"Roving" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for some distance, our young guide keeping his sharp eyes roving round in every direction in search of some other bird or animal on which he might exercise his skill. We were naturally surprised at the wonderful way in which the bird he had shot had recovered. I could scarcely believe that the arrow ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... a wide semi-circle facing the platform. The "boss" took his place inconspicuously among those who formed the outer fringe of the assemblage. His gaze seldom left the face of the girl he loved. Once her eyes met his. She was on the platform discussing arrangements with the two clergymen when her roving, unsettled gaze chanced to fall upon him. For many seconds she stared at him fixedly,—so fixedly, in fact, that Father Francisco, after a moment, shot a look in the same direction. Even from his far-off post, Percival saw the colour mount to her cheeks as she ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... a strange goddess, Des," he said, his weary eyes roving out over the turgid, yellow stream, "and she has been kind to you, though, God knows, you have played a man's part in all this. She has placed in your possession something for which at least five men have died in vain, something that has filled my thoughts, sleeping and waking, for more ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... and talk to me for hours, and he was one of the best talkers I have met. He could even talk about painting, and that's more than can be said of most painters. About eighteen months ago he was feeling rather overworked, and partly at my suggestion he went off on a sort of roving expedition, with no very definite end or aim about it. I believe New York was to be his first port, but I never heard from him. Three months ago I got this book, with a very civil letter from an English doctor practising at Buenos Ayres, stating that he had attended the late Mr. Meyrick during ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... of going abroad for the autumn. I have been rather a long time at Cumber, you know, and I'm afraid the roving mood is coming upon me again. I shall be sorry to go, too, for I had intended to torment you continually about your art studies. You have really a genius for landscape, you know, Miss Darrell; you only want to be goaded into industry now and ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... like Marion as he stood there, his eyes roving about her face. Because his shoulders were bowed his body looked thick like a tree-trunk; his swarthiness had the darkness of earth in it and the gold of ripe corn; and his gaze lay like a ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... dame, in one of the knightly orders attached to the rich convent of Saints. Perhaps she has noticed the tall figure of the young Genoese in the strangers' part of the convent, perhaps not; but his roving blue eye has noticed her, and much is to come of it. The young Genoese continues his regular and exemplary attendance at the divine Office, the young lady is zealous in observing her duties in the choir; some kind friend introduces them; the audacious young man makes his proposals, and, ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... numerous; they occupy a portion of the Park lands, called the native location, and every encouragement has been given them to establish themselves in comfort on it, but they prefer their wild roving habits to any fixed pursuit. Nevertheless, they are variously employed by the townspeople, in carrying burthens, in cutting up wood, in drawing water, and similar occupations; and, independently of any assistance ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... them crawl over you, or come towards you. There is a spider popularly known as daddy-long-legs, though this name is shared by other insects; it has a narrow body, and long pale legs, with dark knee-joints. It is often noticed roving about, for some reason or other; yet the species is a web-maker; its web is ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... south attempted a passage to the East, through Egypt, and were dashed against its gates. They afterwards conquered Europe, and hither they came by the north to present themselves again before that same Asia, to be again foiled. What then urged them into this roving and adventurous life? They were not barbarians, seeking a more genial climate, more commodious habitations, more enchanting spectacles, greater wealth: on the contrary, they possessed all these advantages, and all possible pleasures; and yet they forsook them, to live without shelter, and ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... after his seventh hot biscuit with freshly churned butter that made his mouth water, "but eating houses and hotels, Mrs. Fairbanks, make a roving, homeless fellow like me desperate, and if a third helping of that exquisite apple sauce isn't out of order, ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... down the bazar. A checked kerchief round his brows, and a kilt of dark blue calico round his frame, comprise his slender costume. His arms have been deposited outside the Turkish wall; and as he looks back, his meagre, ferocious aspect, flanked by that tangled web of hair, stamps him the roving tenant of the desert. It is curious to find in this remote country a custom similar to that of the fiery cross, which in old times summoned the Celtic tribes to arms. On the alarm of invasion, a branch, torn by ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... of my son, who now had made two trips to and from the Philippines. After the second one he decided to return to Sacramento, if I would make a little home for him. His stay was of but a few months' duration notwithstanding our cozy, comfortable quarters, for the spirit of roving still possessed him, and erelong he shipped as an employee on one of the large passenger steamers bound for Australia. Then, at the repeated requests of many, I returned to Woodland, from which place I eventually accepted a call to the rescue work in San Francisco. ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... has had a very difficult game to play, Mrs Bold—a very difficult game. Poor Madeline's unfortunate marriage and terrible accident, my mother's ill-health, my father's absence from England, and last, and worst perhaps my own roving, idle spirit have almost been too much for her. You cannot wonder if among all her cares one of the foremost is to see me settled ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... death. This possibly is the reason why Democritus[226] deprived himself of the sense of seeing, prizing, at a much lower rate, the loss of his sight, than the diminution of his contemplation which he had frequently found disturbed by the vagrant flying-out strayings of his unsettled and roving eyes.[227] Therefore is it that Pallas, the goddess of wisdom, tutoress and guardianess of such as are diligently studious and painfully industrious, is and hath been still accounted a virgin. The Muses ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... dispersed, many of them substantial-looking middle-class male and female "buyers," with lists and lead-pencils, on the look-out for "bargains," a sprinkling of the ancient race, and an outer fringe of casual, lounging, lookers-on. The gentleman in the rostrum is a voluble personage, with a rapidly roving eye, of preternatural quickness in picking up "bids." Attendants, shaggy men, in soiled shirt-sleeves, with saw-dusty whiskers, and husky voices. A pleasant-faced Paterfamilias, and his "Good lady," are discovered inspecting a solidly-built, well-seasoned, age-toned ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 21, 1891 • Various
... lights are failing, and skies are paling, And leaves are sailing a-down the air, O, it's then that love lifts my heart above My roving thoughts and my petty care; And though the gloom be like the tomb, Where there's no room for my love and me, O, still I'll find you, and still I'll bind you, My wild ...
— Three Plays • Padraic Colum
... week I cured him, and also succeeded in getting another boy who could cook and shoot, and had no objection to go into the interior. His name was Baderoon, and as he was unmarried and had been used to a roving life, having been several voyages to North Australia to catch trepang or "beche de mer", I was in hopes of being able to keep him. I also got hold of a little impudent rascal of twelve or fourteen, who could speak ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... before, and may have been at one time a part of it. I knew nothing of the first settlement of the place. It has the appearance of being very ancient—no doubt dates back many years before the Revolution, or it may have been the headquarters of a roving tribe of Indians, as many arrow points and tomahawks have been ploughed up on the place. To my friend, T. H. Lassiter, Esq., of Gates county, North Carolina, I am indebted for much of the information gained of that locality, and I could relate a good deal told me by that gentleman ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... Smith and Bill Jones were hungry a hasty meal was prepared for them, during the eating of which they told of their experiences since landing from the airship. They had been on a farm until fired with a desire to go roving once more. ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood
... Smooth,' he reiterated, spreading his length on a magnificent sofa, 'I am anxious to hear how the Young American party progresses down your way; and you must tell me all about it. I intend to give you a roving commission ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... the ague, palsy, and the gout, And that's a roving pain that goes within and out; A broken leg or arm, I soon can cure the pain, And if thou break'st thy neck, I'll stoutly set it again. Bring me an old woman of fourscore years and ten, Without a tooth in her head, I'll bring ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... discusses the need of constant application to work, and how "the genius of poetry must work out its own salvation in a man." And meanwhile, as fitful strains of song reach him from the distance, and his roving gaze rivets itself upon a Wedgwood copy of a Grecian vase—one of Brown's chief treasures—the fleeting wafts of sound, and the lovely symmetry of shape, and the golden chain of figures, blend themselves into one harmonious whole ...
— A Day with Keats • May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron
... question of conscience with me, in the frame of mind I was then in, there was no trouble in following the devil's advice. I conceived a plan for sending this captain out of the world by the shortest road, seizing the ship, and roving unrestrained upon the free sea. It was soon found that there was enough on board to join the enterprise and share the spoils, and the plan was carried out when we were half voyage over. That was fifty years ago. I ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... Richard Adams, and I am the son of a Cumberland yeoman who married a Welshwoman. Therefore I have Celtic blood in my veins, which perhaps accounts for my love of roving and other things. I am now an old man, near the end of my course, I suppose; at any rate, I was sixty-five last birthday. This is my appearance as I see it in the glass before me: tall, spare (I don't weigh more than a hundred and forty pounds—the desert ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... yesterday wanted to know, brethren, how I happened to take up this roving life, and I told them. They seemed impressed by it, and I'm going to tell you. To begin with, the best temperance talker is the man who has led a life of drunkenness and through the grace of the Lord got out of it to give living testimony as to its evil. Now, I'm pretty sure, for the same ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... true men might be put for examples. If the air of the streets be fulsome, then fields be at hand. If you be weary of the City, you may go to the Court. If you surfeit of the Court, you may ride into the country; and so shoot, as it were, at rounds with a roving arrow. You can wish for no kind of meat, but here is a market; for no kind of pastime, but here is a companion. If you be solitary, here be friends to sit with you. If you be sick, and one doctor will not serve your turn, you may have twain. ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... and satiny maple wood was, however, "out of fashion" when the roving shipmasters began to bring in logs of Santo Domingo mahogany in the holds of their far-wandering barks, and the cabinetmakers to cut beautiful shapes of sideboards, and curving legs and backs of chairs, ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... on there were no lamps lighted to point out the position of the house to any roving band of marauders who might happen to be in the vicinity. The front door was thrown open, and Mrs. Truman sat just inside the room to which it gave entrance, so that she could see the road in both directions. She explained to the boys that there had once been shade trees in the yard ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... out its ocean-like expanse, embellished with groves, garlanded with flowers of gorgeous colors waving in the summer breeze, checkered with sunshine and the shade of passing clouds, with roving herds of the stately buffalo and the graceful antelope. And again the gloomy forest would appear, extending over countless leagues, where bears, wolves, and panthers ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... that Lucy was part Jersey and part wolf. Maybe so. Her actions and methods of living seemed to justify the allegation of wolf ancestry, for she had an insatiable appetite and a roving disposition. Lucy ate everything in sight and could never be fed at the same camp with Babe or Benny. In fact, they quit trying to feed her at all but let her forage her own living. The Winter of the Deep Snow, when even the tallest White Pines were buried, Brimstone Bill outfitted ...
— The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan • W.B. Laughead
... of maternity worked forward and backward with Lynda much to Truedale's secret amusement. Confident of her duty to her son, she interpreted her duty to Ann. While Billy, red-faced and roving-eyed, gurgled or howled in his extreme youth, Lynda retraced her steps and commandingly repaired some damages in her treatment ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... the room, Lucy's gaze wandered over her aunt's shoulder and composedly scanned every detail of the kitchen, traveling from ceiling to floor, examining the spotless shelves, the primly arranged pots and pans, the gleaming tin dipper above the sink. Then the roving eyes came back to the older woman and settled with unconcealed curiosity upon her lined and sharply ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... was "rushed" about nine years since, when some twenty thousand diggers were drawn together, with even more than the usual proportion of grog-shanty keepers, loafers, thieves, and low men and women of every description. In fact, the very scum of the roving population of the colony seems to have accumulated in the camp; and crime upon crime was committed, until at length an affair occurred, more dreadful and outrageous than anything that had preceded it, which thoroughly roused the digger population, and a rising ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... with a stick," said Irene. This was the way things should go. Also, the jovial, fat person with the roving eyes might brighten things ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... the narrative, let us glance briefly at the early career of Captain James Cook. He was born in 1728. After receiving the very slight education already referred to, he was bound apprentice to a shopkeeper. But the roving spirit within him soon caused him to break away from an occupation so uncongenial. He passed little more than a year behind the counter, and then, in 1746, went ...
— The Cannibal Islands - Captain Cook's Adventure in the South Seas • R.M. Ballantyne
... blood," while defending "certain friends." Was it not dull, I asked, in prison? "The time passes pleasantly anywhere," he answered, "when you are young. I always make friends, even in prison." I could well believe it. His affinities were with the blithe crew of the Liber Stratonis. He had a roving eye and the mouth of Antinous; and his morals were those of ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... the butt of the Lewis gun blown off by a bomb. It was difficult to estimate the number of the enemy, but an officer found himself in the third extended line of advancing Turks and reckoned we were up against a big roving patrol which had a good reputation for this sort of work. This officer, with a balmoral as a head-dress and armed with a rifle and bayonet, escaped in the dark by his resemblance to a Turk and by his bayoneting one of the enemy. The patrol extricated itself with ability, much helped by Corporal ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... his giant muscles Tarzan sent the little craft speeding toward the beach. Its prow had scarcely touched when the ape-man leaped to shore—his heart beat fast in joy and exultation as each long-familiar object came beneath his roving eyes—the cabin, the beach, the little brook, the dense jungle, the black, impenetrable forest. The myriad birds in their brilliant plumage—the gorgeous tropical blooms upon the festooned creepers falling in great loops from the ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... weapon, Karna began to pass his days happily in Bhrigu's retreat, and endued with wonderful prowess, he devoted himself with great ardour to the science of weapons. One day Rama of great intelligence, while roving with Karna in the vicinity of his retreat, felt very weak in consequence of the fasts he had undergone. From affection begotten by confidence, the tired son of Jamadagni placing his head on Karna's lap, slept soundly. While his preceptor was thus sleeping (with ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... quite tall enough to do this, but Zaidee's quick eyes, roving around, spied a wooden stool which she immediately dragged up on the little platform, to stand on. She climbed up and looked in. It was not the vat in which she had turned the spigot, and it was half full of whey with great pieces of the ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... angel. She remained with them until the evening of their masterly retreat, and until the wounded men of the corps in the hospitals were all safely across. While she was in Fredericksburg, after the battle of the 13th, some soldiers of the corps who had been roving about the city, came to her quarters bringing with great difficulty a large and very costly and elegant carpet. "What is this for?" asked Miss Barton. "It is for you, ma'am," said one of the soldiers; "you have been so good to us, that we wanted to bring you something." ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... in coarse dissipation; others in a quiet nook with a book. Some find their greatest happiness in friends, in social intercourse; others seek happiness in roving over the earth, always thinking that the greatest enjoyment is in another day, in another place, a little further on, in the next room, or ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... September and April inclusive; these caravans consist of several hundred loaded camels, accompanied by the Arabs who let them to the merchants for the transportation of their merchandise to Fez, Marocco, etc., and at a very low rate. During their routes they were often exposed to the attacks of the roving Arabs of Sahara who generally commit their depredations as they approach the confines of the desert."[8] The wind sometimes rolls up the sand like great billows of the ocean, and caravans are often buried under the pile, and then the wind, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... no great damage was inflicted upon the British during this last stage of the war by the incessant attacks upon the lines of railway by roving bands of Boers. The actual interruption of traffic was of little consequence, for the assiduous Sappers with their gangs of Basuto labourers were always at hand to repair the break. But the loss of stores, and occasionally ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... them, stored until a new resting place was found. The history of a people was recorded on that film, a people once proud and strong, now equally proud, but dwindling in numbers as toll for the constant roving. A proud people, yet a people who would turn and run without thought, in a panic of age-old fear. They had to run, Nehmon knew, ...
— The Link • Alan Edward Nourse
... weak, handsome face and roving eyes the young people recognised Gibbie, the half-witted gipsy lad. An expression of disappointment crossed his face as he looked over the group and ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... piercing cry, The note which those that seem too weak to sigh Will sometimes utter just before they die? Lo, weary of the greatness of her ways, There lies my Land, with hasty pulse and hard, Her ancient beauty marr'd, And, in her cold and aimless roving sight, Horror of light; Sole vigour left in her last lethargy, Save when, at bidding of some dreadful breath, The rising death Rolls up with force; And then the furiously gibbering corse Shakes, panglessly convuls'd, and sightless ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... whose utters a word, I will throw her and truss her up with her own girdle[FN161]!" He kept walking in the direction of the sound and when he reached the further side he looked and behold, a stream was gushing and flowing, and antelopes at large were frisking and roving, and wild cattle amid the pasture moving, and birds expressed joy and gladness in their divers tongues, and that place was purfled with all manner flowers and green herbs, even as a poet ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... forest's thicket On he rode, while often roving Were his glances—as the case is, When a wanderer for the first time Over unknown roads is travelling. Rough the path—the poor horse often In the snow was nearly sinking, And o'er gnarl'd and tangled ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... and wishes into words, and then later, without words, concentrating myself in worship. It was a need inherited from many hundreds of generations of forefathers, this need of invoking help and comfort. Nomads of the plains, Bedouins of the desert, ironclad warriors, pious priests, roving sailors, travelling merchants, the citizen of the town and the peasant in the country, all had prayed for centuries, and from the very dawn of time; the women, the hundreds and hundreds of women from whom I was descended, had centred all their being in prayer. ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... strength, and hence their unctuousness is small. As for the sons and the daughters they beget, why, those sons and daughters must take care of themselves; at least, with only the maternal help. For like certain other omnivorous roving lovers that might be named, my Lord Whale has no taste for the nursery, however much for the bower; and so, being a great traveller, he leaves his anonymous babies all over the world; every baby an exotic. In good time, nevertheless, as the ardour of youth declines; as ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... them; I never felt grateful for them as a blessing, but I began to learn what suffering was from this date." Henceforth we see her not as the woman who was ready to share any dare-devil adventure or hair- breadth escape, and who revelled in a free and roving life of travel, but rather as the wife, whose thought now turned more than ever to the delights of home, and how to add to her husband's ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... account of him given in the "Dictionary of National Biography." It refers to his duties during the Franco-German War, and runs as follows: "The irritation of the Germans against England, and the number of roving Englishmen, made his duty not an easy one, but he was well qualified for it by his tact and geniality, and his action met with the full approval ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... cavalry came in sight of the Indian encampment down in the valley of Powder River. The fight came off then and there, and, all things considered, Crazy Horse got the best of it. He and his people drew away farther north to join other roving bands. The troops fell back to Fetterman to get a fresh start; and when spring fairly opened, old "Gray Fox," as the Indians called General Crook, marched a strong command up to the Big Horn Mountains, determined to have it out with Crazy Horse and settle the question of supremacy ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... gold mailed warriors lay upon the city walls; None of the houses or cities of Christians {142e} was any longer actively engaged in war; {142f} But one feeble man, with his shouts, kept aloof The roving birds; {143a} Truly Syll of Virein {143b} reports that there were more That had chanced to come from Llwy, {143c} From around the inlet of the flood; He reports that there were more, At the hour of mattins, {143d} Than the ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... but compact, lithe, and muscular, with a not unkindly face, which, however, showed but too plainly the marks of habitual dissipation. A rigger by occupation, a sailor and pilot at need, a skilful fisherman, and ready shot, with a roving experience, which had given him a smattering of half a score of the more common handicrafts, Hughie was an invaluable comrade on such a quest, and as such had been hired by his young employer. It may be added, that a more plausible liar never mixed ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... Softly! Imbecile, may the devil take you! What are you afraid of? Say? A lantern and a mirror. That's all! Softly with those oars, miserable wretch! They incline the mirror at will and light the sea to find out if any folks like us are roving over it. They're on the watch for smugglers. We're out of reach; they're too far away, now. Don't be afraid, boy, we're ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... connection with a profession which might aid his patrons in promoting him at court, Bacon was sent in June, 1576, to France in the train of the British Ambassador, Sir Amyas Paulet; and for nearly three years followed the roving embassy around the great cities of that kingdom. The massacre of St. Bartholomew had taken place four years before, and the boy's recorded observations on the troubled society of France and of Europe show remarkable insight into the character of princes and the sources of political movements. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... of German, anxious to gain fluency of expression, and to train my ear to catch readily the popular idioms, I found that I must fill out my writing and reading by contact with men. After roving the streets of German cities, I packed a knapsack and set out upon the country-roads. I was, as the Germans say, gut zu Fuss, a stout walker, and I learned to employ for my longer expeditions the Bummel-Zug, an institution I commend highly ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... his time as an apprentice and learned the carpenter's trade in the city of Baltimore. My mother was born in Nashville, Tennessee. She was the daughter of John Doyle, who for many years held the position of Indian Agent over the roving tribes of Indians in southeastern Illinois. He served in the War of the Revolution, and was wounded in one of the many battles in which he took part with the sons of liberty ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... pilgrimage, hajj, trek, course, ambulation^, march, walk, promenade, constitutional, stroll, saunter, tramp, jog trot, turn, stalk, perambulation; noctambulation^, noctambulism; somnambulism; outing, ride, drive, airing, jaunt. equitation, horsemanship, riding, manege [Fr.], ride and tie; basophobia^. roving, vagrancy, pererration^; marching and countermarching; nomadism; vagabondism, vagabondage; hoboism [U.S.]; gadding; flit, flitting, migration; emigration, immigration, demigration^, intermigration^; wanderlust. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... badgered king a few hours of leisure and recreation, to enjoy the contemplation of his house and his pictures? The wandering Jew, if he ever existed, did not lead such a rambling life as I do. We get at last to be like the roving play-actors, who have neither hearth nor home, and thus we pass through the world, playing our bloody tragedies, with the wailings of our subjects for chorus.[2] When will ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... came that all-absorbing ambition to be somebody in the world; to serve his country with no selfish ambition? Had his father been rich and well-educated instead of a poor man who could neither read nor write and who was generally of a shiftless and roving disposition, there is no likelihood that Lincoln would ever have become the ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... advanced the sun grew ever hotter; birds chirped drowsily from hedge and thicket, and the warm, still air was full of the slumberous drone of a myriad unseen wings. Therefore Beltane sought the deeper shade of the woods and, risking the chance of roving thief or lurking foot-pad, followed a devious course by reason ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... burrows in the ground, laying a pure white egg, sometimes with a very faint dusty wreath about the larger end. Size 1.20 x .95. These birds generally take turns in the task of incubation, one remaining at sea during the day and returning at night while his mate takes her turn roving the briny deep in search of food. The young are fed by regurgitation upon an oily fluid which has a very offensive odor. This odor is always noticeable about an island inhabited by Petrels and is always retained by the eggs or skins ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... we had been discovered by another roving party of the brigands, and that they had gone to get a reinforcement to overpower us, but upon a closer examination of the track, I came at once to the solution of the mystery. I remarked that on the print left by the shoes, the places upon which the head of the nails should have pressed ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... little luck when they needed it most. A roving taxi swooped down upon them, hailed them for fares. They flew the rest of the way in. Their luck held. A city policeman, noting their stumbling walk as they lurched into a cheap hotel, did not trouble them for their passes. He had seen many such men ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... sun smiteth in sequestered place. Let sun rule snow! Thou, Love, my ruler art, When on that fair and more than human face I muse, which from afar makes soft my eyes.... I never yet saw after mighty rain The roving stars in the calm welkin glide And glitter back between the frost and dew, But straight those lovely eyes are at my side.... If ever yet, on roses white and red, My eyes have fallen, where in bowl of gold ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... said, "Yes, father, indeed I would," Then his father said, "We must try to find out his proper master, if he has one, and send him to his own home; but if he has not a proper master, nor a home, he shall be your dog, my boy, and we will have a kennel made for him; and as he has been such a roving dog, Rover ...
— Pretty Tales for the Nursery • Isabel Thompson
... (In Tibet, 363) says: "In a few places on lofty ground in Tibet we found Yaks in herds numbering from ten to thirty, and sometimes more. Most of the animals are black, brown specimens being very rare. Their roving herds move with great agility over the steep and stony ground, apparently enjoying the snow and frost and wind, which seldom fail.... Yaks are capable of offering formidable resistance ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... hordes of the Bantu are once more roving where European dwellings used to stand. And when the question is asked—why all this has happened? Why the heroic children of an heroic race, to which civilisation owes its most priceless blessings, should lie murdered there in that distant quarter of the globe? An invisible ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... respite at times when the Vikings fought amongst themselves. In early days there were frequent struggles for supremacy in Norway, between local kinglets and ambitious chiefs. Fighting was in the blood of the Northmen. Two sea-roving squadrons would sometimes challenge each other to battle for the mere sake of a fight. As Norway coalesced into a single kingdom, and as the first teachers of Christianity induced the kings to suppress piracy, there was more of peace and order on the Northern ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... Jeremy's roving eye fell on the small doped bottle that I had taken from Grim's valise. Looking preternaturally wise, he walked over to Yussuf Dakmar's bed, sat down on it with his back toward me and proceeded ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... more we meet in yonder bowers; Absence has made me prone to roving; [iv] But older, firmer hearts than ours Have found ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... roving eyes had called her attention from him. A few yards below and partly screened by a clump of young spruce, the tiered logs of a cabin rose to meet its overhanging roof of dirt. A thrill ran through her, and all her dream-phantoms roused ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... standing against the wall, shrouded in his mourning cloak, watching the scene with alert, roving eyes. And by the opposite doorway, the huge towering figure of Miko stood on guard. But ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... reprisals for what had been taken, by successful raids on the castle or the garrison. Fleet-footed, and well aware of every spot which would afford concealment, these hardy Celts generally escaped scot-free. Thus occupied for several centuries, they acquired a taste for this roving life; and they can scarcely be reproached for not having advanced in civilization with the age, by those who placed such invincible ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... all to which the sable bird was put was to guide the roving pirates on their expeditions. Before a start was made a raven was let loose, and the direction of his flight gave the viking ships their course. In this manner, according to the old Norse legends, did Floki discover Iceland; and many other extraordinary things ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... Zane had gratified a wilful passion to penetrate the residence of his father, and look at its inmates and the situation from safe harborage there. He found that Donovan in his roving sailor's life had played the crippled sea beggar in the streets of British cities, tying up his natural leg and fitting a wooden leg to the knee—a trick well known to British ballad singers. That leg was in Donovan's sea-chest, as it had been left in this ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... laid With hopeful brow and heart,— When roving 'neath the summer shade, But never ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... gravely, gazing with her exhaustless patience over the impish yellow head of Harry, who knelt, in his little nightgown, on the rug at her feet. His roving blue eyes met Susan's as she came over to him, while his chubby face broke ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... that ruler of earth, using (as he saw occasion) both menace and conciliation, asked his friends (about the circumstance). But they too did not know anything. Seeing that the army was distressed owing to the obstruction of the calls of nature, and also finding her father aggrieved, Sukanya said, "Roving in the forest, I lighted in the ant-hill here upon some brilliant substance. Thereupon taking it for a glow-worm I neared it, and pierced it (with thorns)." Hearing this Saryati immediately came to the ant-hill, and there saw Bhrigu's son, old both in years and austerities. Then the ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... Leelina was never more seen, except by a fisherman on the lake shore, who conceived that he had seen her go off with one of the tall fairies known as the fairy of Green Pines, with green plumes nodding o'er his brows; and it is supposed that she is still roving with him over ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... impossible to describe the rush of mingled feelings that filled the soul of the young hunter as he leaned on the muzzle of his rifle and looked at this solitary resting-place of one who, doubtless like himself, had been a roving hunter. Had he been young or old when he fell? had he a mother in the distant settlement who watched and longed and waited for the son that was never more to gladden her eyes? had he been murdered, or had he died there and ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... into No Man's Land and leaped from the engine into a marsh covered by the Bolo machine guns and brought out in his own arms an American doughboy. Starting merely a daredevil ride into No Man's Land, his roving eye had spied the doughboy delirious and nearly dead ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... bustling scholars as they came from their classes. There was something in Flavian a shade disdainful, as he stood isolated from the others for a moment, explained in part by his stature and the distinction of the low, broad forehead; though there was pleasantness also for the newcomer in the roving blue eyes which seemed somehow to take a fuller hold upon things around than is usual with boys. Marius knew that those proud glances made kindly note of him for a moment, and felt something like friendship at first sight. There was a tone of reserve or gravity there, ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... filled up by any recorded opinion; and curiosity, impertinence, and vanity rush eagerly into the vacuum. A new book is the fair field for petulance and coxcombry to gather laurels in—the butt set up for roving opinion to aim at. Can we wonder, then, that the circulating libraries are besieged by literary dowagers and their grand-daughters, when a new novel is announced? That mail-coach copies of the Edinburgh Review are or were coveted? That the manuscript of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various
... about sunset; and as the Spaniards took it for the Ram Head near Plymouth, they bore out to sea with an intention of returning next day, and attacking the English navy. They were descried by Fleming, a Scottish pirate, who was roving in those seas, and who immediately set sail, to inform the English admiral of their approach;[*] another fortunate event, which contributed extremely to the safety of the fleet. Effingham had just ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... He laughingly consented to be her captive, he said, for he had no power and no desire but to obey. Hortense was proud of her conquest. She seated herself by his side with an air of triumph and mock gravity, tapping him with her fan whenever she detected his eye roving round the table, compassionating, she affirmed, her rivals, who had failed where she had won in securing the youngest, the handsomest, and most gallant of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... The port-captain was roving his eye over the group of us who stood on the after-deck. "I fear me, captain, that you'll have but a dangerous reception. I do not see my Lord Deucalion. Or does he come with some other navy? Gods, captain, if you have let him get killed ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... jelly, blending all the fruits of the season which have left the orchard for the store-room, smells changing with the year, but plenishing, domestic smells, which compensate for the sharpness of hoar frost with the sweet savour of warm bread, smells lazy and punctual as a village clock, roving smells, pious smells; rejoicing in a peace which brings only an increase of anxiety, and in a prosiness which serves as a deep source of poetry to the stranger who passes through their midst without having lived amongst ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... he inhaled the faint odor of his kind. He drew down on the rein and settled into a swinging trot, which to Maurice's surprise was faster and easier than the canter. They covered a mile this way, when Maurice's roving eye discovered moving shadows, perhaps half a ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... persuaded the Siou to let his fellow countrymen return with him to Lake Superior. Accault remained behind with the Siou, delighted with their wild, roving life, and no doubt married an Indian wife and became the father of some of those bold half-breeds who played such a great part in the subsequent history of innermost Canada. But Father Hennepin returned to Montreal, and made his way eventually to France, where he fell into great disgrace and was ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... come near her; he was not certain that he could win from her a look. I watched to see if she would so far favour him. Our seat was not far from the crimson benches; we must inevitably be seen thence, by eyes so quick and roving as Miss Fanshawe's, and very soon those optics of hers were upon us: at least, upon Dr. and Mrs. Bretton. I kept rather in the shade and out of sight, not wishing to be immediately recognised: she looked quite steadily at Dr. John, and then she raised a glass to examine his mother; a minute ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... mode of livelihood became the refuge for numerous young Englishmen, Catholic and Protestant, who, fleeing from the persecutions of Edward VI. and of Mary, sought refuge in French ports or in the recesses of the Irish coast, and became the leaders of wild roving bands living chiefly upon plunder. Among them during these persecutions were found many men belonging to the best families in England, and although with the accession of Elizabeth most of the leaders returned to the service ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... to disembark at or near some infant settlement of men, not natives by extraction, but newly come from the sea and speaking Greek or another Aegean tongue. These men had ventured so far to seize the rich lands at the mouths of the long Anatolian valleys, from which their roving forefathers had been almost entirely debarred by the provincial forces of some inland power, presumably the Hatti Empire of Cappadocia. In earlier days the Cretans, or their kin of Mycenaean Greece in the latest Aegean age, had been able to plant no more than a ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... Little John to himself, "what yon knave is after, that he should go thus peeping and peering about I verily believe that yon scurvy varlet is no better than a thief, and cometh here after our own and the good King's dun deer." For by much roving in the forest, Little John had come to look upon all the deer in Sherwood as belonging to Robin Hood and his band as much as to good King Harry. "Nay," quoth he again, after a time, "this matter must e'en be looked into." So, quitting the highroad, he also entered the ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... Durham a roving commission, and had been justified in the fact that the second victim, and this time not a Chinaman, had been found under almost identical conditions. The link with the establishment of Huang Chow was incomplete, and Durham fully recognized ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... manner of man this muleteer-missionary might be? The incongruity was only heightened by familiarity with Borrow's Pharaoh-like visage, abundant grey hair, and tall blonde Scandinavian figure, which reminded those who came under his spell of those roving Northmen of the days of simple medieval devotion, who were wont to signalize their conversion from heathen darkness by a Mediterranean venture, combining the characters of a piratical cruise and a pious pilgrimage. ...
— George Borrow - Times Literary Supplement, 10th July 1903 • Thomas Seccombe
... his services the German emperor created him "Captain Guardian" of his artillery, and would have loaded him with further honours, but a roving spirit was upon him, and he started for Sicily to visit his noble friends who were resident in that island. On his route he was everywhere received with the utmost respect by the Princes of Germany and Italy; and when he arrived in Sicily, ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... has been spent in hotels," returned Marsh, as they strolled toward the curb. "My parents died before I was twenty, and since then I have led a roving life." He signaled a passing taxi, and directed the chauffeur to ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... joy, impart. But these thou must renounce, if lust of wealth E'er win its way to thy corrupted heart; For ah! it poisons like a scorpion's dart; Prompting the ungenerous wish, the selfish scheme, The stern resolve, unmoved by pity's smart, The troublous day, and long distressful dream. Return, my roving Muse! ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... personal accoutrements, though a rifle of great length, which the theory of the more ingenious whites had taught them was the most dangerous of all fire-arms, leaned against a neighboring sapling. The eye of the hunter, or scout, whichever he might be, was small, quick, keen, and restless, roving while he spoke, on every side of him, as if in quest of game, or distrusting the sudden approach of some lurking enemy. Notwithstanding these symptoms of habitual suspicion, his countenance was not only without guile, but, at the moment at ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... sat by the crackling blaze of mesquite, sagebrush and live-oak limbs, while over us twinkled the friendly stars, and he told me many a strange story of his roving life. ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... He, however, gave another version of Captain Abrane's 'fiddler,' and precipitated the great ladies into the reflection, that French gentlemen, since the execrable French Revolution, have lost their proper sense of the distinctions of Class. Homme d'esprit, applied to a roving adventurer, a scarce other than vagabond, was either an undiscriminating epithet or else a further example of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... throughout the Orient, he settled down in Paris with the expatriate group of Americans and invented the Reading Machine for their delectation. Nancy Cunard published his Words and Harry Crosby printed 1450-1950 at the Black Sun Press, while in Cagnes-sur-Mer Bob had his own imprint Roving Eye Press, that turned out Demonics; Gems, a Censored Anthology; Globe-gliding and Readies for Bob Brown's Machine with contributions by Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, Kay Boyle, James T. Farrell ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... in his worldly affairs as his patriotism and honesty deserved, and things at the old "Homestead" looked rather gloomy. Poverty is a fearful darkener of child-life, and while its shadow rarely fell on Willard, who was always at school or roving the woods and fields with his uncle Henry, to his sisters and brothers it frequently presented its dark face and whispered unpleasant ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... unfamiliar: not only the flora, but the maritime wealth of this singular country. He would set out of a morning, visiting the coves and creeks, roving along the beaches of this magnificent gulf, a lump of bread in his pocket, quenching his thirst with sea-water in ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... witness bore As to his worthier, and would have resign'd To him his Heavenly Office, nor was long His witness unconfirm'd: on him baptiz'd Heaven open'd, and in likeness of a Dove 30 The Spirit descended, while the Fathers voice From Heav'n pronounc'd him his beloved Son That heard the Adversary, who roving still About the world, at that assembly fam'd Would not be last, and with the voice divine Nigh Thunder-struck, th' exalted man, to whom Such high attest was giv'n, a while survey'd With wonder, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... believe him, an oath had been taken before they left Africa, that no injury should be done them.) These things gained him the love and admiration of the public; but he incurred their displeasure again, by leaving his provinces and armies entirely to his friends and lieutenants, and roving about Italy with his wife from one villa to another. The strong attachment of Julia appeared on the occasion of an election of aediles. The people came to blows, and some were killed so near Pompey that he ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... at the rivulet, And that pause than speech was worse, For his roving eye a saw-mill met, And, near it, the word which should be set At the ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl
... as night-glasses, for, by their aid, the sight of man is raised nearly to a par with that of night-roving animals; therefore, a sportsman would find them of great service when watching for game at night. A small and inexpensive glass is as useful for this purpose as a large one; but there is a considerable difference between ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... saw her ascend slowly, grasp the balcony, and disappear through the window. He turned, almost expecting to see her still by his side. But he was alone in the water. So he swam away quietly, and watched the lights roving about the shore for hours after the princess was safe in her chamber. As soon as they disappeared he landed in search of his tunic and sword, and after some trouble, found them again. Then he made the best of his way round the lake to the other ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... a sort of self-constituted roving commission, to carry into effect a long-projected intention to make a week's tramp in "Dickens-Land," for purposes of health and recreation; to visit Gad's Hill, Rochester, Chatham, and neighbouring ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... very existence of the Roman Republic. The victories of Marius arrested the torrent, but did not dry up its source. The great movement which drove from Asia to Europe, and from eastern to western Europe, masses of roving populations, followed its course, bringing incessantly upon the Roman frontiers new comers and new perils. A greater man than Marius, Julius Caesar in fact, saw that to effectually resist these clouds of barbaric assailants, the country into which they ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... when young had plenty of opportunities of moving about and seeing different parts of the world. In many ways this roving life is disadvantageous to a lad, as in after years he can never look back to one spot as his home, and consequently he can never localise the charming associations connected with that word. A boy also suffers considerably by being moved from one school ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... him, the face of Peter was not painted, except by the tints imparted by nature; which, in his case, was that of copper a little tarnished, or rendered dull by the action of the atmosphere. The bee-hunter could distinctly trace every lineament; nor was the dark roving eye beyond the reach of his own vision. Some attention was given to the fire, too, one of the younger chiefs occasionally throwing on it a few dried sticks, more to keep alive the flame, and to renew the light, ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... return until the regiment was gone and the barracks cleared. You know the commandant always goes the last. I saw my sister safe off, and now I am here to tell you that you are no longer a prisoner, but may make yourself comfortable by roving through my apartments. But the first affair which we must take in hand is your wardrobe. I am rich enough to furnish you, so that shall be seen to immediately. And, Valerie dear, let me now say once for all, ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat |
