"Craven" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Jim Doyle. "Only in my new world we realize that there would be a few craven spirits who might not willingly give up what they have. In that case it would be taken ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... English rage. By luck their Nelson's gone, but gone withal Are twenty thousand prisoners, taken off To gnaw their finger-nails in British hulks. Of our vast squadrons of the summer-time But rags and splintered remnants now remain.— Thuswise Villeneuve, poor craven, quitted him! And England puffed to yet more bombastry. —Well, well; I can't be everywhere. No matter; A victory's brewing here as counterpoise! These water-rats may paddle in their salt slush, And welcome. ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... force and determination, the discipline of the army will be lax and its efficiency greatly impaired. If he is a craven, without faith in himself and in the cause he represents, his lack of courage, his doubt and indecision will communicate themselves to the whole army, ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... that I have had: that I came upon this lady in the hands of a caitiff who had set his men to steal her while others held her kinsmen and folk in battle, and now called her his war-taken thrall. And whereas he was a craven and would not fight for her, I must needs buy her of him, though I bade him battle in all honour; and fain am I that he took it not, for the slaying of such dogs is but dirty work. But hearken, though I have bought this lady at a price, it was to make her her own and not mine, and of her own ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... my sister to the reivers? Oh, what may not they be doing to her? Let us go back and fall on them, Halbert; better die saving her than know her in Walter Stewart's hands. Then were I the wretched craven he ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... craven and foolish. It would allow the fleet of Weald to loot and then betray Dara. But it was Calhoun's idea. It seemed plausible to the admirals of Weald. They felt only contempt for blueskins. Contemptuously, they ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... no joke at all," Lind said, gloomily. "Those Swiss people are craven. What can you expect from a nation of hotel-waiters? They cringe before every bully in Europe; you will find that, if Bismarck insists, the Federal Council will expel Armfeldt from Switzerland directly. No; the only safe refuge nowadays for the reformers, ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... few, if any, available halls for these meetings. The only resort was the colored churches. Those under the auspices of white denominations had members who objected to their use for such a purpose. Craven and fawning, content with the crumbs that fell from these peace-loving Christians, who deprecated the discussion of slavery while they ignored the claim of outraged humanity, these churches were more interested ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... pulled. Something attracted his attention. He looked. He saw something. The beast in him became human—the madness changed to rationality—the devil to a craven! His ashen lips ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... conviction or opinion, however such change may exist. This should not be so. It belittles manhood, and makes slaves and cowards of men. It is a proud prerogative, this ability and power of thinking. It is a priceless privilege, this freedom of thought and opinion, and he is a craven who moves on with the heedless and thoughtless crowd, conscious of error, himself a hypocrite and a living lie, through fear of the charge of 'inconsistency,' the accusation of change. 'Speak your opinions of to-day,' says Carlyle, 'in words hard as rocks, and your opinions ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... no more. Sure he that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and god-like reason To rust in us unus'd. Now whether it be Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple Of thinking too precisely on th' event,— A thought which quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom, And ever three parts coward;—I do not know Why yet I live to say, this thing's to do; Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means To do it. Examples gross as earth ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... possessed by its subjects, it assuredly had none! In proof of this was the fact that when the half dozen specialized soldiers ringing it round might have leaped to the aid of the two clumsy door guards and probably have ended the uneven fight in a few minutes, the craven monarch had ordered them to stay at their guard-posts rather than take the risk of remaining unguarded and defenseless for a single moment! Increasing intelligence apparently had resulted (as only too often it does in the world of men) ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... communicated to Strether, who almost wished none the less at this moment that she would let poor Waymarsh alone. HE knew more or less what she meant; but the fact wasn't a reason for her not pretending to Waymarsh that he didn't. It was craven of him perhaps, but he would, for the high amenity of the occasion, have liked Waymarsh not to be so sure of his wit. Her recognition of it gave him away and, before she had done with him or with that article, would give him worse. What was he, all the ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... Christian, thoroughly convinced of the antagonism and irreconcilability of truth with falsehood, must inevitably hate and reject such a supposition. If Christianity be true, tolerance toward opinions and teachings denying its truth is nothing but a craven betrayal of both God and man. It is written, 'Judge and condemn no one' but not 'Judge and condemn nothing.' For every Christian must surely both judge ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... own it, but I was frightened, downright frightened. I quailed and I quaked. The sight of Sir Charles stepping out of the study window filled me with abject rapture. Metaphorically speaking, my craven soul squirmed at his heels. He was to me as a strong tower and house of defence.—But look here, Damaris, joking apart, tell me weren't you disturbed, didn't you hear any strange noises ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... to his own time who believed that the world had a future. One can think of no other poet to whom to turn for the prophetic music of a real League of Nations. Tennyson may have spoken of the federation of the world, but his passion was not for that but for the British Empire. He had the craven fear of being great on any but the old Imperialist lines. His work did nothing to make his country more generous than it was before. Shelley, on the other hand, creates for us a new atmosphere of generosity. His patriotism was love of the people of England, ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... said Rogers, with heat. "You are a craven knave. Let's rush the town like Englishmen ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... pursues in the chase; } How many the rivals, how narrow the space! } But, hurry and scurry, O mettlesome game! The cars roll in thunder, the wheels rush in flame. How the brave dart onward, and pant and glow! How the craven behind them come creeping slow— Ha! ha! see how Pride gets a terrible fall! See how Prudence, or Cunning, out-races them all! See how at the goal, with her smiling eyes, Ever waits Woman to give ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... approved. Could travelling fifty miles produce such an immediate change? You were looking very poorly here, and everybody seemed sensible of it. Is there a charm in a hack postchaise? But if there were, Mrs. Craven's carriage might have undone it all. I am much obliged to you for the time and trouble you have bestowed on Mary's cap, and am glad it pleases her; but it will prove a useless gift at present, I suppose. Will not she leave Ibthorp on ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... against the wall, sagging there, laboring of chest, sweating of face. The boldness of brow held, because it was fixed, but that of his eyes had gone; and his mouth and chin showed craven weakness. He stared ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... from her broke: 'A raven on the left-hand oak! His horrid croak bodes me some ill.' Here Dobbin stumbled; 'twas down-hill, And somehow he with failing legs Fell, and down fell the cream and eggs. She, sprawling, said, 'You rascal craven! You—nasty—filthy—dirty—raven!' 'Goody,' said raven, 'spare your clamour, There nothing here was done by glamour; Get up again and wipe your gown, It was not I who threw you down; For had you laid your market ware On Dun—the old sure-footed ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... last!" exclaimed he. "Yes, well may it be called murder, and no one to save him—not a blow struck in his defence—not an arm raised. How much gallant blood has been shed in vain! Spirit of my fathers—didst thou leave none of thy mettle and thy honour behind thee? Or has all England become craven? Well, the time will come; and if I can no longer hope to fight for my king, at all events I can fight against ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... Ambassador gave a select dinner-party at 4 Craven Gardens, yesterday. Among the guests were the Baron de Chauxville, Feneer Pasha, Lord and Lady Standover, ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... Street. If something wasn't done to control immigration, we should soon be overrun. The Croton water had been such a great and wonderful blessing. And did her little girl go to school anywhere? Josie and Tudie went up First Avenue by Third Street to a Mrs. Craven, a rather youngish widow lady, who had two daughters of her own to educate, and who was very genteel and accomplished. Little girls needed some one who had gentle and pretty manners. There was a sewing-class, and all through the winter a dancing-class, and Mrs. Craven gave lessons on the piano. ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... seven sons and daughters were in the cabin of the Teton Swift Foot. Old age came over the husband, but not the wife. When his knees had grown feeble, and his voice faint, and his eye dim, and his heart craven, her faculties were in full perfection—her cheek still wore the blush of youth, and her step was lighter than the fawn of four moons. And, if time had abated nothing of her wondrous beauty and sprightliness, neither had it of her goodness, and kind attention to the wants of the ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... persistent misfortune both to himself and the objects of his delusions, which only serve to harden him against his fortunate opponents, his incapable lawyers, the corrupt judges and his ignorant and craven-hearted relatives, that this master of procedure is betrayed into the expression of threats or the commitment of some other offense which conveys him summarily from the civil to the criminal courts, and the unrepentant pursuer becomes the ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... blow and made Frye wince, for it was the first time he had ever been openly called a villain, but, craven hypocrite that he was, he made no protest. Instead, he silently wrote a check for Albert's due ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... desire to do my duty to the best of my ability, to play my part as a man should, and, above all, to uphold the honour and dignity of my race? I was happy in the conviction that I should not disgrace myself by any exhibition of craven fear, but what I dreaded was that in the excitement of the moment I should get "nervy," lose my head (if only figuratively), and perhaps forget to do something that I ought to do, to miss some opportunity ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... at Naples, who went up Vesuvius with us, and was very merry and agreeable. He is travelling with Lord and Lady Somers, and Lord Somers being laid up with an attack of malaria fever, Layard had a day to spare. Craven, who was Lord Normanby's Secretary of Legation in Paris, now lives at Naples, and is married to a French lady. He is very hospitable and hearty, and seemed to have vague ideas that something might be done in a pretty little private theatre he ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... jewels in Paris had caused a sensation in the midst of which Lady Sellingworth was silent. She declined to discuss the disappearance of the jewels. There followed the advent at No. 4 Berkeley Square of Alick Craven, a man of thirty, vigorous, attractive and decidedly a somebody. But inexplicably—at any rate without explanation—Lady Sellingworth retired ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... the Grand Seignor can boast wives, and with just as little of affection in the affaires de cour as his sublime highness, only with something more of publicity. Harriette gives the honour of her introduction into the mysteries of Cytherea to the Earl of Craven; but it is well known that a certain dashing solicitor's clerk then living in the neighbourhood of Chelsea, and near her amiable mamma's residence, first engrossed, her attention, and by whom she exhibited increasing symptoms of affection, which being properly engrafted on the person of ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... Craven, Viscount Uffington, and Baron Craven of Hamstead Marshall, owns Combe Abbey in Warwickshire, where is to be seen the finest water-jet in England; and in Berkshire two baronies, Hamstead Marshall, on the facade of which are five Gothic lanterns sunk in the wall, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... should we think of men who, left to guard the Kentish fields, threw down their arms and sued for peace to any leader of an invading host because our cause seemed lost? Should we not curse them as a craven crowd, and teach our lisping babes to mock their memory? Would any fair-faced girl in all the British Isles wed any man who would not fight until the sinews slackened with slaying in defence of the homeland? If so, they are not fashioned ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... I must determine upon something (that is for certain), and out of hand. Our squire, who I must own at first used me kindly enough, though I am afraid that was partly out of spite to squire Underwood, has since determined to be the ruin of me. Sir, I have been no craven; I fought it up stoutly; for after all, you know, God bless your honour! it is but a man to a man; but he has been ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... would not be sat upon by Roger Carbury. The time was coming,—he might almost say that the time had come,—in which he might defy Roger Carbury. Nevertheless, he dreaded the words which were now to be spoken to him with a craven fear. ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... charge that night of a young officer named Craven, and never was an officer worse named or better deserving to be called Courage. He had his wits about him. At the hour I have named, he observed something on the starboard-quarter, about 150 yards off. ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... him had set on him as he came out—they should have sent more bill-men before to keep the road, and the King met him in the way (for he had come to his senses again), and turned as white as ashes once more, crying out that his own craven heart had slain one more [If this king was Henry VI, the reference may be to Joan of Arc. But Henry was only a child at the time of her death. At the best this can be only conjecture.] servant of God, but I know not what he meant by that. Master Raynal was taken to the King's bed-chamber, ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson
... consciousness. He knows not where she may be. He has secretly sent messengers in all directions to seek her, and recover her, and obtain her pardon: in vain. It is as well, perhaps, that he should never see her more. Accursed, he has cast off his sweetest friend. The craven heart could never ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... turned craven. Could not endure our wanderings in the marshes and hills, pined for his wife forsooth, fell sick, and must needs go and give himself up to the Pope; so he sings the ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... both columns, at the critical point of the road hesitated and doubted as to the admiral's purpose; not that they had not received it clearly, but because circumstances seemed to them to be different from what he had supposed. Not only Alden in the "Brooklyn," but Craven also in the "Tecumseh," departed from the admiral's orders and left the course dictated to them, with disastrous results. There is no necessity to condemn either captain; but the irresistible inference is that Farragut was unqualifiedly ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... (Memoirs, ii. 191), that after he had entered on his charge as domestic tutor to Lord Craven's son, he called on Johnson, who asked him how he liked his place. On his hesitating to answer, he said: 'You must expect insolence.' He added that in his youth he had entertained great expectations from a powerful family. "At length," he said, "I found that their ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... a few more names, and then close another chapter of my memory. There was Mr. J.A. Craven, the Duke of St. Albans, the Duke of Beaufort, Montagu Tharp, Major Egerton, General Pearson, Lord Calthorpe, Henry Saville, Douglas Gordon (Mr. Briggs), Oliver Montagu, Henry Leeson, the Earl of Milltown, Sir Henry Devereux, Johnny Shafto, Douglas Phillips, Randolph Churchill, ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... thought the tyrant in his traitorous mind, But durst not follow what he had decreed, Yet if the innocents some mercy find, From cowardice, not truth, did that proceed, His noble foes durst not his craven kind Exasperate by such a bloody deed. For if he need, what grace could then be got, If thus of peace he ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... that craven, dread-struck host, One val'rous heart beat keen and high; In that dark hour of shameful flight, One stayed behind to die! Deep gash'd by many a felon blow, He sleeps where fought the vanquish'd van— Of silver'd locks and furrow'd brow, A venerable man. E'en when his thousand warriors ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... stratagem is essentially playing upon the nobility of heart of the adversary, and saying to him "you won't fire upon these unfortunates, I know it, and I hold you at my mercy, unarmed, because you are not as craven as I am," as it implies a homage to the enemy and the self-degradation of the one employing it, it is almost inconceivable that soldiers should resort to it; it represents a new invention in the long ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... tell him what had fallen from Murat when I met him in the Champs Elysees "Bah!" resumed Rapp, "Murat, brave as he was, was a craven in Napoleon's presence! On the Emperor's arrival in Dantzic the first thing of which he spoke to me was the alliance he had just then concluded with Prussia and Austria. I could not refrain from telling him that we did a great deal of ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Even the craven Fledgeby felt that the time was now come when he must strike a blow. He struck it by saying, partly to Mrs Lammle and partly to the circumambient air, 'I consider myself very fortunate in ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... he coached with a megaphone (Crabtree, Craven and Chiswick Eyot) Till the crew were prone to emit a groan, And the Cox said nothing but "Bow, ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... of the Bungalow was Mrs. Craven, a sympathetic woman of heroic mould, and with a wide experience in war work. She has two South African medals, and for twelve months was matron of the hospital at Bar-le-Duc that Fritzie once termed "that damned little British hospital," just eight miles behind the lines ...
— Through St. Dunstan's to Light • James H. Rawlinson
... answered Abdallah, "he asked for the crown of martyrdom, and the Lord granted it. I strove after the same, but it was not given unto me."[45] It was the proud boast of the Saracens in their summons to the craven Greeks and Persians that "they loved death more than their foes loved life." Familiar with the pictures drawn in the Koran of the beautiful "houries" of Paradise,[46] the Saracens believed that immediate fruition on the field of battle was the martyr's special prize. We are told of a Moslem ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... said Noel suddenly. "I wish you hadn't—I wish we hadn't. I know just exactly what he feels like now. He feels as if he'd like to kill you for it, and I daresay he would if you hadn't been a craven, white-feathered skulker and ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... prejudiced against any one," answered Brenton; "I merely know that man. He is a thoroughly despicable, cowardly character. The only thing that makes me think he would not commit a murder, is that he is too craven to stand the consequences if he were caught. He is a cool villain, but he is a coward. I do not believe he has the courage to commit a crime, even if he thought he would benefit ...
— From Whose Bourne • Robert Barr
... doubtless a pretty one. Anthony Dexter delighted in the beauty of a woman in the same impersonal way that another man would regard a picture. And a son. A straight, tall young fellow, doubtless, with eyes like his father's—eyes that a woman would trust, not dreaming of the false heart and craven soul. Why had she been brought here to suffer this last insult, this last humiliation? Weakly, as many a woman before her, Miss Evelina groped in the maze of Life, searching for some clue to its ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... it grasped me as this did, and paralyzed all the powers of my body. Rather would I have stood in the midst of a score of Mexican rovers than thus in the presence of that one man. And yet was not this the very thing for which I had waited, longed, and labored? I scorned myself for this craven loss of nerve, but that did not enable me to help it. In this benumbed horror I durst not even peep at the doings of my enemy; but presently I became aware that he had moved from the end of the planks (where he stood for ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... the other archer; "the girl is not here, but gone on to the bailiff. So let the burghers settle whether this craven be guilty or no: for we caught him not in the act: and let him draw us ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... at the Craven Hotel in Craven Street, and immediately drove away, leaving him alone with the servants of the inn. The only vacant room, it appeared, was a little den up four pairs of stairs, and looking towards the back. To this hermitage, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... striking his fist on the table; "you venture it because you are not of my degree! Here, ye craven Squires, will not one of you take up my glove, when I cast back in his teeth your master's foul slander of an ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... once, and, bidding them 'good day,' I stepped smilingly out of the carriage. Before I could get away from the station the man had mustered up strength sufficient to follow me, and his apologies were so nauseous and craven, that I pitied him from my soul. I left him with this caution, 'Before you make charges against the character of any man again, about whom you know nothing, and of whose works you are utterly ignorant, study to be a seeker after Truth, and ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... them I am a craven. I might have had her before now, if I would. If I would treat her as flesh and blood, I should find her such. They thought I knew, if any man living did, that if a man made a goddess of a woman, she would assume the goddess; ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... dismay the irrepressible vitality of the nation would not accept a neutral attitude. I was told that even if there were no issue it was absolutely necessary for the Poles to affirm their national existence. Passivity, which could be regarded as a craven acceptance of all the material and moral horrors ready to fall upon the nation, was not to be thought of for a moment. Therefore, it was explained to me, the Poles must act. Whether this was a counsel of wisdom or not it is very difficult to say, but there are crises ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... merely running in and out a gun at a port-hole, enveloped in smoke or vapour, or in firing off muskets in platoons at the word of command. This kind of merely manual valour is often born of trepidation at the heart. There may be men, individually craven, who, united, may display even temerity. Yet it would be false to deny that, in some in-stances, the lowest privates have acquitted themselves with even more gallantry than their commodores. True heroism is not in the hand, but in the heart and ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... doubt then that he was guilty. His fear was too craven. "There's a warehouse at the end here," said I, and led the way to it. But when we reached it, its roof rose in a sharp slope from the low parapet guarding the ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... creed, is there any system or culture, any formulated method able to meet and satisfy each separate item of this agitated pool of human life? By which they may be guided, by which hope, by which look forward? Not a mere illusion of the craven heart—something real, as real as the solid walls of fact against which, like drifted sea-weed, they are dashed; something to give each separate personality sunshine and a flower in its own existence now; something to shape this million-handed ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... and with shouts, and with torches March'd onwards our dusty battalions, And we girt the tall castle of Louis, A million of tatterdemalions! We storm'd the fair gardens where tower'd The walls of his heritage splendid. Ah, shame on him, craven and coward, That had not the heart ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... ask me not, love, to tarry in shame,— Lest 'craven' be added to Raymond's name! To Palestine hastens my mortal foe,— And I with our Lion's Heart ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... advantages; that many of the most urgent arguments for advance could not present themselves to his mind. He could not know the panic in which Hanoverian London was cast; he could not know that desperate thoughts of joining the Stuart cause were crossing the craven mind of the Duke of Newcastle; he could not know that the frightened bourgeoisie were making a maddened rush upon the Bank of England; he could not know that the King of England had stored all his most precious possessions on board of yachts that waited for him at ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... "And craven Sloth, moulting his sleepless plumes, Nods drowsy wonder at th' adventurous wing That soars the shining azure ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... in paupers' graves afther lives of misery no other counthry in the wurrld can equal. Why should it be the lot of our people—men and women born to a birthright of freedom? Why? Are ye men of Ireland so craven that aliens can rule ye as they once ruled the negro?" ("No, no!") "The African slave has been emancipated and his emancipation was through the blood and tears of the people who wronged him. Let OUR ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... into the webs of others. Brave insect, thou art my model! While I have breath in my body, the world and all its crosses, Fortune and all her malignity, shall not prevail against me! What man ever yet failed until he himself grew craven, and sold his soul to the arch fiend, Despair! 'Tis but a girl and a fortune lost,—they were gallantly fought for, that is some comfort. Now to what is yet ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book XI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... wisdom from these military and naval events, and not improbably they would have been less audacious in staking their success upon the issue that the war was a failure, and would have so modified that craven proposition as to make it accord with the more patriotic sentiment of their soldier candidate. But the fortunes alike of the real war and of the political war were decidedly and happily against them. Even while they were in session ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... murmured. First from Imber Dea Came whispers how a sage had landed late, And how when Nathi fain had barred his way, Nathi that spurned Palladius from the land, That sage with levelled eyes, and kingly front Had from his presence driven him with a ban Cur-like and craven; how on bended knee Sinell believed, the royal man well-loved Descending from the judgment-seat with joy: And how when fishers spurned his brethren's quest For needful food, that sage had raised his rod, And all the silver harvest of blue streams ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... back now!" the old man cried vehemently. "No, no, that would be too craven. We have everything in our favour, and all that we want is a stout heart. Oh, my boy, my boy, on the one side of you are ruin, dishonour, a sordid existence, and the scorn of your old companions; on the other are success and riches and fame and all that can make life ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... crackle at the armpits, the seven hairs on her upper lip would bristle all the worse against her purpling face as she cried it was the little Lyons shopkeeper in his mother's grandfather that was in his craven legs. Doubt it who will, an imminent danger will not wholly dispel the sense of humour, and Montaiglon, as he ran before the footpads, laughed softly ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... think he had not done much to make her cheerful; but it is one of the advantages of a temperament like his, that very little is expected of it, and that it can more easily than any other make the human heart glad; at the least softening in it, the soul frolics with a craven lightsomeness. For this reason Kitty was able to enjoy with novel satisfaction the picturesqueness of Mountain Street, and they both admired the huge shoulder of rock near the gate, with its poplars atop, and the battery at the brink, with the muzzles of the guns thrust forward against ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... done upon cream. And though this custom has been disused in many places, and agreeably commuted for by ale, yet it survives still, and that about Whitby and Scarborough in the East, and round about Gisburn, etc., in Craven, in the West. But perhaps a century or two more will put an end to it, and both the thing and name shall die. Vicarious ale is now more approved, and the tankard almost everywhere politely preferred ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... duties imposed on him would forfeit henceforth all claim to the glorious honours of the state," he caused, not only the public authorities, but those personally interested (3) in the several companies of youths to take serious pains so that no single individual of them should by an act of craven cowardice find himself utterly rejected and reprobate ...
— The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians • Xenophon
... his head, and muttered to himself, with a look of almost craven anxiety, and then whispered to ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... said: "Is not this Oishi Kuranosuke, who was a councillor of Asano Takumi no Kami, and who, not having the heart to avenge his lord, gives himself up to women and wine? See how he lies drunk in the public street! Faithless beast! Fool and craven! Unworthy the name ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... Markham stared. 'I've heard about enough of this shock to my system,' said he at length. 'But have it your own way. If you want me to recommend a doctor, my mother swears by an old boy in Craven Street, Strand. I don't know the number, but his name's Leadbetter, and ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... owe my sister, whom you have so outrageously slighted, and this duty, by God's grace, I will perform before I leave. Of your honour, monsieur, we will not speak, for reasons into which I need not enter, and I make no appeal to it. But if you have a spark of manhood left, if you are not an utter craven as well as a knave, I shall expect you on the day after tomorrow, at any hour before noon, at the Auberge de la Couronne at Grenade. There, monsieur, if you please, we will adjust our differences. That you may come prepared, and so that no time need be wasted when we meet, I send you the ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... the companion of the brilliant Colonel Forrester[58] of the Guards, who wrote The Polite Philosopher, and of the aukward and uncouth Robert Levet; of Lord Thurlow, and Mr. Sastres, the Italian master; and has dined one day with the beautiful, gay, and fascinating Lady Craven,[59] and the next with good Mrs. Gardiner,[60] the tallow-chandler, ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... sting of death, and so entirely reversing and counteracting its penal efficacy, Christ hath wrought out for us a great salvation. And when we commit ourselves to Him, relying on the efficacy of his atonement, our chains are broken, and our craven fears are banished. Among the "first words" of newly-converted souls none are more common or triumphant than these, "I am not afraid to die now! I have a hope beyond the grave!" It is indeed a mighty deliverance. What calm, what security, what blessed hope does ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... her for your mutual shame and death, and then called it "seeing life." Had your mother met you, you would have shrunk away like a craven cur. Had your sister interviewed you, she had blushed to bear your name; or had she been seen by you in company with some other whoremaster, for similar commerce, you would have wished that she had been dead. Now what think you of this "seeing life?" And it is for this ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... the fire that burned deep and blue-flamed in his wife's nature. Her life with him would be thirst and hunger. But Stuart's fever turned to chill again as he remembered. He had forfeited his rights and stood foresworn. His vows had been brave and his performance craven. He acknowledged with self-scorn that his eagerness to break through Tollman's force of possession went back to a motive more selfish than exalted. He was driven by a personal craving to hold another man's wife ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... (Luke vi. 20) ... Poor in spirit and poor in pocket. With no courage to work for food, or money to purchase it, we might well expect to find the man who held these doctrines with empty stomach also; and what does Jesus teach? 'Blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye shall be filled' ... Craven in spirit, with an empty purse and hungry mouth—what next? The man who has not manliness enough to prevent wrong, will probably bemoan his hard fate, and cry bitterly that so sore are the misfortunes he endures. And what does Jesus teach? 'Blessed are ye that ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... fights with his mates and thrashings from the teachers. On the one occasion when public opinion had driven him to put up his fists, he had been saved from disgrace only because the bully against whom he had turned proved to be an arrant craven. ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... it!" he exclaimed. "The very thing! Wouldn't this be the very thing for young Craven. You remember, the young man that Professor ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... there and then to be shown the subject of so much romance and adventure: and had the satisfaction of mending it, he sitting by in his shirt-sleeves the while, and watching delighted and without craven apologies. ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... as he stirred it he said coolly, "Did you ever read of Marshal Saxe, Mr. Faintheart? He fought the battle of Fontenoy as he lay a dying. He had himself carried on his bed of death from one part of the field to another; at first the fight went against him, but he spurned craven counsels with his expiring heart; he saw the enemy's blunder with his dying eye, and waved his troops on to victory with his dying hand. This is one of the great feats of earth. But the soldiers of Christ are as stout-hearted as any ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... If ever my good master meet thee thou shalt pay dearly for this day's work! He doth scorn thee, and so do all brave hearts. Knowest thou not that thou and thy name are jests upon the lips of every brave yeoman? Such a one as thou art, thou wretched craven, will never be able ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... he entered the Netherby Hall, Among bridesmen, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all. Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword (For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word), "O, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war, Or to dance at our bridal, young ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... shouted I furiously, "the audacity of the vermin! By the gods! I shall teach those craven beggars that I am the master and will tolerate no new-fangled ideas. Give orders to the generalissimo to have this delegation beheaded at once and to put to the sword every dissatisfied laborer in the land." As ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... exceedingly neat about her own personal attire, she was somewhat quaint and old-fashioned in appearance; at least, she had been until a short time since, when Milly and I, with Bessie Sandford, who was also a distant relation of Miss Craven's, had taken her in hand, and by dint of a little teasing, and much persistence and coaxing, had induced her to submit herself to our dictation in the matter of dress. But she could not, quite yet, reconcile herself to our requirements; at least, ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... enclosure, as it were, of sheep and goats, he had swept her before she was aware of it. Her mind no longer was her own. And it was Mrs. Marsh who kept the thought-stream open, though tempered, as she deemed, with that touch of craven, superstitious mercy. ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... detail may be of infinite value for social and reforming purposes. It may be the duty of every one of us to study these sores in the body politic for the existence of which we are collectively responsible. It may be craven cowardice not to open our eyes wide to these painful and hideous facts, which cry out to be removed and prevented. And if any person whose enthusiasm in life it is to abolish them hits upon an artistic device for calling attention to them, he is justified by ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... His Majesty Charles II., King of England, Scotland and Ireland, granted to George, Duke of Albemarle; Edward, Earl of Clarendon; William, Earl of Craven; John, Lord Berkeley; Anthony, Lord Ashley; Sir George Carteret, Sir John Colleton, and Sir William Berkeley, as "Lords Proprietors," all the territory south of the lands not already granted to the province of Virginia, down to ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... literature are only as flowers in comparison with the other evils that have deluged the earth. "It was not Cicero nor Lucretius nor Virgil nor Horace, who contrived the proscriptions of Marius, of Sulla, of the debauched Antony, of the imbecile Lepidus, of that craven tyrant basely surnamed Augustus. It was not Marot who produced the St. Bartholomew massacre, nor the tragedy of the Cid that led to the wars of the Fronde. What really makes, and always will make, this world into a valley of tears, is the insatiable cupidity and indomitable ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... light of day, The common blessing of the meanest wretch? Tell me no more of patience, of concealment! Oh, what a base and coward thing am I, That on mine own security I thought, And took no care of thine! Thy precious head Left as a pledge within the tyrant's grasp! Hence, craven-hearted prudence, hence! And all My thoughts be vengeance, and the despot's blood! I'll seek him straight—no power shall stay me now— And at his hands demand my father's eyes. I'll beard him 'mid a thousand myrmidons! What's life ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... "This craven," he thought, "will lose the day in pure faintness and cowardice of heart, which he calls tender conscience. I, whom visions and auguries shake not—who am firm in my purpose as the living rock—I should have fought the combat ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... in London, in craven alarms, Have all run away from the summons to arms; They haven't the pluck of a pigeon—I'll go And wallop the ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... was walking from the park, now and then giving a punch to the turf with his cane, in discontented abstraction, he nearly ran against a man who had just passed the gate, and, looking up angrily, saw Hepworth Closs. The poor craven turned white as he saw that face; but Hepworth was in haste, and took no ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... glance his brother eyed, And thus in burning words replied: "Thy rash resolve, thy eager haste, Thy mighty fear, are all misplaced: No room is here for duty's claim, No cause to dread the people's blame. Can one as brave as thou consent To use a coward's argument? The glory of the Warrior race With craven speech his lips debase? Can one like thee so falsely speak, Exalting Fate, confessed so weak? Canst thou, undoubting still restrain? Suspicions of those sinful twain? Canst thou, most duteous, fail to know Their hearts are set on duty's show? They with deceit have set ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... rise, evidently under the impression that he was about to be attacked; but the fall and the loss of blood were too much for him. He sank back with a groan, yet there was a look of quiet dignity about him which showed that he gave way to no craven spirit. ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... Not with love, but craven fear; And the beggar found the treasure That to noble hearts ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... Craven, framed the piece with appropriate magnificence. The several seaside pictures were admirably representative of the grandeur, the gaunt loneliness, and the glorious colour for which Scotland is ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... more clue to his resorts or his friends—if, indeed, he had any in London—than he had after their memorable first meeting in San Francisco. He might, indeed, be the dupe of an impostor, who, at the eleventh hour, had turned craven and fled. He might be, in the captain's indifference, a mere instrument set aside at his pleasure. Yet he could take advantage of Miss Eversleigh's letter and seek her, and confess everything, and ask her advice. It was a great and at the moment it seemed ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... made it a rule never to read anything of praise. I am thankful that a kind Providence has enabled me to do what will reflect honor on my children, and show myself a stout-hearted servant of Him from whom comes every gift. None of you must become mean, craven-hearted, untruthful, or dishonest, for if you do, you don't inherit it from me. I hope that you have selected a profession that suits your taste. It will make you hold up your head among men, and is your most serious duty. I shall not live long, And it would not ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... the flying sea-spray drenches Fore and aft the rowers' benches, Not a single heart is craven Of the champions ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Bromfield Corey remarked thoughtfully, "What astonishes the craven civilian in all these things is the abundance—the superabundance—of heroism. The cowards were the exception; the men that were ready to die, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... "these tricky ways do not suit me. Monsieur Arbillot proposed yesterday that I should do what you advise. He even offered to inform this gentleman of my relationship to Claude de Buxieres. I refused, and forbade the notary to open his mouth on the subject. What! should I play the part of a craven hound before this younger son whom my father detested, and beg for a portion of the inheritance? Thank you! I prefer to take myself out ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... don't aim ter suffer no craven betrayal an' not hit back. I means thet ther feller thet sought my murder is my man ter kill, but I aims ter kill him in f'ar combat. Hit jest lays between him an' me an' hit ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... Cap'n Billy knew himself a craven coward. Only by keeping his eyes away from the face near him could he hope for success in argument. And Cap'n Billy, with all the strength of his simple, honest nature, meant to succeed in the present ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... But Governor Craven was one of the best governors of his time. He was a man of action and courage as well as a wise ruler, and he quickly gathered an army with which to march against the savages. The North Carolinians too, remembering gratefully the help ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... a line last week in the cover of a letter to Lady Craven,[1] which I knew would sufficiently tell your quickness how much I shall be obliged to you for any attentions to her. I thought her at Paris, and was surprised to hear of her at Florence. She has, I fear, been infinitamente indiscreet; but what is that to you or me? She is very pretty, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... woman that he sought in vain to save. But if he makes no effort, shrinking, without a struggle, from his duty, he himself will not the less certainly perish for this baseness of poltroonery. He will die no less: and why not? Wherefore should we grieve that there is one craven less in the world? No; let him perish, without a pitying thought of ours wasted upon him; and, in that case, all our grief will be reserved for the fate of the helpless girl, who now, upon the least shadow of ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... Van Reypen, "I saw you, Bill, when you invited him to leave! I'm no craven, but I shouldn't care to return to any one who had looked ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... their fear. For except in extraordinary instances of exposure, there are few living men, who, at bottom, are not very slow to admit that any other living men have ever been very much nearer death than themselves. Accordingly, craven is the phrase too often applied to any one who, with however good reason, has been appalled at the prospect of sudden death, and yet lived to escape it. Though, should he have perished in conformity with his fears, not a syllable ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... soldier knowing no fear, cheerful amid hardships under the open sky, the restless Adriatic, the Bantine headlands and the low-lying Forentum of the poet's infancy, the babe in the wood of Voltur, the Latin hill-towns, the craven soldier of Crassus, and the stern patriotism of Regulus. Without these the Inaugurals would be but barren and cold, to say nothing of the splendid outburst against the domestic degradation of the time, so full of color and heat ...
— Horace and His Influence • Grant Showerman
... because you don't quite know what he will do when he knows it, because perhaps after all this lie is a better thing for him than the truth would be, this same man being all the time an honest fellow-citizen whom you have every reason to trust. Surely I have heard that this craven crookedness is the object of our national detestation. And yet it is constantly whispered that it would be dangerous to divulge certain truths to the masses. 'I know the whole thing is untrue: but then it is so useful for the people; you don't know what harm you might do by shaking ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... hath youth in store: Age may but fondly cherish Half-faded memories of yore— Up, craven heart! repine no more! Love stretches hands from shore to shore: Love is, and shall ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... he answered, and put aside his pipe, which had gone out. "The spirit of revenge was educated into me until I came to look upon revenge as the best and holiest of emotions; until I believed that if I failed to wreak it I must be a craven and a dastard. All this seemed so until the moment came to set my hand to the task. And then—" ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... they throw off the yoke of kings, cross the Atlantic, found a new form of government on a new continent, break with traditions, and sign a declaration of independence, only that we should succumb, a century later, yielding the fruits of their hard-fought battles with craven supineness into the hands of corporations and municipalities; humbly bowing necks that refuse to bend before anointed sovereigns, to the will of steamboat subordinates, the insolence of be-diamonded ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... fear for Scotland, my father?" she would urge; "is it because her queen is but a child and now far distant, that anarchy and gloom shall enfold our land? Is it not shame in ye thus craven to deem her sons, when in thy own breast so much devotion and loyalty have rest? why not judge others by yourself, my father, and know the dark things of which ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... I was in Prince's Street at supper at Mr Page's, and at ten o'clock at night Mr Page went home with me; and, coming down Drury Lane there stood a coach by my Lord Craven's door, and the hood of the coach was drawn, and a great many men stood by it. Just as I came to the place where the coach stood, two soldiers came and pushed me from Mr Page, and four or five men came up to them, and they knocked ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... who was at this time in Italy with the Margravine of Anspach. Lord Craven died at Lausanne in September, and the lady was married to the Margrave ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... tongue could make reply, A burly warrior, standing by, Strode forward, and, with murderous look, His tomahawk before her shook, And fiercely said: "I am Two Bear; Great chief am I! 'Tis sweet to tear The craven hearts and drink the blood Of Two Bear's foes; a big red flood Shall flow from coward Sioux, this morn Their scalps Ojibway spears adorn. Why have you kept us waiting here? Behold, the sun will soon appear, The hour is late, the ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... exercise uncontrolled dominion over this continent, to rule with more than regal sway the rich islands and peninsulas of Asia, and to dictate peace to fallen England from the guns of her armadas. After five wars waged with no craven spirit in less than three-quarters of a century, after she had exhausted every resource and more than once banded against her island foe every naval power in Europe, she was forced to succumb to British perseverance and to the gallantry of British ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... always has a sound like that of f flattened; as in love, vulture, vivacious. In pure English, it is never silent, never final, never doubled: but it is often doubled in the dialect of Craven; and there, too, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... in one's joy; not to be a craven in one's sorrow. You see, a great view suggests the world, the vastness of things, the multiplicity of life. I think that must be it. And of course it reminds one, too, that one ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... the noodle stories which have been current among the people for centuries past, though other places share to some extent in their not very enviable reputation: in Yorkshire the "carles" of Austwick, in Craven; some villages near Marlborough Downs, in Wiltshire; and in the counties of Sutherland and Ross, ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... "I have not wasted the shining thirty minutes which I have just spent in Lady Elizabeth's luxurious car. She knows him for the craven that ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates |
