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Adventurer   Listen
noun
Adventurer  n.  
1.
One who adventures; as, the merchant adventurers; one who seeks his fortune in new and hazardous or perilous enterprises.
2.
A social pretender on the lookout for advancement.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Adventurer" Quotes from Famous Books



... indebted to our gentleman adventurer for the invention of Rosalind. Lodge took up the tale and remodelled it entirely; he gave place in it to the fair she-page and to her friend Alinda and to Phoebe, the hard-hearted shepherdess, in such a way that when Shakespeare in his turn bethought himself of this story, he had nothing to ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand

... into the world-old solitudes of the heart of the continent and to explore the mountain fastnesses in which the mighty Columbia has its birth. Following in their footsteps, the hardy American emigrant, trader, adventurer, and home-seeker penetrated the wilderness, and, building better than they knew, laid the foundations of populous and thriving States. Peaceful farms and noble cities, towns and villages, thrilling with the hum of modern industry and activity, are spread over the ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks

... while he was achieving his object. I trembled as I saw this stout seaman, the water dripping from his clothes, thus elevated in the air, with the angry billows rolling beneath him, like lions leaping upward to catch the adventurer in their grasp. Marble's hand was actually extended to reach the brace, when its block gave way with the strain. The eye of the strap slipping from the yard, down went the spar into the water. Next the trough of the sea hid everything from my sight, and I was left in the most ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... with my wife and children about five months, in a very happy condition, if I could have learned the lesson of knowing when I was well. I left my poor wife big with child, and accepted an advantageous offer made me to be captain of the Adventurer, a stout merchantman of 350 tons: for I understood navigation well, and being grown weary of a surgeon's employment at sea, which, however, I could exercise upon occasion, I took a skilful young man of that calling, one Robert Purefoy, into my ship. We set sail from Portsmouth ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift

... as Gordon to the Sudan. The whole history of his life, the whole bent of his character, seemed to disqualify him for the task for which he had been chosen. He was before all things a fighter, an enthusiast, a bold adventurer; and he was now to be entrusted with the conduct of an ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey

... afternoon of June, languid and fragrant; the declining sun was in their faces as they went in company under the high arches of the elms, in a queer contrast of costume and personality. Carrick, the man of science, the adventurer in the bypaths of knowledge, affronted the Sabbath in the clothes which gave offence to the curate. He was a thin, impatient man, standing on the brink of middle age, with the hard, intent face of one accustomed to verify the evidence of his own senses. ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... adventurer whom they fear; we serve a monarch whom we love. They boast, they come but to improve our state, enlarge our thoughts, and free us from the yoke of error. Yes, they will give enlightened freedom to our minds, who are themselves the slaves of passion, avarice, and pride. They ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... stranger, who left the blushing vine-hills of his delightful France. The people whom he came to succor, were not his people; he knew them only in the melancholy story of their wrongs. He was no mercenary adventurer, striving for the spoil of the vanquished; the palace acknowledged him for its lord, and the valley yielded him its increase. He was no nameless man, staking life for reputation; he ranked among nobles, and ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders

... appeared as the author of a volume of "Poems and Lyrics." This publication was highly esteemed by his friends, and most favourably received by the press. Abandoning business in Dundee, which had never been prosperous, he meditated proceeding as a literary adventurer to London, but was induced by Mr Tait, his friendly publisher, and some other well-wishers, to remain in Edinburgh till a suitable opening should occur. In the summer of 1836 he was appointed editor of the Leeds ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... which one coal-owner might gain possession of coal which of right belonged to another; and a pit, though sunk at a cost of several thousand pounds, had no secured possession of coal beyond 12 yards round it, that is, a tract of coal 24 yards in diameter. At 40 or 50 yards from such a work another adventurer might commence a pit, and have an equal right, if right it could be called, to the coal. If a long and expensive adit was driven, another one might be commenced only a few yards deeper; and, from such a state of things, it is quite ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls

... apply to the pieces of Aristophanes the motto of a pleasant and acute adventurer in Goethe: "Mad, but clever." In them we are best enabled to conceive why the Dramatic Art in general was consecrated to Bacchus: it is the intoxication of poetry, the Bacchanalia of fun. This faculty ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... following spring and yielded their crop in the fall.[3] Among those who promptly adopted the staple was Richard Leake, who wrote from Savannah at the end of 1788 to Tench Coxe: "I have been this year an adventurer, and the first that has attempted on a large scale, in the article of cotton. Several here as well as in Carolina have followed me and tried the experiment. I shall raise about 5000 pounds in the seed from about eight ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... different moods. We hear the ocean furious or exulting. The thunder-claps are grand, or angry, according to the different states of our mind. Nay, the very church bells chime sadly or merrily, as our associations determine. They speak the language of our passing moods. The young adventurer revolving sanguine plans upon the milestone, hears them speak to him as God did to Hagar in the wilderness, bidding him back to perseverance and greatness. The soul spreads its own hue over everything; the shroud or wedding-garment of nature is woven in the loom of ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson

... Lucian for the little history, and says, "I wish with all my heart I could convey it to a friend of mine in the other world"— meaning Dr. Francklin—"to whom, at this juncture, it would be of particular service: I mean a bold adventurer who has lately undertaken to give a new and complete translation of all your works. It is a noble design, but an arduous one; I own I tremble for him." Lucian replies, "I heard of it the other day from Goldsmith, who knew the man. ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian

... action without imposing upon us the responsibilities and the fateful results of action itself; there we can learn new things about life without incurring the risks of participation in it. We can play the part of the adventurer without being involved in any blame; we can fall in love with the heroine without any subsequential entanglements; we can be a hero without suffering the penalties of heroism; we can travel into foreign lands ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker

... made years before. He crawled into it with a leaping heart and began to explore. He found an old carpet and a bit of burned candle. They proved that some one had lived there. What kind of a man had he been and what kind of life had he lived—black or white or red, robber or beggar or adventurer? Some of us were walking in the woods one day when we saw a bone sticking out of the ground. Luckily we had a spade, and we set to work digging. Not one moment was the tool idle. First one bone and then another came to light and among them ...
— Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae • Jennie Hall

... upheld the Australian character. It is a fact that he has incidentally done this to a considerable extent, but not by any notable portraiture. In the period with which the novels deal the population of the colonies was largely English; it was, therefore, perhaps only natural that the stranger and adventurer from the Old World, so often well born and cultured, should prove a more attractive study than the sons of the soil. Moreover, the latter, in their monotonous and circumscribed life, lacked much of the mystery and romance so vital to the novel of adventure. But when this has been admitted ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne

... saloons, of the Duke de Vendome, the Prince de Conti, and of the gay Duke of Orleans, the latter of whom was destined afterwards to exercise so much influence over his fate. The Duke of Orleans was pleased with the vivacity and good sense of the Scottish adventurer, while the latter was no less pleased with the wit and amiability of a prince who promised to become his patron. They were often thrown into each other's society, and Law seized every opportunity to instil his financial doctrines ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... of the happiness that awaited us; he spoke of his impatience, I was only one year younger than he; but he had made the acquaintance of a man of dissipated habits who lived in the vicinity, a sort of adventurer, and had listened to his evil suggestions. While I was yielding to his caresses with the confidence of a child, he resolved to deceive his father and to abandon me after having ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset

... some dangers in the way of his investigations. Some rumors which had reached him about the supposed suitor of Elsie Venner, who was thought to be a desperate kind of fellow, and whom some believed to be an unscrupulous adventurer, added a curious, romantic kind of interest to the course of physiological and psychological inquiries ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... that the repute of Mr. Gray is not the highest; and considering my own character and standing I do not see how it is possible for me to engage in a combat of honour with him. My position as I have said is unquestioned; but I know nothing of your friend save that report speaks of him as an adventurer without character. He has had a good education, and all that, and associates with people of my own standing; but these ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins

... Service to find the leak in the War Department. What I am interested in is not the man who played spy for two nations and betrayed one of them. To me this adventurer who calls himself Chateaurouge is merely the murderer ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve

... the Pas de la Tine. For many years the Gallo-Roman peasants feared to penetrate this terrifying barrier between the rising valleys and the frowning heights, until, according to a legend, a young adventurer broke his way through the primeval woods and the rocky depths of the gorge to find out-spread before him the fertile upper plateaux ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven

... said I, "you need have no such fears about me. I am a little of an adventurer, a little of a Bohemian. There is no one else who has a claim upon my life, and I do as I please. Can't you tell me a little more ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... She told me that Zoraida is mad about you. And that you are a great adventurer and have killed many men and are ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... where the person with the chains was lying, he was followed with a loud rattling and reached his comrades in a most exhausted and frightened condition. Tradition has it that the event terminated in the bold adventurer becoming, and continuing ever ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews

... self-same heart great enough to be called Love. A man may adore and worship the woman who has proved herself a perfect mate, who is the mother of his children, and yet be unfaithful to her—not with any woman who crosses his path and beckons, but with the One who appeals to the wild, romantic adventurer which is also part of his nature, though neither the best part, nor the strongest. But I cannot imagine a man adoring and respecting a woman who is not his wife the while he loves with a burning passion another woman ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King

... the Desmonds the real cause of the hopeless disorder of Munster. But also he incurred the displeasure and suspicion of Lord Grey, who equally disliked the great Irish Chief, but who saw in the "plot" which Ralegh sent to Burghley for the pacification of Munster, an adventurer's impracticable and self-seeking scheme. "I must be plain," he writes, "I like neither his carriage nor his company." Ralegh had been at Smerwick: he had been in command of one of the bands put in by Lord Grey to do the execution. On Lord Grey's departure he had become one of the leading persons ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church

... world with a sight of his gaiety. He is not a wholehearted mendicant, and no longer keeps that liberty of unstable balance whereby an unattached creature can go in a new direction with a new wind. The merry beggar was the only adventurer free to yield to the lighter touches of chance, the touches that a habit of resistance has made imperceptible to the seated ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell

... spoke, the form lying in the bottom of the vinta slowly unfolded like a huge jack-knife. The merry eyes twinkled, the youthful, firm mouth curved at the corners, and Piang, the adventurer, smiled ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart

... their mortar-buckets beside them, each with a trowel or a beer-bottle can in his hand. On the wall over the sofa hung a large half-length portrait of a dark, handsome man in a riding-cloak. He looked half a dreamy adventurer, half a soldier. ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... rule in Hindostan, and widened them into a project of all but world-wide conquest. At this time the strongest and most vigorous of the Indian powers was that of Mysore, at the southern extremity of the peninsula, where a Mussulman state had been built up by the genius of an adventurer, Hyder Ali. In the days when the English were winning their supremacy over the Carnatic, Hyder had been their chief difficulty; and his attack had once brought them to the verge of ruin. The hostility of his son Tippoo was even more bitter; ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green

... since, after all, it was very handsome and genteel of the young man to say he would take you without a farthing in your pocket, which shows that those were misinformed who talked of him as an Irish adventurer; and since we are not certain 'twas he made away with the dog, although he said its barking was a great nuisance; there is no great reason to suppose he was the person who made the hole under the foundation ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth

... place in history as this little sloop, the size of a river lighter, launched at Mistick, and straightway dispatched to the trade with the Dutch at New Amsterdam. Long before her time, however, in 1526, the Spanish adventurer, Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon, losing on the coast of Florida a brigantine out of the squadron of three ships which formed his expedition, built a small craft called ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... way to the side of the Prince, about whom were grouped the Duke of Perth, Lord Lewis Gordon, Lord Elcho, the ill-fated Kilmarnock, as well as Lochiel, Cluny, Macleod, Clanranald, and other Highland gentlemen who had taken their fortune in their hands at the call of this young adventurer with the enchanting smile. To see him was to understand the madness of devotion that had carried away these wise gray-haired gentlemen, but to those who never saw him I despair of conveying in cold type the subtle quality of charm that radiated from him. In the very bloom of youth, tall, slender, ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... the Islands—not the missionaries alone, but the political rulers since—have been plain, honest, and, in the main, wise men; and they have kept politics respectable in the little monarchy. The disreputable adventurer element which degrades our politics, and invades society too, is not found here. You will say the rewards are not great enough to attract this vile class. Perhaps not; but at any rate it is not there; and I ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff

... the corner of Water street and what is now Union lane, stood the pioneer hotel of Cleveland, the tavern of Major Carter, where good accommodations for man and beast were always to be found. The young Maryland adventurer was not overburdened with wealth when he landed in his future home, his entire cash capital being three dollars. But it was no discredit in those days to be poor, and three dollars was a fine capital to start business upon. In fact sonic of the then "old settlers," would have been glad to possess ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... inland country; and another great tract of country was conferred upon a descendant of the ancient Hindoo rajahs, who had been dispossessed by Hyder Ali. Thus ended a dynasty which was founded by a daring adventurer on the ruins of the Hindoo house of Mysor. It began and ended its career in spoliation ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... woodcuts, and attracted not the least attention. I did not care. I liked the tale myself, for much the same reason as my father liked the beginning; it was my kind of picturesque. I was not a little proud of John Silver, also; and to this day rather admire that smooth and formidable adventurer. What was infinitely more exhilarating, I had passed a landmark; I had finished a tale, and written "The End" upon my manuscript, as I had not done since "The Pentland Rising," when I was a boy of sixteen not yet at college. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... though that I was a scout, and would not exchange my experiences with any, not even with an adventurer from the pages of B. O. P. [1] Romance bathes the very name, the finger-tips tingle as they write it, and there was not infrequently enough interesting work to make one even forget to be afraid. Very happy were those days ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett

... personal reckoning at some future date with the she-devil who had been the bane of his existence. It was an unlikely contingency but undoubtedly it existed, and he hated unpleasantness of all kinds. So, philosophically, he resolved to adjust himself to this burden. There was something of the adventurer in his blood and he had a vast belief in his own ultimate good luck. Fortune might frown for awhile, but he knew that he was Fortune's favourite notwithstanding. And very ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell

... celebrated Cave of Trophonius at Lebadea in Boeotia. Whoso sought this oracle must descend head foremost over an inclined plane, bearing a honey cake in his hand. Aristophanes speaks of this descent with a shudder of fear.45 The adventurer was suddenly bereft of his senses, and after a while returned to the upper air. What he could then remember composed the Divine revelation which had been communicated to him in his unnatural state below. Plutarch has given a full account ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... Money as purchased her a Ticket in the present Lottery. She had hid this very privately in the Bottom of a Trunk, and had given her Number to a Friend and Confident, who had promised to keep the Secret, and bring her News of the Success. The poor Adventurer was one Day gone abroad, when her careless Husband, suspecting she had saved some Money, searches every Corner, till at length he finds this same Ticket; which he immediately carries abroad, sells, and squanders away the Money without the Wife's suspecting any thing of the Matter. A Day ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... fate he felt no immediate anxiety; three pounds goes but little way in the world when there is nothing behind it, but to a man who has counted his exchequer in pennies it seems a good starting-point. Fortune had done him a whimsically kind turn when last he trod these lanes as a hopeless adventurer, and there might yet be a chance of his finding some work and making a fresh start; as he got further from the farm his spirits rose higher. There was a sense of relief in regaining once more his lost ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki

... hearing. He had a gift for throwing a romantic glamour over everything that happened to him. He was crippled with debts, everything he had of any value was pawned, but he managed always to be cheerful, extravagant, and generous. He was the adventurer by nature. He loved people of doubtful occupations and shifty purposes; and his acquaintance among the riff-raff that frequents the bars of London was enormous. Loose women, treating him as a friend, told him the troubles, difficulties, and successes of their lives; ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... he knows not of what after-sadness, and regret, and lonely longing? But yet he stayed on. You would have said he was the widow's son, to watch his constant care and watchfulness of her; or that he was an adventurer, and wanted to marry her fortune, or, at any rate, that he wanted some very great treasure or benefit from her,—and very likely he did,—for ours, as the reader has possibly already discovered, is a Selfish Story, and almost every person, according to his nature, more or less generous ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... for this gratuitous perversion of the truth, the words were hardly out of my mouth when I heard a loud crack on the ice, and a splash as of the sudden immersion of some daring adventurer; then all was still—the snow-flakes fell softly against the window panes. My aunt, shading her candle with her long hand, talked drowsily on; and finally persisted in my coming to sleep with her in her own room, as she said I was "the only person in the ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville

... Blanchard, is one of the most readable books which have sprung up under the California excitement, the author having been familiar with the country before the gold fever had broken out. His style is straight-forward and pleasant, showing more of the soldier and adventurer than the scholar, but none the worse for that. His information appears to have been collected with great care, when it was not gained by personal observation, and has the outward and inward signs of authenticity, to a very satisfactory degree. The book can not fail ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... so remote, where a spirited and adventurous youth could hope ever to learn the art martial. A few skirmishes on the Parana and the Plata, on the Fish River, or the Keiskamma, form all the fighting that is going on upon the globe; and that fighting offers no premium to the adventurer. There is no native prince of great wealth and numerous followers, no mogul, or sultan, or sikh, with whom the turbulent European might make a good bargain for his courage. The last field for such enterprise was the country of the Mahrattas, where French and English mercenaries—with ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... silversmiths. The figures looking out on the blue water that reaches to Panama and the shores of Peru, are historical. In the center is the Conquistador. Flanking his stately figure on each side is the pirate of the Spanish Main, the adventurer who served with but a color of lawful war under Drake, the buccaneer that followed Morgan to the sack of Panama. (p. 44.) These statues are ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber

... What need of letters? wherefore should we spell? Why write our names? A mark will do as well. Much are the precious hours of youth misspent, In climbing Learning's rugged, steep ascent; When to the top the bold adventurer's got, He reigns, vain monarch, o'er a barren spot; Whilst in the vale of Ignorance below, Folly and Vice to rank luxuriance grow; 10 Honours and wealth pour in on every side, And proud Preferment rolls her golden tide. O'er crabbed authors life's gay prime to waste, To cramp ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... now, my ever honoured friend, enjoyed a very high luxury, in reading a paper of the Lounger. You know my national prejudices. I had often read and admired the Spectator, Adventurer, Rambler, and World; but still with a certain regret, that they were so thoroughly and entirely English. Alas! have I often said to myself, what are all the boasted advantages which my country reaps from the union, that can counterbalance ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... flocked to the standard of the adventurer, whose manly and handsome presence, his beaming blue eyes, sweet smile, and gracious manner won him the friendship of all whom he met. With steadily growing forces he marched to Seville. Here were many of his partisans, and ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris

... says the good old Book. What honour did you give me save to disobey every command which I have ever given you. I have to blame myself to some extent for having allowed you to go on that most pernicious trip to Scotland, where you were thrown into the company of this young adventurer by his scheming old fool of ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... adventurer who leads his life, not on the Stock Exchange amidst the bulls and bears, or in the House of Commons waiting to clutch the golden keys, or in South Africa with the pioneers and promoters, but with himself and his own vagrant moods and fancies. There was no need for Borrow to ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... the matter. Even now he would not have been willing to confess that a seventeen-year-old boy had taught him anything. That would have been quite beneath his dignity. But privately he could not deny that this schoolboy adventurer had opened his eyes to a number of things he ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett

... the evil spirit. Come, decide, no mixed position; either I will serve you, or you shall serve me; otherwise I leave your house, and I beg my aunt to find me another place. All this must seem strange to you; so be it; but if you take me for an adventurer, without the means of existence, you are wrong. In order to make my aunt my accomplice without her knowledge, I allowed her to think I was too poor to buy other clothes than these. Yet I have, you see, a purse well-filled: on this side with gold, on the ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... and dog-sledge and packer bringing up the freight that for another year was to last the forest people of the Three River country—a domain reaching from the Landing to the Arctic Ocean. In competition fought the drivers of Revillon Brothers and Hudson's Bay, of free trader and independent adventurer. Freight that grew more precious with each mile it advanced must reach the beginning of the waterway. It started with the early snows. The tide was at full by midwinter. In temperature that nipped men's lungs it did not cease. There ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood

... is where one finds it, and Romantic Adventure is as a rule to be come upon infesting the same identical premises. Mr. Staff was not seeking mysteries and the last role in the world in which he could fancy himself was that of Romantic Adventurer. But in retrospect he can see quite clearly that it was there, in the humdrum and prosaic setting of a steamship booking-office, that he first stumbled (all unwittingly) into the toils ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance

... bowl-shaped craters, whose walls are sometimes many hundred feet deep, enclose, if the crater has long been dormant, sandy floors, from which, perhaps, small cinder cones arise. If the crater still is active, the adventurer's experiences are limited ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... successors. His story is fictitious, his hero imaginary. Richard I. is not the hero of "Ivanhoe," nor Louis XI. of "Quentin Durward." Shakspere dramatised history; Scott romanticised it. Still it is history, the private story is swept into the stream of large public events, the fate of the lover or the adventurer is involved with battles and diplomacies, with the rise and fall of kings, dynasties, political parties, nations. Stevenson says, comparing Fielding with Scott, that "in the work of the latter . . . we become suddenly conscious of the background. . ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... had dreamed that they were free, to be subjects of France. The princes of the Rhenish Confederation were compelled to send their German troops to Spain, to wage war against a nation that was struggling for independence; and Napoleon in the meantime placed a French adventurer upon a throne in the middle of Germany, and erected a kingdom for him from the spoils he had taken from German princes. Holland, which had endeavored to preserve some vestiges of liberty, was suddenly deprived of her sovereign, and converted into a French province; and when ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... expression of countenance; look may be momentary; as, a look of dismay passed over his face. We may, however, speak of the look or looks as indicating all that we look at; as, he had the look of an adventurer; I did not like his looks. Bearing is rather a lofty word; as, he has a noble bearing; port is practically identical in meaning with bearing, but is more exclusively a literary word. Carriage, too, is generally used in a good sense; as, that lady has ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... leader put to his lips the fairy clarion slung from his shoulder and sounded the retreat. The flaming bridge lit all the place and showed the great black horse and him upon it. The English adventurer across the water had with him sharpshooters. In the light that wavered, leaped and died, and sprang again, these had striven in vain to reach that high-placed target. Now ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... where our adventurer was born and grew up had many peculiar and desirable advantages over most others in the County of Middlesex. Besides rich pasturage, numerous dairies, and profitable orchards, it possessed the luxuries of well-cultivated gardens of all sorts of culinary ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers

... with many Englishmen of Timothy Cockayne's and John Catt's class, Theodosia's father at once concluded that the poor polite little Vicomte de Gars was an adventurer, and that his coronet was pasteboard, and his shirt studs stolen. Mr. John Catt distinguished himself on his arrival by loud calls for bottled beer, the wearing of his hat in the sitting-room, and by the tobacco-fumes which he liberally diffused ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold

... Herman," he said genially. "The fellow is a mere adventurer. There will be no one to take his disappearance seriously. Look at ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish

... lot. And yet a pleasant woman, though not comely. In fact, without unkindness, she might have been called a terribly ugly woman. Yellow as a guinea, with gingery hair, yellow eyes, and no figure to save her. You would have thought her property might have drawn an adventurer or two, for Little Sherberton was a tenement farm and Mary's very own; but nobody came along, or if they did, they only looked and passed by; and though Mary had no objection to men in general, she didn't encourage them. But ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts

... as stated in their narrative, they met in New York one Ephraim Herrman, a young trader from Maryland and Delaware, then recently married. This was the son of Augustine Herrman, "first founder and seater of Bohemia Manor." Augustine Herrman was a Bohemian adventurer, born in Prague, who, after a career of much vicissitude, made his way to New Netherland. He became a force at New Amsterdam, and was an original member of the council of nine men instituted by Governor ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts

... bold adventurer, about whose history we know nothing, died a few weeks after his ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne

... very inadequate idea of how terribly real was the Napoleonic bogie to our great-grandfathers! They knew that "Boney" was a character who would stop at nothing in carrying out his designs, and so it came about that the shadow of that collossal stride of the Corsican adventurer, darkened the homes in every town, village, and hamlet in this land, and you cannot even to this day turn over the pages of old parish records, or stir the placid waters of old men's memories, without finding traces of this old ghost which Wellington ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston

... gave to Dr. Bathurst, the physician, whom he regarded with much affection, and whose practice was very limited, several essays for the Adventurer, which Hawkesworth was then publishing; and wrote for Mrs. Lenox a Dedication to the Earl of Orrery, of her Shakspeare illustrated; and, in the following year, inserted in the Gentleman's Magazine a Life ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... population of its own, the Spanish authority almost extinct, and the colonial governments in a state of revolution, having no pretension to it, and sufficiently employed in their own concerns, it was in great measure derelict, and the object of cupidity to every adventurer. A system of buccaneering was rapidly organizing over it which menaced in its consequences the lawful commerce of every nation, and particularly the United States, while it presented a temptation to every people, on whose seduction its ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Monroe • James Monroe

... know that he's a swindler, a reprobate, a penniless adventurer? Good heavens! And you are such a fool as that! It's well that you are not to be left at Littlebath ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... destroying his hated enemy the labors which Eurystheus had imposed upon Hercules had only strengthened the hero in the fame for which fate had selected him. He had become the protector of all the wronged upon earth, and the boldest adventurer among mortals. ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various

... had was with Madame de Gergi, who came with the famous adventurer, known by the name of the Count de St. Germain. This individual, instead of eating, talked from the beginning of the meal to the end, and I followed his example in one respect as I did not eat, but listened to him with the greatest ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... the spiritual strain of the new creature in casting off the old husk, and adapting itself not merely to new surroundings, but to a new life. This had been severe. He was not a rover, and still less an adventurer, in any of the senses attached to that word. His instincts were for the settled, the well-ordered, and the practical. He would have been content with any humdrum existence that permitted his peaceable, commercially gifted soul to develop in its natural environment. ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King

... He had never known anything so infinitely rural as these New England fields; and he took a great fancy to all their pastoral roughnesses. He had never had a greater sense of luxurious security; and at the risk of making him seem a rather sordid adventurer I must declare that he found an irresistible charm in the fact that he might dine every day at his uncle's. The charm was irresistible, however, because his fancy flung a rosy light over this homely privilege. He appreciated highly the fare that was set before ...
— The Europeans • Henry James

... how they came to be rich. But Conroy understood, or at all events thought he understood, his own success. He believed that he was rich because he had, more than other men, a love of the excitement which comes with risk. He had the spirit of the true adventurer, the man who pursues novelty and danger for their own sakes. Every story he told us illustrated and was meant to illustrate this side of his character. He despised the rest of us, especially me perhaps. We, Cahoon, the Dean, even Malcolmson, ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham

... mother he gave his love but dared not give his name; to thy mother he gave his name but could never give his love. So thou art the proud Lord of Cartillon, and I the outcast soldier of fortune, the nameless adventurer, slayer of women—what thou wilt. But things are changed now. Before many hours I will be the Count d'Artin, and thou a dishonored ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson

... points it contains, and have repeated it to the eminent linguist, Mr. A.S. Gatschet, who has taken it down afresh from their lips, and is preparing it for publication. Collateral evidence is also furnished by "General" Milfort, a French adventurer, who lived among the Creeks several years, toward the close of the last century, and testifies that they preserved, "by beads and belts," the memory of the adventures of their ancestors, and recited to him a long account of them, which he repeats with that negligence which everywhere ...
— Aboriginal American Authors • Daniel G. Brinton

... personal courage; and yet, in the defending of Bristol, no man ever did anything worse, he wanting the patience and seasoned head to consult and advise for defence, and to bear with the evils of a siege. The like he says is said of my Lord Tiviott, who was the boldest adventurer of his person in the world, and from a mean man in few years was come to this greatness of command and repute only by the death of all his officers, he many times having the luck of being the only survivor of them all, by venturing upon services for the King of France ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... a hero!" Wynne exclaimed. "You've quite taken the wind out of my sails. I counted for something of an adventurer simply by having been in a smash-up; but you rushed in and had a real adventure. I never thought of you as a defender ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates

... spell which his character cast over the fierce and restless spirits of his age. Prince- Duke of Friedland, Mecklenburgh, and Sagan, Generalissimo of the armies of the House of Austria,—to this height had the landless and obscure adventurer risen, in envy's despite, as his motto proudly said, not by the arts of a courtier or a demagogue, but by strength of brain and heart, in a contest with rivals whose brains and hearts were strong. Highest he ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... the first white man to see and describe the wonders of what is now the National Park. His account, however, was received as a frontier lie, and the truth of his statements were not verified until long after the hardy adventurer's death. ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... young adventurer, pray?' said Madame Cheron, 'and what are his pretensions?' 'These he must himself explain, madam,' replied Emily. 'Of his family my father was not ignorant, and I believe it is unexceptionable.' She then proceeded to mention what she ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... the pictures of "Joel Thorpe" very much the look of Harold Frederic himself, and they might almost stand for his portraits. I fancy the young man did not select his model carelessly. In this big, burly adventurer who took fortune and women by storm, who bluffed the world by his prowess and fought his way to the front with battle-ax blows, there is a great deal of Harold Frederic, the soldier of fortune, the Utica milk boy ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather

... and tragic in knowing that the famous adventurer was lying in some dark shelter, below the ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc

... had happened. A nameless adventurer and impostor had been received with tears of joy as the son of Ivan and of St. Vladimir, the seventh wife of Ivan the Terrible even recognizing and embracing him as her son! But Dmitri had not the wisdom to keep what his cunning had won. His Polish ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele

... generously. He had been so cruel to me, that I might have effected a separation on easy terms for myself; but I did not. He soon made ducks and drakes of what I gave him, sank lower and lower, married another woman, I believe, became an adventurer, a gambler, and a cheat. What he is now, you see. But he was a fine-looking man when I married him,' said my aunt, with an echo of her old pride and admiration in her tone; 'and I believed him—I was a fool!—to be ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... was addressing the formidable adventurer, Bill Wrenn. He had to protect his friends. He sprang up and walked across ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis

... low in estimation, and of no repute in the States. The municipal powers of the cities have not fallen into the hands of the leading men. The word politician has come to bear the meaning of political adventurer and almost of political blackleg. If A calls B a politician, A intends to vilify B by so calling him. Whether or no the best citizens of a State will ever be induced to serve in the State legislature by a nobler ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... something in the light of an intentional affront, of course the idea of lunacy was virtually vacated. But if not a lunatic, what then? Under the circumstances, would a gentleman, nay, any honest boor, act the part now acted by his host? The man was an impostor. Some low-born adventurer, masquerading as an oceanic grandee; yet so ignorant of the first requisites of mere gentlemanhood as to be betrayed into the present remarkable indecorum. That strange ceremoniousness, too, at ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... complaint was that France had connived at the equipment of a force by Thomas Stafford, a refugee, who had invaded England with thirty-two followers and had surprised Scarborough castle. This adventurer claimed to be the house and blood of the Duke of Buckingham, who was beheaded in the times of Henry VIII. The proclamation which he issued from his castle of Scarborough, which he held only two days, was addressed to the English hatred of the Spaniards, rather than directed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... to be well content, to be amused even. She liked to see her name in the newspapers. There would be a pretty little paragraph to get quoted in gossippy columns, even if she and her more anxious fellow-adventurer did not ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... also that the Ashcroft Route led directly across several great gold districts and that the adventurer could combine business and pleasure on the trip by examining the Ominica country, the Kisgagash Mountains, the Peace River, and the upper waters of the Stikeen. These places were all spoken of as ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland

... George Donner, however, was an exception. She was gloomy, sad, and dispirited in view of the fact that her husband and others could think of leaving the old road, and confide in the statement of a man of whom they knew nothing, but was probably some selfish adventurer. ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

... third harangue, Lady Dundas having ordered Euphemia to be taken to her chamber, Mr. Somerset was left alone, more incensed than ever against the object of their invectives, whom he now considered in the light of an adventurer, concealing his poverty, and perhaps his crimes beneath a garb of lies. That such a character, by means of a fine person and a few meretricious talents, could work himself into the confidence of Mary Beaufort, pierced her cousin to the soul; and as he mounted the stairs with an intent to seek her ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... The story of an adventurer who went to Alaska and laid the foundations of his fortune before the gold hunters arrived. Bringing his fortunes to the States he is cheated out of it by a crowd of money kings, and recovers it ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick

... her hundreds of hearts, this kindly magician, who turned all her lovers into friends. Then pass directly to the next paper, on the terrible Corsican, "who weakened his greatness by the gigantic—who loved to astonish—who delighted too much in what was his forte, war,—who was too much a bold adventurer." And further on, the account of Napoleon's conversation with Goethe at Weimar, in which account M. Sainte-Beuve shows how fully he values the largeness and truthfulness and penetration of the great German. The impression thus made on the reader ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert

... Lensmand Geissler left the place, and he did not come back. No great loss, folk said, he being looked on as a doubtful personage, an adventurer. Not that he hadn't the knowledge; he was a learned man, and had studied this and that, but he lived too freely, and spent other people's money. It came out later that he had left the place after a sharp reprimand from his superior, Amtmand Pleym; but nothing was done about his family officially, ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun

... old-fashioned, and devoted himself entirely to the chapel services and music, leaving Haydn to look after the incessant concerts—each of them interminable, as was the fashion then—the cantatas, instrumental pieces, operas and operettas. Werner thought little of Haydn: he regarded him as an adventurer and musical frivol; but Haydn, as became the bigger man, esteemed Werner. There does not seem to have been any friction; Haydn was always shrewd enough to avoid friction, which means wasted energy, and the problem, if problem it ...
— Haydn • John F. Runciman

... was in these circumstances that a momentary revival of order and liberty was effected by the most extraordinary adventurer of an age that was prolific in adventurers." This was Cola Di Rienzi, who was born in Rome about 1313, and who is sometimes styled "an Italian patriot." In his ambitious endeavor to reinstate the Caesarean power in Italy he appears alternately in the figure ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... Soon after beginning the study of law, Dennie wrote, "In the infancy of a profession 'tis chimerical to talk of undeviating integrity. Let hair-brained enthusiasts prate in their closets as loudly as they please to the contrary, a young adventurer in any walk of life must take advantage of the events and weaknesses of his fellow-mortals, or be content to munch turnip in a cell amidst want and obscurity." Of course, all this is very outrageous, but altogether what we should expect ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth

... Smith no dishonor when I ask her to be my wife," said The Author, haughtily. "I am no adventurer. She can never ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler

... they had existed, and would not suppose that he had deceived him, yet, after all, he might be unable without them to prove his claim to his title and estates, and would be reduced again to the position of a needy adventurer. Thus the colonel might be unwilling to trust his daughter's happiness to his keeping. Inclined to look at everything from a gloomy point of view, then, he was prepared for a cold, if not for a ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston

... Franklin. "In case we are not countenanced," said one of these documents, "and succoured by the United States, our allegiance will be thrown off and some other power applied to. Great Britain stands ready with open arms to receive and support us." One adventurer assured Gardoqui that fifty thousand men would be in arms in the western country ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks

... enterprise has a certain analogy to that of the daring adventurer. I beg you to accompany me in an attempt to reach a world which, to many, is probably strange, by the help of a bean. It is, as you know, a simple, inert-looking thing. Yet, if planted under proper conditions, of which sufficient warmth is one of the most important, it ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... of spring, but tropical, sense-stealing; it lulled the brain and bade the heart leap and thrill. This vagabond, this rough horseman with his pistol and torn clothing and the round sack of ore lashed behind; who would ever dream that an adventurer like him could make her forget who she was? But he came from the mine she had helped him to save and the sack might be heavy with gold. So she watched, half-concealed, until he stopped at the bank and went striding ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge

... and agent White's name deserves honorable mention in the history of 'Ould Virginia.' He was an original adventurer in the ' First Colonie' and was one of the hundred and nine who spent a whole year at and about Roanoke and returned with Drake in 1586. He went again to Virginia in April 1587 as Governor of Raleigh's' Second Colonie,' consisting of one hundred and fifty persons in ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens

... have a better illustration of these principles than is afforded by the story of Cadmus, an adventurer who was said to have brought the knowledge of alphabetic writing into Greece from some countries farther eastward. In modern times there is a very strong interest felt in ascertaining the exact truth on this subject. The art of writing with alphabetic characters was so great an invention, and ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... about it than anyone else in the world, its present owner not excepted. I can give its whole history, from the Cingalese who found it, the Spanish adventurer who stole it, the cardinal who bought it, the Pope who graciously accepted it, the favored son of the Church who received it, the gay and giddy duchess who pawned it, down to the eminent prelate who now holds it in trust ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various

... been commanded by men who spoke English. One of these, an American adventurer, named Burgevine, was ready to dare anything for ...
— The Story of General Gordon • Jeanie Lang

... that the old man—the executioner of Naples—was no more; and Eugenio, possessing himself of the hoardings of his deceased father, had fled from his native city to avoid the dread necessity of assuming the abhorrent office. Accident led the young adventurer to Florence in search of a more agreeable employment as a means whereby to earn his livelihood, and having formed the acquaintance of one of the duke's valets, he obtained admittance to the gardens on that memorable evening when the grand entertainment was given. In spite of the strict ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... had not felt those patriotic yearnings which are manifested so early in the legal heart. I was never a political adventurer; I had no eye on Parliament merely as a stepping-stone to a judgeship; and probably, but for the events I am about to describe, I should never have been heard of as a politician at all. There were so many candidates in the profession to whom time was no object that I left ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton

... who had disappeared or died tragically. By chance at first and later by design these had all been placed within the confines of the chancel that formed so large a part of the tiny church. Before the florid Italian monument that recorded all that was known of the short life of the Elizabethan adventurer she paused long, looking with quickening heart-beat at the graceful kneeling figure whose face and form were those of the man ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... the summing-up of the story of a strange old-world battle between Jeroboam, the adventurer who rent the kingdom, and Abijah, the son of the foolish Rehoboam, whose unseasonable blustering had played into the usurper's hands. The son was a wiser and better man than his father. It is characteristic ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... Tudor, Earl of Richmond, at the Court of Blois. Concerning him the Countess asked many questions, and Aymer answered them as best he could. He had not given the Earl much thought, nor had he offered him any attentions, for he was regarded as little more than adventurer—though one with strangely plenty of money; and who was tolerated by the crafty Louis only because he might be useful some time to play against the Yorkist King ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott

... time twenty-eight years old, married, and living in a house at Tooting, where he had also been active in foundation of a chapel. From hose factor he had become merchant adventurer in trade with Spain, and is said by one writer of his time to have been a "civet-cat merchant." Failing then in some venture in 1692, he became bankrupt, and had one vindictive creditor who, according to the law of those ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe

... New York, a poor adventurer, half patriot, half author, a miserable man, always in such depths of distress, with such squadrons of enemies, that no charity could relieve, and no intervention save him. He believed Europe banded for his destruction, and America corrupted to connive at it. Margaret listened ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... smoking room, confiding to him his intention of seeing life red and bleeding in the Solomons. Captain Malu agreed that the intention was ambitious and honorable. It was not until several days later that he became interested in Bertie, when that young adventurer insisted on showing him an automatic 44-caliber pistol. Bertie explained the mechanism and demonstrated by slipping a loaded magazine up the ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London

... he was no longer shunned by Europeans as an adventurer and an outlaw. He was too prominent to be overlooked. His Ever-Victorious Army, as it was afterward termed, entered upon a campaign of glorious victory. One after another of the rebel strongholds fell before it, and its ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford



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