"Poltroon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... worshipped, heart and soul—set, in her exulting imagination no lower than the angels, and beheld in the end,—with besmirched brow and debased mien, a disgraced sensualist, not merely a deceiver of another woman's innocent confidence, and her tempter to dishonor and wretchedness, but a poltroon—a whipped coward who had not dared to lift voice or pen in denial or ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... good for nothing; you are a poltroon! My son and I will go away from this place forever, forever! I will get a position for my son, I will find him a good position, do you understand? Just as I would be willing to sweep the streets with ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... together, that you might not see it, has melted and given way. The thought of these things makes a man feel like Vesuvius on the eve of an eruption; but you must wait for relief till Dhobie day next week, and then the poltroon has stayed at home, and sent his brother to report that he is suffering from a severe stomachache. When the miscreant makes his next appearance in person, he stands on one leg, with joined palms and a piteous bleat, and pleads an alibi. He was absent about the marriage of a relation, ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... "that little Prosper Leclere! He thinks himself one of the strongest—a fine fellow! But I tell you he is a coward. If he is clever? Yes. But he is a poltroon. He knows well that I can flatten him out like a crepe in the frying-pan. But he is afraid. He has not as much courage as the musk-rat. You stamp on the bank. He dives. He swims ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... intrigue, nor deceit; instead of loading you with praise, he will point you to the better way. I scoff at Cleon's tricks and plotting; honesty and justice shall fight my cause; never will you find me a political poltroon, a ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... with them on the wild and sudden campaign would reinstate him in their good graces, but it failed utterly. "Any man would seek that," was the verdict of the informal council held by the officers. "He would have been a poltroon if he hadn't sought to go; but, while he isn't a poltroon, he has done a contemptible thing." And so it stood. Rollins had cut him dead, refused his hand, and denied him a chance to explain. "Tell him he can't explain," was the ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... a frigate, are you? Shame on you, coward and poltroon! Stay and fight like a man for your King ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... with him. She still had her high moral sense, inherited from generations of Puritans. It was now a religious instinct, and she was almost a fanatic with him, because she loved him, or had loved him. If he sinned, she tortured him. If he drank, and lied, was often a poltroon, sometimes a knave, she wielded ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... this challenge rose erect in his stirrups. His countenance, noble and defiant, presented a strange contrast to the aspect of vulgar ferocity that characterised the features of the man thus addressed. The insult was point blank, and would have aroused the veriest poltroon; but Arroyo possessed only the courage ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... Gluck vehemently; "see the woman's nature shrinking from the path of honor because it is beset with danger. I did well not to let you know the nature of my last labors, for with your sighs and croakings you would have turned me back again into the highway of falsehood. But you are too late, poltroon. The work is done, and it shall see light." Gluck looked at his wife's face, and the expression he saw there made him pause. He was already sorry, and ready to atone. "No, no! I wrong you, my Egeria: not only are you the wife of my love, but the friend of my genius. Come, dearest, let us brave ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... from the beginning; and I intend to set you free, when that cowardly miscreant has been secured. You would die to save your lover; you, proud, brave, noble natured, would sacrifice your precious life for that wretched, vile poltroon, who flees and leaves you to suffer in his stead! Truly, there is no mystery so profound, so complex, so subtle as a woman's heart. To die for his crimes, were a happier fate than to sully your fair soul by alliance with one so degraded; and, by the help of God, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... crowd found her bashful fear so irresistibly funny, that it roared again. Also, when the little cow-herd with a crown on his head, lifted his hand or foot toward his partner, and then shrank trembling away, it roared yet more at the poltroon ...
— The Field of Clover • Laurence Housman
... "What a poltroon!" he cried contemptuously. "But I'll see you get no harm by this right-about face. He is mistaken if he thinks his treachery will give him a hold ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... able to appreciate courage, one day sharply rebuked a colonel for having punished a young officer just arrived from school at Fontainebleau because he gave evidence of fear in his first engagement. "Know, colonel," said he, "none but a poltroon (the term was oven more strong) will boast that ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... Master Fritz; they would say that Willis was a poltroon or a deserter, whichever he likes; they would very likely condemn him to the yard-arm by default, and carry out the operation when they get hold of him. But I will not endanger any one else; all I want is the ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... most inveterate old coxcomb who ever stuffed himself with macaroni, to the patched Carnival fool who strutted about like a satisfied old hen after a shower of rain, to the snarling skinflint, the love-sick old poltroon, who infected the air of the Via Ripetta with the disgusting bleating which he called ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... rectitude, and neither sink nor soar far from it—easy for them to dismiss this bitter truth for a mere sentimentalism; but there is a virginity of the soul which evil custom cannot deflower. Woe to him who knows it, the chaste in wish and the unchaste in act, the rogue who values honour, the poltroon who would fain be brave! Ah, the goat-hoofed Satyr dancing there, drunk and leering, goatish in odour, unwashed and foul! Is it I? Is it I? And the anguished angel who weeps to look upon him. Is it I? Woe, woe is me, for I am ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... a coward and a poltroon. This was a week after the operation. They were alone in the room. For days his wondering, questioning eyes had sought those of the man on whom he had depended for everlasting peace, and always there had been a look of reproach in them. Not in words, but still plainly, ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... lead him into the very hottest of the conflict. Elmham records his address: whether they are the very words he (p. 175) uttered, or such only as he was likely to have used, they certainly suit his character: "My lords, far be from me such disgrace, as that, like a poltroon, I should stain my noviciate in arms by flight. If the Prince flies, who will wait to end the battle? Believe it, to be carried back before victory would be to me a perpetual death! Lead me, I implore you, to the very face of the foe. I may not say ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... Maur," cried he, would you fight a coward—a published poltroon? You know you dare not ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... out, I know from my own experience, must be painful and odious, and cruelly mortifying to the inward vanity. Suppose I am a poltroon, let us say. With fierce moustache, loud talk, plentiful oaths, and an immense stick, I keep up nevertheless a character for courage. I swear fearfully at cabmen and women; brandish my bludgeon, and perhaps knock down a little man or two with ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray |
