves prisoners of war. Besides the governor and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... suppressed, says: "We would be guilty of a great crime," if, amid the dangers threatening the Papal interests, and "if, placed in the barque of Peter, tossed and assailed by continual storms, we refused to employ the vigorous and experienced rowers who volunteer their services in order to break the waves of a sea which threatens every moment ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow

... volunteer forces headed the ultra-Spanish element in an attack upon the leading liberal newspaper offices, because, as alleged, of Captain-General Blanco's refusal to authorise the suppression of the liberal press. It was evidently ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis

... unheard-of activity. The second army flying corps is being organized. It consists of nearly eighty certificated volunteer pilots, including Garros, Chevillard, Verrier, Champel, Audemars, and many more well-known names. There are others than French airmen in the corps. Audemars is Swiss, while there are also an Englishman, a Peruvian, and a Dane. These men are all waiting eagerly the ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard

... Marne denied Germany the continental supremacy which Austerlitz prepared for Napoleon. It saved France, gave Great Britain time to raise her volunteer armies, mobilize her industries. To win it France had put in her last ounce of available strength, and there was needed for her, too, time to reorganize her armies, and prepare to conduct a long war. She was not able and she has not yet been able to ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... to the citizens, but it served an admirable purpose. When Kirby Smith arrived in front of the defenses, he found forty thousand men confronting him. Of these, not over six or eight thousand had borne arms more than a week or ten days. The volunteer militia of Cincinnati, and the squirrel-hunters from the interior of Ohio and Indiana, formed the balance of our forces. Our line of defenses encircled the cities of Covington and Newport, touching the Ohio above and below their extreme ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox

... of Wolfe's comrades—"a big giant," as our old friend, the late Judge Henry Black, who knew him well, used to style him, awakens many memories of the past. Sergeant James Thompson, of Fraser's Highlanders, at Louisbourg in 1758, and at Quebec in 1759, came from Tain, Scotland, to Canada, as a volunteer to accompany a friend-Capt. David Baillie, of the 78th. His athletic frame, courage, integrity and intelligence, during the seventy-two years of his Canadian career, brought him employment, honour, trust and attention from every Governor of the colony from 1759 to 1830, the period of ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... expedition as a private in the ranks; that Colonel Abraham Owen, one of the most renowned Indian fighters of that day, joined the army voluntarily as an aide to its leader, and that Governor Scott, of Kentucky, sent two companies of mounted volunteer infantry under Captains Funk and Geiger, to participate in the campaign. It is also pleasing to remember that the warm affection of the pioneers of that early day was transmitted to another and younger generation who grew up long after the Indian wars ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce

... teams I am so proud, I heard one day With endless schemes If I allowed A gentleman say Both good and new My family pride That criminals who For Titipu; To be my guide, Are cut in two But if I flit, I'd volunteer Can hardly feel The benefit To quit this sphere The fatal steel, That I'd diffuse Instead of you And so are slain The town would lose! In a minute or two, Without much pain. Now every man But family pride If this is true, To aid his clan Must be denied, It's jolly for you; Should plot and plan And ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... his fare. Martin didn't volunteer to pay his, but looked steadily before him, hoping that he might escape the conductor's observation. But the latter was ...
— Rufus and Rose - The Fortunes of Rough and Ready • Horatio Alger, Jr

... writers, you could not have laughed without a feeling of tears, or felt the tears without smiling. Many a chap's epistle was scrawled, many a one even rhymed, in a rifle-pit with the enemy's shells bursting over. Many a one was feebly dictated to some blessed, unskilled volunteer nurse in a barn or smoke-house or in some cannon-shattered church. From the like of that who with a woman's heart could withhold reply? Yes, Anna ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... severe air to his countenance. He had been for several years abroad, in various parts of the Continent, and (no other field for an adventurous and fierce spirit presenting itself) had served with the gallant Earl of Effingham, in the war between the Turks and Russians, as a volunteer in the armies of the latter. In this service he had been highly distinguished for courage and conduct; and, on his return to England about a twelvemonth since, had obtained the command of a cavalry regiment. Passionately fond of his profession, he entered into its minutest ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... believe in our danger—perhaps could not have helped us if it would. And then our own friends at this lost heart. The flights to Canada multiplied; our volunteer militiamen fell away from the drills and patrols. Stories and rumors grew thicker of British preparations, of Indian approaches, of invasion's red track being cleared up to the very gates of the Valley. And no man saw how the ruin was to ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... president of this convention appoint a committee to select three intelligent women who shall be paid commissioners to the Paris exposition; and also six other women who shall be volunteer commissioners to said exposition to represent ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... Palaces.—Published originally on a similar occasion to the last story, in "A Volunteer Haversack," an extensive repertory of miscellaneous contributions in prose and verse, printed and sold at Edinburgh for a benevolent ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... Railroad along the southern boundary of Mosby's Confederacy came in for special attention, and the Union Army finally gave it up for a bad job and abandoned it. This writer's grandfather, Captain H. B. Piper, of the Eleventh Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, did a stint of duty guarding it, and until he died he spoke with respect of the abilities of John S. Mosby and his raiders. Locomotives were knocked out with one or another of Mosby's twelve-pounders. Track was torn up and bridges were burned. Land-mines were planted. Trains were ...
— Rebel Raider • H. Beam Piper

... the Boreal light send it overland to farthest India. Who reads not Maga? You shall find the smutched lieutenant turning over its pages by the camp-fire, after a terrible scratch with the Sikhs; and within the same twenty-four hours you may fairly surmise that some green mountain volunteer, on the wrong side of the Rio Grande, has lighted a pine-knot, and is reading one of the Marlborough articles to his mess, with extemporary paralellisms in favour of General Taylor, which the shade of the great ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... I am able to write more fully of one of the meetings of the Young Men's Christian Association. The hour was early, but the room was well filled. The leader took but little time and used it well. Prayers followed, with volunteer singing; other prayers, brief and earnest, and then a quartet sang a touching evangelical hymn. Seldom have I spoken to more attentive hearers than were furnished by these fifty young men. It was ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 49, No. 5, May 1895 • Various

... work of the clergy. But, fussy and dictatorial as she is, the District Visitor is as a rule more popular than the clergyman. In the first place, the parson is only doing a duty he is bound to do while the District Visitor is a volunteer. The parson, as the poor roughly say, is paid for it. Again, however simple-hearted and courteous he may be, he never gets very close home to the poor. Their life is not his life, nor their ways his ways. They do not understand his refinement, his delicacy about interference, ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green

... in getting a Beluch escort, for the Consul cautioned us that we could not expect the Sultan to give one gratis. He asked the Sultan, however, for men, and we were told we might have them out of his army if they would volunteer. The head jemadar then came to make a bargain, and we said we would give to each man five dollars a-month, besides rations and clothing the same as Bombay got. This bait would not take, and we could not ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke

... relief of the poor, and the elementary education of the people; but beyond these and other instances of direct state action there is much left to be done by the people themselves, and for themselves. The Volunteer movement, in which men take part of their own free will, and which has been of so much benefit to the country; the erection and support of hospitals, libraries, art galleries, colleges and universities; the furnishing ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees

... void and grief. I do not think I should have recovered from it had not Mr. Spartali conceived the idea of my going off to Herzegovina, where the insurrection of 1875 was just beginning to stir, and, to cut short my hesitation at the venture as a volunteer correspondent, got me an introduction to the manager of the "Times," and offered to pay my expenses should the "Times" not accept my letters. I knew so well the condition in which the Turkish Empire had been left by the Cretan affair, and the apathy that had ruled ever since, ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman

... replied Dr. Leete; "while frequent and merely capricious changes of occupation are net permitted, every worker is allowed, of course under regulations and in accordance with the exigencies of the service, to volunteer for another industry which he thinks would suit him better than his first choice. It is only the poorer sort of workmen who desire to change. Of course, transfers or discharges are always ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... Dinks with Mr Meldrum, who was the first to volunteer—their efforts well supported by the exertions of McCarthy and the second mate and Frank Harness—were working like Britons in the ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson

... Marseilles are marching the six hundred men who know how to die, marching to the hymn of the Marseillaise. The country is in danger! Volunteer fighters gather. Duke Brunswick shakes himself, and issues his manifesto; and in Paris preternatural suspicion and disquietude. Demand is for forfeiture, abdication in favour of prince royal, which Legislature cannot pronounce. Therefore on the night of August ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee

... tribute she was virtually independent already, and probably in all Servia there were not two hundred Turks. But she ambitiously desired to have the name of as well as the actuality of being independent; the Russians helped her with arms, officers, and volunteer soldiers; and when I reached Belgrade, in May of the year named, there had already been fighting, in which the Servians had by no means got the worst. No word of the Servian tongue had I, and it was the reverse of pleasant for a war correspondent in such plight ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various

... was only saying what our soldiers think, and it is natural that I, being only a boy, should make him my hero, for he went to the wars when he was a year younger than I am, and at fourteen carried a musket as a volunteer under Maurice of Nassau, and for five years he was in all the battles in Holland, and raised the first battery ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty

... I had come away from my post. I argued that I took it for granted he wanted all the recruits he could get to forward to the army at Brownsville, Texas; and did not know but that he might want me to go along. Instead of appreciating my volunteer zeal, he cursed and swore at me for leaving my post without orders, and told me to go back to Pittsburg. I then asked for an order that would entitle me to transportation back, which at first he emphatically refused, but at ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... won his victories. Our friend Ernest raised himself on his tiptoes, in hopes to get a glimpse of the celebrated guest; but there was a mighty crowd about the tables anxious to hear the toasts and speeches, and to catch any word that might fall from the general in reply; and a volunteer company, doing duty as a guard, pricked ruthlessly with their bayonets at any particularly quiet person among the throng. So Ernest, being of an unobtrusive character, was thrust quite into the background, where he could see ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... acceleration defies the ratio of force to inertia, is made obvious by the amusement with which a trick in apparent defiance of this principle is greeted. Informality of discussion in such experiments, questions on the part of the instructor that are more than rhetorical, and volunteer answers and comment from the class increase the vividness of the impressions. A mechanical adaptation of the "monkey on the string" problem, using little electric hoists or clockworks, introduces interesting discussion of the third law in conjunction with the second. A toy cannon and target ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... that night in getting out of the box. He knew this haste would not spoil the illusion of the trick. In fact it really heightened it. For he was out of the heavy box in much shorter time than it had taken the volunteer committee to ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum

... earl of Bristol, and in spite of his brother's will succeeded to a considerable property. Having again passed some time in Italy, he returned to Ireland and in 1782 threw himself ardently into the Irish volunteer movement, quickly attaining a prominent position among the volunteers, and in great state attending the convention held in Dublin in November 1783. Carried away by his position and his popularity ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... all of our volunteer effort—however well intentioned and well administered—will not suffice wholly to solve this problem. In that case, we shall have to adopt new legislation. And if this is necessary, I do not believe that the American people ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt

... search was at once instituted; how, late that same evening, after running down various vain clues, my superior, the Reverend Doctor Tubley, arrived at Hatchersville aboard a special train, accompanied by a volunteer posse of his parishioners and other citizens and rescued me, semi-delirious and still fettered, as my captors were on the point of removing me, a close prisoner, to the Branch State Asylum for the Insane at Pottsburg, twenty miles distant, in the deluded expectation of securing ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... young volunteer here. He's no common soldier, please understand; he's enlisted as a hero. Feed him up, give him all that he can hold, and let him ...
— A Little Dusky Hero • Harriet T. Comstock

... had ample time for such explanations. Henry was now more seldom their companion, being either a most unwilling attendant upon the lessons of his tutor, or a forward volunteer under the instructions of the foresters or grooms. As for the Keeper, his mornings were spent in his study, maintaining correspondences of all kinds, and balancing in his anxious mind the various intelligence which he collected from every quarter concerning the expected ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... and bullets. We enjoyed the day, too, because it gave us time and opportunity to look about us; to make a general inspection; and to pronounce the arrangements for the city's defence satisfactory. The volunteer forces had assumed gratifying proportions, and their eyes were all "right." Walls and buildings on the outskirts of the town, which might serve as a cover for the invader—in the improbable event of his drawing so near—or ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... with me, but suddenly I seemed to be enjoying myself. The tension of muscles relaxed, as if a string which had held them tight—like the limbs of a Jumping Jack—had been let go. I leaned back against the crimson cushions of my seat with a new and singular sense of well-being. Once, as a volunteer in South Africa, I had felt the same when, after having a splinter of bone taken out, under chloroform, I had waked up to be told it was all over. This wasn't over, but somehow, I didn't ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... off the field, and huddled in our tents with our new extra blankets around us till we warmed up again. But very few of the men failed to turn up at this volunteer practice, and to stay it through on the chance of one more round. In the whole company there were but six who slipped away to pleasures in the town. One ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French

... prisoners on the spot. The reader will smile when he is informed that the little corps thus captured consisted entirely of members of the legal profession. The barristers, attorneys, and notaries of New Orleans having formed themselves into a volunteer corps, accompanied General Jackson in his operations this night; and they were all, without a solitary exception, made prisoners. It is probably needless to add, that the circumstance was productive of no trifling degree of mirth ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various

... endured to serve the cause I believed and have never ceased to believe just, though I hourly felt its complicated vexations. I shall not linger here to describe them; nothing is more repugnant to my nature than to volunteer a display of my own feelings, especially when I am well aware that many, who listen, cannot or will not understand or believe me. I care little for mistake or invective; either is the natural condition of public life: but I do not feel called upon to enter into useless controversies in my own ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... the same pay, bounty, clothing, and equipments as volunteers receive, and in all respects puts them on the same footing. It thus removes the unjust distinction wont to be made between the drafted man and volunteer, looking upon each as a true soldier of his country, equally interested in its honor and perpetuity. And in order that justice may be secured to the citizen as well as to the Government, the entire business of the enrolment and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various

... her time of waiting to an end. The steps she had as yet taken had led to nothing. She had not requested Mrs. Baxendale to make inquiries for her, and her friend, thinking she understood the reason, did not volunteer assistance, nor did she hear any particulars of the correspondence that went on. Ultimately, Emily communicated with her acquaintances in Liverpool, who were at once anxious to serve her. She told them ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing

... March. He immediately attempted to reconcile the factions of the assembly, and to persuade its members to turn their wasted vigour into war measures. From neither side did he receive much encouragement. To his demands for new levies and volunteer regiments, Robespierre replied that the most urgent step was to purify the army of its anti-revolutionary elements. To his proposal that the executive should be strengthened by composing the ministry of members of the Convention, the Girondins opposed their implacable suspicion ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston

... Guard, Air and Air Defense Force (not officially sanctioned), Maritime Border Guard, Volunteer Defense League (Kaitseliit), Security Forces (internal ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... being so circumstanced. An earthquake may have caught one unawares, say; or inopportunely a bathroom door may have blown open. Once the first shock occasioned by the untoward appearance of the victim has passed away he is sure of sympathy. For him pity is promptly engendered and volunteer aid ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... efficiency, and which were the pride of the citizens and a credit to the State. At the outbreak of the rebellion, the Cleveland companies were foremost in tendering their services, were among the first Ohio troops that rushed to the scene of danger, and were in the first skirmish of the war between the volunteer troops of the North and the organized troops of the rebels—that at Vienna. The first artillery company organized in the West was formed in Cleveland, and kept its organization up for many years before the war. The breaking out of the war found this artillery organization ready for service, and ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... but small success. The tale of reverses had told at last upon recruiting. Men were unwilling to come forward; and those who were bribed by large bounties to join the armies were of a different character to the original volunteer. Enthusiasm in the cause was fast diminishing when Lincoln, purely on his own initiative, proclaimed emancipation, and, investing the war with the dignity of a crusade, inspired the soldier with a new incentive, and appealed to a feeling which had not yet been stirred. Many Northerners had not ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... Moral and Material Progress of India," are so far serviceable, but only as crude material from which the answer is to be distilled. Members of the Indian Civil Service, and others belonging to the British Government of India, may volunteer as expert witnesses regarding British influence, but they are interested parties; they really stand with others at the bar. The testimony of the missionary is not infrequently heard, less exactly informed, perhaps, than the Civil Servant's, but more sympathetic, and affording ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison

... by Valdez, laid siege to Leyden. In the city there were only some volunteer soldiers. The military command was given to Van der Voes, a valiant man, and a Latin poet of some renown. Van der Werf was burgomaster. In brief time the besiegers had constructed more than sixty forts ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various

... on the popular side, and I might have joined the volunteer force which was being raised in England for service with the insurgents. But this did not suit my purpose. If I accepted a commission in the Legion I should have to go where I was ordered. I preferred to go where I listed. I had ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall

... burn itself out. The hermit's hut, however, was so isolated that the town was in no danger, even from the flying sparks, but there was not a drop of water to throw on the flames, and the roads were too steep and rough for the volunteer fire department to drag their ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown

... Great Britain at the outbreak of the war joined the French Foreign Legion in France, and after His Majesty's Government allowed Czechs to volunteer for service in the British army in the autumn of 1916, practically all Czechs of military age resident in Great Britain enrolled so far as they were not engaged on munitions. In Canada, too, the Czechs joined the army in order to ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek

... administration of the Government, with his late as well as with his present advisers. It was arranged that Lord Elgin should receive this Address at the Government House instead of at Monklands. Accordingly, on April 30, he drove into the city, escorted by a troop of volunteer dragoons, and accompanied by several of his suite. On his way through the streets he was greeted with showers of stones, and with difficulty preserved his face from being injured.[4] On his return he endeavoured to avoid all occasion of conflict by going back by a different ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... communicating with Washington without passing through Baltimore. The Naval School was immediately removed to Newport, where it remained until after the close of our national troubles. The places of the young students preparing for the naval service were soon filled by the sick and wounded of the volunteer armies. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various

... miles in sixteen months: that he had bowed at the levee of the Emperor Alexander,—been slapped on the shoulder by the Archduke Constantine,—shaken hands with a Lapland witch,—and been presented in full volunteer uniform at every court between Stockholm and Milan. Yet is he not one particle wiser than if he had spent the same time in walking up and down the Strand. He has contrived, however, to pick up on his tour, ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson

... you, Caius Manlius, for the reminder; and I also may recall to you that I am neither the only nor the highest officer who is serving as volunteer to-day, because Varro must have legions commanded by butchers and bakers and money-lenders. I, too, am a plebeian, and I cast my pebble for my order (whereat the infernal gods are doubtless now rejoicing); but I am also, as you say, an old soldier, and hold the camp to be no place for the tricks ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne

... 'em a chanst," said their chief, after a moment.... He even helped to push the boat towards the water. But he did not volunteer to be one of those to man the Petrel on her maiden voyage. Nor did Logan's pond, that wild March day, greatly resemble the South Seas. Nevertheless, my eye on Nancy, I stepped proudly aboard and seized an "oar." Grits and Tom followed,—when ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... differences from them. They observe that proverb about being in Rome: they may not be able to do as Rome does, but they do not inquire why Rome isn't like Paris. If you ask them how they like our hotels or our trains, they may possibly reply that they prefer their own, but they will hardly volunteer this opinion. But the American in England and the Englishman in America go about volunteering opinions. Are the French more discreet? I believe that they are; but I wonder if there is not also something else at ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister

... dancing or music, all showed a liking to these amusements too. If the chief loved beer, they all rejoiced in strong drink. But in this case it is different. I love the Word of God, and not one of my brethren will join me." One reason why we had no volunteer hypocrites was the hunger from drought, which was associated in their minds with the presence of Christian instruction; and hypocrisy is not prone to profess a creed which seems to insure ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... life; but he returned little improved, and well-nigh convinced that his illness was mortal. His mental condition is shown by the fact that pressure from a solicitor for the payment of a tailor's debt of some seven pounds, incurred for his volunteer's uniform, threw him into a panic lest he should be imprisoned, and his last letters are pitiful requests for financial help, and two notes to his father-in-law urging him to send her mother to Jean, as she was about ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson



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