"Recreant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... King in sore despite; "A murrain seize that traitrous knight, For that he lies!" he cried— "A base, unchristian paynim he, Else, by my beard, he would not be A recreant ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... hands but their own, that thing is the preservation and perpetuity of their own liberties and institutions. And if they shall think as I do, that the extension of slavery endangers them more than any or all other causes, how recreant to themselves if they submit The question, and with it the fate of their country, to a mere handful of men bent only on seif-interest. If this question of slavery extension were an insignificant one, one having no power to do harm—it might be shuffled aside in this way; ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... 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 becomes the denizen of the Desert, but "hard ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... Clara, the moment she entered the room, "I am a wretch. It was I who compelled Medwin to promise me, upon his honor as a man, that he would not fight Allington; and now that all the world has frowned upon him, I, too, have turned recreant, and cast him off. Mother, speak to me no word of command or remonstrance. I will never see Mr. Allington again; and I will this very hour go to Medwin, and throw myself on my knees before him. Yes, we shall ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... a great Jamaica agriculturist, one of the Council, a man who had known the good old times, got him by the button and held him fast, discoursing wisely of sugar and ruin, of Gadsden pans and recreant negroes, on all of which subjects Maurice Cumming was known to have an opinion of his own. But as Mr. Pomken's words sounded into one ear, into the other fell notes, listened to from afar,—the shrill laughing voice of Marian Leslie as she gave her happy order to her satellites ...
— Miss Sarah Jack, of Spanish Town, Jamaica • Anthony Trollope
... there to guard the prison; and these men were shot to death, even while under the governor's plighted pledge of protection. Hyrum fell first; and Joseph, appearing at one of the windows in the second story, received the leaden missiles of the besieging mob, which was led by a recreant though professed minister of the gospel. But the brutish passion of the mob was not yet sated; propping the body against a well-curb in the jail-yard, the murderers poured a volley of bullets into the corpse, and fled. ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage
... Lord's Day. "The hour of attack approaches." And it is a singular consideration what I risk; I may yet be the subject of a tract, and a good tract too—such as one which I remember reading with recreant awe and rising hair in my youth, of a boy who was a very good boy, and went to Sunday Schule, and one day kipped from it, and went and actually bathed, and was dashed over a waterfall, and he was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. A dangerous trade, that, and one that I have ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... some recreant thought, Which now I all forget, That painful feeling in me wrought Of ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... rapture yield, The stern Atrides rages round the field: So some fell lion whom the woods obey, Roars through the desert, and demands his prey. Paris he seeks, impatient to destroy, But seeks in vain along the troops of Troy; Even those had yielded to a foe so brave The recreant warrior, hateful as the grave. Then speaking thus, the king of kings arose, "Ye Trojans, Dardans, all our generous foes! Hear and attest! from Heaven with conquest crown'd, Our brother's arms the just success have ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... down the trail after the recreant horses, whistled a tune as he went, for he was happy. He did not weigh reason against happiness—it was too soon for that. He would have given you, however, if pressed, a number of very good reasons why he and Polly Street were going to ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... adverse party had an obstinate match at wrestling. They tugged, and strained, and panted, without either getting the mastery, until both came to the ground, and rolled upon the green. Just then, the disconsolate Phoebe came by. She saw her recreant lover in fierce contest, as she thought, and in danger. In a moment pride, pique, and coquetry, were forgotten; she rushed into the ring, seized upon the rival champion by the hair, and was on the point of wreaking on him her puny vengeance, ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... spite of the agony he was suffering, he continued to give his orders. One of the last he issued was to direct the other captains to "keep the line and behave like men." Great was his grief, vexation, and rage, when the recreant captains came on board and declared that enough had been done, and that it would be dangerous to follow the enemy. In vain the old admiral pleaded with them. They persisted that by so doing they would ensure the destruction of their ships and ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... Troth, the Resolution is proved recreant; the Countenance hath changed his copy; and the passionate knight is shedding funeral ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... manifestations form a link between that world in which each one struggles to "live respectable," and that nether world in which are also found cases of devotion and of enduring affection arising out of the midst of the folly and the shame. The girl there who through all tribulation supports her recreant "lover," or the girl who overcomes, her drink and opium habits, who renounces luxuries and goes back to uninteresting daily toil for the sake of the good opinion of a man who wishes her to "appear decent," although he never means to marry her, these ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... may shirk labour, the brain is not idle. If it do not grow corn, it will grow thistles, which will be found springing up all along the idle man's course in life. The ghosts of indolence rise up in the dark, ever staring the recreant in the face, ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... and sister. The same florid coloring was remarkable in the countenances of both, save that the tints were a few shades deeper on the visage of Maurice. His eyes were of a darker blue; his glossy hair was tinged with chestnut, while Bertha's shone with unmingled gold; but, like Bertha's, his recreant locks had a strong tendency to curl, and lay in rich clusters upon his brow, distressing him by a propensity which he deemed effeminate. His mouth was as ripely red as hers, but somewhat larger, firmer, and less bland in its character. His eyebrows, too, were more darkly ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... six, I should still think that the will which plunged Mr. Barrows into his dreadful grave was the same which once before had made him taste the horrors of his threatened doom. But public disgrace and execration are not what I seek for my recreant lover. The inner anguish which no eye can see is what I have been forced to endure and what he shall be made to suffer. Guilty or not he can never escape that now; and it is a future which I gloat upon and from which I would not have him escape, no, not at the cost of his ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... that nothing broke the tie of strong affection between us three brothers. Griffith might figure as the 'vary parfite knight,' the St. George of the piece, glittering in the halo shed round him by the bright eyes of the rescued damsel; while Clarence might drag himself along as the poor recreant to be contemned and tolerated, and he would accept the position meekly as only his desert, without a thought of bitterness. Indeed, he himself seemed to have imbibed Nurse Gooch's original opinion, that his genuine love for sacred things ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Nascere, magne puer! tibi primas, ecce, corollas Deproperat tellus, fundit tibi munera, quicquid Carpit Arabs, hortis quicquid frondescit Eois; Altius, en! Lebanon gaudentia culmina tollit; En! summo exultant nutantes vertice sylvae: Mittit aromaticas vallis Saronica nubes, Et juga Carmeli recreant fragrantia coelum. Deserti laeta mollescunt aspera voce: Auditur Deus! ecce Deus! reboantia circum Saxa sonant, Deus! ecce Deus! deflectitur aether, Demissumque Deum tellus capit; ardua cedrus, Gloria sylvarum, dominum inclinata salutet: Surgite convalles, tumidi subsidite montes! ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... dreamed how anxiously the young girl 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
... prove a recreant, and witness such a spirit! Hundreds of warriors have I witnessed in their blood, but never a firmer soul among ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... very cruel, especially in St. John and later in St. Croix. "Besides the usual floggings, cutting off of ears, hands, and legs and final hangings (when there was nothing more to torture) the Danes—till the influence of the Moravian missionaries bettered things—were in the habit of 'pinching' recreant slaves with red-hot iron pinchers, or for heinous offences pinching pieces of flesh out of them. The Moravian missionaries came to the islands and brought to the inhabitants the practice and precept of a simple Christianity. Their work among the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... Miles gloriosus of Plautus; a brother, at least, of our Ancient Pistol and Bobadil. The ludicrous names of this military poltroon were Spavento (Horrid fright), Spezza-fer (Shiver-spear), and a tremendous recreant was Captain Spavento de Val inferno. When Charles V. entered Italy, a Spanish Captain was introduced; a dreadful man he was too, if we are to be frightened by names: Sanqre e Fuego! and Matamoro! His business was to deal in Spanish rhodomontades, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... recreant Harp, that sings of fear And heaviness in Clifford's ear! I said, when evil Men are strong, No life is good, no pleasure long, A weak and cowardly untruth! Our Clifford was a happy Youth, And thankful through a weary time, 110 That brought him up to manhood's prime. ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... chief fallacy appears to be this—that he insists that the race must always count for more than the individual, and that the individual must fall in line and step with the average conventions of the race at the expense of his own well-being, or be judged a deserter and a recreant. ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... boundless sway Of cruel Love I feel, that makes a prey Of all those energies that lift the soul To her congenial climes above the pole I know the various pangs that rend the heart; I know that noblest souls receive the dart Without defence, when Reason drops the shield And, recreant, to her foe resigns the field.— I saw the archer in his airy flight, I saw him when he check'd his arrow's flight: And when it reach'd the mark, I watched the god, And saw him win his way by force or fraud, As best befits his ends. ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... course of events is so rapidly hastening forward that the emergency may soon arise when you may be called upon to decide the momentous question whether you possess the power by force of arms to compel a State to remain in the Union. I should feel myself recreant to my duty were I not to express an opinion on ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... by a majority of three, recreant Liberals again helping to defeat the just claim of a man whom they disliked; and Bradlaugh did not take his seat until the new Parliament in 1886 admitted, without a division, the right which the old Parliament had denied. Meanwhile, ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... spite of all he and an assistant could do to keep them together. The night was so dark that Sirrah could not be seen, but the faithful animal had heard his master lament their absence in words which set him at once on the alert, and without more ado he had silently gone off in quest of the recreant flock. In vain Hogg and his assistant spent the whole night in searching for their lost charge; and they were on their way home to inform their master of their loss, when they discovered a lot of lambs at the bottom of a deep ravine, and the indefatigable Sirrah ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... the recreant lover had married another, would Aunt Jane have kept her treasure chest and her wedding gown? Ruth knew that she herself would not, but she understood that aunts were in a class by themselves. It was possible that Charles Winfield was an earlier lover, and she had kept the paper without ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... 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
... Germans alike to horse. Through all the host the barons speedily arm themselves and mount. But the Saxon knight, all armed, his visor laced, has continued to pursue Cliges at a gallop. Cliges, who never wished to have aught in common with a recreant or coward, sees him come alone. First of all the knight has assailed him with words: he stoutly calls him baseborn fellow, for he could not conceal the mind he had of him. "Fellow," quoth he, "here wilt thou leave the forfeit for my lord, whom thou hast slain. If I ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... all the 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 ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston
... lay aside my pad and pencil. I put on my coat and hat, pull on my gloves, and in self-defense plunge out into the cold November afternoon. I avoid the country, and try to keep my recreant thoughts on such practical subjects as trolley cars, motor-trucks and delivery wagons, rumbling noisily beside me along the street. A sudden "To Let" card appears in a new apartment. I wonder how much the rent is. I wonder how much ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... hypocrisy. Well might he brag of his courage in an honourable cause, when he knew that he could never be put to the test. But what palliation shall you find for a rogue with so little pride in his art, that he exercised it 'half loth, half consenting'? It is not in this recreant spirit that masterpieces are achieved, and Maclaine had better have stayed in the far Highland parish, which bred him, than have attempted to cut a figure in the larger world of London. His famous encounter with Walpole should have covered him with disgrace, for ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... worse remained: in the capital itself, in that very Park in which they were, there was to be an immense meeting: the Premier himself would speak, and the thousands who listened were to threaten the recreant Legislature with vengeance if it threw out the ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... found his servant desert him to occupy land acquired by the capitalist who carried out money. Of three hundred persons embarked by Mr. Peel, in a few months not one remained to light his fire; but the recreant workmen were soon reduced to want. Many, under their broken indentures, claimed relief of Mr. Peel, whose flocks had been scattered, and his property destroyed by their desertion. He was glad to hide from their violence, while they were embarking ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... now see and say that "e faaalo Siamani i Peritania ma America, that Germany is subservient to England and the States." It is grimly given to be understood that the despatch is an ultimatum, and a last chance is being offered for the recreant ally to fulfil her pledge. To make it more plain, the document goes on with a kind of bilious irony: "The two German war-ships now in Samoa are here for the protection of German property alone; and when the Olga shall have arrived" [she arrived on the morrow] "the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... strive to charm him by the delights of her garden; the songs and dances of her maidens; her sweetest caresses. He turns from her with loathing, he curses her. At last Kirke's love turns to fierce hatred; she changes her garden into a desert; she calls upon Helios to come and slay her recreant lover. The sun god appears indeed, but says Zeus has forbidden him to injure Odysseus. In mad {410} frenzy Kirke tears his bow and arrow from Helios; she will kill her false lover herself; but her heart misgives her, the ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... 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 cost me more than fifty ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... receive thy bread baked from thy master." The Lord took it ill of Isaac that he cheered him with such kind words. "To Mine enemy," He reproached him, "thou sayest, 'What shall I do for thee, my son?'" Isaac replied, "O that he might find grace with Thee!" God: "He is a recreant." Isaac: "Doth he not act righteously when he honors his parents?" God: "In the land of uprightness will he deal wrongfully, he will stretch his hand forth in days to come against the Temple." Isaac: "Then let him enjoy much good in this world, that he may not behold the ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... the recreant, the apostate, the only seceder of our family from the just cause, who speaks thus?" said the old woman lifting her head with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... the cost, and paid it. He had sacrificed the dearest thing on earth, he had lost the woman he loved. Nancy could never be his now. She had driven him from her mind and heart, because she believed him to be a shirker, a recreant, ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... he had just made. He had reason to distrust the tactics such men might employ. His relief arising from the show-down was tinged with regret; he was still sorry for the innocent losers in Egypt. To employ two escaped convicts and a recreant prison guard in his efforts to prevail on Britt and secure the rights due an innocent man promised to involve him ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... ... it is not possyble ... ... ... ... ... The smoothe face of the wanton lovelye Richard Should promise more true fortytude in love Then tourne a recreant ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... statements with unquestioning faith, I went on to inquire whether he felt himself equal to the delicate duty of hanging about the yard of the Black Swan, and watching the doors of exit from that hotel, with a view to following my recreant nephew wherever he might go, even if considerably beyond the limits of Ullerton. I saw that the lad's intelligence was likely to be equal to this transaction, unless there should arise any difficult or complicated position by reason of the suspicion ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... anticipation. For three weeks he had not been to Oakwood, and she was determined no longer to endure such neglect,—at any rate, to investigate it. To this end she had sent Sydney to Dr. Morgan's to inquire of him news of the recreant German. And Sydney had not stayed to see the Doctor or ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... longer I'll endure it. I renounce This recreant monarch who forsakes himself. My valiant heart doth bleed, and I could rain Hot tear-drops from mine eyes, that robber-swords Partition thus the royal realm of France; That cities, ancient as the monarchy, Deliver to the foe the rusty keys, While here in idle and inglorious ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... knights shall bring In royal lists, to fight before the king; 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 vanquished 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 renowned; And take the ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... from the Knights of the fourteenth century. By way of further rehabilitating the Order, von Hundt declared that all the accusations brought against it by Philippe le Bel and the Pope were based on false charges manufactured by two recreant Knights named Noffodei and Florian as a revenge for having been deprived of their commands by the Order in consequence of certain crimes they had committed.[403] According to Lecouteulx de Canteleu, von Hundt eventually succeeded—after the defeat of Culloden—in persuading ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... of crisis came, and the rest forsook Him and fled. The fact that their faith and loyalty were subsequently re- established—that the execution which took place on Calvary was not the complete and summary ending of the whole Christian movement—that, in the days that followed, the recreant disciples became the confident Apostles, requires for its explanation the assertion in some form of ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson
... to operate against any rising of the inhabitants, at a moment's warning; while every office in the kingdom, of the slightest importance or trust, is in the hands of her minions. Again, among some of the recreant sons of the soil, she has, alas too ample scope for the use of her accursed gold; and thus it is; that to cope singled handed with her against such fearful odds, would involve oceans of blood, both on the field and on the scaffold. When, however, ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... Lady Seton.—Go, worthless recreant, and in thickest fight Blot out thy guilty purpose: know thy life Depends on this day's daring; and its deeds And wounds alone, won in the onset's ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... death in action; the distant provinces fell a prey to the foe. The Province of Oran became the scene of a desperate struggle. With a chosen and devoted band of five thousand men Abd-el-Kader made his presence felt at all points. Now he fell on recreant tribes; now he made head against the French columns. Ever in the van, leading on the charge, plunging into the thickest of the fight, by his example he encouraged and inspired his followers. His bravest warriors fell around him; his horses were slain under him; his burnoose was torn ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... to say, the character of the blithe Adele, notwithstanding the terrible nature of her early associations, seems to fuse more readily into agreement with the moral atmosphere about her than does that of the recreant boy. There may not be, indeed, perfect accord; but there are at least no sharp and fatal antagonisms to overcome. If the lithe spirit of the girl bends under the grave teachings of the Doctor, it bends with a charming grace, and rises again smilingly, when sober ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... so intractable but for this new element in the situation. Madeline herself on the other hand, was a model of magnanimity; in Clifford's very hearing, she spoke of Cecily with tender concern, and then walked past her recreant admirer with her fair head in a pose of ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... sought the life of my lord and of me, for mine is interwoven with his. And do you think me so spiritless as to believe that I can be yours by compulsion? Tempt me not again, for the next time shall be the last, and the fish of the nearest river shall commute the flesh of a recreant knight into the fast-day dinner of an uncarnivorous friar. I spare you now, not in pity but in scorn. Yet shall you swear to a convention never more to pursue or molest my lord or me, and on this ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... stranger with dignity, whilst he slowly seated himself; "sir, you are justified in thus misdoubting me; for though a gentleman should, like the wife of Caesar, be above suspicion, never yet knew chivalry a time but there were recreant knights. Moreover, I can perceive that circumstances now must shadow, and, as with refracting influence, distort me, so that I may well stand here seeming to be deformed, although my soul, if you could ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... John. Time hastens, and I reply. Your knight of the silver mantle I proclaim a recreant, as treacherous as he is base. Sir John, for my—no, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... 