"Recreant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that had been built up around the house of McGuire, the mystery surrounding the awe-inspiring prowler, the night vigils, the secrecy—all seemed to fade into a piece of hobbledehoy buffoonery at Beth's contemptuous description of her recreant relative. And he smiled ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... a sneer or an unholy light upon his face. Could I ever forget him? Could I ever look into the face of any other man and call it the dearest in the whole world to me? Ach—I shook my head and gathered my recreant wits together! I'd forget what he said and attribute it to the weird influence of ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... has been so effectively touched up for this recreant knight, she stands bathed in the soft light of the many candles that beam down with mild kindliness upon her. It seems as though they love to rest upon her,—to add yet one more charm, if it may be, to the sweet, graceful figure, the half-angry, wholly ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... master; and if they have done so unto me, how much more shall they unto you! Do not, through fear of hostile men, who can only kill your bodies and are not able in any wise to injure your souls, shrink from danger and prove recreant to the momentous duties imposed upon you; but be inspired to proclaim the principles of the heavenly kingdom with earnestness and courage, in the face of all perils, by fearing God, him who is able to plunge both your souls and ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... my family are centuries before the Trethericks; but if my family had ever treated me in this way, and then asked me to turn my back on my best friend, I'd whistle them down the wind;" and here Kate snapped her fingers, bent her black brows, and glared around the room as if in search of a recreant Van Corlear. ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... his voice a roar. "Release my mother, depose Zuleyman, recall that fugitive recreant who cursed me, and humble myself to seek pardon at the hands of this insolent Italian cleric? May my bones rot, may I roast for ever in hell-fire if I show myself such a craven! And do you counsel it, Emigio—do you really counsel that?" He was ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... recreant, and in thickest fight Blot out thy guilty purpose: know thy life Depends on this day's daring; and its deeds And wounds alone, won in the onset's brunt, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... turning recreant?" he asked in a low voice. "A pretty tale to tell in the kingdom ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... to observe that care for the poor Indians is the argument given for the course to be pursued in dealing with a recreant member! They had come to preach the Gospel to the Indians, and did not propose that evil should be learned ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... age, and to take up and continue his scholarly labours after he was dead. But Dino had failed him; Dino had given himself up to religion and entered the priesthood, and the passion of Bardo's resentment had flamed into fierce hatred towards this recreant son of his, and none dared so much as to name him ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... never asking what I write, or to whom, but ready to throw aside her work and talk the moment the pen is out of my hand. Talk—and what about? Heaven knows! But I would rather hear that talk, though on the affairs of a hamlet, than babble again with recreant nobles and blundering professors about commonwealths and constitutions. When I want to see how little those last influence the happiness of wise men, have I not Machiavelli and Thucydides? Then, by and by, the ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his wife?" she asked, arranging her scarf. "I never desire to be with him, or with any man recreant ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... all the wiles of that strategy which he would be called upon to support. And in such case the quarrel with him would be more internecine than with other foes, such as English members, Scotch members, Conservative Irish members, and Liberal Irish members, not sworn to follow certain leaders. A recreant one out of twenty friends would be regarded with more bitter hatred than perhaps six hundred and thirty ordinary enemies. It might be, therefore, that a time of tribulation was in store for Mr. O'Mahony, but he did not consider these matters very deeply when the ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... the character of the blithe Adele, notwithstanding the terrible nature of her early associations, seems to fuse more readily into agreement with the moral atmosphere about her than does that of the recreant boy. There may not be, indeed, perfect accord; but there are at least no sharp and fatal antagonisms to overcome. If the lithe spirit of the girl bends under the grave teachings of the Doctor, it bends with a charming grace, and rises again smilingly, when ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... wandering. But a bright gleam of sunshine darted through the trees—the stream foamed and leapt towards it—the waterfall sparkled beneath—the arrowy fern glittered like gold, and Netta's heart forgot her duty, and thought of her recreant lover. Her repentance must come in gloom, her sin ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... him of his inability to escape when pursued so closely by numbers. On the contrary, all his energies were aroused in order to meet his expected fate, with a calmness that should do credit to his colour and his manhood; one equally removed from recreant alarm, and ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... hear you say so, Mistress Thankful," said Washington quietly; "for 'twould have been natural for you to have sought an interview with your recreant lover in yonder camp, though the attempt would have been unwise ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... she exclaimed, "you think you are entitled to pursue a recreant sheep of the flock even over here! Oh! it is not on account of the storm—I know that—that you follow me! I have seen this coming for some time, ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... Albion, displeas'd, her own lov'd Spring surveys Passing, with volant step, o'er russet plains; Sees her to Summer's fierce embraces speed, Pale, and unrobed.—Faithless! thou well may'st hide Close in his sultry breast thy recreant head, That did'st, neglecting thy distinguish'd Isle, In Winter's icy arms so long abide, While Britain vainly languish'd for ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... been demanded had the Southern States accepted the Fourteenth Amendment in good faith. But that amendment contained so many provisions demanded by considerations of great national policy that its adoption became an absolute necessity. Those who controlled the Federal Government would have been recreant to their plainest duty had they permitted the power of these States to be wielded by disloyal hands against the measures deemed essential to the security of the Union. To have destroyed the rebellion on the battlefield and then permit it to seize the power ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... small, plump, jewelled hand, with short, broad fingers, and squat, though elaborately rouged and polished, nails, upon the bountiful curve of a Parisian corsage. "My heart did a double flip-flap ... hasn't done thumping yet. Am I pale still, Watkins?" She appeals to the recreant Watkins, who is busily repacking Baby in her luxurious perambulator. "I felt to go as ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... her recreant cavalier she went on to rage against life built on a man-made plan for the benefit of man. Women were hurt, no matter what they did. Being good wasn't any use. You got hurt all the worse if you were good. It was silly even to ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... awakening of a new people in the effort to throw off the yoke of the stranger. The huge embattled piles which flung their dark shadows over the streets of Florence tell of the ceaseless war between baronage and people. The famous penalty by which some of the democratic communes condemned a recreant cobbler or tinker to "descend" as his worst punishment "into the order of the noblesse," tells of the hate and issue of the struggle between them. But no trace of struggle or of hate breaks the annals of Venice. There is no people, no democratic Broletto, no Hall of the Commune. And ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... with all possible address and expedition to make his separate peace with Lady Angelica. Her ladyship, however, was proud to show that she had too much sense and spirit to accept again the homage of this recreant knight. He had not time to sue for pardon—his adventure might have ended in a jail; so forthwith he took his departure from Hungerford Castle, undetermined whether he should again haste to court to beg a place, or bend his course to the city, there to barter his fashion against ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... battalion and throwing it into confusion, cutting down some with their swords, transpiercing others with their spears, and trampling many under the hoofs of their horses. At this moment, they were attacked by a band of Spanish horsemen, the recreant partisans of Count Julian. Their assault bore hard upon their countrymen, who were disordered by the contest with the foot soldiers, and many a loyal Christian knight fell beneath the sword of an ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... shades worn tend to soft pallors, lavender, and pink, and creamy white. A group of girlish shapes in these colors, seen newly lighted at a doorway from a passing carriage, gave as they pressed eagerly forward a supreme effect of that sentiment in English dress which I hope I am not recreant in liking. Occasionally, also, there was a scarf, lightly escaping, lightly caught, which, with an endearing sash, renewed for a fleeting moment a bygone age of Sensibility, as we find it recorded in many a graceful page, on ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... slant upon his glittering casque, and said bitterly to himself—"Unfortunate city, fountain of all mighty memories—fallen queen of a thousand nations—how art thou decrowned and spoiled by thy recreant and apostate children! Thy nobles divided against themselves—thy people cursing thy nobles—thy priests, who should sow peace, planting discord—the father of thy church deserting thy stately walls, his ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... predetermined educational virus. If the virus "took" the child was declared immune to the bacteria of ignorance, illiteracy, stupidity and other prevalent social complaints. If the virus did not take the schoolmaster ostentatiously washed his hands of the recreant. ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... subtle explanation, Babbalanja. You must allude, then, to those recreant tribes; which, while in their own eyes presenting a sublime moral spectacle to Mardi,—in King Bello's, do but present a hopeless example of bad debts. And these, the tribes that boast of ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... together," cried Bernard, who in some ways was the leading spirit amongst the brothers, as he was afterwards the most noted man of his house. "We have talked of it a thousand times, and the day will come ere long. The King has promised that when next he is called forth to fight the recreant King of France, he will take the Prince with him, and he has promised that we shall go with him. The day will come when he will lay claim once more to that crown of France which by rights is his to wear, and we shall all sally forth to drive the coward Louis from the throne, and place the crown ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... flashed. Hiding! a son of Cuba! skulking about in the woods, while his brother soldiers were at the front, or, like Carlos, guarding the hill passes! This was indeed being only half a Cuban. She would have nothing to do with recreant soldiers; and she turned away with a ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... demand; As fell diseases that with cankering maw Eat the distempered flesh from off the bones, Madness and panic fears that haunt by night; Then banishment from human intercourse; From the libation, from the loving cup, And from the altar, whence a father's wrath Unseen should drive the recreant; at the last Death without honour and without a friend.— Think ye that I such oracles could slight? And if I did, the deed must still be done; For many motives join to set me on: The gods command, my murdered father calls For vengeance, and my desperate ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... resolved with one voice that his blood should be an atonement for the act. Their thoughts had dwelt too fondly on the shining gold they were to get in exchange for the maiden, for them ever to forgive the recreant brother who had snatched the prize from them. The chief soon recovered his usual grave expression, and partook in some measure the general disappointment and chagrin. His motives were not of the same mercenary cast ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... arrangements are concluded: go forward, I say; I've nothing more to say to you." And, drawing over the slide of the scuttle, he disappeared. Upon the very point of following him down, the attention of the exasperated seamen was called off to a party who had just then taken the recreant Bungs in hand. Amid a shower of kicks and cuffs, the traitor was borne along to the forecastle, where—I forbear to relate ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... cannons' thunder, Whistling shot and bursting bomb, When my brothers fall around me, Should my heart grow cold and numb?' But the drum Answered, 'Come! Better there in death united, than in life a recreant,—Come!'" ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... tooth-chattering ones, who flee from Nature because they fear the hand of Nature's God! Shrilly sound Pan's pipes; and behold the banker instantly concealed in the bank parlour! For to distrust one's impulses is to be recreant ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of her young mistress, and banishing her from the castle. To this also she had made up her mind, and she answered firmly though respectfully, that she would sorrow bitterly at parting with her young lady; but as to the rest, she would rather beg under her own name, than be recreant to the faith of her fathers and condemn it as heresy, by assigning one of Frank origin. The Lady Brenhilda, in the meantime, entered the chamber, where her mother was just about to pass the threatened doom of banishment.—"Do not stop for my entrance, madam," said the dauntless young ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... prevail! the Christians yield! Their coward leader gives for flight the sign! The sceptred craven mounts to quit the field - Is not yon steed Orelio?—Yes, 'tis mine! But never was she turned from battle-line: Lo! where the recreant spurs o'er stock and stone! - Curses pursue the slave, and wrath divine! Rivers ingulph him!"—"Hush," in shuddering tone, The Prelate said; "rash Prince, yon ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... days, and danced with her three successive evenings, leaving Kitty to freeze her feet in the one instance and fold her hands in the other, she just had a "good cry," gave her mother an extra kiss, and waited till the recreant Tom returned to his allegiance, finding his little friend a sweetheart in nature as ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... a commotion, as the ladies flocked with the children into the hall, with many exclamations of astonishment and reproach, surrounding the recreant young men. Mr. Errol, the Captain, the veteran, and even Mr. Perrowne, came to learn what was the matter. When they heard the intentions of the pair, Mr. Thomas and the parson were prepared to make the most abject apologies to the dominie, ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... ministers asserted that "from the peculiarity of its geographical position, and the considerations attendant upon it, Cuba is as necessary to the North American republic as any of its present members"; spoke of the danger to the United States of an insurrection in Cuba; asserted that "we should be recreant to our duty, be unworthy of our gallant forefathers, and commit base treason against our posterity, should we permit Cuba to be Africanized and become a second Santo Domingo, with all its attendant horrors to the white race, and suffer the flames to extend ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... knave! What—not one blush of conscience on thy cheek— Not one poor blush of truth! most likely tale! That I, who ruin'd Brissot's towering hopes, I, who discover'd Hebert's impious wiles, And sharp'd for Danton's recreant neck the axe, Should now be traitor! had I been so minded, Think ye I had destroy'd the very men Whose plots resembled mine? bring forth your proofs Of this deep treason. Tell me in whose breast Found ye the fatal scroll? or tell me rather Who forged ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... was, he had not meant to go so far. He had yet his doubts, his reversions, in mind, to those sheer facts which none denied. This was a recreant knight—but also a man who had suffered long and greatly, who, if eye and intuition could be trusted, suffered now. He hesitated a moment, then abruptly ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... strokes of his axe; and the saints were scandalized by the fall [971] of Peter the Hermit, who, after arming Europe against Asia, attempted to escape from the penance of a necessary fast. Of the multitude of recreant warriors, the names (says an historian) are blotted from the book of life; and the opprobrious epithet of the rope-dancers was applied to the deserters who dropped in the night from the walls of Antioch. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... ratiocination, rational, raucous, recalcitrant, recant, recapitulate, recession, reciprocal, reciprocate, recluse, recondite, recreant, recrudescence, rectilinear, rectitude, recumbent, redactor, redress, redound, refractory, refulgent, rejuvenate, relevant, rendezvous, rendition, reparation, repercussion, repertory, replenish, replete, replevin, reprehend, reprobate, repulsive, requisite, rescind, residue, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... unconsciously the right of special privilege, if Nan would ever reveal to him the identity of the villain. Perhaps, some day, in a burst of confidence, she might. Even if she did tell him, what could he do? To induce the recreant lover to marry her openly and legally would, he knew, be the world's way of "righting the wrong" and giving the baby a name, but the mischief had been done too long, and could never be undone unless, ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... That recreant has joined our enemies, And with the peace-pipe sits beside their fire, And ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... thou wind and turn, good Ximen?" said the Jew, shaking his head; "thou knowest well what my words drive at. Thy master is the pretended Almamen; and that recreant Israelite (if Israelite, indeed, still be one who hath forsaken the customs and the forms of his forefathers) is he who hath stirred up the Jews of Cordova and Guadix, and whose folly hath brought upon us these dread things. Holy Abraham! this Jew hath ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... well enough that which the damsels say, but he answereth them never a word. Thereupon they depart, and say: God give him an ill night, for an evil knight and a vanquished and recreant, and command the dwarf that he move not on any occasion. Messire Gawain slept right little the night, and so soon as he saw the day, arose and found his arms ready and his horse that had been led all ready saddled before the tent. ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... let the loud fierce knaves thy brethren quelled Ward off the wolves whose hides should line thy throne, Wert thou no coward, no recreant to the bone, No liar in spirit and soul and heartless heart, No slave, no traitor—nought of all thou art. A thing like thee, made big with braggart breath, Whose tongue shoots fire, whose promise poisons trust, Would cast a shieldless soldier forth to death And wreck ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Italian disaster was unfavourable to the Slav. In southern Hungary the Serbian duchy was dissolved, despite their protests, after an existence of eleven years. But as Francis Joseph was no longer able to bestow caresses on the recreant Italians he transferred his love to the Dalmatian autonomists, who now began to call themselves the Italian party. It is probable that he smiled on these 21/2 per cent. of the province, not only because of his family traditions, his leaning towards Italian art and the hope against ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... body, the wind of a spirit not wholly his; that his mind rebels; that another girds him and carries him whither he would not. It came now to Herrick, with the authority of a revelation. There was no escape possible. The open door was closed in his recreant face. He must go back into the world and amongst men without illusion. He must stagger on to the end with the pack of his responsibility and his disgrace, until a cold, a blow, a merciful chance ball, or the more merciful hangman, should dismiss him from his infamy. ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... and lean discolour'd cheek, With heavy eye, knit brow, and strengthless pace, Feebly Desire, all recreant, poor, and meek, Like to a bankrupt beggar wails his case: The flesh being proud, Desire doth fight with Grace, For there it revels; and when that decays, The guilty ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... transgressed the laws of chivalry and knightly honor, and for this cause had he been condemned to suffer death. Great sorrow reigned among all the lords and dames, and Queen Guinevere, on bent knees, had sued the king's pardon for the recreant knight. At length, after many entreaties, Arthur's generous heart relented, and he gave the doomed life into the queen's hands to do with it ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... them to receive officials so lost to self-respect as to accept appointments against the known and expressed wish of the people, and so craven and degraded as to need an army to protect them in their position, we feel that we should be recreant to every principle of self-respect, honor, integrity, and patriotism to bow tamely to such high-handed tyranny, a parallel for which is only found in the attempts of the British government, in its most corrupt stages, against the rights, liberties, ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... he is known those look avow, The mantling cheek, the knitting brow: I could not hope it did he live, But now, O! now, ye must forgive! Most recreant they who dare offend One who has lost her only friend! De Stafford's widow here appears— For him, my Eustace, flow these tears! Ye may not blame me! ye have wives, Who yet may sorrow for your lives! ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... thee, or by him who made The world! thy heart-blood dyes my blade.— Thy threats, thy mercy I despise, Let recreant yield, who fears ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... children recurrent appears The ancestral crime. When the dark hour comes that the gods have decreed And the Fury burns with wrathful fires, A demon unholy, with ire unabated, Lies like black night on the halls of the fated; And the recreant Son plunges guiltily on To perfect the guilt ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... be arranged, with certificate from each Squire of his satisfaction, to such and such a point, with the portrait of Lightfoot, or Lucifer, or Will o' the Wisp; and due notification, for perhaps a recreant and degenerate future, of the virtues and perfections at this time sought and secured in the English horse. Would not such a chamber of chivalry have, in its kind, a quite indisputable authority and historical value, not to be shaken by ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... opportunity. God always matches opportunity with ability, and when we stand face to face with opportunity, we must go forward or be recreant to every trust. ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 7, July, 1889 • Various
... indebted for the fortune to which she had succeeded, the captain of her. The steam-yacht was the Viking, and Mrs. Scoble sailed in her to New York, and then to England, where she obtained a divorce from her recreant husband, and became the wife of Captain Sharp, who was now in command of the Blanche, the white steamer that sailed abreast of the Guardian-Mother when the wreck in the Arabian Sea ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... A recreant Harp, that sings of fear And heaviness in Clifford's ear! I said, when evil Men are strong, No life is good, no pleasure long, A weak and cowardly untruth! Our Clifford was a happy Youth, And thankful through a weary time, 110 That brought him up ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... hope of this, the girl rose and went about her daily tasks; but the day passed, and another, without word or sign of the recreant lover, and each day brought a deeper sense of loss, but her pride would not permit her to ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... received an invite to the bridal feast, and appeared in red morocco shoes and a cap whose ruffles were the astonishment of the entire assembly. Mary Madeline's squealing baby detained her at home, and perhaps, also, she did not care to see her former lover, recreant and unfaithful though he had been to her, take the solemn vow of eternal ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... question, Sir John. Time hastens, and I reply. Your knight of the silver mantle I proclaim a recreant, as treacherous as he is base. Sir John, for ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... this strong-minded, politic, crafty woman feel that her daughter was placed under influences which might draw her from the idols of her mother, and make her recreant to the policy of her ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... his hundred knights shall bring, In royal lists, to fight before the king; 410 And then the knight, whom fate or happy chance Shall with his friends to victory advance, And grace his arms so far in equal fight, From out the bars to force his opposite, Or kill, or make him recreant on the plain, The prize of valour and of love shall gain; The vanquish'd party shall their claim release, And the long jars conclude in lasting peace. The charge be mine to adorn the chosen ground, The theatre of war, for champions so renown'd; ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... beyond the mouth of the river he sought. Unaware of his mistake, he determined to land and build a temporary fort; but the frigate Aimable, laden with stores, was wrecked upon a reef; Beaujeu, the recreant commander of the Joly, deserted his leader and made sail for France, and presently La Salle was left with only the little frigate Belle. Soon afterwards this vessel also sank beneath the stormy ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... Rollanz! I'll slay him clean with my good trenchant lance, If Mahumet will be my sure warrant; Spain I'll set free, deliver all her land From Pass of Aspre even unto Durestant. Charles will grow faint, and recreant the Franks; There'll be no war while you're a living man." Marsilie gives the glove into his ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... New York. The Whigs of that State had sent a delegation to impeach him before the nation for faithlessness to principle, and to demand that votes of other States should not impose on New York a recreant son to ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... wore away. The dying man lay on his bearskin pallet on the floor, motionless now and silent, but still breathing, and calm at last. It was dawn when the recreant servant found ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... street in the neighbourhood of Walworth, who has greatly distinguished himself in the minor drama, and who takes his portrait with him when he makes an engagement, for the illustration of the play-bill. His portrait (which is not at all like him) represents him in the act of dragging to the earth a recreant Indian, who is supposed to have tomahawked, or essayed to tomahawk, a British officer. The design is pure poetry, for there is no such Indian in the piece, and no such incident. He is a dog of the Newfoundland breed, for whose honesty I would be bail to any amount; but whose intellectual ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... results of the pleasures (or speculations) of the needy gambler,—the 'Destruction of Familys,' thereby incurred, no less than the breeding of highwaymen. Who does not remember "that famous scene when Amelia is spreading, for the recreant who is losing his money at the Kings Arms, the historic little supper of hashed mutton, which she has cooked with her own hands, and denying herself a glass of white wine to save the paltry sum of sixpence, 'while her Husband was paying a Debt of several Guineas incurred by the Ace of ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... King gazed on Shagpat, and was checked by passion at beholding him under the lather, so that the people praised Shagpat and the King. Then said he, 'O people, who shall forecast disasters and triumphs? Lo, I had this day at dawn intelligence from recreant Oolb, and its King and Court, and of their return to do honour to Shagpat! And I had this day at dawn tidings, O people, from Shiraz, and of the adhesion of that vain city and its provinces to the might of Shagpat! So commenced the day, yet is he, the object of the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a bride, and Christ as the husband (2 Cor. 11:2; compare Rev. 21:2). To be spiritually adulterous, as the rabbis construed the utterances of the prophets, was to be false to the covenant by which the Jewish nations claimed distinction, as the worshipers of Jehovah, and to be wholly recreant and reprobate. Convicted on such a charge those sign-seeking Pharisees and scribes understood that Jesus classed them as worse than the idolatrous heathen. The words "adultery" and "idolatry" are of related origin, each connoting the act of unfaithfulness and the turning ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... way aft without rejoinder. "Invalid's pessimism," was my private comment. And yet the sick man was whole for the time being; the virile spirit was once more master of the recreant members; and it was with illogical relief that I found those I sought standing almost ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... any hands but their own, that thing is the preservation and perpetuity of their own liberties and institutions. And if they shall think as I do, that the extension of slavery endangers them more than any or all other causes, how recreant to themselves if they submit The question, and with it the fate of their country, to a mere handful of men bent only on seif-interest. If this question of slavery extension were an insignificant one, one having no power to do harm—it ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... James, "ye maunay learn that there is nae rule wi'out its aicciptions." And then he added, "A pledge to a boy in play, like to ours of yester-eve, Baby Charles, is not to be kept when matters of state conflict." Then turning to the Spanish ambassador, he said: "Rest content, my lord count. This recreant Raleigh ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... de Frontenac became aware of this formidable disaffection, he boldly determined to strike a blow at the English power that should restore the military character of France among the savages, and deprive the recreant Indians of their expected succor. He therefore organized three expeditions to invade the British settlements by different avenues. The first, consisting of 110 men, marched from Montreal, destined for New York, but only ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... task to tell us how, after that great war in America which was more clearly than any other war of our time a war for an idea, the conquerors, confronted with a heroic task of reconstruction, turned recreant, and spent fifteen years in abusing their victory under cover of pretending to accomplish the task they were doing what they could to make impossible. Alas! Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... could sustain a distinction so odious, the very shades of their ancestors would rise from the battlefields of the Revolution, from Paoli and Germantown, and call their children bondmen of Carolina, vassals and recreant slaves! I speak not now of the whiskey insurrection, when, at the order of Washington, the militia of Virginia and of other States moved against the people of Western Pennsylvania, under the command of the Governor of Virginia ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... their way slowly back to the little cottage, the poor old tidy bonnet drooping lower than it was wont. Meadows came back to dinner; he had a mutton-chop in his study, for it was a busy day. While thus employed there came almost bursting into the room a man struck with remorse—Jefferies, the recreant postmaster. ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... State is bound through her magistrates to prevent the open violation of the holy Sabbath, as a measure of self-preservation. She cannot, without injuring her own vitality and incurring the divine displeasure, be recreant to her duty ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith
... themselves be rated according to the Jurisdiction order for the Ministers Maintaynance." The delinquents were ordered to bring their "rate" to the Deacon's house at once. A presuming young man ventured to suggest that the recreant members who would not pay in the face of the whole congregation would hardly rush to the Deacon's door to give in their "rate." He was severely ordered to keep silence in the company of wiser and elder people; but time proved his simply wise supposition to be correct; and many and various were ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... Amongst our recreant Shaykhs I must not include Furayj bin Raf'a el-Huwayt, a man of whom any tribe might be proud, and a living proof that the Bedawi may still be a true gentleman. A short figure, meagre of course, as ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... you as long as fate permits us to be together. I am yours—your wife; my fortunes, my present, my future, my all, are embarked with you, and destiny may do its worst, for Amine will not quail. I have no recreant heart to turn aside from danger or from suffering. In that one point, Philip, at least, you chose, ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... the clamorous crew, The good grey recreant quakes and weeps To think that crime no longer creeps Safe toward its end: that murderers too ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... when pushed far enough becomes incoherence. The psychologist prefers vision and it would display none to believe that she did it. In the abstract, that is to be regretted. A lovely assassin! A beautiful girl slaying a recreant lover! A future prima donna killing a local millionaire! Monty Paliser murdered by the Viscountess of Casa-Evora! And at the opera! If I had ever put anything of the kind in my copy, reviewers would have indolently asked: "Why doesn't ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... shaking hands. "Up with you, man!" he cries. "It's your scalp you're fighting for. Here, take a drink of this," and his filled canteen is glued to Burleigh's ashen lips. A long pull, a gasp, and hardly knowing what he does, the recreant officer kneels at the nearmost rock, aims at a painted savage leaping to the aid of a fallen brother, and the chance shot, for a marvel, finds its mark, and with a howl the warrior drops ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... exhortations of the priests and monks. Even when instigated by his tempters, the unhappy Doctor Augustine Cazalla urged him to be reconciled to the Church of Rome, he turned on him a look of sorrow and compassion, mingled with contempt, which at once silenced the recreant from the truth. Herezuelo's calmness seemed to excite the rage and all the evil passions of the priests and soldiers. They cursed and swore and reviled him in every possible way. "Ah! ah! in a short time, in spite of your bold looks, you will be in hell with your associate, ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston
... Christian religion. Whether a person's having no Christian religion be a title to favor, in exclusion to the largest description of Christians, who hold all the doctrines of Christianity, though holding along with them some errors and some superfluities, is rather more than any man, who has not become recreant and apostate from his baptism, will, I believe, choose to affirm. The countenance given from a spirit of controversy to that negative religion may by degrees encourage light and unthinking people to a total ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... presented the further theft as a sort of duty. This sum, large as it was, really amounted to nothing in comparison with the sum he owed the company; but it formed his only means of restitution, and if he did not take it and use it to that end, he might be held recreant to his moral obligations. He contended, from that vestibule of his soul where he was not a thief, with that self of his inmost where he was a thief, that it was all most fortunate, if not providential, as it had fallen out. Not only had his broker sent him that large check for his winnings ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... if, 'mid the cannons' thunder, Whistling shot and bursting bomb, When my brothers fall around me, Should my heart grow cold and numb?" But the drum Answered, "Come! Better there in death united, than in life a recreant.—Come!" ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... men than Mr. Thorne's; no man had said more, written more, or done more to keep the club up. The theory of protection could expand itself so thoroughly in the practices of a county hunt! But when the great ruin came; when the noble master of the Barsetshire hounds supported the recreant minister in the House of Lords and basely surrendered his truth, his manhood, his friends, and his honour for the hope of a garter, then Mr. Thorne gave up the hunt. He did not cut his covers, for that would not have been the act of a gentleman. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... me to watch from behind my mask the progress he made! If he proved successful, I could feel that part of the creating power was mine; for had I not trusted him? Let a man realize that there is some one who has faith in him, and the battle is half won. Even suppose he were to prove the recreant and the impostor predicted, the world would not be able to jeer at me; I could hug my wretched secret, and none would be the wiser. Decidedly, I was to be envied in the acquisition of this new interest. It would be almost like having a double self, for was not my hero ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... and to close to complainants their columns which otherwise would have been engrossed by just and reasonable protestations. The "young lions" of its prime (too often behanged with a calf-skin on their recreant limbs) are down among the dead and the jackal-pack which has now taken up the howling could no longer have caused Thackeray to fear or can excite the righteous disgust of that votary of "fair-play" ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... in such position that they served as a foot-path opposite their corrals. But Blake said he would rather none of his people intruded at "Starlight," and so it happened that we were around the fire when Gleason rode in about nine o'clock, and with him Lieutenant Baker, also the recreant Potts. ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... the Archduke John, into whose hands he first fell. But where he is no one exactly knows. The news has created an immense excitement in the kingdom, and all are resolved to sacrifice any of their treasures which may be demanded in order to satisfy the ransom which the recreant emperor has placed upon the king. Shame is it indeed that a Christian sovereign should hold another in captivity. Still more, when that other was returning through his dominions as a Crusader coming from the Holy Land, when his person should ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... her second good fortune. Let me tell one more story of the influence of this passion of domesticity in the servant;—its merit equals its novelty. In that inglorious attack on Buenos Ayres, where our brave soldiers were disgraced by a recreant general, the negroes, slaves as they were, joined the inhabitants to expel the invaders. On this signal occasion the city decreed a public expression of their gratitude to the negroes, in a sort of triumph, and at the same time awarded the freedom of eighty ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... recreant to-day. It is the first time I have missed service in a long while. Mamma felt too unstrung to come, and I had given up the idea, but both she and Aunt Grace urged me. I was too late for the omnibus, and walked up, and then I would not go in because service ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... with whispering and watchfulness. Aun' Jinkey smoked and dozed in her chair, listening to every sound, but no "squinch-owl" renewed her fears. The family at the mansion were too perturbed to sleep much, for all knew that the morrow must bring decisive events. The three soldiers sent after the recreant trooper returned from a bootless chase and were allowed to rest, but Whately saw to it that there was a vigilant watch kept by relief of guards on the part of the others. He was not very greatly encouraged by his mother's report, ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... crowds would yell, and the lion would be let loose upon him. He would confront the edict, tear it down, be seized by the apparitor, and hurried to the rack or the slow fire. Callista would hear of it, and would learn at length he was not quite the craven and the recreant which she ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... ground. Then they fought with swords with many great strokes and much blood-shed on both sides. Finally by a mighty blow from his enemy,—a passing big man of might,—Arthur's sword was smitten in two pieces, and he was called upon to yield himself as overcome and recreant, or die. ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler
... false assertions? Listen to me, then, whilst I endeavor to wipe from the fair character of Abolitionism such unfounded accusations. You know that I am a Southerner; you know that my dearest relatives are now in a slave Slate. Can you for a moment believe I would prove so recreant to the feelings of a daughter and a sister, as to join a society which was seeking to overthrow slavery by falsehood, bloodshed and murder? I appeal to you who have known and loved me in days that are passed, can you believe it? No! my friends. As a Carolinian I was peculiarly ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke
... Maggie's face between her hands and lifted it gently. Tear-stained it was, flushing and paling, but its velvety, pink-and-white, becomingly freckled surface was unscratched, unbruised, unmarred by the recreant fist ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... thought, and the neighbors thought, and after a time Tyler Sudley came to think also, that he had failed in the essential duty to the dead—that of affectionate remembrance; that he was recreant, strangely callous. They all said that he had seemed to esteem one baby as good as another, and that he was surprised that his wife was not consoled for the loss of her own child because he took it into his head to go and toll off the Yerby baby from his father's half-brothers "ez war movin' ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... Lesley's arm about her, or the support of Maurice's brotherly hand. Harry Duchesne's dark face in the background seemed in some inexplicable sort of way the worst of all. For she knew that he loved and admired her, and she was shamed by a recreant lover before his ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... time for my ally, and being here while he still stood, though tottering, waited until he fell, what of my honour then? What of the grand words I had said to Mademoiselle at Agen? I should be like the recreant in the old romance, who, lying in the ditch while the battle raged, came out afterwards and ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... for a minute or two during which she pressed him over and over again to have an interview with her recreant lover, bringing up all the arguments that she knew, reminding him of their former affection for each other, telling him that she had no brother of her own, and that her own father was worse than useless in such a matter. A word or two she said of the nature of the prize to be gained, and many words ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... children's sake preferred to foil inquiry rather than confront the truth and challenge it. He might not have meant to go so far, at first beginning with it; but, starting once, might be driven on by grievous loss, and bitter sense of recreant friends, and the bleak despair of a homeless world before him. And serving as the scape-goat thus, he might have received from the real culprit a pledge for concealment ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... sir—they not doing no good now, sir—the negroes an't!"—and on she went abusing the apprentices, and denouncing abolition. No American white lady could speak more disparagingly of the niggers, than did this recreant descendant of the negro race. They did no work, they stole, were insolent, insubordinate, and ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Gentlemen of Verona is the first of the series of Shakespeare's romantic comedies. Our interest in this play turns upon the purely romantic characters; two friends, one true, the other recreant; the true friend exiled to an outlaw's life in a forest, the false in favor at court; two loving girls, one fair and radiant, the other dark and slighted, and following her lover in boy's dress; two clowns, Speed and Lance, one a mere word tosser, the other ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... For this reason, then, for this reason, when they yesterday saw Cleonymus the recreant, on this account they became stags, because they saw this most ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... flight, In elder times the soft Phaeacian train In ease possess'd the wide Hyperian plain; Till the Cyclopean race in arms arose A lawless nation of gigantic foes; Then great Nausithous from Hyperia far, Through seas retreating from the sounds of war, The recreant nation to fair Scheria led, Where never science rear'd her laurell'd head; There round his tribes a strength of wall he raised; To heaven the glittering domes and temples blazed; Just to his realms, he ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... together with thy Victory, Whereto we're bound? Alack! or we must lose The Country, our dear nurse; or else thy Person, Our comfort in the Country. We must find An eminent calamity, though we had Our wish, which side shou'd win. For either thou Must, as a foreign Recreant, be led With manacles thorough our streets; or else Triumphantly tread on thy Country's ruin, And bear the palm, for having bravely shed Thy wife and children's blood. For myself, son, I purpose not to wait on Fortune, 'till These wars determine: if I can't persuade ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... Lois Montgomery, reducing it to its harshest terms for Phil's contemplation. It was in Phil's mind that she had nothing to do with those things; that the woman against whose cheek she had laid her own was not Thomas Kirkwood's recreant wife, but another and very different person. She did not know how to express this; it seemed preposterous to insist to her father that his former wife was not the same woman that she had held speech ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... considered the opposition which, without inconsistency, he cannot fail to offer? As prosecuting attorney for the Darringtons he would be recreant to his client, if he consented to release ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... not blame gentlemen of the South for using this threat of rending God's creation from foundation to turret. They have tried it fifty times, and fifty times they have found weak and recreant tremblers in the North who have been affected by it, and who have retreated before ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... future position to their suffrages, more closely identified with them in interest, and partaking more nearly of their modes of thought, and who from the shortness of his term might easily be displaced if he should prove recreant to his trust, thus having every inducement to correctly represent the sentiments and protect the rights of his constituents, might act as a check upon that other house, which, further removed in every respect from the people, elected more in accordance with, the aristocratic institutions ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... could not bear to be observed. It seemed to him that every one would see in his face that he was a recreant priest, perjured and forsworn. And so great had been his spiritual pride! So removed he had deemed himself from the weakness of humanity! And he had yielded at the first temptation, and the commonest of all temptations! ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... and parted in anger from the tower. But he went right heavily, since he must leave behind his friend. In his train rode all those knights who had drawn together to that town for the great tournament. Not a knight of them all but plighted faith to follow where he led, and to hold himself recreant and shamed if he failed ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... Russia still hovers, as an eagle might Within a cloud, near which a kite and crane Hang tangled in inextricable fight, To stoop upon the victor;—for she fears 310 The name of Freedom, even as she hates thine. But recreant Austria loves thee as the Grave Loves Pestilence, and her slow dogs of war Fleshed with the chase, come up from Italy, And howl upon their limits; for they see 315 The panther, Freedom, fled to her old cover, Amid seas and mountains, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... watched and waited for some word from Frank which should say that he was ready to defy his mother, and abide by his first promise. But no such letter came, and at last, when she could bear the suspense no longer, Ethelyn wrote herself to her recreant lover, asking if it were really so that hereafter their lives lay apart from each other. If such was his wish, she was content, she said, and Frank Van Buren, who could not detect the air of superb scorn which breathed in every line of that letter, ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... lists were the leopard and the loss. These brought forth a book, on which the wolf swore and maintained his assertion that the fox was a traitor and a murderer, which he would prove on his body, or else be counted a recreant. Then Reynard took the book, and swore he lied as a false traitor and a thief, which he would prove on his body, or be ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry |
