"Craven" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Newhaven steamer, Paris, you're no craven; Grim and growling was the gale that you from your dead reckoning bore; And, but for your brave behaving, she might never have made haven, But have foundered in mid-Channel, or been wrecked on a lee-shore. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 8, 1890 • Various
... saw her she told me she'd been mistaken about Sybil Fermor. It was Lady Hermione Nevin. Norry had been using Sybil as a "paravent" for her. I said she was wrong again. Didn't she know that Hermione was engaged to Billy Craven? They were head over ears in love with each other. I asked her what on earth had made her think of her? And she said Lady Hermione had paid him thirty guineas for a picture. That looked, she said, as if she was pretty ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... each; moreover, there are the horses, which would serve to establish this young gentlewoman and myself in housekeeping, provided we were thinking of such a thing." "Then I suppose I have fallen into pretty hands," said the man, putting himself in a posture of defence; "but I'll show no craven heart; and if you attempt to lay hands on me, I'll try to pay you in your own coin. I'm rather lamed in the leg, but I can still use my fists; so come on both of you, man and woman, if woman this be, though she looks ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... some fundamental respects, to the general impression produced by the drama, but it can be supported by Hamlet's own words in his soliloquies—such words, for example, as those about the native hue of resolution, or those about the craven scruple of thinking too precisely on the event. It is confirmed, also, by the contrast between Hamlet on the one side and Laertes and Fortinbras on the other; and, further, by the occurrence of those words of the King to Laertes (IV. vii. 119 ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... Markham stared. 'I've heard about enough of this shock to my system,' said he at length. 'But have it your own way. If you want me to recommend a doctor, my mother swears by an old boy in Craven Street, Strand. I don't know the number, but his name's Leadbetter, and he's death ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... down in black and white to save us all trouble. I have put down the date and the name of the church where we were married. Strange to say, I can even recollect the name of the parson who did the job; he was a little black-haired man, and his name was Craven. It was a runaway match, you know. Olive was stopping with some friends in Dublin, and I met her early one morning and took her to St. Patrick's. You will find it all right in the register—Matthew Robert O'Brien and Olive Carrick. There were only ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... craven soldiery, What heroes they will seem to be! But let them snuff the smoke of battle, Or even hear the ramrods rattle, Adieu to all their spunk and mettle: Your own example will be vain, And exhortations, to retain ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... as Roberts and Stanfield, Grieve and Telbin, and to come down to the present time, Beverley and Calcott, Hawes Craven and O'Connor, there seems little occasion to speak; the achievements of these artists are matters of almost universal knowledge. It is sufficient to say that in their hands the art they practise has been greatly advanced, ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... never pulled. Something attracted his attention. He looked. He saw something. The beast in him became human—the madness changed to rationality—the devil to a craven! His ashen lips ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... the Meido-land can write! Back, back,—do not touch me, or ere I kill myself I will find strength to slay you first. I will drag you with me to the underworld, as I journey in searching for my wife, and fling your craven soul to devils, as one would fling offal to a dog! Speak not to me ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... are many kinds of anger, as many kinds of fire; And some are fierce and fatal with murderous desire; And some are mean and craven, revengeful, sullen, slow, They hurt the man that holds them more than they hurt ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... of establishing a new body, from which should be excluded all the "illegal" attributes and accidents of the old. The suggestion was resisted by Mr. O'Brien, and all those understood to belong to what was called the Young Ireland Party. They protested against such a course as false, craven and fatal, and Mr. O'Connell at once yielded ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... hard blow and made Frye wince, for it was the first time he had ever been openly called a villain, but, craven hypocrite that he was, he made no protest. Instead, he silently wrote a check for Albert's due and handed ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... Doyle. "Only in my new world we realize that there would be a few craven spirits who might not willingly give up what they have. In that case it would be taken ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... blasphemous mouth of the king of gangland there came a shriek of awful fear. The tightening tentacle shut it off in a choking gurgle. Cadorna was captured at last—by a monster he could not see, a monster that struck terror to his craven soul. ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... him with craven terror, and yet with the look of a dog which will snap when he sees an unwary hand. "Ye don't git me into none of yer traps," he snarled. "What made Doctor ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... his body, nor did we hear that his head was cut off; but we saw the head of the traitor Farig Pasha, who met with his deserts. We have heard it was the blacks that ran away; and that the Egyptian soldiers fought well; that is not true, they were craven. Had it not been for them, in spite of the treachery of many within the town, the Arabs would not have got in, for we watched the traitors. And now fearful scenes took place in every house and building, in the large Market Place, in the small bazaars; men were slain crying for mercy, ...
— General Gordon - Saint and Soldier • J. Wardle
... shot himself; he said it sickened him. He rushed from that room last night, I feel sure, in a physical horror at the deed he had done; and by now he is as far as he can get from London. The sight of his act drove him away; not craven fear of an arrest. If the Le Geyts kill themselves—a seafaring race on the whole—their impulse is to trust ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... at my children in anger and punished them for faults which a little inquiry would have taught me that others, and not they, had committed. He reminded me of how I had disloyally allowed old friends to be traduced in my hearing, and been too craven to utter a word in their defense. He reminded me of many dishonest things which I had done; of many which I had procured to be done by children and other irresponsible persons; of some which I had planned, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... up on the flank, closely supported by Whittaker's and Creighton's brigades. The enemy had been re-enforced, but he was not able to resist the sweep of Hooker's troops as they rounded the crest of the mountain at Craven's house, where the enemy made his last stand, and from here, with his line all broken and in rout, he was driven over the rocks and precipices into Chattanooga Valley. At this time the mist that had been hanging round the mountain all the day settled still lower down. It was now about ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... the torrents voice would thrill Each craven breast with fear; For dumb distress or human ill ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various
... were I but afoot Sir Knight! Natheless I counsel ye, an ye be wise, that ye spare the maiden. Ye will find me not so craven this day as to let ye harm her; I shall defend her and avenge her wrong if my life be risked upon it. But, Sir Knight, hearken to my prayer, for God and for your honour, and the ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... wealth and commerce of London, conducted as it was by energetic and enterprising men, was a prolific source of peerages. Thus, the earldom of Cornwallis was founded by Thomas Cornwallis, the Cheapside merchant; that of Essex by William Capel, the draper; and that of Craven by William Craven, the merchant tailor. The modern Earl of Warwick is not descended from the "King- maker," but from William Greville, the woolstapler; whilst the modern dukes of Northumberland find their head, not in the Percys, but in Hugh Smithson, a respectable ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... in the same impersonal way that another man would regard a picture. And a son. A straight, tall young fellow, doubtless, with eyes like his father's—eyes that a woman would trust, not dreaming of the false heart and craven soul. Why had she been brought here to suffer this last insult, this last humiliation? Weakly, as many a woman before her, Miss Evelina groped in the maze of Life, searching for some ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... for the moment. Perhaps he was satisfied at the success of his taunt, even though the terror within his craven soul still caused the cold shiver to course up and down his spine. Chauvelin had once more turned to the window; his gaze was fixed upon the distance far away. The window gave on the North. That way, in ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... and colour and magnitude, lost in the spaciousness of it. No Balthasar had cheated here. There lay the mighty and little man who had never lost belief in himself—who had been only a little chastened by an adversity due to the craven world's fear of ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... be Shea, probably, and opened it himself. "Behold the man you have outraged, I said. I give you one instant only to get your pistol. We fight here to the death. He sprang back, still facing me; he was livid with fear; he called for help, help! he ordered me to leave, he was a craven and would not fight; he called louder, and then I fired; he gave a scream and fell towards me on his face. I had hurled my gauntlet at him as I challenged, but there was no time to pick it up. I turned and fled. Some one seized me at the back gate, but I hurled him aside and ran on ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... magnitude and closely allied to the first two, is the great sin of ignorance. The mother of bigotry and superstitious fear; the father of duplicity and craven cowardice! What we know, we fear not. It is only the mysterious darkness of the unknown, that is filled with terror. To abolish ignorance, is to make the mind master over matter. Mind is both the spiritual and the intellectual expression of the soul. True ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... she was, was yet brave as any giantess. Not a drop of craven blood flowed in her spirited veins. Therefore, left alone, she neither wept, nor raved, nor tore her hair; but took a prolonged survey ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... Paris departed as from the tomb of the pleasures which had been the passing extravaganza of relief, from dull lives elsewhere. The Parisienne of that Paris spent a thousand francs to get her pet dog safely away to Marseilles. Politicians of a craven type, who are the curse of all democracies, had gone to keep her company, leaving Paris cleaner than ever she was after the streets had had their morning bath on a spring day when the horse chestnuts were in bloom and madame was arranging her early editions ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... M.A. Fellow and Lecturer of St John's College, Oxford. Formerly Fellow and Tutor of Merton College. Craven Scholar ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... craven scruple Of thinking too precisely on the event— A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom, And ever ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... his two companions approached the dead man, gazed upon him, and then at each other with satisfaction in their dark looks. But there was fear, too, in Roderic's face, for he was craven of heart. He drew back into the shadow, where neither moonbeam nor firelight could fall ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... eyes chanced to pass beyond the boma to the edge of the forest, and there he caught a glimpse of that which sent his craven heart cold with a fear that almost expunged his terror of the seven men at his back, who by this time were all firing in hate and revenge at his ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... world—at least the Protestant world—has maintained a singular reserve. In fact I have never heard the matter even once casually referred to in any Protestant pulpit. It may be that even a casual reference to it might be taken as favoring the Roman Catholic doctrine of Purgatory. Such is the craven fear that men have of being supposed to be tainted with Romanism. In other cases it may be that the whole subject is thought to be involved in so much mystery that it is better to leave it alone. But I believe that if we had a larger and more sympathetic view of ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... Farewell my hope then!—I had thought that civilisation meant the attainment of peace and order and freedom, of goodwill between man and man, of the love of truth and the hatred of injustice, and by consequence the attainment of the good life which these things breed, a life free from craven fear, but full of incident: that was what I thought it meant, not more stuffed chairs and more cushions, and more carpets and gas, and more dainty meat and drink—and therewithal more and sharper ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... there be more ineffable selfishness than Adam's plea in the garden? "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat." Had Eve been of no finer stuff than he, she would have left him there. But his craven answer at once revealed the essential weakness that demanded the devoted stay of unselfish constancy. Were woman the ever-selfish, Eve would have abandoned Adam to himself while she tripped to solitary pastures new. But the ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... could not, even at this melancholy moment, dwell on his impending loss of income, though that increase at the time had occasioned him, and those who loved him, so much satisfaction. And yet was he in fault? Had his decision been a narrow-minded and craven one? He could not bring himself to believe so—his conscience assured him that he had acted rightly. After all that he had experienced, he was prepared to welcome an obscure, but could not endure a ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... art silent, I know it all now. God punishes me because I have bowed to thy king, and sought alliance with thy craven blood, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... you ever read of Marshal Saxe, Mr. Faintheart? He fought the battle of Fontenoy as he lay a dying. He had himself carried on his bed of death from one part of the field to another; at first the fight went against him, but he spurned craven counsels with his expiring heart; he saw the enemy's blunder with his dying eye, and waved his troops on to victory with his dying hand. This is one of the great feats of earth. But the soldiers of Christ are as stout-hearted as any man that ever carried ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... groan, craven, and wipe my hand across my forehead to brush away the frenzy. The fingers came free, damp with cold sticky sweat—a prodigy of a parchment skin which ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... Thy counsel is craven, Thy caution I slight, No brave-hearted champion Should shrink from the fight. The blood I inherit Doth prompt me to do— Let us go to the challenge, To the Ford ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... high opinion of her corroborated by one who had no reason to exhibit her in a favourable light. He understood her point of view and sympathised with it. An idealist, how could she trust herself to Eustace Hignett? How could she be content with a craven who, instead of scouring the world in the quest for deeds of derring-do, had fallen down so lamentably on his first assignment? There was a specious attractiveness about poor old Eustace which might conceivably win a girl's heart for a time; he ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Connie's self-restraint nor his sense of humour, launched into an unflattering tirade of jumbled Indian, English, and jargon, that, could a single word of it have been understood, would have goaded even the craven chechakos to warfare. ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... If you should see them again, or hear where they are, oblige me by conveying this card to Mr. Waife. My employer, ma'am, Mr. Gotobed, Craven Street, Strand,—eminent solicitor. He has something of importance to ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a few more names, and then close another chapter of my memory. There was Mr. J.A. Craven, the Duke of St. Albans, the Duke of Beaufort, Montagu Tharp, Major Egerton, General Pearson, Lord Calthorpe, Henry Saville, Douglas Gordon (Mr. Briggs), Oliver Montagu, Henry Leeson, the Earl of Milltown, Sir Henry Devereux, Johnny Shafto, Douglas Phillips, ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... revulsion of feeling; she had not expected Elisabeth to be of the fearful type of woman. Women of splendid physique and abounding vitality are rarely obsessed by craven apprehensions. ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... and craven-limbed!" cried the eldest, who had been a noted warrior in his day, "darest thou enter unsummoned amidst the secret councils of the wise men? Knowest thou not, scatterling! that the penalty ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... only challenged, but even pursued him, and blocked up his passage in the public highway; outrages which he (Sir Launcelot) would not suffer to pass unpunished. Accordingly, he insisted on the combat, on pain of treating Sycamore as a craven, and a recreant. This declaration was reinforced by Dawdle, who told him, that, should he now decline the engagement, all the world would look upon him as an ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... who went up Vesuvius with us, and was very merry and agreeable. He is travelling with Lord and Lady Somers, and Lord Somers being laid up with an attack of malaria fever, Layard had a day to spare. Craven, who was Lord Normanby's Secretary of Legation in Paris, now lives at Naples, and is married to a French lady. He is very hospitable and hearty, and seemed to have vague ideas that something might be ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... crowd: her glance was searching, in her eye was an ineffable look of scorn. "Down on your knees!" she said, "craven sons, whose sires would blush to own you! You who have steeped your hearts in pride and boastfulness! Were your fathers slow to draw the sword and quick to sheathe it? Did they cower by their hearths when warm ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... with heroes. There are Travis and Crockett and Bowie, who held The Alamo until they all were slain; there is Craven, who stepped aside that his pilot might escape from his sinking ship; there is Lawrence, whose last words are still ringing down the years; there is Nathan Hale, immortalized by his lofty bearing beneath the scaffold; ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... dress—'Tout feu' as a ladies' journal would describe it—and a cloak of smoke colour which fell from one shoulder and double draped the other. There was nothing ordinary in the appearance of Auriole Craven. She attacked the eye and held it captive. A woman would have declared her to be overdressed—outre—almost demi mondaine—would have denounced the white face and the red curled lips—would have criticised the uncanny ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... upon them; to perform that duty would have been the pride and delight of almost any other Englishmen; and they, with the task before them and the power to perform it in their hands—can it be that they have shrunk back in craven cowardice, deserted their ally, betrayed their country, dishonoured their own names to all eternity, that they might do the bidding of John Bright, and sustain for a while the infamous tyranny of a Butler, a Seward, and ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... one willing to make himself a sort of accessary after the fact in any success; always an old woman or two, ready to remember omens of all quantities and qualities in the childhood of persons who have become distinguished. Accordingly, a certain "Mrs. Grafty, of Craven Street, Finsbury," assures Mr. George Keats, when he tells her that John is determined to be a poet, "that this was very odd, because when he could just speak, instead of answering questions put to him, he would always make a rhyme to the last word people said, ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... pitchfork, his freckled-face greenish-white and the pupils of his eyes wide with the fear of his own daring, threatened immediate damage to the person of Farmer Perkins, unless the said Perkins dropped the whip. This Perkins did. More than that, he fled with ridiculous haste, and in craven terror; while Lafe, having given the trembling colt a parting caress, quitted the farm ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... had no participation in the deed, I will make you accountable for his death. Craven and prevaricating villain as you are, you shall not escape this responsibility. If you refuse to meet me in honorable combat, I will denounce you to the king of Spain as a criminal, and will proclaim you to the whole world as ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... captain was speaking, I caught sight of Iffley's countenance. Again I observed on it that expression of hatred and baffled vengeance, and when he himself was so palpably alluded to, there was mixed with it no small amount of craven apprehension. The stern eye of the captain ranged over the countenances of the crew, it rested a moment on ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... to tell him what had fallen from Murat when I met him in the Champs Elysees "Bah!" resumed Rapp, "Murat, brave as he was, was a craven in Napoleon's presence! On the Emperor's arrival in Dantzic the first thing of which he spoke to me was the alliance he had just then concluded with Prussia and Austria. I could not refrain from telling him that we did a great deal of mischief as allies; ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... evening at nine o'clock, accompanied by Mrs Justina Cohen, her daughter Lucy, and Mr Benjamin Gomperz. On the ground they were met by Cresford the builder, with his nephew, also Grundy with his son, and Craven his partner. Everything having been properly prepared, Mr Montefiore covered the part on which the wall near the Holy Ark for the reception of the sacred scrolls of the Pentateuch was to be built, with Terra Santa, which they had ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... 'Ah, you craven crows!' cried Pavel, 'what are you frightened of? Look, the potatoes are done.' (They all came up to the pot and began to eat the smoking potatoes; only Vanya did not stir.) 'Well, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... fear for Scotland, my father?" she would urge; "is it because her queen is but a child and now far distant, that anarchy and gloom shall enfold our land? Is it not shame in ye thus craven to deem her sons, when in thy own breast so much devotion and loyalty have rest? why not judge others by yourself, my father, and know the dark things of which ye dream can ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... the pale moon. The cold, steady stars shine down on the upturned faces of the South's best and bravest. No craven blenching when the tattered Stars and Bars bear up in battle blast. And yet the starry flag crowns mountain and rock. It sweeps through blood-stained gorges and past battle-scarred defile. Onward, ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... my body had turned into the toughest of hickory. That is what comes of reminding me of Julia Craven. (Brooding, with his chin on his right hand and his elbow on his knee.) I have sat alone with her just as I am ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw
... breast From labour, and sorrow, for ever shall rest. Then, mother, my darlin', don't cry any more, Don't make me seem broken, in this, my last hour; For I wish, when my head's lyin' undher the raven, No thrue man can say that I died like a craven!" Then facin' the judge Shamus bent down his head, An' that minute the ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... songsters, and fortissimo is their favourite note of expression. "Straack up a bit, Jock! straack up a bit," a Yorkshire parson used to shout to his clerk, when he wanted the Old Hundredth to be sung. Well do I remember a delightful old clerk in the Craven district, who used to give out the hymn in the accustomed form with charming manner. He liked not itinerant choirs, which were not uncommon forty or fifty years ago, and used to migrate from church to church, and sometimes to chapel, in the district where the members lived. ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... made of eunuchs, a class which seems to have originated with the law's severity rather than from a callous desire of the rich to secure a craven and helpless medium and means for pandering to and enjoying the pleasures of the harem without fear of sexual intrigue. Criminals whose feet were cut off were usually employed as park-keepers simply because there could be no inclination on their ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... worse: a female laureate licensed by the Institute, Madame Augustus Craven, author of Recit d'une soeur, of Eliane and Fleaurange, puffed into reputation by the whole apostolic press. Never, no, never, had Des Esseintes imagined that any person could write such ridiculous nonsense. In the point of conception, these books ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... before the storm; reel back; bend down, knuckle down, knuckle to, knuckle under; knock under. eat dirt, eat the leek, eat humble pie; bite the dust, lick the dust; be at one's feet, fall at one's feet; craven; crouch before, throw oneself at the feet of; swallow the leek, swallow the pill; kiss the rod; turn the other cheek; avaler les couleuvres[Fr], gulp down. obey &c. 743; kneel to, bow to, pay homage to, cringe to, truckle ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... ye are, in claws of spite a prey. * * * * * Nor trouble we just Heaven that quick revenge be done On Satan's chamberlains highseated in Berlin; Their reek floats round the world on all lands neath the sun: Tho' in craven Germany was no man found, not one With spirit enough to cry Shame!—Nay but on such sin Follows Perdition eternal ... and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... robber-knight dealeth him a great buffet of his sword so as that it went nigh to stun him altogether. Howbeit the Coward Knight moveth not. Perceval looketh at him in wonderment and thinketh him that he hath set too craven a knight in his place, and now at last knoweth well that he spake truth. The robber-knight smiteth him all over his body and giveth him so many buffets that the knight ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... of a few, however, would have contradicted this supposition. A few there were who approached the oracle with cowed and craven looks; and their trembling fingers, as they inserted them into the bag, proclaimed an apprehension stronger than could have arisen from any mere courting of chance in an ordinary casting ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... Drayton's craven fears seemed to leave him. He laughed and crowed. "How quiet the fence is—very obliging, I'm sure—just fainted in the nick of ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... a craven impulse to cry out to him to stay, a longing to throw herself into his arms, and take refuge there from the unendurable anguish he had caused her. Then the vision called up another thought: "I shall never know what that girl has known..." and the recoil of pride flung her back ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... stop it. I am credibly informed that if a courageous investigator visiting those funkholes, the clubs of London, were to snatch at the bald scalps so much in evidence there, he would in nine cases out of ten find that they came away in his hand, revealing the chevelure of the youthful and fit but craven. At any rate the experiment should be tried. I shall, of course, be told that the Tribunals are active and vigilant and their net so tightly drawn that no one can get through; but we all know what bunglers the English authorities are, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 31, 1917 • Various
... trapped. They realised that they had been out-generalled, and they understood their deficiencies. Not a man among them knew the finer points of warfare. They were thugs and roustabouts and ill-omened fellows who could stab in the back; they were craven in the face of an ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... though I can scarcely comprehend the latter being really approved. Could travelling fifty miles produce such an immediate change? You were looking very poorly here, and everybody seemed sensible of it. Is there a charm in a hack postchaise? But if there were, Mrs. Craven's carriage might have undone it all. I am much obliged to you for the time and trouble you have bestowed on Mary's cap, and am glad it pleases her; but it will prove a useless gift at present, I suppose. Will not she leave Ibthorp on her ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... he said, bitterly. "She detests me for having spoiled her triumph. She is not just," he added, angrily. "She has no sense of justice, or she would not blame me. What a mean-spirited craven I should have been had I shrunk away under her taunts yesterday. Well, ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... away from himself, sir; and perhaps you can understand the fascination I find in taunting the craven spirit within me." ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... replied the youth, 'That Sylvia should this first of May By me be taught that love and truth Can make of life a holiday.'"—LADY CRAVEN. ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... alone I will die a hero. Shall it be said she loved a craven slave, a base impostor, a vile renegade, a villainous dealer in drugs and charms? Oh! no, no, no! if only for her sake, her sweet, sweet sake, my end shall be like my great life. As the sun I rose, like him I set. Still the world is warm with my bright fame, and my last hour shall ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... After the craven conduct of the deputies, it is no wonder if the dregs of the people went further, and paraded the streets singing songs in praise of the assassin. The Pope summoned the Presidents of the two Chambers and Marco Minghetti, whom he requested ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... at the earldom. His elevation occurred at a period of life that would have been a season of decay with most men; but the prolonged and lusty Autumn of the veteran took new fires from a tangible object to live for. His brother Craven's death had slightly stupefied, and it had grieved him: it seemed to him peculiarly pathetic; for as he never calculated on the happening of mortal accidents to men of sound constitution, the circumstance imparted a curious shake to his own solidity. It was like the quaking of earth, which tries ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Ambassador gave a select dinner-party at 4 Craven Gardens, yesterday. Among the guests were the Baron de Chauxville, Feneer Pasha, Lord and Lady Standover, Mrs. Sydney ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... craven life of ours, Our honey out of bitter herbs is blent; The songs that fall as soft as April showers Came of the whips and scorns of chastisement, From smitten lips and hearts in sorrow bent, Distilled of blood and wormwood are they all— Idly ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... devils!" exclaimed the old mother, "that I should have suffered such throes for a craven. Cornelius Vanslyperken, you are not like your mother:—your ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Holkar's innumerable daughters: a match which, according to the Chronique Scandaleuse, brought more of honor than of pleasure to the poor Bobbachy. Gallant as he was in the field, it was said that in the harem he was the veriest craven alive, completely subjugated by his ugly and odious wife. In all matters of importance the late Bahawder had been consulted by his prince, who had, as it appears, (knowing my character, and not caring to do anything rash in his attack upon so formidable an enemy,) sent forward ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... wager—if he were in the habit of betting—that the 'Fulvia' could not turn round in her tracks in twenty minutes, while he parenthetically endorsed Hungerford's remarks to me—though he was ignorant of them—that lascars should not be permitted on English passenger ships. He was supported by Sir Hayes Craven, a shipowner, who further said that not one out of ten British sailors could swim, while not five out of ten could row a boat properly. Ryder's anger was great, because Clovelly remarked with mock seriousness that the lascars were ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Abe. He—he never was seen to take that train to Boston. I got it straight, or pretty average straight. Mandy Baker told me, and Peke Card's wife, Mary Lizbeth, told her, who got it right from Lute Craven who works in the post-office uptown, and Lute got it from Noah Coffin. You know, he't drives the ark you come over in from Paulmouth. Well! Noah was at Paulmouth depot as he always is of course when the clam train stops ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... did not know you as I do, lad," retorted Roger, "I should be inclined to dub you craven; but, as it is, I know full well that you only suffer from excess of caution, even as you say that I suffer from lack of the same. But I do not agree with your prophecy that I should not live to bring home my spoil. No, ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... Spaniard for herself, and to have been deceived, tricked like a child; this brought her slender brows together, ominously, and made her eyes glitter in a way that Manuela would have known well. On the other hand—here was a romantic spot, a young soldier, apparently craven, but certainly wounded, and very good-looking; and here was luncheon, and she was ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... in Prince's Street at supper at Mr Page's, and at ten o'clock at night Mr Page went home with me; and, coming down Drury Lane there stood a coach by my Lord Craven's door, and the hood of the coach was drawn, and a great many men stood by it. Just as I came to the place where the coach stood, two soldiers came and pushed me from Mr Page, and four or five men came up to them, and they knocked my mother down almost, for ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... in New Bern, N.C., Craven County, the 2nd day of March 1859. My full name is Hattie Rogers. My mother's name was Roxanna Jeffreys. Her husband was named Gaston Jeffreys, but he was not my father. My father was Levin Eubanks, a white man. I was born before my mother was married. I called ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... Lessingham's Wednesday evening. The house at Craven Hill opened its doors at ten o'clock, and until midnight there was no lack of company. Singular people, more or less; distinguished from society proper by the fact that all had a modicum of brains. Some came from luxurious homes, some from garrets. Visitors from Paris were ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... rear platform of his train next day, looking back up the canon towards the shining crest of Colorow, he had a craven sense of having deserted a helpless young girl in the ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... splendid civilization suicide had as honorable place as any other courageous, reasonable and unselfish act. Antony, Brutus, Cato, Seneca—these were not of the kind of men to do deeds of cowardice and folly. The smug, self-righteous modern way of looking upon the act as that of a craven or a lunatic is the creation of priests, Philistines and women. If courage is manifest in endurance of profitless discomfort it is cowardice to warm oneself when cold, to cure oneself when ill, to drive ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... far away, Dealing death, strong-handed, where he stands at bay. Of him the mother I; such my son is he. Be thou who thou may'st, my son thou canst not be. (Yet can Heaven have fated, dealt this fearful blow? Can his soul be craven, quail before the foe?) If in truth thou'rt Stephen, faint returning home, Not within these portals shalt thou ever come. Hasten to thy brave ones; for thy country fall; Then maternal love with wreaths shall deck thy pall!" Once more Stephen rallies; lusty sounds ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... Heart, a Tragedy, acted by the King's Servants at the private House in Black-Fryars, printed in 4to. London 1633, and dedicated to Lord Craven, Baron of Hamstead-Marshal: The Speaker's Names are fitted to their Qualities, and most of them ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... may be given in many ways And loyalty to truth be sealed As bravely in the closet as the field, So generous is fate; But then to stand beside her, When craven churls deride her, To front a lie in arms, and not to yield, This shows, methinks, God's plan And measure of a stalwart man, Limbed like the old heroic breeds, Who stands self-poised on manhood's solid earth, Not forced to frame excuses for his ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... the century, as the following, which is also taken from a letter which appeared in the same journal, seems to show:—"Drawing blood from above the mouth of the person suspected is the favourite antidote in the neighbourhood of Burnley; and in the district of Craven, a few miles within the borders of Yorkshire, a person who was ill-disposed towards his neighbours is believed to have slain a pear-tree which grew opposite his house by directing towards it 'the first morning glances' of his evil eye. Spitting three times in the person's face; turning ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... shrinking, without a struggle, from his duty, he himself will not the less certainly perish for this baseness of poltroonery. He will die no less: and why not? Wherefore should we grieve that there is one craven less in the world? No; let him perish, without a pitying thought of ours wasted upon him; and, in that case, all our grief will be reserved for the fate of the helpless girl, who now, upon the least shadow of failure in him, must, by the fiercest of translations—must, without ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... say," observed Dobson, "that the Hottentot robber is becoming religious or craven-hearted, I ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... both craven and foolish. It would allow the fleet of Weald to loot and then betray Dara. But it was Calhoun's idea. It seemed plausible to the admirals of Weald. They felt only contempt for blueskins. Contemptuously, they ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... all life's story you will find The miser—with his hoarded gold— A hermit, dreary and unkind, An outcast from the human fold. Men hold him up to view with scorn, A creature by his wealth enslaved, A spirit craven and forlorn, Doomed by the money he ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest
... "No, but shameful; and through whom? Through your son, your villain, your craven of a son who hides now! Through your base-born tradesman of a son who dare face ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... in that craven, dread-struck host, One val'rous heart beat keen and high; In that dark hour of shameful flight, One stayed behind to die! Deep gash'd by many a felon blow, He sleeps where fought the vanquish'd van— Of silver'd locks and furrow'd brow, A venerable man. E'en ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... toward divorce. He had simply drifted with pleasant tides and now he found himself washed seaward with a dragging anchor. It was small compensation to reflect that his fault was less vicious than craven. ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... it remained in Shakespeare's time, might have been proud of their Dramatic ally, if indeed they could have any fair pretence to claim as such him whom Shakespeare, perhaps in contempt of Cowardice, wrote Falstaff, not Fastolfe, the true Historic name of the Gartered Craven. ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... replaced this poor tragic muse in the Margrave's heart, though the lady herself lived to be the last Margravine of Ansbach, where everybody seems to have hated her with a passion which she doubtless knew how to return. She was the daughter of the Earl of Berkeley, and the wife of Lord Craven, a sufficiently unfaithful and unworthy nobleman by her account, from whom she was living apart when the Margrave asked her to his capital. There she set herself to oust Mlle. Clairon with sneers and jests for the theatrical style which the actress could not outlive. Lady ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Majesty must pardon my using her own words; 'but if thou darest go in their stead, thou mayst be the saviour of king and kingdoms; if thou art afraid, keep secret, I will myself try the adventure.' Now may Heaven forbid, that Geoffrey Hudson were craven enough, said I, to let thee run such a risk! You know not—you cannot know, what belongs to such ambuscades and concealments—I am accustomed to them—have lurked in the pocket of a giant, and have formed the contents ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... quays With news still murmured. First from Imber Dea Came whispers how a sage had landed late, And how when Nathi fain had barred his way, Nathi that spurned Palladius from the land, That sage with levelled eyes, and kingly front Had from his presence driven him with a ban Cur-like and craven; how on bended knee Sinell believed, the royal man well-loved Descending from the judgment-seat with joy: And how when fishers spurned his brethren's quest For needful food, that sage had raised his rod, And all the silver harvest ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... standing over Mayenne, his face blazing. M. Etienne made an instinctive step forward, thinking him about to knife the duke. But Mayenne, as we well knew, was no craven. ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... got to a police station above the barracks, and got muskets and a few cartridges from a discharged African soldier who was in the police establishment. Being joined by the policeman, Corporal Craven, and Ensign Pogson, they concealed themselves on an eminence above, and, as the mutineers (about 100 in number) approached, the fire of muskets opened on them from the little ambush. The little party fired separately, loading as fast as they discharged their pieces; they succeeded ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... news about Clayton." Ferris' eyes were averted. In his craven heart there was but one burning question, "My God! Did he remake his will after our marriage? I may be left ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... feebly. Finding that nothing dreadful happened, he repeated his remark somewhat more boldly, and, being convinced after all that the apparition was quite harmless and that he had displayed his craven spirit for nothing, hopped back on his ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... cried Gaston, striking his fist on the table; "you venture it because you are not of my degree! Here, ye craven Squires, will not one of you take up my glove, when I cast back in his teeth your master's foul ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that is the word of a craven! And no, you are not, not, NOT to look at your Baedeker. Give it to me; I shan't let you carry it. We ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... killed when he goes to Jerusalem; for if he is really the Christ, it is a necessary part of his legendary destiny that he shall be slain. Peter, not understanding this, rebukes him for what seems mere craven melancholy; and Jesus turns fiercely on him and cries, "Get ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... and wailings were heard in Courthouse and Theatre, on the Thames estuary the ruddy glow of sunset looked like blood and flame, the sand-ripples and sea-wrack left by the ebb suggested corpses; everything ministered to their craven fear. ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... volume, called the "Goblin-Market," contains a number of very beautiful short poems; she exhibits, along with a sense of humour, a rare pathos, which, as Professor Saintsbury remarks, often "blends with or passes into the utterance of religious awe, unstained and unweakened by any craven ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... way to the station that evening with the feeling that it would be difficult to get anything out of Thalassa, whatever the reasons for his silence. He instinctively recognized that the authority of the law, which strikes such terror into craven hearts, would not help him with this old man whose glance had the lawless fearlessness of an eagle. But he had confidence in his ability to extract the truth, and Thalassa, moreover, was at the disadvantage of having something to hide. It would be strange ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... fought among themselves to obtain the smallest fragment of his bones, believing that their possession would confer on the lucky wearer some of the courage of the great hero himself. And so it may be that these craven savages hope to get a little real Northern pluck ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Bluffs. But where were they? That was th' question. An idee struck me. War is as much a matther iv ingenooty an' thought as iv fire an' slaughter. I sint out f'r an avenin' paper an' as I suspicted, it announced that th' craven foe was about two blocks away. At that very moment, th' sthrains iv th' "Bloo Danoob" was wafted to me ears an' me suspicions was confirmed. On such occasions there is no sleep f'r th' modhren sojer. Napolyon wud've gone to bed but slumber niver crost me tired eyelids. 'Twas six ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... strength, the Judges of the Common Pleas might have been seen, in their robes, presiding from sunrise till sunset over a combat to be fought, as the law prescribed, with stout staves and leathern shields, till one should cry "Craven," and yield up the field. Fortunately for them, the alleged murderer was so superior in bodily strength to his adversary, that the latter declined the contest. But the public advancement of the claim for such a mode of decision was fatal to any subsequent exercise of it; and, in ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... and less toil," shouted I furiously, "the audacity of the vermin! By the gods! I shall teach those craven beggars that I am the master and will tolerate no new-fangled ideas. Give orders to the generalissimo to have this delegation beheaded at once and to put to the sword every dissatisfied laborer in the land." As I uttered those words, intermingled with terrible oaths, and ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... notwithstanding the Mayor of that city—be his name forever buried in oblivion—went out to meet the enemy hoping doubtless to secure his favor by craven submission, a heavy ransom had been exacted for its exemption from pillage. A rebel detachment had fallen upon and put to flight the force guarding the bridge over the Susquehanna at Columbia, and thus compelled the burning of that ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... LAYNEZ. (THE TEST.) Brooding sat Diego Laynez o'er the insult to his name, Nobler and more ancient far than Inigo Abarca's fame; For he felt that strength was wanting to avenge the craven blow, If he himself at such an age to fight should think to go. Sleepless he passed the weary nights, his food untasted lay, Ne'er raised his eyes from off the ground, nor ventured forth to stray, Refused all converse with his friends, impelled by mortal fear, ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... dragoons. Hat in hand, the magistrates waited on the Prince's aide-de-camp, but at that moment the cry arose that dragoons and soldiers were coming up the street. Up jumps Mr. Oliphant and out into the street, faces eight or nine dragoons, and commands them to dismount in the Prince's name. This the craven Hanoverians were quite prepared to do. Only one presented his piece at the young officer. Mr. Oliphant snapped his pistol at him, forgetting that it was empty. Immediately half a dozen shots were fired at him, but so wildly that ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... men were all for abandoning the expedition, and that he was constrained to agree with them and to pray the captain to give the word for returning. How the brave Coello must have hated to give, even in stratagem, such craven counsel, and how carefully he must have chosen words that might carry the double ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... what craven spirit has come over thee? Is not the boat ready? am not I ready, and ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... compiler of the "Cross Readings." That compiler was one Caleb Whitefoord, a well-educated Scotch wine-merchant and picture-buyer, whose portrait figures in Wilkie's "Letter of Introduction." The friend of Benjamin Franklin, who had been his next-door neighbour at Craven Street, he became, in later years, something of a diplomatist, since in 1782-83 he was employed by the Shelburne administration in the Paris negotiation for the Treaty of Versailles. But at the date of the "Cross Readings" he was mainly what Burke, speaking contemptuously of his status ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... it!" he exclaimed. "The very thing! Wouldn't this be the very thing for young Craven. You remember, the young man that Professor ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... the least desire to tell her why, for it was simply a craven fear of being drawn himself into the imbroglio; but with the usual tactics of a man who is ashamed of himself, he took the high hand. "God forbid, my dear Miss Hazeltine, that I should dictate to a lady on the question of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... how such a doctrine could be abused. It practically comes to saying that God is on the side of the big battalions—or at least, of the victorious ones. Thus a creed which set out to create conquerors would only corrupt soldiers; corrupt them with a craven and unsoldierly worship of success: and that which began as the philosophy of courage ends as the philosophy of cowardice. If, indeed, Carlyle were right in saying that right is only "rightly articulated" might, men would never articulate ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... depression of spirit, and she reacted in the same way after her father's death. And this surrender was early followed by weakness of her disused body. She also surrendered to the weakness of self-pity, that craven mocker of self-respect. She was not a will-less girl, but life had brought her small chance to develop that will which masters, while wilfulness, that will which demands selfishly for self, grew out of the soil so largely of her ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... was mentioned, flooding grandly over the ignominies cast on him by the world. She met the world, as it were, in a death-grapple; she matched the living heroic youth she felt him to be, with that dead wooden image of him which it thrust before her. Her heart stood up singing like a craven who sees the tide of victory setting toward him. But this passed beneath her eyelids. When her eyes were lifted, Ferdinand could have discovered nothing in them to complain of, had his suspicions been light to raise: nor could Mrs. Shorne perceive that there was the opening for a shrewd ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... strength.—"How now?" again she demanded of them; "is it a time, think ye, to mutiny, when your lord is absent, and his nephew and lieutenant lies stretched on a bed of sickness?—Is it thus you keep your oaths?—Thus ye merit your leader's bounty?—Shame on ye, craven hounds, that quail and give back the instant you lose ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... the Netherby Hall, Among brid'smen, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all; Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword, (For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word,) "O come ye in peace here, or come ye in war, Or to dance at our bridal, young ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... did not know something considerably to his discredit: there was my Lord Ailesbury in strict attendance on him; and Killigrew—he that had the theatre—and the less said of him the better: and there were three or four more like him; the Earl of Craven was there, colonel of the foot-guards; and Lord Keeper Guildford; and the Earl of Bath; and there, in the midst, the King himself, with his blue silk cloak over his shoulders, and his princely walk, going fast as he always did, and smiling-well, what of those thirteen known mistresses ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson |
