"Romance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be added here that many of the happenings told of in this story, odd as they may seem, are taken from life. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction, and life itself is full of romance from start to finish. ...
— Joe The Hotel Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.
... thing bores me ... I suppose I am embittered and disgusted. I'm sick of all this sexual nonsense.... Yes, after all, I approve of the marriage tie: it takes away the romance of love, and it's that romance which is usually so time-wasting and so dangerous. It conceals often a host of horrors ... But I'm a sort of neuter. All I want in life is hard work ... a cause to fight for.... Revenge ... revenge on Man. God! How I hate men; how I despise them! We can ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... again over the fire, and now she turned, swept back the mass of curls from her heated face with a graceful motion of her shapely arm, and stood regarding him with frank curiosity. Donald had no intention of remaining longer, or accepting the hospitable invitation, but there was a touch of romance in the adventure, and a strong appeal in the girl herself, which caused him to hesitate, and linger to ask a few questions about the neighborhood and her life. When he did regretfully pick up his cap and rifle, and call the dog, who turned protestingly from her-who-dispensed-savory-pieces-of-meat, ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... the young knight, "for although King Richard may be fierce and proud, he is the worthiest knight in Christendom, and resembles the heroes of romance rather than a ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... be said of Mr. Willings that his happy smile always walks in front of him. This smile makes music of his life, it means that once again he has been chosen, in his opinion, as the central figure in romance. No one can well have led a more drab existence, but he will never know it; he will always think of himself, humbly though elatedly, as the chosen of the gods. Of him must it have been originally written that adventures ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... ideas of past times, which are in such strong contrast with the present. In the courtyard of this castle were brewing vessels in vaults which had formerly perhaps been dungeons, and pitched sails stretched upon the walls to dry: the spirit of old romance and ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... important historical events, scenes wherein boys are prominent characters being selected. They are the romance of history, vigorously told, with careful fidelity to picturing the home life, and accurate in ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the ship and the ship to her course might have clearly told her, that there was no chance of recovering the missing passenger. She learned that the theory advanced by Brace was the one generally held by them; but with an added romance of detail, that excited at once their commiseration and admiration. Mrs. Brimmer remembered to have heard him, the second or third night out from Callao, groaning in his state-room; but having mistakenly referred the emotion to ordinary seasickness, she had no doubt ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... following an impulse to seek comfort in the fresh hopefulness of a height, and to lessen the pain in his heart by looking out across a world still living and loving and striving. So he climbed on up the winding pathway, enfolded with mystery and romance concerning the feet that trod it in the far-off centuries, and made his way between the mighty natural boulders out on to the high platform, where eyes, all those long centuries ago, must have looked out even as his, ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... old in the Alaskan Steamship service, had not lost the spirit of his youth along with his years. Romance was not dead in him, and the fire which is built up of clean adventure and the association of strong men and a mighty country had not died out of his veins. He could still see the picturesque, feel the thrill of the unusual, and—at times—warm memories crowded upon him so closely ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... de maintes plusieurs manieres de granz experimenz" (P.); "de Giuculer et de Tregiteor" (G. T.). Ital. Tragettatore, a juggler; Romance, Trasjitar, Tragitar, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... definition is the only one (except "Mysticism is the romance of religion") to be found in Hours with the Mystics, the solitary work in English which attempts to give a history of Christian Mysticism. The book has several conspicuous merits. The range of the author's reading is remarkable, and he has a wonderful gift of illustration. ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... thankless sick-beds; to suffer the harassment and tyranny of querulous disappointed old age. How many thousands of people are there, women for the most part, who are doomed to endure this long slavery?—who are hospital nurses without wages—sisters of Charity, if you like, without the romance and the sentiment of sacrifice—who strive, fast, watch, and suffer, unpitied, and fade away ignobly ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... bless me soul, how was I to know she was even in existence, much less expected by train or motor or Shanks' mare? Well, she's here, so there's the end of our mystery. We sha'n't have to follow your gay plan of searching the wilderness for beauty in distress. Our romance is spoiled, and I am sorry to say it to you. You were so full of it this morning that you had ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... would not give his life for his mistress? What gross and sensual passion is there in a man who is willing to die? We scoff at the knights of old; they knew the meaning of love; we know nothing but debauchery. When the teachings of romance began to seem ridiculous, it was not so much the work of reason ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... A regatta going on; a very pretty show. Scotland. Most to be remembered, the incomparable loveliness of Edinburgh.—Sterling. The view of the Links of Forth from the castle. The whole country full of the romance of history and poetry. Made one acquaintance in Scotland, Dr. Robert Knox, who asked my companion and myself to breakfast. I was treated to five entertainments in Great Britain: the breakfast just mentioned; lunch with Mrs. Macadam,—the ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... and her vivacity and charming manners caused her to shine in society wherever she was. She had an unquestioned supremacy among the ladies of Haddington and many had been the suitors for her hand. When Irving had given her lessons there, love had sprung up between tutor and pupil, but this budding romance ended tragically in 1822. Before meeting her he had been engaged to another lady; and when a new appointment gave him a sure income, he was held to his bond and was forced to crush down his passion ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... could hardly recall her as the careful housewife, harassed by lack of pence, knitting her brows over her butcher's books, mending endless socks, and trying to keep the nose of a lazy husband to the grindstone. All that seemed to have vanished. This white sylph was pure romance—pure joy. He saw her anew; he ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... night the motors throb Without the slightest hitch, For this is quite a business job, Though in romance so rich. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 6, 1914 • Various
... importance. To describe it in a word is impossible. To describe it in a few words is not easy. Froude himself called it in after life a "cry of pain," meaning that it was intended to relieve the intolerable pressure of his thoughts. It is not a novel, it is not a treatise, it is not poetry, it is not romance. It is the delineation of a mood; and though it was called, with some reason, sceptical, its moral, if it has a moral, is that scepticism leads to misconduct. That unpleasant and unverified hypothesis, soon rejected by Froude himself, has been revived by ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... still living; but there is a curate now in the parish. In conjunction with him and with Miss Le Smyrger she spends her time in the concerns of the parish. In her own eyes she is a confirmed old maid; and such is my opinion also. The romance of her life was played out in that summer. She never sits now lonely on the hill-side thinking how much she might do for one whom she really loved. But with a large heart she loves many, and, with no romance, she works hard to lighten the burdens ...
— The Parson's Daughter of Oxney Colne • Anthony Trollope
... I hear you say, "A dreadful subject for your rhymes!" O reader, do not shrink—he didn't live in modern times! He lived so long ago (the sketch will show it at a glance) That all his actions glitter with the lime-light of Romance. ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... cherished doggedly, and expressed on every occasion, to his face and behind his back. As the romance began to take possession of Kathleen, she found it hard not to resent Molly's criticism. Mrs. Quirk went so far as to scold Molly relentlessly for her expressions of dislike, but the girl only laughed ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... trimness of a civilized parterre; when the last trail will have been trodden, the mystery of the last forest bared, and the last of the savage peoples penned into a League of Nations to die of unnatural peace. What will our children do then, I wonder, for their books of high romance? How satisfy their thirst of daring with nothing further to dare? Who will ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... dash and daring among the cavalry leaders of the Confederacy was Lieutenant-General Nathan B. Forrest, a hero in the saddle, some of whose exploits were like the marvels of romance. There is one of his doings in particular which General Lord Wolseley says "reads like a romance." This was his relentless pursuit and final capture of the expedition under Colonel Abel D. Streight, one of the most brilliant deeds in the cavalry history ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... were somewhere else." He laughed heartily and showed that he knew how to overcome my bashfulness. I waited to hear some of the conversation which, according to my preconceived ideas, would be in the style of his latest romance. However, it was entirely different; simple polished phrases, entirely logical, came ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... again. In English literature out of the unknown past rose the Anglo-Saxon lyric and epic, Deor's Complaint, Beowulf, and the poems of Caedmon and Cynewulf. From the death-like sleep of our language which followed the Norman Conquest rose the heights of thirteenth-century romance. From the dull poetic pedantries of the age which succeeded Chaucer rose the glittering pinnacles of Shakespeare and his fellows. From the coldness and shallowness of the eighteenth century rose the rich and varied tableland of whose occupants ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... her story, the tenderness of her ministrations, bestowed alike on black and white, and the sad loneliness of her condition, awakened within him a desire to defend and protect her all through her future life. The fierce clashing of war had not taken all the romance out of his nature. In Iola he saw realized his ideal of the woman whom he was willing to marry. A woman, tender, strong, and courageous, and rescued only by the strong arm of his Government from a fate worse than ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... meant and was 'David Copperfield.' The book was for Chesterton a classic, and it was so because it was an autobiography. It is in this work that Dickens makes his defence of the rather exaggerated situations in some of his books, for in this book Dickens proves that his greatest romance is based on the experiences of his own life. 'David Copperfield is the great answer of a romancer to the realists. David says in effect, "What! you say that the Dickens tales are too purple really to have happened. Why, this is what happened ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... wolf, committed unchecked depredations among the weaker forest creatures. The business of life was being sadly neglected. So Kitch' Manitou took counsel with himself, and created saw-gi-may, the mosquito, to whom he gave as dwelling the woods and bushes. That took the romance out of the situation. As my narrator grimly expressed it, "Him ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... and seemed about to speak; but recollecting what he had said to Mr. Thorpe, contented himself with poking the fire. The book in question was a certain romance, entitled "Jack and the Bean Stalk," adorned with illustrations in the freest style ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... with an iron hand the imaginative nature of the Mohawk chief. The spirit of romance was aglow within him, and he had a wondering desire to see the lands that lay beyond the ocean. He would sail upon the high seas; he would stand in the presence of the Great King. How beautiful was this land called England! and how ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... The parallel between this romance and subsequent poetry is curious. In Chaldea, before the fargards were, the story of Creation, of Eden, and of the fall had been told. In Egypt, before the Avesta was written, the resurrection and the life were known. Similar legends and prospects may ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... understand." The conversation paused again. "I suppose we have said everything." Esther turned her face from him. Fred looked at her, and though her eyes were averted from him she could see that he loved her. In another moment he was gone. In her plain and ignorant way she thought on the romance of destiny. For if she had married Fred her life would have been quite different. She would have led the life that she wished to lead, but she had married William and—well, she must do the best she could. If Fred, or Fred's friends, got the police to prosecute ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... themselves in the front of battle, which, during the first crusade, was as common as it was possible for a very unnatural custom to be, and, in fact, gave the real instances of the Marphisas and Bradamantes, whom the writers of romance delighted to paint, assigning them sometimes the advantage of invulnerable armour, or a spear whose thrust did not admit of being resisted, in order to soften the improbability of the weaker sex being frequently victorious over the male part ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... There is a similar combat in the old romance Guy of Warwick, ix, between the hero ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... elevating romance out of the street-ballads, and laying the foundation of the chivalrous epic, a poet appeared in Lombardy (whether inspired by his example is uncertain) who was destined to carry it to a graver though ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... the anachronism we should be induced to regard this lady as none other than Elen the daughter of Eudav, prince of Erging and Euas, and wife of Macsen Wledig; heroine also of a Romance entitled "The Dream of Macsen Wledig." As Macsen, however, is known to have been put to death as early as the year 388, Elen's life could not possibly have been so protracted as to enable her to take a part in ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... family, who had come to Paris to sow his wild oats, for giving her fresh zest and for carving out for herself a fresh future. It was a most commonplace adventure, utterly destitute of psychology, and by its very bitterness it contrasted strangely with her elevated sentimental romance with Aurelien de Seze. That was the quintessence of refinement. All that is interesting about this second adventure is the proof that it gives us of George Sand's wonderful illusions, of the intensity of the mirage of which she ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... this morning, and read part of a curious work, called Memoirs of Vidocq; a fellow who was at the head of Bonaparte's police. It is a pickaresque tale; in other words, a romance of roguery. The whole seems much exaggerated, and got up; but I suppose there is truth au fond. I came home about two o'clock, and wrought ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... from casting away forever a heart never to be replaced. Standing on that bridge of life, with age before and youth behind, he felt that never again could he be so loved, or, if so loved by one so worthy of whatever of pure affection, of young romance, was yet left to ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and from that to the wildest schemes for catching a momentary glimpse of the singer was only a step. At the same time, he was quite aware that such schemes were dangerous if not impracticable, and his reasonable self laughed down his unreasoning romance, only to be confronted by it again as soon as he tried to turn his attention to ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... distances in the wood, where he is collecting his repast. It resembles the sound of the wings of Doves, rendered distinct by the stillness of all other things, and melodious by the distance. There is a feeling of mystery attached to these musical nights that yields a savor of romance to the quiet voluptuousness ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... commiseration, loyalty, shame, and trembling curiosity at the new factor which had come into the life of all this little family walking giraffe-like back to Kensington that to have gone beyond them would have been like plunging into a wintry river. To their son the four words were as a legend of romance, conjuring up no definite image, lighting merely the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... surface straws and egg-shells float into notoriety, while the gold and the marble are buried and hidden till its force be spent. The rage for cashmeres and little dogs has lately given way to a rage for Le Solitaire, a romance written, I believe, by a certain Vicomte d'Arlincourt. Le Solitaire rules the imagination, the taste, the dress of half Paris: if you go to the theatre, it is to see the "Solitaire," either as tragedy, opera, or melodrame; the men dress their hair and throw ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... said. "We have had our queer romance. It won't hurt us. It will sweeten our lives. But, as you say, it's over. It ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... thousand francs!"—words said by Louis Mongenod to the woman whose life was spent in the depths of the cloisters of Notre-Dame. The thought, "She must be rich!" entirely changed his way of looking at the matter. "How old is she?" he began to ask himself; and a vision of a romance in the rue Chanoinesse came to him. "She certainly has an air of nobility! Can she be concerned in some bank?" ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... floor, its single row of carved woodwork and the crosier by the Abbess's seat, was a place of silence instinct with a Divine Presence that radiated from the hanging pyx; it was these particular things, and not others like them, that had been the scene of her romance with God, her aspirations, tendernesses, tears and joys. She had walked in the tiny cloister with her Lover in her heart, and the glazed laurel-leaves that rattled in the garth had been musical with His voice; ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... just strong enough to apply to the actual lamb; not the lamb of romance, but the lamb of reality. You can't get him anywhere; he doesn't know enough. He won't drive, he can't follow; he's too stupid. Why, I went out for a couple of 'em once, that were lost in the canyon. I found them,—that was comparatively easy; but when I tried to get them home, I couldn't. ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... pleased. Tete-a-tetes with Humfrey were dreadfully embarrassing, and she felt life so flat without her nocturnal romance that she was very glad to have some one who would care to talk to her of the Queen. In point of fact, such conversation was prohibited. In the former days, when there had been much more intercourse between the ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... little Wilkins forward and introduced him to the cook, who introduced him to the coppers and scrubbing brushes. From that day forward Master Watty became deeply versed in the dirty work and hard work of the ship, so that all the romance of a sea life was driven out of him, and its stern realities were implanted. In less than three weeks there was not a cup, saucer, or plate in the ship that Watty had not washed; not a "brass" that he had not polished and re-polished; not a copper that he had ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... playful, lovable, yet profoundly wise; teaching us what to think, to admire, to avoid. His influence fell upon a thirsty and receptive soil. We drank it with delight; and it co-operated with all the best traditions of the place in making us lifelong lovers of romance, and truth, and beauty. One of the keenest minds produced by Oxford between 1870 and 1880 thus summarized his effect on us: "I think he was almost the only man who did ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... Poets; but none of his writings are known to be preserved, although his sayings recorded by Knox, indicate a rhyming propensity. John Rolland of Dalkeith, in the prologue of his "Seven Sages," a kind of poetical romance, alludes to the poets who flourished at the Scotish Court, and after naming Lyndsay, Bellenden, and ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... kind of people was made manifest, I think I may say, if not in all, yet in most of the counties in England where such poor creatures were. But I would, if it had been the will of God, that neither I nor anybody else, could tell you more of these stories; true stories, that are neither lie nor romance. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... species of the sucking-fish is found in the Mediterranean,— the Echeneis remora. It was well-known to the ancient writers; though, like most creatures gifted with any peculiarity, it was oftener the subject of fabulous romance than real history. It was supposed to have the power of arresting the progress of a ship, by attaching itself to the keel and pulling in a contrary direction! A still more ridiculous virtue was attributed to it: ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... the General Convention of the Church in San Francisco, in 1901, gave the writer the long-desired opportunity to visit the Pacific coast and see California, which since the early discoveries, has been associated with adventure and romance. Who is there indeed who would not travel towards the setting sun to feast his eyes on a land so famous for its mineral wealth, its fruits and flowers, and its enchanting scenery from the snowy heights of the Sierras to the waters of the ocean first seen by Balboa in 1513, and navigated successively ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... the case of slavery or of the slave-trade—how prudent it may always have been, we need not inquire; as to its moral principles, they went so far ahead of European standards, that we were neither comprehended nor believed. The perfection of romance was ascribed to us by all who did not reproach us with the perfection of Jesuitical knavery; by many our motto was supposed to be no longer the old one of 'divide et impera,' but 'annihila et ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... monotony was disturbed by the presence of the chair and the retinue of a city mandarin. Yet with all the hurry and din, the hurrying and the scurrying in doing and driving for making money, seldom was there an accident or interruption of good nature. There was the same romance in the streets that one reads of at school—so much alike and yet so different from what one meets in the Chinese places at the coast or in Hong-Kong or Singapore. In Sui-fu, more than in any other town in Western ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... strides, and eventually seemed to disappear over the wall into the churchyard. Then he rejoined his brother by the sister's bedside. She was dreadfully hurt, and her wound was a very definite one; but she was of strong disposition, not either given to romance or superstition, and when she came to herself she said, 'What has happened is most extraordinary, and I am very much hurt. It seems inexplicable, but of course there is an explanation, and we must wait for it. It will turn out that a lunatic has escaped from some asylum and found ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... sorry you told me. It robs my visit of all its picturesqueness and adventure. I thought I was perilling my head by coming here, and you tell me I have saved it. One is sure to be disappointed if one tries to get romance out ...
— Vera - or, The Nihilists • Oscar Wilde
... She was pretty, and clever, and amusing,—a great talker and crazy about people. She had real social instinct,—the kind you read of in books, you know. She could make her circle anywhere. She couldn't be alone five minutes,—people clustered around her like bees. Her life might have been a romance, you would suppose,—pretty girl, poor, marries an ambitious, clever man, who arrives with her social help, goes ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... Saxons came, the Norman conquerors came, and each left their mark, deep and lasting, on the people and on the land—but they could not check by one hair's-breadth the perennial flow of the springs in the Hot Swamp, or obliterate the legend on which is founded this Romance of Old Albion. ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... sufficiently curious to warrant insertion in this work; and it is not at all improbable that Antonio de Faria may have been a successful freebooter in the Chinese seas, and that he may have actually performed many of the exploits here recorded, though exaggerated, and mixed in some places with palpable romance.—E. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... in his dream that he could talk of nothing else. It was not the sort of gold that Ralph loved, minted coins that could be saved and counted and stacked away, but it was the shining treasure of romance, wealth that, unlike dully satisfying riches, meant battle and adventure and triumph after overwhelming odds. He did at last consent to help Barbara house the bees in a suitable dwelling, but he talked still of the tale he had heard ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... not repeat to you one of the same, old, time-worn tales of how slick hoboes beat trains, nor fabled romance concerning harmless wanderlusters, nor jokes at the expense of the poor but honest man in search of legitimate employment, but I shall relate to you a rarely strange story that will stir your hearts to their innermost depths and will cause you to shudder at the villainy of certain human beings, ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... result is some confusion for the reader who has backed the wrong horse. But Mr. E. M. SMITH-DAMPIER might very justly retort that this is but fidelity to life. When in the early chapters we see the first hero turned from home by an unsympathetic parent, and faring forth to seek romance in a new world, it was surely reasonable to suppose that he would eventually be rewarded by the pretty lady of the wrapper, especially as Savile Brand (though his name inevitably suggests tobacco) is a character drawn with understanding and skill. But Mr. SMITH-DAMPIER ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 3, 1916 • Various
... period of seven years,—from the uprising of the Dalesmen in 1521 to the coronation of Gustavus in 1528. It is a period that should be of interest, not only to the student of history, but also to the lover of romance. In order to render the exact nature of the struggle clear, I have begun the narrative at a time considerably before the revolution, though I have not entered deeply into details till the beginning of the war in 1521. By the middle of the year 1523, when Gustavus was elected king, actual warfare ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... and its sweeping tidal river, lend it a dignity and majestic beauty that no other city knows; and everywhere about its citadel and walls, and venerable, sacred buildings, there still linger the romance and chivalry of heroic days long gone. But there are times when neither the interests of the living present nor the charms of the romantic past can avail, and so a shadow lay upon Maimie's beautiful face as she sat in the parlor of the Hotel de Cheval Blanc, looking ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... when a new Quebec, proud of her improvements and defences, that were considered impregnable, should fight and lose one of the greatest of battles, and two of the bravest of men, and again lower the lilies! A greater romance than that of old Quebec, the dream ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... he may probably have often received the ambassadors of the Northern nations, who went back to their homes with those stories of the might and majesty of the Ostrogothic king which made "Dietrich of Bern" (Theodoric of Verona) a name of wonder and a theme of romance to many generations of German minstrels. While Theodoric was dwelling in the city of the Adige, tidings came to him, apparently from his son-in-law Eutharic, whom he had left in charge at Ravenna, that the whole city ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... free, free from the bondage of history, free from the bondage of romance, free from the bondage of politics, free from the bondage of religion, and free from the bondage ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... an idyll in the otherwise prosaic municipal history of the Borough of Bursley, which previously had never got nearer to romance than a Turkish bath. It was once waste ground covered with horrible rubbish-heaps, and made dangerous by the imperfectly-protected shafts of disused coal-pits. Now you enter it by emblazoned gates; it is surrounded by elegant railings; fountains and cascades ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... of his life, outlined in a curious old diary containing the records of sixty-two years, and an entry for more than twenty-two thousand days, would constitute a history of the region, and some of its passages would read like high-wrought romance. ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... shred of pure romance was attached. None knew the whole story, and none spoke of it now; but his sisters remembered that Willy had fallen in love with a girl whom he had seen play "Sweet Anne Page." They remembered long letters, tears and wild looks. He ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... been brought together by a poet's fine feeling. This it is which separates the play from so many others of its kind now so common and often so well presented. Here a master's spirit pervades all, unites all in lovely romance. Other plays are mere displays of scenery and costume by comparison. Even the sport of the clowns throws the whole ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... admirably serves the author's purpose of creating what the children call a "crawly" impression. There is undeniable power in many of his scenes, notably in the descriptions of the yellow fever in Philadelphia, found in the romance of "Arthur Mervyn." There is, however, over all of them a false and pallid light; his characters are seen in a spectral atmosphere. If a romance is to be judged not by literary rules, but by its power of making ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... I had it when I was eight. "She" was also eight, and she had just come from India. She was frightfully plain, but then—well, she had come from India. She had all the romance of India's coral strand about her, and it was India's coral strand that I was in love with. Moreover, she was a soldier's daughter, and to be a soldier's daughter was, next to being a soldier, the noblest thing in the world. For that was about the time when, ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... progressive age there are no heroes of the kind so dear to all lovers of chivalry and romance. There are heroes, perhaps, but they are the patient sad-faced kind, of whom few take cognizance as they hurry onward. But cannot we all remember some one who suffered greatly, who accomplished great deeds, who died on ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... politics; remember your young days. Talk of kings, courts, romance, madrigals—but leave out politics," Rosa ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... become a commonplace remark that fact is often stranger than fiction. It may be said, as a variant of this, that history is often more romantic than romance. The pages of the record of man's doings are frequently illustrated by entertaining and striking incidents, relief points in the dull monotony of every-day events, stories fitted to rouse the reader from languid weariness and ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... going had left things blank enough! It was foolish, of course—just highly wrought nerves over this most extraordinary occurrence. Life had heretofore run in such smooth, conventional grooves as to have been almost prosaic; and now to be suddenly plunged into romance and mystery unbalanced him for the time. To-morrow, probably, he would again be able to look sane living in the face, and perhaps call himself a fool for his most unusual interest in this chance ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... imagination. He who describes what he never saw, draws from fancy. Robertson paints minds as Sir Joshua paints faces, in a history-piece; he imagines a heroic countenance. You must look upon Robertson's work as romance, and try it by that standard. History it is not. Besides, sir, it is the great excellence of a writer to put into his book as much as his book will hold. Goldsmith has done this in his history. Now Robertson might have put ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... in this line of literature is immense: she has kept pace with the press for half a century. Her mind is stuffed with love-tales of all kinds, from the stately amours of the old books of Chivalry, down to the last blue-covered romance, reeking from the press: though she evidently gives the preference to those that came out in the days of her youth, and when she was first in love. She maintains that there are no novels written now-a-days equal to Pamela ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... customs, old notions, old traditions; but for me I am a Canadian, my mind is wearied with over-much civilization. I hate the English love of land for land's sake. That line of hills, swelling in massive curves, and crowned, not with a tottering ruin, serving to hang some legendary romance or faded rag of superstition upon, but with stately trees—that is my ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... any of which might have answered the purpose. There is a charm in Defoe's works that one hardly finds, excepting in the Pilgrim's Progress. The language is so homely, that one is not aware of the poetical cast of the thoughts; and both together form such a reality, that the parable and the romance alike remain fixed on the mind like truth. And what is truth? Surely not the mere outward acts of vulgar life; but rather the moral and intellectual perceptions by which our judgment, and actions, and motives, are directed. Then, are the wanderings of Christiana and Mercy, ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... cautious. He did not intend to be trapped like a mouse nibbling at a piece of cheese. The idea of honor among thieves is a myth. A rogue is a rogue all the time, and criminals will betray a companion or a friend ninety-nine times out of a hundred. There is no romance in crime; it is ...
— Cad Metti, The Female Detective Strategist - Dudie Dunne Again in the Field • Harlan Page Halsey
... remember (don't cry, dear!) that night by the fireside,—the night when we brought her out of her bedroom after three days of illness,—when we sat on either side of her, each holding a hand while she told us the pretty romance of her meeting and loving your father? I slipped the loose wedding ring up and down her finger, and stole a look at her now and then. She was like a girl when she told that story, and I could not help thinking it was worth while to be a tender, ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... the age of Spenser, and is said to have been an acquaintance and friend of that poet. It was not, however, till 1683 that good old Izaak Walton published 'Thealma and Clearchus,' a pas- toral romance, which, he stated, had been written long since by John Chalkhill, Esq. He says of the author, 'that he was in his time a man generally known, and as well beloved; for he was humble and obliging in his behaviour—a gentleman, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... first feature of them is revenge!—Roused and insulted as I am, not all her blandishments can dazzle, divert, or melt me! Were mountains to be moved, dragons to be slain, or lakes of liquid fire to be traversed, I would encounter all to attain my end!—Yes—My romance shall equal hers. No epic hero, not Orpheus, Aeneas, or Milton's Lucifer himself, was ever more determined. I could plunge into Erebus, and give battle to the legion phantoms of hell, to accomplish my fixed purpose!—Fixed!—Fixed!—Hoot me, ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... of his daring, in the midst of the most crude and obvious operations against him. It makes him accept as real the bold play-acting that women always excel at, and at no time more than when stalking a man. It makes him, above all, see a glamour of romance in a transaction which, even at its best, contains almost as much gross trafficking, at bottom, as the ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... How the commercial spirit of the age plays whaley with the romance of existence! You shall not look long upon the showbill now that there is no money to be had from it. "Youth's sweet-scented manuscript" is about to close, but ere it does, let us turn back a little to the pages illuminated by the glowing colors of ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... would shine into it, she vowed eagerly that there would be no lights at all in her music room at those times. Afterwards she told a funny story of how Schumann had been wont to improvise under such circumstances, until his next-door neighbor was so struck by the romance of it that he proceeded to imitate it, and to play somebody or other's technical studies whenever the moon rose; at which narrative Helen and the architect laughed very heartily, and Mr. Harrison with them, though he would not have known the difference between a technical ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... made believe there was a fairy called Annabel Lee in the teapot, carrying on conversations with her that sent eerie thrills down our several spines. Afterwards he would read out of a little green and gold book that contained for us all the romance of the ages between its elegant covers. From Father we heard of Angus the Subtle, Morag of the Misty Way, and the King of Errin, who rides and rides and whose road is to the End of Days. Sometimes, laying books aside, he told us old tales that he had ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... And here was Romance, as witness the slim girl who had backed out from a group of men that first day of his coming—backed out with her guns upon them, himself included, and mounted a silver stallion, whose like he had not known existed. In fact, Kenset had thought he knew horses, but he stood in open-mouthed ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... up the Hudson," said he, "was made in early boyhood, in the good old times before steamboats and railroads had annihilated time and space, and driven all poetry and romance out of travel.... We enjoyed the beauties of the river in ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... the enemy began, will be hard indeed to trace, even with maps. It is said that even now in some places the wire has been removed, the explosive salved, the trenches filled, and the ground ploughed with tractors. In a few years' time, when this war is a romance in memory, the soldier looking for his battlefield will find his marks gone. Centre Way, Peel Trench, Munster Alley, and these other paths to glory will be deep under the corn, and gleaners will sing at ...
— The Old Front Line • John Masefield
... it is; the father was a scamp, who shot himself, the son and the wife resigned their possessions and then disappeared from society. It will perhaps be best if I send the servant to a library to get the romance; I wager that you will not put the book aside till you have perused it ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... of fine feeling. Women, from their situation and duties in society, are called upon rather for the daily exercise of quiet domestic virtues, than for those splendid acts of generosity, or those exaggerated expressions of tenderness, which are the characteristics of heroines in romance. Sentimental authors, who paint with enchanting colours all the graces and all the virtues in happy union, teach us to expect that this union should be indissoluble. Afterwards, from the natural influence of association, we expect ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... These he took for true and correct histories, and when his friends the curate of the village, or Mr. Nicholas the worthy barber of the town, came to see him, he would dispute with them as to which of the knights of romance had ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... went on hastily, "I would very much like to see this celebrity of a past generation, the heroine of such a romance, in her—ah —in her retirement. Perhaps she would not be so exclusive now. A chat with her would be most interesting—such valuable 'copy.' I really must try to accomplish it. Shall we call, dear Miss Row? I am sure you and ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... identity was disclosed, the night was given to jubilation and thanksgiving, we are told. He was summoned to Paris, where the queen "kissed his mutilated hands" and exclaimed: "People write romances for us—but was there ever a romance like this, and it is all true?" Others gladly did him honor. But all this gave no satisfaction to his soul bent upon one task, and as soon as the Pope, at the request of his friends, granted a special dispensation [Footnote: The answer of Pope Urban VIII was: "Indignum esset martyrem Christi, ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... snows of the barrier that shut out his past, was there left in him to awaken love in such a woman as Madame de Chantenac? Was it that his tribulations stirred her pity, or that the fame of him which rang through Europe shed upon his withering frame some of the transfiguring radiance of romance? ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... naturally attaches a little mediaeval romance to the idea of a Priory"; adding, after a moment's reflection—there were certainly no signs of prosperity about her—"and it ought to be somewhat dilapidated, I suppose—in the picturesque stage ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... in the jail? They are no ordinary houses, those. There is not a panel in the old wainscotting, but what, if it were endowed with the powers of speech and memory, could start from the wall, and tell its tale of horror—the romance of life, Sir, the romance of life! Common-place as they may seem now, I tell you they are strange old places, and I would rather hear many a legend with a terrific-sounding name, than the true history of one ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... Journalists and Minos Bacchus in the Pillory Spinosa To the Fates The Parallel Klopstock and Wieland The Muses' Revenge The Hypochondriacal Pluto (A Romance) Book I Book II Book III Reproach. To Laura The Simple Peasant Actaeon Man's Dignity The Messiah Thoughts on the 1st October, 1781 Epitaph Quirl The Plague (A Phantasy) Monument of Moor the Robber The Bad ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... and glimmer of romance" which was to invest the tin pan are forgotten, and he uses it as a belittling object for comparison. He himself was not often betrayed into the mistake of confounding the prosaic with the poetical, but his followers, so far as the "realists" have taken their hint from him, have ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... lay claim to the lands of the De Vescis through his mother; but though the King listened with kindly interest to the story of the children's adventure on the Londesborough moor, and the subsequent meeting in Westmorland, the rescue from the outlaws, and the journey together, it was all like a romance to him—he would nod his head and promise to do what he could, if he could, but he never remembered it for two days together, and if Hal ventured on anything like pressure, the only answer was, 'Patience, my son, patience must have her work! It is the will of God, it will ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... after the escape from Fort Douglas, when Mr. Sutherland strode off, leaving his daughter alone with me, I remember very well that Frances abruptly began putting my pillow to rights. Instead of keeping wide awake, as I should by all the codes of romance and common sense, I—poor fool—at once swooned, with a vague, glimmering consciousness that I was dying and this, perhaps, was the first blissful glimpse into paradise. When I came to my senses, Mr. Sutherland was again standing by the bedside with a half-shamed look ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... single library in the countries themselves. No Italian collection can boast of such a splendid series of early editions of Ariosto's Orlando, one of Mr. Grenville's favourite authors, nor, indeed, of such choice Romance Poems. The copy of the first edition of Ariosto is not to be matched for beauty; of that of Rome, 1533, even the existence was hitherto unknown. A perfect copy of the first complete edition of the Morgante Maggiore of ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... corner a living panorama is unfolded before your eyes. The country changes with the sky. Town and mountain and cornfield follow one another in quick succession. At every turn you see that wonderful symbol of romance, the white road that winds over the hill, flecked perhaps by a solitary traveller. But it is always the work of man, not the beauty of nature, that engrosses you. You would, if you could, alight at every point to witness the last act of comedy, which is just beginning. Men and women, ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... done, for Hermy and Ursy would have vanished at cock-crow as they were going in for some golf-competition at a safe distance. Lucia might recommend doing nothing at all, and wish to continue enlightening studies as if nothing had happened. But Georgie felt that the romance would have evaporated from the classes as regards himself. Or again they might have to get rid of the Guru somehow. He only felt quite sure that Lucia would agree with him that Daisy Quantock must not ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson |
