"Recreant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mr. Thorn, till you have heard me. I came here to see you on the part of others I should be a recreant to my charge if I allowed you or myself to draw me into anything that might prevent my fulfilling it. That must be ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Should my recreant muse—sometimes apt to refuse The guidance of bit and of bridle— Still blankly demur, spite of whip and spur, Unimpassioned, inconstant, or idle; Only let me puff, puff, till the brain cries, "Enough!" Such excitement is all I'm in lack o', And the poetic ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... Maggie's face between her hands and lifted it gently. Tear-stained it was, flushing and paling, but its velvety, pink-and-white, becomingly freckled surface was unscratched, unbruised, unmarred by the recreant fist of ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... scolding, Monica," says Kit viciously, but with a lovely smile. "I am going to pick to some ferns for Aunt Pen; when I return I hope I shall find that recreant knight of yours—I mean ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... community of Hebrews far superior to the Jews of Palestine. No Assyrian had bribed them to worship the gods of Nineveh. Their neighbors the Carthaginians, so long as Carthage stood, had persisted in worshipping the Baal and the Ashtaroth that recreant Israelites in Samaria and Jews in Jerusalem worshipped for ages; but, while those gods had altars in Sidon and in Carthage, we do not hear of any altars being raised to them in "the captivity of Jerusalem, which was ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... &c. adj.; timidity, effeminacy. poltroonery, baseness; dastardness[obs3], dastardy[obs3]; abject fear, funk; Dutch courage; fear &c. 860; white feather, faint heart; cold feet * [U. S.], yellow streak*. coward, poltroon, dastard, sneak, recreant; shy cock, dunghill cock; coistril[obs3], milksop, white liver, lily liver, nidget[obs3], one that cannot say " bo" to a goose; slink; Bob Acres, Jerry Sneak. alarmist, terrorist|!, pessimist; runagate &c. (fugitive) 623. V. quail &c. (fear) 860; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... with thy Victory, Whereto we're bound? Alack! or we must lose The Country, our dear nurse; or else thy Person, Our comfort in the Country. We must find An eminent calamity, though we had Our wish, which side shou'd win. For either thou Must, as a foreign Recreant, be led With manacles thorough our streets; or else Triumphantly tread on thy Country's ruin, And bear the palm, for having bravely shed Thy wife and children's blood. For myself, son, I purpose not to wait on Fortune, 'till These wars determine: if I can't ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... fear that I am trespassing too far away from my sworn fealty to Northern opinions and feelings. I begin to fear that I may be tempted to be recreant to my inborn, inbred notions of liberty, while holding converse with you, for there is something extremely seductive to a Northerner in slavery; it is like the apple and the serpent to the woman; so that whoever goes to the South, or has anything ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... ambitious, met her advances more than half way, and finally, encouraged by her father, offered her his heart and hand. Under other circumstances, Matilda would undoubtedly have spurned him with contempt; but having heard that her recreant lover was about taking to himself a bride, she felt a desire, as she expressed it, "to let him know she could marry too." Accordingly, John was accepted, on condition that he changed the name of Nichols, ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... like a very sleuth-hound on the chase. And Leonard—what think'st thou he saith? "That he would as soon wed the loathly lady as thee," the cruel Somerset villain as he is; and yet my brother Edmund is fain to love him. So off they are gone, like recreant curs as they are, lest my uncle should make ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... who had said to an agent of General Gage who offered him bribes if he would make his peace with the king, "I have long ago made my peace with the King of kings, and no power on earth can make me recreant to my duties to ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... you have sought the life of my lord and of me, for mine is interwoven with his. And do you think me so spiritless as to believe that I can be yours by compulsion? Tempt me not again, for the next time shall be the last, and the fish of the nearest river shall commute the flesh of a recreant knight into the fast-day dinner of an uncarnivorous friar. I spare you now, not in pity but in scorn. Yet shall you swear to a convention never more to pursue or molest my lord or me, and on this ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... been deceived by these false assertions? Listen to me, then, whilst I endeavor to wipe from the fair character of Abolitionism such unfounded accusations. You know that I am a Southerner; you know that my dearest relatives are now in a slave State. Can you for a moment believe I would prove so recreant to the feelings of a daughter and a sister, as to join a society which was seeking to overthrow slavery by falsehood, bloodshed, and murder? I appeal to you who have known and loved me in days that are passed, can you believe it? No! my friends. As a Carolinian, I was peculiarly jealous ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... all its beatings. The course of events is so rapidly hastening forward that the emergency may soon arise when you may be called upon to decide the momentous question whether you possess the power by force of arms to compel a State to remain in the Union. I should feel myself recreant to my duty were I not to express an opinion on ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... of a traitor rendered useless this noble defence. A recreant Greek, Ephialtes by name, sought Xerxes and told him of a mountain pass over which he could guide a band to attack the defenders of Thermopylae in the rear. A strong Persian detachment was ordered to cross the pass, and did so under shelter of the night. At daybreak ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Mr Jellaby, proved a recreant knight and the Dutch lady had to content herself with the cavalier-ship of the youngest and most diminutive cadet on board, my ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Hast thou not spoke like thunder on my side? Been sworn my soldier? bidding me depend Upon thy stars, thy fortune, and thy strength? And dost thou now fall over to my foes, And wear a lion's hide? Doff it for shame, And hang a calf's skin on those recreant limbs. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... man!" he cries. "It's your scalp you're fighting for. Here, take a drink of this," and his filled canteen is glued to Burleigh's ashen lips. A long pull, a gasp, and hardly knowing what he does, the recreant officer kneels at the nearmost rock, aims at a painted savage leaping to the aid of a fallen brother, and the chance shot, for a marvel, finds its mark, and with a howl the warrior ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... from New York. The Whigs of that State had sent a delegation to impeach him before the nation for faithlessness to principle, and to demand that votes of other States should not impose on New York a recreant son to ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... execute it. It might, therefore, in such a case as the one supposed, be competent for the United States to designate persons who should take charge of the State Government, and administer it in trust for the children of its former recreant inhabitants, and as their legal and political successors. Reverting to the settled principles of the law, we find that the essential idea of a corporation is its immortality, or individuality, or the perpetual succession of persons under it, notwithstanding the changes ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... And Longstreet, too, and gallant Hill, and Rhodes, and brave Huger,[1] And he whose name is worth a host, our bold, devoted Lee; And back to where the lordly James his scornful billow rolls, The recreant foe is fleeing fast—those ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... later in Yerba's salon as Don Caesar and Dona Anna, with a benignly different expression. Dona Anna especially greeted him with so much of the ostentatious archness of a confident and forgiving woman to a momentarily recreant lover, that he felt absurdly embarrassed in Yerba's presence. He was thinking how he could excuse himself, when he noticed a beautiful basket of flowers on the table and a tiny note bearing a baron's crest. Yerba had put it aside with—as it seemed ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... "Seize this recreant priest!" he cried. "He is a backslider. He has gone back to his people. He is become a Jew again—he shall be ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... state in which the soul is "unearthed, entranced, beatified" by devout contemplation into a pietistic rapture; others have deemed that the best way to secure it was a retirement from the vexing world, a recreant forsaking of the active duties of life, as if it consisted in immunity from temptation rather than in victory over it. Others have placed it in surpliced observance or in monastic vow; an equivocal regard to patterns ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... tradition. Oh! for the quick-pulsing, warm-beating, mighty human heart of the man of Galilee! Oh! for his uplifted hand, armed with a whip of scorpions, to depopulate the temples of the world, and lash his recreant preachers into devotion to the cause of his poor afflicted ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... piece of silver, in a moment the light boat was at the foot of the accommodation-ladder. Ghita now descended; and as soon as her uncle and she were seated, the skiff, for it was little more, whirled away from the ship's side, though two or three more, who had also been left by recreant boatmen for better fares, called out to him to ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... my heart shrivels like that of a woman deprived of her children. Through the great rent that yawned for my deserted first-born, all my life's pleasures have run to waste. On that accursed day when I belied my motherhood you could not utter a word; to-day your recreant mother implores you for generous words. Let your forgiveness burn her heart like fire and consume ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore
... doubt her sincerity. But with the injustice of a passionate, jealous love she did not so much blame her recreant lover. Some charm, some art, must have been used, perhaps by a third person, and the girl be guiltless. And if she could send her away ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... discontent, I see contentment; where there was turbulence, I see peace, where there was disloyalty, I see loyalty." Then the fury of party anger burst upon him, and bowing to the storm, Robert Peel went forth while men hissed after him such words as "traitor," "coward," "recreant leader." Nor did he foresee that in losing an office he had gained the love of ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... me and then slowly faded: David, boyish and comradely; David, manly and strong, without ever a sneer or an unholy light upon his face. Could I ever forget him? Could I ever look into the face of any other man and call it the dearest in the whole world to me? Ach—I shook my head and gathered my recreant wits together! I'd forget what he said and attribute it to the ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... grief and rebellion at "the inexorable trend of things," I entered the car, and when from its window I looked back upon my grieving mother, my throat filled with a suffocating sense of guilt. I was deserting her, recreant to my blood!—That I was re-enacting the most characteristic of all American dramas in thus pursuing an ambitious career in a far-off city I most poignantly realized and yet—I went! It seemed to me at the time that my duty lay in ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... just in time to see the little man deposit his burden on the couch. And both of them cried-out in astonishment. For the stripling who had reduced Rodney Hade to numb paralysis was Sato, their own recreant Japanese butler. ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... have given much to avoid this moment. But now that the discussion was upon him, he said to himself that he would not traffic with the insincerities, he would not be recreant to his own identity. He would not fawn, and bow, and play the smug squire of dames, full of specious flatteries, and kiss the hand ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... government, so endeared to the people, and defended against kingly assault with the truest courage, was swept away by arbitrary power, and in its place a new one established, under the presidency of Joseph Dudley, and he a recreant son of the colony. It was the inauguration of this government which had taken place on the day before Captain Bowden and Dr. Clarke encountered John Wiswell, Jr., on their ride to Cambridge. There ceremonies of the inauguration were not without ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... meal the young men sat outside in the shed-room, and smoked and lazily talked together. Their words reached the silent group at the table. Kirkwood's companions were deriding him as a recreant sportsman. He puffed his short-stemmed pipe and looked at them tranquilly. He was not dissatisfied with his share of the ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... fiery answer as to Love sometimes banishing from his servants all sense and reason. But for the time the subject again drops. It is, however, reopened at night, and some small pity comes on one for the recreant Gerard, inasmuch as she keeps him awake by wailing about her love. At last she "draws" the sluggard to some extent. "Has not he been in love, and does not he know all about it? But he was never ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... expect that some accident had occurred, especially as some of the yells indicated that somebody had come to grief. This caused him a very laborious run, and he arrived thoroughly blown, and with a natural desire to kick the recreant villager who bad ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... usurper. England has her, navy and her army to operate against any rising of the inhabitants, at a moment's warning; while every office in the kingdom, of the slightest importance or trust, is in the hands of her minions. Again, among some of the recreant sons of the soil, she has, alas too ample scope for the use of her accursed gold; and thus it is; that to cope singled handed with her against such fearful odds, would involve oceans of blood, both on the field and on the scaffold. When, however, we come to dwell ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... some maiden of the outer and everyday world. And, then and there, I threw myself hurriedly at the feet of Eleonora, and offered up a vow, to herself and to Heaven, that I would never bind myself in marriage to any daughter of Earth—that I would in no manner prove recreant to her dear memory, or to the memory of the devout affection with which she had blessed me. And I called the Mighty Ruler of the Universe to witness the pious solemnity of my vow. And the curse which I invoked of Him and of her, a saint in Helusion should I prove ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... holding each other's eyes, the face of the older man changed and softened. Into it came a smile of high and spiritual beauty, of nobility and unworldliness, of tenderness most touching. All that was most winning in the character of the man was embodied in the look which he fixed upon his recreant disciple, a look pleading and wistful, yet full of dignity and strength. He leaned forward, laying the tips of his thin fingers almost caressingly on the arm ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... responded nobly," she confided in a stage whisper across the intervening millinery. "That eccentric Volney Sprague is positively the only recreant. And isn't the ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... yielding to his indignation; "fear ye to meet my eye? would that its lightnings could blast ye, perjured and recreant that ye are! ay, look upon the ground, which should have drank your heart's blood before it witnessed your disgrace; look not on me, whom you have betrayed—look not on the banner of your country, which you have stained ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... and shouted a few words to them in the native tongue. In a moment more—almost before I could realize my good fortune, every Indian had melted away into the forest. I heard Mackenzie cry out with baffled rage and furiously curse his recreant allies. Then a silence fell, broken only by the ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... "the man who vowed at the altar to love and cherish the treasure committed to his keeping, has proved recreant to the trust reposed in him. Look on this ethereal form, and upon this brow shadowed with grief, and at these eyes that have grown dim with weeping for one who is all unworthy of my devotion. Alas! that I should come to this, who was once surrounded by everything ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... principles which place the murderers of Lovejoy at Alton side by side with Otis and Hancock, with Quincy and Adams," said Wendell Phillips, pointing to their portraits on the walls. "I thought those pictured lips would have broken into voice to rebuke the recreant American, the slanderer of the dead. For the sentiments that he has uttered, on soil consecrated by the prayers of the Puritans and the blood of patriots. the earth should have yawned ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... a manner which his knowledge of the world had not taught him to foresee, endeavoured with all possible address and expedition to make his separate peace with Lady Angelica. Her ladyship, however, was proud to show that she had too much sense and spirit to accept again the homage of this recreant knight. He had not time to sue for pardon—his adventure might have ended in a jail; so forthwith he took his departure from Hungerford Castle, undetermined whether he should again haste to court to beg a place, or bend his course to the city, there to barter his fashion ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... vindictive actress might take it into her head to suddenly appear, and publicly denounce him as her recreant lover, and thinking thus, is especially glad that he told ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... right heavily, since he must leave behind his friend. In his train rode all those knights who had drawn together to that town for the great tournament. Not a knight of them all but plighted faith to follow where he led, and to hold himself recreant and shamed if ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... viciousness of that "I wish it had rained!" I wonder if that man beats his wife, or if he just converses with her as he does with a recreant ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... court had grievously transgressed the laws of chivalry and knightly honor, and for this cause had he been condemned to suffer death. Great sorrow reigned among all the lords and dames, and Queen Guinevere, on bent knees, had sued the king's pardon for the recreant knight. At length, after many entreaties, Arthur's generous heart relented, and he gave the doomed life into the queen's hands to do ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... were aware of the treachery of the absent Indian, and resolved with one voice that his blood should be an atonement for the act. Their thoughts had dwelt too fondly on the shining gold they were to get in exchange for the maiden, for them ever to forgive the recreant brother who had snatched the prize from them. The chief soon recovered his usual grave expression, and partook in some measure the general disappointment and chagrin. His motives were not of the same mercenary cast which actuated his tribe, ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... A recreant Harp, that sings of fear And heaviness in Clifford's ear! I said, when evil Men are strong, No life is good, no pleasure long, A weak and cowardly untruth! Our Clifford was a happy Youth, And thankful ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... thing do you take me, Sholto MacKim?" he cried; "I will not leave this place till I know what they have done with her. She trusted me, and shall I prove a recreant? I would have you know that I am William, Earl of Douglas, and fear not the face of any Crichton that ever breathed. Ho—there—without!" and again he shook the ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... do," said Mr. Furnival, who had not the slightest intention of waiting for Miss Biggs; and then he sat himself down to eat his bacon, and bethink himself what step he would take with this recreant and ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... Illinois. The space between me and the house where I designed to stop, and the time between then and sun-down, were somewhat disproportionate; so I pricked gallantly forward; as gallantly at least as could be expected from a tired horse, and a knight whose recreant thoughts were intensely fixed on dollars and cents, supper, and other trifling affairs. By dint however of much patience in the steed, and much impatience in the rider, we got over the ground, and approached a house that had been in ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... than innate love, These to my wish must recreant prove; Nor whilst an impulse here remain, Can ever hope the soul to gain; For memory scanning all the past, Relaxes her firm bonds at last, And gives to candor all the grace The heart can ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... of the house and the belle of the kitchen, which was, as usual, none of his affair, Elmendorf took sides with the cook. In the light of his conduct on this occasion, Mrs. Lawrence declared him a pest, and she only recanted when thus unexpectedly he arrayed himself under her own banner against her recreant niece. ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... the people of Pennsylvania could sustain a distinction so odious, the very shades of their ancestors would rise from the battlefields of the Revolution, from Paoli and Germantown, and call their children bondmen of Carolina, vassals and recreant slaves! I speak not now of the whiskey insurrection, when, at the order of Washington, the militia of Virginia and of other States moved against the people of Western Pennsylvania, under the command of the Governor of Virginia and Carolina, and the nation approved the deed; but I speak of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... his wife?" she asked, arranging her scarf. "I never desire to be with him, or with any man recreant to his work." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... measures of a part of that body of reformers. The desire of Unitarians to be just, rational, and open-minded, exposed many of them to the criticism of being neither for nor against slavery. But it is certain that they were not indifferent to its evils nor recreant to their humanitarian principles. ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... to passion; it is criminal. I have too much indulged the flattering dreams of desire. Yet what to do?—How to act?—Must I tamely quit the field the moment an adversary appears; turn recreant to myself, and coward-like give up my claims, without daring to say such and such they are? No. Justice is due as much to myself as to any other. If he be truly deserving of preference, why let him be preferred. I will rejoice.—Yes, Oliver, mill.—He who is the slave of passion, is unworthy a ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... she entered the room, "I am a wretch. It was I who compelled Medwin to promise me, upon his honor as a man, that he would not fight Allington; and now that all the world has frowned upon him, I, too, have turned recreant, and cast him off. Mother, speak to me no word of command or remonstrance. I will never see Mr. Allington again; and I will this very hour go to Medwin, and throw myself on my knees before him. Yes, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... true, say, can it be, That thou art leader of these faithless Moors? That thou impeachest thy own daughter's fame Through the whole land, to seize upon the throne By the permission of those recreant slaves? What shall I call thee? art thou—speak, Count Julian - A father, or ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... she answered firmly. "She has flown back to me in wild affright—the mere wreck of what she was, poor child! when I gave her into your keeping—and the inviolable sanctity of my house is around her. I much fear, Leon Dexter, that you have proved recreant to your trust—that you have not loved, protected, and cherished that delicate flower. The sweetness of ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... characters shows this. They had a Capitan, who probably originated in the Miles gloriosus of Plautus; a brother, at least, of our Ancient Pistol and Bobadil. The ludicrous names of this military poltroon were Spavento (Horrid fright), Spezza-fer (Shiver-spear), and a tremendous recreant was Captain Spavento de Val inferno. When Charles V. entered Italy, a Spanish Captain was introduced; a dreadful man he was too, if we are to be frightened by names: Sanqre e Fuego! and Matamoro! His business was to deal in Spanish rhodomontades, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... to hear you say so, Mistress Thankful," said Washington quietly; "for 'twould have been natural for you to have sought an interview with your recreant lover in yonder camp, though the attempt would ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... came again, and Bill felt that he was in a worse position than ever. He had played truant once with success; but he was aware that it would not do a second time. Bully Tom was spiteful, and Master Arthur might come to "look up" his recreant pupil, and then Bill's ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... something else, due possibly to the lady's wonderful eyes, of which he had thought much. Yet it was not her simplicity that affected him solely; on the contrary, it was her apparent intelligent reading of the character of her recreant lover—and of his own! Of all the Colonel's previous "light" or "serious" loves, none had ever before flattered him in that way. And it was this, combined with the respect which he had held for their professional relations, ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... passion at beholding him under the lather, so that the people praised Shagpat and the King. Then said he, 'O people, who shall forecast disasters and triumphs? Lo, I had this day at dawn intelligence from recreant Oolb, and its King and Court, and of their return to do honour to Shagpat! And I had this day at dawn tidings, O people, from Shiraz, and of the adhesion of that vain city and its provinces to the might of Shagpat! ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was in the saddle quickly, loping Patches to the crest of a hill near by in hopes of getting a view of the recreant pony. He got a glimpse of it, far back on the plains near some timber, and he was about to shout the news to Ruth, who was watching him intently, when he thought better of the ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... our institutions. So long as the contest shall last between good and evil in this world, we have a right to declaim against all encroachments on liberty and sound morality and an evangelical piety from any quarter whatever, and we are recreant to our duties unless we speak our minds. Hence, from the light I have, I pronounce judgment against the Society of Jesus as a dangerous institution, unfortunately planted among us, but which we cannot help, and can attack only with the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... been built up around the house of McGuire, the mystery surrounding the awe-inspiring prowler, the night vigils, the secrecy—all seemed to fade into a piece of hobbledehoy buffoonery at Beth's contemptuous description of her recreant relative. And he ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... vast cat'ract, Faction's clam'rous tongue, Or by its sweetness charm, like Virgil's song, For him, whose mighty spirit rous'd afar Europe's plum'd legions to the hallow'd war; But who, ah! hapless tale! could not inspire Their recreant chiefs with his heroic fire; Who, as they pass'd the tyrant Conqu'ror's yoke, Felt, as the bolt of Heav'n, the ruthless stroke; And having long, in vain, the tempest brav'd, Could breathe no longer in ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... the commander of the Guardian-Mother, made Penn Sharp, to whom she was largely indebted for the fortune to which she had succeeded, the captain of her. The steam-yacht was the Viking, and Mrs. Scoble sailed in her to New York, and then to England, where she obtained a divorce from her recreant husband, and became the wife of Captain Sharp, who was now in command of the Blanche, the white steamer that sailed abreast of the Guardian-Mother when the wreck in the Arabian ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... not blame gentlemen of the South for using this threat of rending God's creation from foundation to turret. They have tried it fifty times, and fifty times they have found weak and recreant tremblers in the North who have been affected by it, and who have retreated before ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... 410 And then the knight, whom fate or happy chance Shall with his friends to victory advance, And grace his arms so far in equal fight, From out the bars to force his opposite, Or kill, or make him recreant on the plain, The prize of valour and of love shall gain; The vanquish'd party shall their claim release, And the long jars conclude in lasting peace. The charge be mine to adorn the chosen ground, The theatre of war, for champions so renown'd; ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... useful, therefore, only as it is a means through which one may protect his rights, guard his interests and promote the public welfare. The best service that a man can render his party is to raise its ideals. He basely betrays his party's hopes and is recreant to his duty to his party associates who seeks to barter away a noble party purpose for temporary advantages or for the spoils of office. It would be a reflection upon the intelligence and patriotism of the ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... recreant Shaykhs I must not include Furayj bin Raf'a el-Huwayt, a man of whom any tribe might be proud, and a living proof that the Bedawi may still be a true gentleman. A short figure, meagre of course, as becomes the denizen of the ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... advance Before the Trojan battlements, and there In single conflict doing valiantly Last die upon their spears? Nay, for by this I might perchance make Atreus' offspring glad. That may not be imagined. I must find Some act to let my grey-haired father feel No heartless recreant once called him sire. Shame on the wight who when beset with ill Cares to live on in misery unrelieved. Can hour outlasting hour make less or more Of death? Whereby then can it furnish joy? That mortal weighs for nothing-worth with me, ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... "you shall rue this day." He no longer wondered now at the non-appearance of his adversary; he felt confident that the recreant smith was there, and the thought of being thus within his power goaded him ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... tangible shortcoming of theirs upon which to thrust the blame of their helplessness. "Criminal helplessness," he called it, mutteringly. He tried to define the idea—or the idea tried to define itself—that they had somehow been recreant to their social caste, by getting down into the condition and estate of what one may call the alien poor. Carondelet street had in some way specially vexed him to-day, and now here was this. It was bad enough, he thought, for men to slip into riches through dark ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... war by the United States, the great aim and object of which was the conquest, and incorporation with her own extensive territories, of provinces on which she had long cast an eye of political jealousy, and now assailed at a moment when England (fighting the battles of the, even to this moment, recreant and unredeemed Peninsula,) could ill spare a solitary regiment to the rescue of her threatened, and but ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... be no force too strong for an honest man in your position to resist,—whether successfully or not is beyond the question. The officer who is intimidated by threats, or by his own fears, is recreant to his duty, and no better than the mob which threatens him. But you will have no such test, Mr. Wemyss! I shall see to it myself that there ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... atonement, still find no resting place,—no spot where he may hide his shame and endeavour to forget his errors? Shall the finger of scorn and derision be pointed at him wherever he betake himself? And must he for ever wander a recreant and outcast on the face of the earth, seeking in vain some friendly shore, where he may at length be freed from ignominious disabilities, and restored to the long lost enjoyment of equal rights and ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... and who takes his portrait with him when he makes an engagement, for the illustration of the playbill. His portrait (which is not at all like him) represents him in the act of dragging to the earth a recreant Indian, who is supposed to have tomahawked, or essayed to tomahawk, a British officer. The design is pure poetry, for there is no such Indian in the piece, and no such incident. He is a dog of the Newfoundland breed, for whose honesty I would be bail to any amount; but whose intellectual qualities ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... this way, and then asked me to turn my back on my best friend, I'd whistle them down the wind;" and here Kate snapped her fingers, bent her black brows, and glared around the room as if in search of a recreant Van Corlear. ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... pledge to a boy in play, like to ours of yester-eve, Baby Charles, is not to be kept when matters of state conflict." Then turning to the Spanish ambassador, he said: "Rest content, my lord count. This recreant Raleigh shall ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... Heaven, the Moors prevail! the Christians yield! Their coward leader gives for flight the sign! The sceptred craven mounts to quit the field - Is not yon steed Orelio?—Yes, 'tis mine! But never was she turned from battle-line: Lo! where the recreant spurs o'er stock and stone! - Curses pursue the slave, and wrath divine! Rivers ingulph him!"—"Hush," in shuddering tone, The Prelate said; "rash Prince, ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... for the district?" inquired Rachel, conquering a recreant lip to put the question, and putting it ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... pony carriage, with a footman in livery on the little perch behind her, drew rein beside the pavement, and a handsome young captain in a splendid uniform saluted her and began talking with her in a languid, affected way, it was Osborne recreant to the thought of his betrothed, one of whose tender letters he kept twirling in ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... the Resolution is proved recreant; the Countenance hath changed his copy; and the passionate knight is shedding funeral ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... militia placed there to guard the prison; and these men were shot to death, even while under the governor's plighted pledge of protection. Hyrum fell first; and Joseph, appearing at one of the windows in the second story, received the leaden missiles of the besieging mob, which was led by a recreant though professed minister of the gospel. But the brutish passion of the mob was not yet sated; propping the body against a well-curb in the jail-yard, the murderers poured a volley of bullets into the corpse, and fled. Thus was the unholy vow of the mob fulfilled, that ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage
... Christ as the husband (2 Cor. 11:2; compare Rev. 21:2). To be spiritually adulterous, as the rabbis construed the utterances of the prophets, was to be false to the covenant by which the Jewish nations claimed distinction, as the worshipers of Jehovah, and to be wholly recreant and reprobate. Convicted on such a charge those sign-seeking Pharisees and scribes understood that Jesus classed them as worse than the idolatrous heathen. The words "adultery" and "idolatry" are of related origin, each connoting the act ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... and Failer, acknowledge yourselves a couple of recreant knights: Sir Timorous is mine: I have won him in ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... longer I'll endure it. I renounce This recreant monarch who forsakes himself. My valiant heart doth bleed, and I could rain Hot tear-drops from mine eyes, that robber-swords Partition thus the royal realm of France; That cities, ancient as the monarchy, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... No recreant I to a noble cause, Nor traitor base to a leader bold; 'Twas a fight where he won most applause Who captured most of his ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... offers a drama of irresistible appeal. We non-Catholics can feel this even at the distance to which our Protestantism has remanded us, and at your first visit to the Seville cathedral during mass you cannot help a moment of recreant regret when you wish that a part in the mystery enacting was your birthright. The esthetic emotion is not denied you; the organ-tide that floods the place bears you on it, too; the priests perform their rites before ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... summoned Greeks and Germans alike to horse. Through all the host the barons speedily arm themselves and mount. But the Saxon knight, all armed, his visor laced, has continued to pursue Cliges at a gallop. Cliges, who never wished to have aught in common with a recreant or coward, sees him come alone. First of all the knight has assailed him with words: he stoutly calls him baseborn fellow, for he could not conceal the mind he had of him. "Fellow," quoth he, "here wilt thou leave the forfeit for my lord, ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... was redeemed by the noble spirit of gallantry which courted personal danger in the defence of the sovereign ... of women because they are often lovely, and always helpless; and of the priesthood.... Now, Childe Harold, if not absolutely craven and recreant, is at least a mortal enemy to all martial exertion, a scoffer at the fair sex, and, apparently, disposed to consider all religions as different modes of superstition." The tone of the review is ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... Viscellinus [Footnote: Spurius Cassius Viscellinus, the author of the earliest agrarian law, passed, but never carried into execution. He was condemned to death,—probably a victim to the rancorous opposition of the patrician order, of which he was regarded as a recreant member by virtue of his advocacy of the rights or just claims of the plebs. Cicero in early life was by no means so hostile to the principle underlying the agrarian laws, and to the memory of the Gracchi, as he was after he had reached the highest offices in the gift of ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... are 'Father Rielle,'" she exclaimed, "you think you are entitled to pursue a recreant sheep of the flock even over here! Oh! it is not on account of the storm—I know that—that you follow me! I have seen this coming for some time, and I have ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... And, therefore, this recreant Scot anathematizes the Scottish people for not applauding blasphemy, calumny, and every species of literary criminality! Such are the monstrous passions that swell out the poisonous breast of genius, deprived of every moral restraint; and such was the demoniac irritability which prompted a wish in ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... who wasn't his friend?—to hail the owner and summon him to his work. He ran into "Rosemount," the big brick house where the handsome Miss Armstrongs lived, to make arrangements for a Choral Society practice, he drummed up a half-dozen recreant Sunday-school teachers within the space of two blocks, and he roared across the street to Doctor Archie Blair to be sure not to forget that thae bit bills for the Scotchmen's picnic maun be gotten ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... wounded heart. Meantime, some of his ecclesiastical constituents will suspect him, in his local ethics, of leniency to wide-spread corruption; and professed philanthropists will brand him as a trimmer and coward, recreant, fawning, and dumb,—the term spaniel having been flung at one of the best men and most conscientious ministers that ever lived, simply because he could not vituperate as harshly as some of his neighbors. Some would ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... superior smile of a young empress pardoning a recreant subject, and suffered him to draw her again, but with more gentleness, into his embrace. She put up her lips to meet his—I looked on like a man in a dream! I saw them cling together—each kiss they exchanged was a fresh ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... subtle explanation, Babbalanja. You must allude, then, to those recreant tribes; which, while in their own eyes presenting a sublime moral spectacle to Mardi,—in King Bello's, do but present a hopeless example of bad debts. And these, the tribes that boast ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... thy master." The Lord took it ill of Isaac that he cheered him with such kind words. "To Mine enemy," He reproached him, "thou sayest, 'What shall I do for thee, my son?'" Isaac replied, "O that he might find grace with Thee!" God: "He is a recreant." Isaac: "Doth he not act righteously when he honors his parents?" God: "In the land of uprightness will he deal wrongfully, he will stretch his hand forth in days to come against the Temple." Isaac: "Then let ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... cried, his voice a roar. "Release my mother, depose Zuleyman, recall that fugitive recreant who cursed me, and humble myself to seek pardon at the hands of this insolent Italian cleric? May my bones rot, may I roast for ever in hell-fire if I show myself such a craven! And do you counsel it, Emigio—do you really counsel that?" He was ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... flashed. Hiding! a son of Cuba! skulking about in the woods, while his brother soldiers were at the front, or, like Carlos, guarding the hill passes! This was indeed being only half a Cuban. She would have nothing to do with recreant soldiers; and she turned away with a ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... was silent; he was especially anxious not to say anything which might offend the burgomaster by openly differing from him; but his remarks encouraged others connected with certain persons, their relations or friends, recreant Hollanders, who had sided with the Spaniards and professed to have returned to the Faith of Rome. These men were familiarly called Glippers; their object was to induce their countrymen to follow their example. A few holding their opinions remained in the city, either kept there ...
— The Lily of Leyden • W.H.G. Kingston
... word from Frank which should say that he was ready to defy his mother, and abide by his first promise. But no such letter came, and at last, when she could bear the suspense no longer, Ethelyn wrote herself to her recreant lover, asking if it were really so that hereafter their lives lay apart from each other. If such was his wish, she was content, she said, and Frank Van Buren, who could not detect the air of superb scorn which breathed in every line of that letter, felt somehow aggrieved ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes |