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 world's homage, within a few ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... not fail for lack of a person to execute it. It might, therefore, in such a case as the one supposed, be competent for the United States to designate persons who should take charge of the State Government, and administer it in trust for the children of its former recreant inhabitants, and as their legal and political successors. Reverting to the settled principles of the law, we find that the essential idea of a corporation is its immortality, or individuality, or the perpetual succession of persons under it, notwithstanding the changes of the individual ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... the traitor who was known to the Haussas as MacGreg. His horse, surrounded by half a dozen badly-charred corpses, was discovered, but of the rider there were no signs. Reluctantly Wilmshurst was forced to come to the conclusion that fortune had favoured the recreant, and that under cover of the dense smoke the fellow had either crawled away or else had been carried by some of ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... laws of the Union, and not the other? Why, sir, if the people of Pennsylvania could sustain a distinction so odious, the very shades of their ancestors would rise from the battlefields of the Revolution, from Paoli and Germantown, and call their children bondmen of Carolina, vassals and recreant slaves! I speak not now of the whiskey insurrection, when, at the order of Washington, the militia of Virginia and of other States moved against the people of Western Pennsylvania, under the command of the Governor of Virginia and Carolina, and the nation ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Wherefore this delay? Fierce arms, not swiftness, must decide the day. Shift as thou wilt, and every shape assume; Exhaust thy courage and thy craft, and pray For wings to soar with, or in earth's dark womb Sink low thy recreant head, and hide thee from ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... gentry, yet no fighting Irishman could match her temper when roused, and the Billingsgate which passes through the dumb-waiter between our Mary and the tradespeople is enough to turn the colour of the walls. Yet though I have seen her pull a recreant grocery boy in by his hair, literally by his hair, tradesmen, one and all, adore her, and do errands for her which ought to earn their discharge, and they bring her the pick of the market to avoid having anything less choice thrown in their ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... Heare me recreant, on thine allegeance heare me; That thou hast sought to make vs breake our vowes, Which we durst neuer yet; and with strain'd pride, To come betwixt our sentences, and our power, Which, nor our nature, nor our place can beare; Our potencie ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... the Sawdust Pile. He wondered, with the arrogance of his years, assuming 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, indeed, a marriage certificate, with proper dating, could be flaunted in the face ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... 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, but as the hours passed the habits of his life and ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... boat was at the foot of the accommodation-ladder. Ghita now descended; and as soon as her uncle and she were seated, the skiff, for it was little more, whirled away from the ship's side, though two or three more, who had also been left by recreant boatmen for better fares, called out to him to receive ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... fortress-palace by the Shannon, and with "all their people and all their chattels" went deep into the forests of Cratloe and the rocky fastnesses of the County Clare; and there they lived the life of robber chieftains, harassing and plundering the Danes of Limerick and their recreant Irish allies, and guarding against frequent surprise and attack. But so hazardous and unsettled a life was terribly exhausting, and "at length each party of them became tired of the other," and finally King Mahon made peace ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... Margaret Aitken—a serving-woman. She bore nine children. Thomas was the eldest and the only one who proved recreant to the religious faith of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... as to 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
... flight of William, viscount of Melun, surnamed the Carpenter, from the weighty strokes of his axe; and the saints were scandalized by the fall [971] of Peter the Hermit, who, after arming Europe against Asia, attempted to escape from the penance of a necessary fast. Of the multitude of recreant warriors, the names (says an historian) are blotted from the book of life; and the opprobrious epithet of the rope-dancers was applied to the deserters who dropped in the night from the walls of Antioch. The emperor Alexius, [98] who seemed to ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... made these appointments, or that any member of his Cabinet advised it because of its possible effect on the Legal Tender Law. Yet this foolish and dirty charge has found extensive credit. I read it once in the London Times. It was, however, in a communication written by a degenerate and recreant American who was engaged in reviling his own country. It was also referred to by Mr. Bryan in his book on the United States. I sent him a copy of a pamphlet I prepared on the subject, and received from him a letter expressing his satisfaction that the ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... them together. 'Sirrah, my man!' said I in great affliction, 'they are awa'.' The night was so dark that I could not see Sirrah, but the faithful animal heard my words—words such as of all others were sure to set him most on the alert; and without much ado he silently set off in search of the recreant flock. Meanwhile I and my companion did not fail to do all in our power to recover our lost charge. We spent the whole night in scouring the hills for miles around, but of neither the lambs nor Sirrah could we obtain the slightest trace. It was the most extraordinary circumstance ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... Or, when Tom put on Clara's skates three successive 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
... Chatham's son, For him whose god-like eloquence could stun, Like some vast cat'ract, Faction's clam'rous tongue, Or by its sweetness charm, like Virgil's song, For him, whose mighty spirit rous'd afar Europe's plum'd legions to the hallow'd war; But who, ah! hapless tale! could not inspire Their recreant chiefs with his heroic fire; Who, as they pass'd the tyrant Conqu'ror's yoke, Felt, as the bolt of Heav'n, the ruthless stroke; And having long, in vain, the tempest brav'd, Could breathe no longer in ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... Meantime, some of his ecclesiastical constituents will suspect him, in his local ethics, of leniency to wide-spread corruption; and professed philanthropists will brand him as a trimmer and coward, recreant, fawning, and dumb,—the term spaniel having been flung at one of the best men and most conscientious ministers that ever lived, simply because he could not vituperate as harshly as some of his neighbors. Some would have him remember only those in bonds; others say they cannot endure ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... fair-haired, blue-eyed girl before the altar in her wedding garments. I am there also, vowing to protect her; to stand up and battle with the world for her; to be a barrier between her and want. But I have not done it—I have been recreant to every principle of honor or manhood, God ...
— Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches • George P. Goff
... sons, Who frown on Freedom, spare a smile for thee: 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 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 The panther Freedom fled to her old cover Amid seas and mountains, and ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... at home; but, whenever they get to running things their way, it—it is just the reverse." (Shame! No! Wretch!) He vainly strives to rally under the fire of imprecation, but it is too late. The groomsmen are denouncing him, as he deserves to be, as a slanderer and recreant. Mr. Ferris and Mr. Waring spring to their feet to implore the assembly to reject any and all such statements as the emanations of an embittered, oft-rejected, and "subtle, perjured, false, disloyal man;" and poor Blake, who really wanted to wind ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... 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 of ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... shame! He 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 ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... silver candle-sticks lay a horse-pistol. As the fingers approached it, their trembling increased. Twice they hesitated, craven flesh rebelling against a recreant will. They shook so frightfully upon encountering the butt that it seemed as if to grasp it were beyond their power. Once they had seized it, however, the trembling left them and passed into ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... morn a Peri at the gate Of Eden stood, disconsolate; And as she listened to the Springs Of Life within, like music flowing, And caught the light upon her wings 5 Through the half-open portal glowing, She wept to think her recreant race Should e'er have lost that glorious place! "How happy," exclaimed this child of air, "Are the holy spirits who wander there, 10 'Mid flowers that never shall fade or fall; Though mine are the gardens of earth and sea, And the stars themselves have flowers for me, One blossom ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... husband for her. How it happened, I should not be able to tell you; everything might seem so untrue. She became pregnant. I had already long felt dismay at my own weakness and meanness. Shame, despair, dread of the world, waged war within my soul, and made me their recreant slave. I sent her away in my distress, provided for her, richly, prodigally; but my heart was turned to stone. Grief, sadness, doubts in herself and in God, bitter mortification that she had forfeited my love, or ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... 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 three realms ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... seemed such a kind and thoughtful act on Christine's part that he could scarcely believe it; at the same time he was full of shame and self-reproach that by his sleep he had left her unguarded, and he said: "Miss Ludolph, I hope you will pardon you recreant knight, who slept while you were in danger; but really I could not ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... case against 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
... 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 ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... her advances more than half way, and finally, encouraged by her father, offered her his heart and hand. Under other circumstances, Matilda would undoubtedly have spurned him with contempt; but having heard that her recreant lover was about taking to himself a bride, she felt a desire, as she expressed it, "to let him know she could marry too." Accordingly, John was accepted, on condition that he changed the name of Nichols, which Miss Richards particularly disliked, to that of Livingstone. This ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... the sake of her rouge friends that she approached the President at all, and she has used the hand he stretched out to her only on behalf of persons in prison and distress. The same, being delivered, call her gratefully a recreant. ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... monarch, and of all the treasures he acquired thereby. His "adventures" is among the list of Historic Tales in the Book of Leinster, but unfortunately there is no copy of this tract in existence. It was probably about this time that a recreant Irish chieftain tried to induce Agricola to invade Ireland. But the Irish Celts had extended the fame of their military prowess even to distant lands,[88] and the Roman general thought it better policy to keep what he ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... compel them to receive officials so lost to self-respect as to accept appointments against the known and expressed wish of the people, and so craven and degraded as to need an army to protect them in their position, we feel that we should be recreant to every principle of self-respect, honor, integrity, and patriotism to bow tamely to such high-handed tyranny, a parallel for which is only found in the attempts of the British government, in its most corrupt stages, against ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... fun'ral march of soldiers. We are rearing brilliant guide-posts, To the brave men of this era; We are pointing to their actions, With indelible mementos. Thus may generations rescue Sleeping heroes from oblivion; May no recreant prove wanting, In a sacred trust of homage. Let the archives of the city, The proud city of Lancaster, Still perpetuate her warriors, Still preserve her men of valor. They are resting on their laurels, In an everlasting ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... 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 playbill. 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; ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... thought—every grief that finds utterance from these victims in the quarries of Portland will go up to heaven freighted with curses on the Nagles, the Devanys, the Masseys, the Gillespies, the Corridons, and the whole host of mercenary miscreants, who, faithless to their friends and recreant to their professions, have, paraphrasing the words of Moore, taken their perfidy to heaven seeking to make accomplice of their God—wretches who have embalmed their memories in imperishable infamy, and given their accursed names to an inglorious immortality. ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... 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 ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... 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 ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... Mr. Stevenson was up to the wiles of the native, and he at once scented the favourite device for two to take the travelling allowance, and then, by some amicable arrangement, for only one to go. So messengers were sent in haste to look up the recreant, who finally joined us with cheerful face at the West Gate, which we reached by a rough path outside ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... convention. In contrast with this, Fillmore had no support from New York. The Whigs of that State had sent a delegation to impeach him before the nation for faithlessness to principle, and to demand that votes of other States should not impose on New York a recreant son to confound and ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... let him get away like that, you pack of rummies! Get up and chase him!" shouted Holmes in great excitement, as he pulled a revolver out of his hip-pocket and dashed madly out of the room after the fleeing and recreant Budd, while the rest of us, galvanized back to life by the sudden developments, took after the great detective down the corridor, in the way that they generally do in the movies, all hollering: "Stop—thief!" at ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... according to the laws of war in that age, she had purchased with her gold. The day of marriage was fixed; Orlando presented himself with a splendid retinue; Camiola also appeared, decorated as for her bridal; but instead of bestowing her hand on the recreant, she reproached him in the presence of all with his breach of faith, declared her utter contempt for his baseness; and then freely bestowing on him the sum paid for his ransom, as a gift worthy of his mean soul, she turned ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... crawling thing do you take me, Sholto MacKim?" he cried; "I will not leave this place till I know what they have done with her. She trusted me, and shall I prove a recreant? I would have you know that I am William, Earl of Douglas, and fear not the face of any Crichton that ever breathed. Ho—there—without!" and again he shook ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... then, for this reason, when they yesterday saw Cleonymus the recreant, on this account they became stags, because they ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... their midst, owing both his present and 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 ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... should woo the graceful Nine? Parnassus was not made for Lords and Swine. Roscommon, Sheffield, etc., etc. ... ... tragic stuff. Yet at their judgment let his Lordship laugh, And case his volumes in congenial calf: Yes, doff that covering where morocco shines, "And hang a calf-skin on those recreant" lines. ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... 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 resulted in the surprise and destruction of the village of Corlar,[407] ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton |
