"Dastard" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... such as these I will never condescend to advert or to allude further than by the remark now as it were forced from me, that never once in my life have I had or will I have recourse in self-defence either to the blackguard's loaded bludgeon of personalities or to the dastard's sheathed dagger of disguise. I have reviled no man's person: I have outraged no man's privacy. When I have found myself misled either by imperfection of knowledge or of memory, or by too much confidence in a generally trustworthy guide, I have silently corrected the misquotation ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... prophetic song relate Each some scepter'd Murderer's fate! When shall scepter'd SLAUGHTER cease? Awhile He crouch'd, O Victor France! Beneath the light'ning of thy Lance, With treacherous dalliance wooing PEACE. But soon up-springing from his dastard trance The boastful, bloody Son of Pride betray'd His hatred of the blest and blessing Maid. One cloud, O Freedom! cross'd thy orb of Light And sure, he deem'd, that Orb was quench'd in night: For still does MADNESS roam ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... was never more fully-shewn than in its treatment of this writer—its love of paradox and change, its dastard submission to prejudice and to the fashion of the day. Five-and-twenty years ago he was in the very zenith of a sultry and unwholesome popularity; he blazed as a sun in the firmament of reputation; no one was more talked of, more looked up to, more sought ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... there the Emperor! he stood and gazed At the wild havoc, like a monarch dazed In woodland hoar, who felt the shrieking saw— He, living oak, beheld his branches fall, with awe. Chiefs, soldiers, comrades died. But still warm love Kept those that rose all dastard fear above, As on his tent they saw his shadow pass— Backwards and forwards, for they credited, alas! His fortune's star! it could not, could not be That he had not his work to do—a destiny? To hurl him headlong from his high estate, Would be high treason in his bondman, Fate. But all the while ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... numbers—who do not wish the former ill; myself I am not of them. Colonel Burr desired that duel; he lay in wait for the affront which should be his opportunity; he murdered Hamilton. He risked his own life—very true, the majority of murderers do the same. The one who does not is a dastard in addition—voila tout! ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... thick the shafts as snow, Though charging knights as whirlwinds go, Though bill-men ply the ghastly blow, Unbroken was the ring; The stubborn spearmen still made good Their dark impenetrable wood, Each stepping where their comrade stood The instant that he fell. No thought was there of dastard flight; Link'd in the serried phalanx tight Groom fought like noble, squire like knight, As fearlessly and well; Till utter darkness closed her wing O'er their thin ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... direct question asked with large, straightforward eyes fixed upon his. He tried to evade it, but she asked again with insistence, and with a faint doubt lurking in her eyes, "If these men are plotting, which God forbid! you know nothing of it? You have great wrongs, but you would take no such dastard way to right them?" ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... world. Thou shalt make Him, who has arranged all, comprehensible to me—yes! even if the vivid lightnings, which at this moment shoot from thy demon eyes, were to stretch me lifeless in this circle of damnation. Dost thou think that I have summoned thee merely for pleasure and gold? Any dastard may fill his belly, and satiate the desires of the flesh. Thou tremblest! Have I more courage than thyself? What quaking devil has hell vomited out? And thou callest thyself Leviathan, who canst do all! Away, away! thou art no fiend, but a ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... lance, calling out as he rode, "Sir, with the holly-branch, halt, and show your right to bear that badge—fly not thus cowardly, nor dishonour the cognizance thou deservest not to wear!—Halt, sir coward, or by Heaven, I will strike thee with my lance on the back, and slay thee like a dastard—I am the Knight of ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... now speaking exclusively to herself, "the only ground in Italy which has as yet made no struggle on behalf of freedom—a fitting residence for such a dastard!" ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... not for brake, and he stopped not for stone, He swam the Eske River where ford there was none; But ere he alighted at Netherby gate, The bride had consented, the gallant came late: For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war, Was to wed the ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... work and forgotten work, this peopled, clothed, articulate-speaking, high-towered, wide-acred World. The hands of forgotten brave men have made it a World for us; they,—honour to them; they, in spite of the idle and the dastard. This English Land, here and now, is the summary of what was found of wise, and noble, and accordant with God's Truth, in all the generations of English Men. Our English Speech is speakable because there were Hero-Poets of our blood and lineage; speakable in proportion ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... vainly disguised under the cloak of humility. However, Martha was far from practising the rigid austerities her whole appearance seemed to indicate. She only assumed this outward demeanor, in the same manner that a dastard mimics courage, the better to ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... the youth, fearlessly, "on whom you have been inflicting one of the most inhuman tortures Indian cunning could conceive. For shame, chief, that you should ever assent to such an act—lower yourself to the grade of a dog by such a dastard ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... this abuse at base Olfactus' hands? What, did he challenge me to meet me here, And is not come? well, I'll proclaim the slave The vilest dastard that e'er broke his ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... dared so to treat her had her father been alive or had we been blessed with a brother," says Miss Priscilla, sternly. "He proved himself a dastard and a coward." ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... you mean, sir, after the other inquiries you have done me the honour to make, to throw it in my face now, that I have—have in any way rendered myself unworthy of the position of your wife because people have been civil and kind to me in my sorrow, you are a greater dastard than I took you to be. Tell me at ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... with upraised weapon, sought safety in a sudden and inglorious dive under the table. Yet quick as he was, the old retainer was quicker. His heavy axe came down with a sweep, and never more would the fickle Stanley have played the dastard had not a carved chair arm stayed, for an instant, the weapon's fall. Ere it had shorn its way through the oak, Stanley was safe from death, though the edge scraped his head glancingly, sending the blood flying and leaving ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... quails so readily as the heartiest soul of the sensualist? Who so cowardly as the man only courageous in his oppression of the weak? The spirit of Temple was laid prostrate. He walked, and eat, and slept, in base and dastard fear. Locks and bolts could not secure him from dismal apprehensions. A sound shook him, as the unseen wind makes the tall poplar shudder—a voice struck terror in his ear, and sickness to recreant heart. He could not be alone—for alarm was heightened by the speaking conscience that pronounced ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... trafficker what I had heard already from Jim's wife; and yet my strongest impression was different, and might rather be described as an impersonal fear. There was something against nature in the man's craven impudence; it was as though a lamb had butted me; such daring at the hands of such a dastard implied unchangeable resolve, a great pressure of necessity, and powerful means. I thought of the unknown Carthew, and it sickened me to see ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... has accepted you at her mother's instance; and were I base enough to keep from you your father's inheritance, her mother would no more give her to you now than she would to me then. This is true; and if you know it to be true—as you do know—you will be mean, and dastard, and a coward—you will be no Fitzgerald if you keep from me that which I have a right to claim as my own. Not fight! Ay, but you must fight. We cannot both live here in this country if Clara Desmond become your wife. Mark my words, if that take place, you and I cannot live here alongside of ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... a worse fate. They were carried off into captivity. The child proved to be a source of annoyance to the blood-thirsty savages, and its angel spirit was released from earth by their cruel ferocity. Before the eyes of its captive mother the fatal tomahawk was raised, and by one dastard blow its keen edge was made to mingle with its brains. The horrid work failed not to bring the bitter woes and anguish of despair to the breast of the unhappy mother. It was then thrown into Red River, which ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... dwelt in Dale in Caithness, a man of rank and very wealthy," and "his son Ottar was jarl in Thurso." Frakark, a daughter of Moddan in Dale, was the wife of Liot Nidingr, or the Dastard, a Sudrland chief, and during the half century after Thorfinn's death Moddan's family seems to have owned much of Caithness and Sutherland, where the Norse steadily lost their hold. We may be sure also that the Celt always kept his land, if he could, or, if he lost it, ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray
... Cal. O Caesar no dishonour canst thou get, In seeking to preuent vnlucky chance: Foole-hardy men do runne vpon their death, Bec thou in this perswaded by thy wife: No vallour bids thee cast away thy life. 1620 Caes. Tis dastard cowardize and childish feare, To dread those dangers that do not appeare: Cal. Thou must sad chance by fore-cast, wise resist, Or being done say boote-les had I wist. Caes. But for to feare wher's no suspition, Will to my greatnesse be derision. Cal. There lurkes an adder in ...
— The Tragedy Of Caesar's Revenge • Anonymous
... would not descend to "such mean barter and sale," a bargain with the Adams forces had been duly closed. Clay's rage was ungovernable. Through the columns of the National Intelligencer he pronounced his unknown antagonist "a base and infamous calumniator, a dastard and a liar," called upon him to "unveil himself," and declared that he would hold him responsible "to all the laws which govern and regulate men ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... year!" she said fiercely. "You mock me with such words. I tell you again that my forbearance will last but little longer. More of this laggard love, and I will shame you before your fellow-men as an ingrate and a dastard! I will; by my zone, ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... "Mercy—mercy!" cried the dastard, falling on his knees before his stern antagonist—"I am rich, let me depart in safety, and I'll give you a ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... cannot clench her fists, and he advises all women in these singular times to learn to clench their fists, to go at him with tooth and nail, and not to be afraid of the result, for any fellow who is dastard enough to strike a woman, would allow himself to be beaten by a woman, were she to make at him in self-defence, even if, instead of possessing the stately height and athletic proportions of the aforesaid ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... join Hand in Hand, brave Americans all! To be free is to live, to be Slaves is to fall; Has the Land such a Dastard, as scorns not a Lord, Who dreads not a Fetter much more than a Sword? In Freedom we're born, and, like Sons of the Brave, We'll never surrender, But swear to defend her, And scorn to survive, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... up as he entered, and without observing that he was drunk, went on with her writing, which was ever a painful ceremony with her. Dropping his coat where he stood, and with his hat awry on the red globe of his head, the dastard staggered towards her, his eyes lit with a ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... dastard coward!" Stutely cried, "Faint-hearted peasant slave! If ever my master do thee meet, Thou shalt ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... extinguished, shall cease to lead us astray from the lessons of history and from the Spirit of God. An irresistible and solemn duty impels me to this deed, ever since I have recognised to what high destinies the German; nation may attain during this century, and ever since I have come to know the dastard and hypocrite who alone prevents it from reaching them; for me, as for every German who seeks the public good, this desire has became a strict and binding necessity. May I, by this national vengeance, indicate to all upright ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... bear watching, married men will bear a most minute scrutiny. Mrs. Pennycook knew that as a wife she was approaching the unlovely age when fickle husbands tire and cast about for younger and prettier women. Hence she decided to trim her mental lamps and light the dastard Daniel out of temptation. ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... live with; and when she is affrighted, she is a still greater mischief to her home and city. Even now, having brought upon your countrymen this pell-mell flight, ye have, by your outcries, spread dastard cowardice, and ye are serving, as best ye may, the interests of those without, but we within our walls are suffering capture at our own hands; such blessings will you have if you live along with women. Wherefore if any one ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... born; although it may be indeed That not on the hills of the earth I sprang from the godhead's seed. And e'en as my birth and my waxing shall be my waning and end. But thou on many an errand, to many a field dost wend Where the bow at adventure bended, or the fleeing dastard's spear Oft lulleth the mirth of the mighty. Now me thou dost not fear, Yet fear with me, beloved, for the mighty Maid I fear; And Doom is her name, and full often she maketh me afraid And even now meseemeth on my life her ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... came nearer and nearer! Oh how wildly beat my heart, as I saw the hound emerge from the ravine, and spring forward with a short, quick bark, as his eye rested on his game. I released my hold of the stag, who turned upon the new enemy. Exhausted, and unable to rise, I still cheered the dog, that, dastard-like, fled before the infuriated animal, who, seemingly despising such an enemy, again threw himself upon me. Again did I succeed in throwing my arms around his antlers, but not until he had inflicted several deep and dangerous wounds ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... to the former, "as the planter does his negroes, or the farmer his team and horses." Mr. Clay at once published a card, over his signature, in which he called the writer "a base and infamous calumniator, a dastard, and a liar." Mr. Kremer replied, admitting that he had written the letter, but in such a manner that his political friends were ashamed of his cowardice, while the admirers of Mr. Clay were very indignant—the more so as they suspected that Mr. James ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... most is, however,—Did Bushido justify the promiscuous use of the weapon? The answer is unequivocally, no! As it laid great stress on its proper use, so did it denounce and abhor its misuse. A dastard or a braggart was he who brandished his weapon on undeserved occasions. A self-possessed man knows the right time to use it, and such times come but rarely. Let us listen to the late Count Katsu, who passed ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... me a coward, the dastard that he is! For one hour he has been running about from room to room as though pursued by invisible spectres. How cunningly he has devised the whole affair in his own interest. Julio is to kill poor Geronimo! Julio is to bury the body in the cellar! Julio is to do all ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... a hunting-party. At Tixall she was detained till her papers at Chartley had undergone thorough research. That she was at length taken in her own toils, even such a dullard as her admirers depict her could not have failed to understand; that she was no such dastard as to desire or deserve such defenders, the whole brief course of her remaining life bore ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... life-goal,— A cow'ring cur hid from the sight Beneath a putrid mount of bone, And tombs grow dank as rising sun Makes red each dragon in the West, She splits his heart and rasps with might, A curse that rides the surging foam, A message that this dastard son Dies longing for a fatal quest— Surcease of soul and conscience lost! Then rants she sins unto each tomb That sweat the lusts of those in dust, And scarlet foam and hiss of oils That her black deed to domes hath tossed, Break into writhing life and bloom As iron crowns ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... "Bag and baggage, and armed to the eyes. Each eye is a gatling-gun, each lip a lunette behind which lies an unconquerable legion of smiles and rows of ivory bayonets, each ear a hardy spy, and every nut-brown strand a covetous dastard on the warpath not for a scalp but for a crown. Napoleon was never so well prepared for battle as she, nor Troy so firmly fortified. Yes, highness, the foe is at our gates. We ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... to prove thy saying, I will inquire The fate of a poor dastard, of mean worth, But ever shrewd ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... coward, sir,' replied Captain N——, with almost frightful vehemence, 'as every trickster and swindler IS. You are a contemptible dastard—a despicable, damned villain! Draw your sword, sir, and defend your life, or every post and pillar in this ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... the Prussian officer, in strict accordance with the Prussian code of honor, seized the opportunity, grabbed a rifle, and was about to plunge the bayonet into Billy, but he turned just in time to catch him in the act and avoid him. He lunged with his bayonet, catching the dastard in the left shoulder, and while tugging to get it out, the prisoners started rushing up the steps of the dugout, and Bill was forced to let go of the rifle; as he did so, the weight of the gun pulled the bayonet ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... say, and hath cast his eyes upon me, and if I were heedless, he would betray me to the uttermost of the wrath of my mistress. For needs must I say of him, though he be a goodly man, and now fallen into thralldom, that he hath no bowels of compassion; but is a dastard, who for an hour's pleasure would undo me, and thereafter would stand by smiling and taking my mistress's pardon with good cheer, while for me would be no pardon. Seest thou, therefore, how it is with me between these two cruel fools? And moreover there are others of whom I will ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... A dastard, who in his talk brags of his prowess, and is devoid of courage,[11] imposes upon strangers, but is the jest of all ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... enough, at least among his intimates, that he was named Gorman; but not one of the number knew what his Christian name was. A few were aware that he signed himself "D. Gorman"; but whether the "D" represented David, dastard, drunkard, or demon, was a matter of pure speculation to all, a few of his female acquaintance excepted (for he had no friends), who asserted roundly that it represented them all, and some were even willing to go the length of saying that it represented more, and stood for ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... into flame of wrath. A sudden buffet of his resistless hand Smote 'neath the railer's ear, and all his teeth Were dashed to the earth: he fell upon his face: Forth of his lips the blood in torrent gushed: Swift from his body fled the dastard soul Of that vile niddering. Achaea's sons Rejoiced thereat, for aye he wont to rail On each and all with venomous gibes, himself A scandal and the shame of all the host. Then mid the warrior Argives cried a voice: "Not good it is for baser men to rail ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... defend my soule from such foule sin. Shall I seeme Crest-falne in my fathers sight, Or with pale beggar-feare impeach my hight Before this out-dar'd dastard? Ere my toong, Shall wound mine honor with such feeble wrong; Or sound so base a parle: my teeth shall teare The slauish motiue of recanting feare, And spit it bleeding in his high disgrace, Where shame doth harbour, euen in ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... my soul from such deep sin. Shall I seem crest-fall'n in my father's sight, Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height Before this outdar'd dastard? Ere my tongue Shall wound my honour with such feeble wrong Or sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear The slavish motive of recanting fear, And spit it bleeding in his high disgrace, Where shame doth harbour, even ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... it, rather?" said he. "I was cruel, Grizel; I spoke like a fool as well as like a dastard. But it was only anxiety for Elspeth that made me do it. Dear one, be angry with me as often as you choose, and whether I deserve it or not; but don't go away from me; never send me from ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... cried out, saying, "Let there be no general engagement betwixt us this day, save by the duello, a champion of yours against a champion of ours." Whereupon one of Sharrkan's riders dashed out from the ranks and crave between the two lines crying, "Ho! who is for smiting? Let no dastard engage me this day nor niderling!" Hardly had he made an end of his vaunt, when there sallied forth to him a Frankish cavalier, armed cap-a-pie and clad in a surcoat of gold stuff, riding on a grey white steed,[FN215] and he had no hair on his cheeks. He urged his charger on to the midst ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... when he was come unto them he told all how he had sped and escaped in despite of them all: And some of the best of them will tell no tales. Thou liest falsely, said the damosel, that dare I make good, but as a fool and a dastard to all knighthood they have let thee pass. That may ye prove, said La Cote Male Taile. With that she sent a courier of hers, that rode alway with her, for to know the truth of this deed; and so he rode thither lightly, and asked how and in what manner that La Cote Male Taile ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... of this lovely Belinda Paget's career, my dear Mrs. Sheldon?" he concluded. "The gentleman was a man of high rank, but a scoundrel and a dastard. Sophia's brother, a cornet in the First Life Guards, called him out, and there was a meeting on Wimbledon Common, in which Lavinia's seducer was mortally wounded. There was a trial, and the young captain of Hussars, Amelia's brother, was sentenced to ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... 87 The dastard crow that to the wood made wing, And sees the groves no shelter can afford, With her loud caws her craven kind does bring, Who, safe in numbers, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... voice resuming the harshness that was never far from it. "I have a fancy for having gentlemen about me. Think you I will set eyes again upon that dastard? I am already resolved concerning him, but it entered my mind that it might please you to be the instrument of the ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... author, and libeller and libelled were prevented from doing further mischief by being bound over to keep the peace. To keep the peace, however, in those days was to be wanting in the very first element of chivalry, and, accordingly, Mr. Stuart was pronounced by the Sentinel a 'bully,' a 'coward,' a 'dastard,' and a 'sulky poltroon.' Furthermore, he was 'a heartless ruffian,' 'a white feather,' and 'afraid of lead.' To vindicate his character Mr. Stuart raised an action of damages, and, curiously enough, he ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... little of the art of arranging or composing the matter so as to produce an unity of effect: the narrative straggles or condenses itself as if by accident; skill in transitions is unknown. The study of character is rude and elementary: a man is either heroic or dastard, loyal or a traitor; wholly noble, or absolutely base. Yet certain types of manhood and womanhood are presented with power and beauty. The feeling for external nature, save in some traditional formulae, hardly ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... thinking of matters more practical. At another time his indignation—in such a case right good and manful—would have boiled over at the thought of these poor women crushed in slavery to feed the world's dastard selfishness; this evening his mood was more complaisant, and he ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... pearl- encrusted box, and lit it with all the abandon of a Society darling, "may I be jiggered if this is not ripping! What say you?" he continued, addressing young PULYER WRIGHT, the Coxswain, and tossing him playfully four times to the raftered ceiling—"shall we not beat the dastard foe from Camford to-morrow?" A roar of applause sprang from the smoking mouths of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 9th, 1892 • Various
... 'Thou dastard!' Katharine screamed aloud. She tried to speak but she choked; she grasped Udal's hand as if to wring from him the denial of his foolish lies, but a sharp and numbing pain shot up her maimed wrist to her shoulders and ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... nun.' One way remained—the King's command Sent Marmion to the Scottish land: I lingered here, and rescue planned For Clara and for me: This caitiff monk, for gold, did swear, He would to Whitby's shrine repair, And, by his drugs, my rival fair A saint in heaven should be. But ill the dastard kept his oath, Whose ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... chosen (without my counsell) a young man to your lover, who as me seemeth, is dull, fearefull, without any grace, and dastard-like coucheth at the frowning looke of your odious husband, whereby you have no delight nor pleasure with him: how farre better is the young man Philesiterus who is comely, beautifull, in the flower of his youth, liberall, courteous, valiant and stout against the diligent ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius
... drew his sabre, and, killing three of our number, cut his way through the guards to his friends. The horsemen then would have set upon us and hewed us in pieces; but their chief forbade them, saying, 'No, let them live, and be the messengers of the Prince's escape. Go,' continued he, 'dastard slaves! and let your Sultan know, that Ahubal has friends who will shortly punish him for his ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... inward agony, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, after some moments of indecision, boldly plucked out a tottering tooth and followed—bloody but triumphant—in their wake. They found the enemy just as they had expected, and Morris, being again elected spokesman, stepped forward and took him by his dastard hand. The adversary yielded, thinking that Teacher had been forced to greater caution. The Commander-in-Chief and the Chancellor followed close behind, they having consented, in view of the enormous issues involved, to act as scouts. Around ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... him when they brought me hither; I will think of nothing else when they convey me to yonder still more dreadful place of confinement; it is his, and it is but meet that it should be his son's.—And thou, Alice Bridgenorth, the day that I renounce thee, may I be held alike a traitor and a dastard!—Go, false adviser, and share the fate ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... Where in the vault of heaven the high stars swing, Alone and upward, lost to mortal view, Winding about the assassin craft a ring Of fateful motion, till at last you sped Through the far tracts of gloom The bolt of doom, Shattering the dastard foe to earth with ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... resolved upon revenge, and to have set about obtaining it after the fashion not of the gentleman, but of the bravo. Day by day, week by week, month by month he practised himself in pistol shooting, until he considered that his skill was sufficient to enable him to take the dastard's hazard in a duel. He seized the opportunity of the debate on November 15th to describe the writer in the North Briton as a "coward and a malignant scoundrel." When Wilkes, on the following day, avowed the authorship of the ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the comfort had brought me, Fair queen of the ring, thy embrace! Go, mate with the man of thy choosing, Scant mirth will he get of thy grace! Be dearer henceforth to thy dastard, False dame of the coif, than to me;— I have spoken the word; I have sung it;— I have said ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown
... break, but fame will love thee, Canonized among the brave! Listen, then! thy country's calling On her sons to meet the foe! Rather would I view thee lying On the last red field of strife, 'Mid thy country's heroes dying, Than become a dastard's wife! ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... carpet, he instantly draws his two and a quarter yards of length into the smallest possible compass, and shrieks until the domestic police come to the rescue, and apprehend the sharp little villains. Do not laugh at this. Years ago he lost his choicest friend by the stab of just such a little dastard lying in ambush. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... being the dastard, of course, yet over at headquarters Major Silsbee, at that very ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... thought was there of dastard flight; Linked in that serried phalanx tight, Groom fought like noble, squire like knight, As fearlessly and well. The stubborn spearmen still made good Their dark impenetrable wood, Each stepping where his comrade stood The instant that ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... Villain! dastard! perjured wretch! I hate you, and I curse you, here in the church you call holy! I curse you with a ruined woman's curse, and hot and scathing may it burn on your head and on the heads ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... together, an exclamation for mercy burst from his lips; but when, recovering the mere shock of his dastard nerves, he perceived it was not the gripe of some hireling of the law, but a father's hand that had clutched his arm, the vile audacity which knows fear only from a bodily cause, none from the awe ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Coun. Hold dastard, strike a Woman! th'art a craven I warrant thee, thou wouldst be loth to play half a dozen of venies at wasters with a good fellow for ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... and he stopped not for stone; He swam the Eske river where ford there was none. But, ere he alighted at Netherby gate, The bride had consented, the gallant came late; For a laggard in love and a dastard in war Was to wed the fair Ellen of ...
— Practice Book • Leland Powers
... philosophy. Religion is the philosophy of the warrior. And the scanty records of the Vikings, the character of Knut, for instance, or that of the Conqueror, attest the principle that the thoughts of the valiant about God penetrate more deeply than the thoughts of the dastard. The Normans, who close the English Welt-wanderung, who close the merely formative period of England, illustrate this conspicuously. If the sombre fury of the Winwaed displays the stern depths of religious conviction ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... eloquence, wherewith my heart is freighted, an' which would have else declar'd me the Erskine of the Brazos, is lynched with my clients." Then wheelin' on Waco Anderson who strolls over, Easy Aaron demands plenty f'rocious: "Whoever does this dastard deed?" ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... when the road Stretch'd out before thine eyes interminably, Then hadst thou courage and resolve; and now, Now that the dream is being realized, The purpose ripe, the issue ascertain'd, Dost thou begin to play the dastard now? Plann'd merely, 'tis a common felony; Accomplish'd, an immortal undertaking: And with success comes pardon hand in hand, For all event ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... Cowardice — N. cowardice, pusillanimity; cowardliness &c adj.; timidity, effeminacy. poltroonery, baseness; dastardness^, dastardy^; abject fear, funk; Dutch courage; fear &c 860; white feather, faint heart; cold feet [U.S.], yellow streak [Slang]. coward, poltroon, dastard, sneak, recreant; shy cock, dunghill cock; coistril^, milksop, white liver, lily liver, nidget^, one that cannot say 'boo' to a goose; slink; Bob Acres, Jerry Sneak. alarmist, terrorist^, pessimist; runagate &c (fugitive) 623. V. quail &c (fear) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... stayed not for [v]brake, and he stopped not for stone, He swam the Esk river where ford there was none; But ere he alighted at Netherby gate The bride had consented, the gallant came late: For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war Was to wed the fair ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... hissed off the stage. Lola, however, was equal to the occasion. Advancing to the footlights, before the terror-stricken manager could stop her, she pointed to Colonel Abrahamowicz, sitting in a box, and exclaimed: "Ladies and gentlemen, there is the dastard who attempts to revenge himself on a pure woman who has scorned his infamous suggestions! ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... more Count Roland turned To speak the scorn that in him burned. "Ha! deem'st thou, dastard, of dastard race, That I shall drop the glove in place, As in sight of Karl thou ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... even more than you now do, yours." And after this, he had permitted her allurement to fly to his brain, and had given her reason to think that because she had lowered her guard, he had struck her a dastard's blow. His eyes grew soft with pity, and they moistened, as he repeated to himself, "Poor little girl! ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... you have my father's permission to speak to me," she answered, "but he would never counsel me to play a dastard's part and dishearten my fellow-citizens, whom I am bound to encourage. Understand, Ernst Van Arenberg, sooner would I remain among those who are stricken down every day by famine and pestilence, and share their fate, if God so wills it, than wed ...
— The Lily of Leyden • W.H.G. Kingston
... a charge as that?" demanded the baronet, while fire literally flashed from his eyes in his anger. And when he was told that Mr. Mason did make such a charge he called him "a mean, unmanly dastard." "I do not believe that he would dare to make it against a man," said ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... He whom dastard fears abash, He was born to be a slave— Let him feel the despot's lash, And sink inglorious to the grave. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... already from Jim's wife; and yet my strongest impression was different and might rather be described as an impersonal fear. There was something against nature in the man's craven impudence; it was as though a lamb had butted me; such daring at the hands of such a dastard, implied unchangeable resolve, a great pressure of necessity, and powerful means. I thought of the unknown Carthew, and it sickened me to see ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... with a sudden, intense note of passion, "Only tell me where her grave is, I'll let you go free. You couldn't, you dare not, dastard that you are, go away from where she died—without... ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... into meaningless words, and the light left his face. He moved in Robin's arms and sighed. Then, as his body rolled slowly over, and he lay with his back turned to them, they saw that his worst wound was in it—a dastard's blow. So ended the life of Will o' th' Green—or Will of Cloudesley: he of whom many stories have been ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... words the vigorous Christian spoke to the dastard boy! Who that knows the eloquence which rung out on the ears of astonished Stoics at Athens, which commanded the incense and the hecatombs of wandering peasants in Asia, which stilled the gabbling clamor of a wild mob at Jerusalem,—who will doubt the tone in which Paul spoke to ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... they sing the song of Sigurd and the face without a foe, And they sing of the prison's rending and the tyrant laid alow, And the golden thieves' abasement, and the stilling of the churl, And the mocking of the dastard where the chasing edges whirl; And they sing of the outland maidens that thronged round Sigurd's hand, And sung in the streets of the foemen of the war-delivered land; And they tell how the ships of the merchants come free and go at their ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... his apprehensions had imagined, only two men were on the spot, one of them old and diminutive, and the other encumbered with the exhumed body. In the glow of fanatic fury, he forgot all personal fears, and while his dastard creatures held on their terrified course, he sprang back alone to the burial-ground, and seizing the old man with one hand, he stretched forth the other to grasp from the Moriscoe's hold ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 473., Saturday, January 29, 1831 • Various
... "Dastard!" exclaimed La Tour, indignantly; "this jealous care accords well with the baseness of his heart; and I wonder not that he fears to lose the affection which was so unjustly gained, if, indeed, it were ever ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... hoisted up and a hitch taken in the rope than one of his fellow-criminals was captured. Stopping only to obtain a few yards of hemp, a knot was quickly tied, and the wretch was soon adorning the hotel entrance by the side of the other dastard. ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... "is this the price you pay me for my fealty to you? Ill have you done by your friends, for sons of yours as yet unborn will feel the weight of this deed. You have vented your spite on my body; but for this dastard crime all good knights ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... to Florence Kearney, and only the veriest dastard would have taken advantage of it. But this Santander was, and once more drawing back, and bringing his blade to tierce, he was rushing on his now defenceless antagonist, when Crittenden called "Foul play!" at the same time springing forward to ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... had wondered at the selfish mercilessness and blackness of the heart that was but that of a boy. They had said among themselves that at his years they had never known a creature who could be so gaily a dastard, one who could plan with such light remorselessness, and using all the gifts given him by Nature solely for his own ends, would take so much and give so little. In truth, as time had gone on, men who had been his companions, and had indeed ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the army—the deserted with those who had abandoned him, and El Zagal, from being their idol, became suddenly the object of their execration. He had sacrificed the army; he had disgraced the nation; he had betrayed the country. He was a dastard, a traitor; he was ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... sparkling eyes Already he devours the promis'd prize. He claims the bull with awless insolence, And having seiz'd his horns, accosts the prince: "If none my matchless valor dares oppose, How long shall Dares wait his dastard foes? Permit me, chief, permit without delay, To lead this uncontended gift away." The crowd assents, and with redoubled cries For the proud challenger demands ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... would like me better for sacrificing you? She is not a woman to be flattered because I made myself despicable—to believe that I must be true to her because I was a dastard to you." ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... have said, when Neapolis had fallen, the brave Gothic warriors felt that they had submitted too long to the rule of a dastard like Theodahad. They met in arms, a nation-parliament, on the plain of Regeta, about forty-three miles from Rome in the direction of Terracina. Here there was plenty of grass for the pasture of their horses, and here, while ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... bore me so to the table at which the Lord Giovanni sat. He smiled, but his face was very pale. Could it be that I had touched him? Could it be that I had driven the iron into his soul, and that he could not bear to confront me, knowing what a dastard I must ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... has sorrowed with the sorrow of the great commonwealth, whose chief has been struck down, in the fulness of his strength, in the height of his usefulness, in the day of universal recognition of his noble character, by the dastard hand of the assassin. We have felt in this as though we ourselves had suffered, for General Garfield's position and personal worth made his own and his fellow citizens' misfortune a catastrophe for ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... up, and said in a loud voice: "Lord King, whatsoever I may be, I am not each man's dastard; when I saw that pearl of all women, I loved her indeed, as who should not, but it was even as I had loved the Mother of God had she come down from the altar picture at the Church of Middleham of the Wood. And whoso saith otherwise, I give him the lie back in his teeth, and will meet him face ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... face the shuddering reality of existence in some such form as that. And the question which it brought to my heart is, if it came to me, as terrible as that, and as sudden and implacable, would I show myself the man or the dastard? And that filled me with a fearful awe and humility, and a guilty wonder whether somewhere in the world there might not be a wall from which I should be throwing myself, instead of nursing my illness ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... remaining within my walls, like a bird shut up in a cage. Now if I did not then keep myself shut up for fear of a great, strong prince, do you think I will now, for dread of a scolding woman, whose weapons are only her tongue and her nails, and thus give people occasion to say that I turned dastard before a woman, when no man had ever been able to make me fear? No, I will never submit to such disgrace. I would rather die in honor than live in shame; and so the great numbers of our enemies do not deter me in the least; they rather encourage ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... her father, would not listen. "The Volsungs do not depart like broken men from a land they have brought their ship to," he said. "We gave, each and all, the word that we would visit King Siggeir and visit him we will. And if he is a dastard and would fall upon us, why we are the unbeaten Volsungs, and we will fight against him and his army and slay him, and bear you back with us to the Hall of the Branstock. The day widens now, and we shall go ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum
... wayward fate. A storm dispers'd them, and Sardinia's isle Receiv'd the bark that held the hapless king, And morn beheld it on the main again; But far apart his faithful followers. Calabria's beach was gain'd; where Murat stood Amidst the dastard throng that hemm'd him round, With heart of adamant, and eye of fire. There is a majesty in kingly hearts Which changing time nor fickle fate can quell: He stood—reveal'd from his own lips, "The King Of fallen Naples." At those stirring words A hundred ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various
... the end be obtain'd 'tis equal what portal I enter, since I'm to be render'd immortal: So clysters applied to the anus, 'tis said, By skilful physicians, give ease to the head— Though my title be spurious, why should I be dastard, A man is a man, though he should be a bastard. Why sure 'tis some comfort that heroes should slay us, If I fall, I would fall by the hand of AEneas; And who by the Drapier would not rather damn'd be, Than demigoddized by madrigal Namby?[1] A man is ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... possible, to lead or drive the Crown-Prince into obeying smoothly, or without breaking of harness again. Which, accordingly, is pretty much the sum of his part in this unlovely Correspondence: the geeho-ing of an expert wagoner, who has got a fiery young Arab thoroughly tied into his dastard sand-cart, and has to drive him by voice, or at most by slight crack of whip; and does it. Can we hope, a select specimen or two of these Documents, not on Grumkow's part, or for Grumkow's unlovely sake, may ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... assassins of my brother." "Well, then, leave the chamber," cried a stern voice. The tribunes applauded this speech, more cruel and poignant than the thrust of a dagger. Indignation enabled M. de Gouvion to overcome his contempt. "Who is the dastard who himself in order to insult the grief of a brother?" cried he, glancing around to discover the speaker. "I will tell my name—'tis I," replied the deputy Choudieu, rising from his seat. Loud applause from ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... that this is all a modern affair; belongs not to the old heroic times, but to these dastard new times. 'Happiness, our being's end and aim,' is at bottom, if we will count well, not yet two centuries old in the world. The only happiness a brave man ever troubled himself with asking much about was, happiness enough ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... by the law. Don't think it's mercy I'm preaching; it's vengeance!" Bowen shook his clenched fist at the gaol. "That wretch there has been in hell ever since he heard your shouts. He'll be in hell, for he's a dastard, until the time his trembling legs carry him to the scaffold. I want him to stay in this hell till he drops through into the other, if there is one. I want him to suffer some of the misery he has caused. Lynching is over in a moment. I want that murderer to ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... young man! I shall live to be revenged upon you yet for these affronts!" and his dastard heart burned with the fiercer malignity that he had not dared to meet the eagle eye, or encounter the strong arm of the upright and stalwart young man. Gnashing his teeth with ill-suppressed fury, he strode into the hall just as Mrs. Rocke and Clara, ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... sectional man, upon their sectional, anti-slavery platform, breathing destruction and death to the rights of my people, just so sure, in my judgment, the time will have come when the South must and will take an unmistakable and decided action, and then he who dallies is a dastard, and he who doubts is damned! I need not tell what I, a Southern man, will do. I think I may safely speak for the masses of the people of Georgia—that when that event happens, they, in my judgment, will consider it an overt act, a declaration of war, and meet immediately in convention, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... Him who bestowed it," said the sailor. "Is it Katherine Plowden who would suspect me of the deed of a dastard!" ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Guise's sudden arrival at Paris, Pope Sixtus V. exclaimed, "Ah! what rashness! To thus go and put himself in the hands of a prince he has so outraged!" And some days afterwards, on the news that the king had received the Duke of Guise and nothing had come of it, "Ah, dastard prince! poor creature of a prince, to have let such a chance escape him of getting rid of a man who seems born to be his destruction!" [De ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... his friends in the House of Representatives to Mr. Adams, "as the planter does his negroes or the farmer his team and horses;" when Mr. Clay promptly published the unknown writer as "a base and infamous calumniator, a dastard and a liar;" when next Kremer, being unmasked, avowed that he would make good his charges, but immediately afterward actually refused to appear or testify before a Committee of the House instructed to investigate ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... "Dastard that you are, to strike a man when he is down," thundered Haldane wrathfully. "Since everything must go abroad, the truth shall go, and not foul slander. I got to drinking with these men from New York, ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... you do not. The instincts of your race are in you, because you are legitimate. Those of the robbed side are in me, because I am of the robbed. I am your father's elder brother. Which is the worse, you proud young womam, the dastard or ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... pains in a lively interest as to the fate of Captain Scraggs at the hands of the towboat men. He was aware that Captain Scraggs had failed ignominiously to rally to the Gibney appeal to repel boarders, and in his own expressive terminology he hoped that what the enemy would do to the dastard would be "a-plenty." ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... anguish, the horror of Isabelle, when she beheld Demetrius in his Moslem habiliments, cannot be described. Her first impulse, on finding him yet alive, was to have fallen into his arms; but, instantly recollecting herself, she shrank back from him with loathing, as a mean and paltry dastard. "No, no," she cried, "you are no longer the man I loved; our vows of fidelity were pledged over the Bible; that book you have renounced as a fable; and he who has proved himself false to Heaven, can never be ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... very dastard, a coward, a block and a beast, that will not do as much, but they will sure, they will; for it is an ordinary thing for these inamoratos of our time to say and do more, to stab their arms, carouse in blood, [5448]or as that Thessalian Thero, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... hideous nonsense of the age, And thou thy self the subject of its rage. So in old times, round godlike Scaeva ran Rome's dastard Sons, a Million, ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... pillars of darkness, and with eyes aglow. One had a helm for covering of the scars That seamed what rested of a goodly face; He wore his vizor up, and all his words Were hollower than an echo from the hills: He was hight Make. And, lo, his fellow-fiend Came after, holding down his dastard head, Like one ashamed: now this for craft was great; The dragon honored him. A third sat down Among them, covering with his wasted hand Somewhat that ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... a forward movement, as if to carry into execution the dastard work his heart had conjured up. One step, and he ...
— Five Thousand Dollars Reward • Frank Pinkerton
... our other two ships stand to the southward, clearly expected them to tack, for they brought to with their heads to the northward, preparing to meet their fire. But when they perceived that our dastard captains had no such intent, but were beyond doubt running away, they bore down upon the Breda and ran between us and the disabled ship, firing all their guns, shooting away our main-topsail yard, ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... all to me is that I do not bear it—instead I bear the gnawing of a conscience bitter and ashamed of itself. And could you bear that burden? For Corydon, as I look at myself to-night, I am before God, a coward and a dastard! I have not done my work! I have not borne the pain He calls me to bear, I have not wrested out the strength He put in my secret heart! And here I am chattering, talking about work to you! And these things are ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair |
