Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Craven   Listen
noun
Craven  n.  A recreant; a coward; a weak-hearted, spiritless fellow. See Recreant, n. "King Henry. Is it fit this soldier keep his oath? Fluellen. He is a craven and a villain else."
Synonyms: Coward; poltroon; dastard.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Craven" Quotes from Famous Books



... grief. My good landlady and Betty the housemaid pitied me. My son Miles, who, for a wonder, has been reading in my MS., says, "By Jove, sir, I didn't know you and my mother were took in this kind of way. The year I joined, I was hit very bad myself. An infernal little jilt that threw me over for Sir Craven Oaks of our regiment. I thought I should have gone crazy." And he gives a melancholy whistle, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Bush got to a police-station above the barracks, and got muskets and a few cartridges from a discharged African soldier who was in the police establishment. Being joined by the policemen, Corporal Craven {175} and Ensign Pogson, they concealed themselves on an eminence above, and as the mutineers (about 100 in number) approached, the fire of muskets opened on them from the little ambush. The little party fired separately, ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... "Would I knew the cause of their capture! Did they fail of respect to the holy man or disobey him, or what was the matter?" Then they sprang up to battle with the Unbelievers and slew great numbers of them. The brave was known that day from craven men, and sword and spear were dyed with bloody stain; for the Infidels flocked up on them, as flies flock to drink, from hill and from plain; but Sharrkan and his men ceased not to wage the fight of those who ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... round in her tracks in twenty minutes, while he parenthetically endorsed Hungerford's remarks to me—though he was ignorant of them—that lascars should not be permitted on English passenger ships. He was supported by Sir Hayes Craven, a shipowner, who further said that not one out of ten British sailors could swim, while not five out of ten could row a boat properly. Ryder's anger was great, because Clovelly remarked with mock seriousness that the lascars ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... 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 at Verdun; at a time ...
— Through St. Dunstan's to Light • James H. Rawlinson

... Miss Cabot quickly found their way alone to the house of Mr. Smith on Craven Street. Miss Cabot left Richard in the carriage, walked quickly to the door, and sending up her card by the servant, requested to see Mr. Smith. The............. soon returned and begged her to come in. As soon as she had done so. Miss Cabot introduced herself to Mr.............. and begged ...
— Stanford Achievement Test, Ed. 1922 - Advanced Examination, Form A, for Grades 4-8 • Truman L. Kelley

... his Deputies, worn out with fatigue, consumed with the fever of sleeplessness and brandy, could only shake off their exhaustion by a violent effort; their broken health made them tragic figures to look upon. The jurors, divers in character and origin, some educated, others ignorant, craven or generous, gentle or violent, hypocritical or sincere, but all men who, knowing the fatherland and the Republic in danger, suffered or feigned to suffer the same anguish, to burn with the same ardour; all alike primed to atrocities ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... or sacrifice. After her great disappointment she had surrendered to depression of spirit, and she reacted in the same way after her father's death. And this surrender was early followed by weakness of her disused body. She also surrendered to the weakness of self-pity, that craven mocker of self-respect. She was not a will-less girl, but life had brought her small chance to develop that will which masters, while wilfulness, that will which demands selfishly for self, grew out of the soil so largely of her mother's preparing. This wilfulness, ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll

... bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,— "Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven, 45 Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore: Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!" Quoth ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill

... ALL to whom these Presents shall come, greeting: WHEREAS Our dear and entirely beloved Cousin, Prince Rupert, Count Palatine of the Rhine, Duke of Bavaria and Cumberland, &c. Christopher, Duke of Albemarle, William, Earl of Craven, Henry, Lord Arlington, Anthony, Lord Ashley, Sir John Robinson, and Sir Robert Vyner, Knights and Baronets, Sir Peter Colleton, Baronet, Sir Edward Hungerford, Knight of the Bath, Sir Paul Neele, Knight, Sir John ...
— Charter and supplemental charter of the Hudson's Bay Company • Hudson's Bay Company

... Beautiful scenery, painted by 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 ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter

... in the grave, where the head, heart, and breast From labour, and sorrow, for ever shall rest. Then, mother, my darlin', don't cry any more, Don't make me seem broken, in this, my last hour; For I wish, when my head's lyin' undher the raven, No thrue man can say that I died like a craven!" Then facin' the judge Shamus bent down his head, An' that minute the solemn death-sintance ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... to his discredit: there was my Lord Ailesbury in strict attendance on him; and Killigrew—he that had the theatre—and the less said of him the better: and there were three or four more like him; the Earl of Craven was there, colonel of the foot-guards; and Lord Keeper Guildford; and the Earl of Bath; and there, in the midst, the King himself, with his blue silk cloak over his shoulders, and his princely walk, going fast as he always did, and smiling-well, what of those ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson

... we adjourned at once to the wood behind the village. A little open glade was soon found; the ground was soon measured; the pistols were soon loaded. De Caylus looked horribly pale, but it was the pallor of concentrated rage, with nothing of the craven hue in it. Dalrymple, on the contrary, had neither more nor less color than usual, and puffed away at his cigar with as much indifference as if he were waiting his turn at the pit of the Comedie Francaise. Both were clothed in black from head to foot, with their coats ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... 'Ah, you craven crows!' cried Pavel, 'what are you frightened of? Look, the potatoes are done.' (They all came up to the pot and began to eat the smoking potatoes; only Vanya did not stir.) 'Well, aren't ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev

... become the sport of the rich alone. It is a national sport, and must be open to all—to rich and poor alike." There is, however, a recognised sum which qualifies the donor for hunt membership; for instance: the Craven minimum subscription, with membership, is L10; the Crawley and Horsham, 15 guineas; while subscribers of L25 to the Meynell hunt are privileged to wear the hunt button. In several hunts—Lord Fitzwilliam's, Mr. Bathurst's, the Belvoir, when hunted by the Duke of Rutland, ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes

... frightful visitation of the Plague, the Earl of Craven, and the Archbishop of Canterbury and Monk, were the only high officials who stayed at their posts, and exposed themselves perpetually to the 'seeds of death.' So great was the public confidence in him, that at the time of the Great ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... Who staggers in his seat. With proud disdain The youth now flings him headlong on the plain, And quick dismounting, on his heaving breast Triumphant stands, his Khunjer firmly prest, To strike the head off—but the blow was stayed—Trembling, for life, the craven boaster prayed. That mercy granted eased his coward mind, Though, dire disgrace, in captive bonds confined, And sent to Human, who amazed beheld How soon Sohrab his daring ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... it. They pointed out the big hotels opposite, and recommended more than one of the little ones in Craven Street. But the big hotels were all full to overflowing; and at the only little one he tried the boy lost his temper like a man on being requested to deposit six shillings before proceeding to his room. Pocket had not got it to deposit, ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung

... Marquis to intimidate the chief, who was made to understand that any resistance from him would be fatal to his child,—"an instrument," observes the seneachie, "which the coward well knew might be used with greater effect upon the noble father of his captive, than all the Campbell swords the craven lord could muster." Under these circumstances, Sir Lachlan Maclean was neither in the temper nor the condition to comply with the exactions of those whom he also regarded as having usurped the sovereign authority. He ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson

... an icy hand gripping at her heart. "Money is terribly useless," she had said to Riviere, but there were times when she wished passionately that she had the money with which to buy comforts for a life of blindness. Those were craven moments, however—moments which she despised when they were past. Of what use to her would be the silken-padded cage she had longed to buy, when life held for her ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg

... open-hearted Squire of Cranbury, Thomas Chamberlayne, Esq., died on October 1876, being succeeded by his son Tankerville Chamberlayne, Esq.; and Brambridge, after descending from the Smythes to a niece, the Honourable Mrs. Craven, whose son sold it, has since several ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge

... proffer," said the prince, "the provost of the lists shall cut thy bowstring, break thy bow and arrows, and expel thee from the presence as a faint-hearted craven." ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin

... thee not, Miles," said Eveline. "One were craven to forget a benefit. Only show me how I can aid thee, and my assistance ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... Craven, Wesley F., Dissolution of the Virginia Company: the Failure of a Colonial Experiment. New ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes

... Alcibiades, listening now to language entirely free from every thought of unmanly fondness and silly displays of affection, found himself with one who sought to la open to him the deficiencies of his mind and repress his vain and foolish arrogance, and "Dropped like the craven cock his conquered wing." He esteemed these endeavors of Socrates as most truly a means which the gods made use of for the care and preservation of youth, and it was a matter of general wonder, when people saw him joining Socrates in his meals and his exercises, living ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... 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

... they deserved, created some consternation in the family circle; while the reading set at Cambridge was duly scandalised at the influence which one, whose classical attainments were rather discursive than exact, had gained over a Craven scholar. To this hour men may be found in remote parsonages who mildly resent the fascination which Austin of Jesus exercised over Macaulay of Trinity. [It was at this period of his career that Macaulay said to the late Mr. Hampden Gurney: "Gurney, I have been a ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... some care the things for which you may pray, the aspirations which your children can share with you. Few things are more difficult than this, so to pray that all can make the prayer their own. Let it also be a prayer of love and joy, not a craven begging off from punishments, nor a cowardly plea for protection and provision. We can pray over all these things with gratitude and with confidence toward the God of love. Do not try to preach in your prayers. Many prayers have been ruined by preaching, just as some ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope

... nor one of whom the old French proverb says: Il ne soit sur quel pied danser. [He knows not on which leg to dance.] Its principles shall be open, magnanimous and free. It shall be subservient to no party or body of men; and neither the craven fear of loss, nor the threats of the disappointed, nor the influence of power, shall ever awe one single opinion into silence. Honest and fair discussion it will court; and its columns will be open to all ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... a Mr. Wilson, formerly curate of Halton Gill, near Skipton-in-Craven, Yorkshire, in the last century wrote a tract entitled The Man in the Moon, which was seriously meant to convey the knowledge of common astronomy in the following strange vehicle: A cobbler, Israel Jobson by name, is supposed to ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... Weigh the meaning of thy rede? Would'st thou dare the dropping away Of allegiance, should our sway And sweet splendour and renown All be risked? (methinks a crown Doth become thee marvellous well). We ourself are, truth to tell, Kingly both of wont and kind, Suits not such the craven mind.' 'Yet this weird thou can'st not dree.' Quoth the queen, 'And live;' then he, 'I must die and leave the fair Unborn, long-desired ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow

... dead. Wherefore wast not thou slain before him? I wish not to see thy face." "Father," 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 ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir

... to Harte, who waits with impatience for your letter. He is very happy now in having free access to all Lord Craven's papers, which, he says, give him great lights into the 'bellum tricenale'; the old Lord Craven having been the professed and valorous knight-errant, and perhaps something more, to the Queen of Bohemia; at least, like Sir Peter Pride, he had the honor of spending great part of his estate ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... city peopled with heroes. There are Travis and Crockett and Bowie, who held The Alamo until they all were slain; there is Craven, who stepped aside that his pilot might escape from his sinking ship; there is Lawrence, whose last words are still ringing down the years; there is Nathan Hale, immortalized by his lofty bearing beneath the scaffold; there is Robert Gould Shaw, who led a forlorn hope at the head of ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson

... and wailings were heard in Courthouse and Theatre, on the Thames estuary the ruddy glow of sunset looked like blood and flame, the sand-ripples and sea-wrack left by the ebb suggested corpses; everything ministered to their craven fear. ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare

... know you as I do, lad," retorted Roger, "I should be inclined to dub you craven; but, as it is, I know full well that you only suffer from excess of caution, even as you say that I suffer from lack of the same. But I do not agree with your prophecy that I should not live to bring home my spoil. No, I feel within myself that I shall succeed in my venture, if I can ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... (1502).] may likewise choose the French Josse or Gosse. Goss may also be a dialect pronunciation of gorse, the older form of which has given the name Gorst. Coward, though humble, cow-herd, is no more timid than Craven, the name of a district in the ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley

... obstinate. The Marquis might be claiming no more than by ancient law was the due of the Seigneur, but Charlot was by no means minded to submit in craven acquiescence to ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini

... pity in the pale moon. The cold, steady stars shine down on the upturned faces of the South's best and bravest. No craven blenching when the tattered Stars and Bars bear up in battle blast. And yet the starry flag crowns mountain and rock. It sweeps through blood-stained gorges and past battle-scarred defile. Onward, ever southward. The two giant swordsmen ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... approached the table of death. I began to feel a strong natural disinclination to swallow the stuff. "This," said I, "is sheer animal cowardice." I again uncorked the phial. A new phase of the matter appeared to me. "It is the act of a craven to shirk the responsibilities of life. Can you be such a meanspirited creature as not even to have the courage to live?" "No," said I, "I have a valiant spirit," and I set down the bottle. "Bah," ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... as 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, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... had as honorable place as any other courageous, reasonable and unselfish act. Antony, Brutus, Cato, Seneca—these were not of the kind of men to do deeds of cowardice and folly. The smug, self-righteous modern way of looking upon the act as that of a craven or a lunatic is the creation of priests, Philistines and women. If courage is manifest in endurance of profitless discomfort it is cowardice to warm oneself when cold, to cure oneself when ill, to drive away mosquitoes, to go in when it rains. The ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... populace,—another moment, and the deathsman is defrauded. O Zanoni! why still upon THY brow the resignation that speaks no hope? Tramp! tramp! through the streets dash the armed troop; faithful to his orders, Black Henriot leads them on. Tramp! tramp! over the craven and scattered crowd! Here, flying in disorder,—there, trampled in the mire, the shrieking rescuers! And amidst them, stricken by the sabres of the guard, her long hair blood-bedabbled, lies the Italian woman; and still upon her writhing ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... held in the office of the Panama Railroad Company in New York, August 27, 1849, for the purpose of suggesting measures expressive of their respect for the memory of Major Whistler, Wm. H. Sidell being chairman and A.W. Craven secretary, it was resolved that a monument in Greenwood Cemetery would be a suitable mode of expressing the feelings of the profession in this respect, and that an association be formed to collect funds and take all necessary steps to carry out the work. At this meeting Capt. William H. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various

... about what they were going to eat marked for her the severing difference between Craven's mental attitude at this moment and hers. For him this little dinner was merely a pleasant way of spending a casual evening in the company of one who was kind to him, whom he found sympathetic, whom he admired probably as a striking representative of an ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... to 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 ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn't touched. I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of somber pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror—of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision,—he cried out twice, ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad

... the three skulking boys. He had purposely spoken as if there might be men coming on the run to assist old Mr. McGirt; for he knew the aggressive natures of at least Shack and Ossie, though Amiel Toots was a craven who generally struck behind one's back and then ran off; and Max did not care to engage in any fight at such a time and ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie

... not get this news about Clayton." Ferris' eyes were averted. In his craven heart there was but one burning question, "My God! Did he remake his will after our marriage? I may be left ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage

... in every respect for a family of position," haunted a lawyer's offices, the "Uninhabited House," about which I have a story to tell, haunted those of Messrs. Craven and Son, No. ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell

... whatever I had to meet had met me in the round space among the candle-wood roots. The hair on my wrists stirred, a cry came to my throat and was over the edge of it and into the dark night like a man's heart scurrying craven to the door. ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro

... knew that for the time she was mad, and would kill me even as she had said, did I not swear. So I did take that fearful oath, coward as I was, and to this day am I a craven when I think on 't. When I had sworn, she turned from me as though there were no such woman in all the earth, and went once more to the door o' th' cave, and called ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives

... as not deigning Those craven ranks to see; Naught spake he to Lars Porsena, To Sextus naught spake he: 245 But he saw on Palatinus The white porch of his home; And he spake to the noble river That rolls by ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty

... fulfilling my commands, wait for my summons, where their eyes cannot see what we do. The danger is of a kind in which the boldest son of the East would be more craven, perhaps, that the daintiest Sybarite of Europe, who would shrink from a panther and laugh at a ghost. In the creed of the Dervish, and of all who adventure into that realm of Nature which is closed to philosophy and open to ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... had indicated a spot from which part of the patio, or courtyard, was visible. His command was instantly obeyed, for the craven Comandante saw that certain death was ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid

... Queen, "that I am seeking what belongs to others. God forbid. I seek only that which is mine own. But be sure that I will take good heed of the sword which threatens me with destruction, nor think that I am so craven-spirited as to endure a wrong, or to place myself at the mercy of my enemy. Every week I see advertisements and letters from Spain that this year shall witness the downfall of England; for the Spaniards—like the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... towards a Saxon, and strikes him with his ashen lance with the head on it, full in the breast, so that he has lost his stirrups; and he calls out, "Barons, strike! I am Cliges whom you seek. On now, bold freeborn knights! Let there be no coward, for ours is the first shock. Let no craven taste of such ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes

... substantially impossible for her to play the part assigned to her; Miss Mann was in a similar dilemma, from which no modern views on the sexes could apparently extricate her; and some young ladies, whose surnames happened to be Low, Coward, and Craven, were quite enthusiastic against the idea. But all this happened afterwards. What happened at the crucial moment was that the lecturer produced several horseshoes and a large iron hammer from his bag, announced his immediate intention ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton

... prevail! the Christians yield! Their coward leader gives for flight the sign! The sceptred craven mounts to quit the field - Is not yon steed Orelio?—Yes, 'tis mine! But never was she turned from battle-line: Lo! where the recreant spurs o'er stock and stone! - Curses pursue the slave, and wrath divine! Rivers ingulph him!"—"Hush," in shuddering ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott

... saw the fury of the squall, he felt that all his skill and all his courage would avail him as nought to save the Sea Hawk. In this, his last dire extremity, no craven fear filled his heart, and though for his own life he cared not, he remembered that there were others whose lives depended on him. To fly towards the stern before the vessel's deck had become completely perpendicular, was the work of one moment, while in the next he dragged Ada ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... tract of country extending from the 36th degree of north latitude to the river St. Matheo, was made a province by the name of Carolina, and granted to lord Clarendon, the duke of Albemarle, lord Craven, lord Berkeley, lord Ashley, sir George Carteret, sir John Colleton, and sir William Berkeley, in absolute property for ever. This charter bears a strong resemblance to that of Maryland, and was probably copied ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall

... 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 my mother down almost, for my mother and my brother ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall

... Harangue a craven soldiery, What heroes they will seem to be! But let them snuff the smoke of battle, Or even hear the ramrods rattle, Adieu to all their spunk and mettle: Your own example will be vain, And exhortations, ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... nor craven fly Unto the murky wood for cover, I'll guard my life right valiantly, And thus I'll prove me ...
— Proud Signild - and Other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise

... Newmarket meetings usually absorbs my thoughts, oppresses me with its complicated interests, and destroys all my journalising energies. After a month's interval, I take up my pen to note down the events that have occurred in it. I went to Newmarket on Saturday before the Craven Meeting, and on Sunday morning received a letter informing me of the sudden death of my sister-in-law (Mrs. Algernon Greville), which obliged me to return to town. This grievous affliction, so heavy and irreparable to those ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... craven king, would have let him who had come with the armed bands take the maiden. Perseus came beside Andromeda and he made his claim. Phineus spoke insolently to him, and then he urged one of his captains to strike Perseus down. Many sprang forward to attack ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum

... is no more and that Robin and his merry men are gone forever! Why, only yesternight I walked with them in that gracious forest and laughed defiance at the doughty sheriff and his craven menials. The moonlight twinkled and sifted through the boscage, and the wind was fresh and cool. Right merrily we sang, and I doubt not we should have sung the whole night through had not my sister, Miss Susan, come tapping at my door, saying that I had ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field

... near approach of the house-dog he dropped his tail between his legs and ingloriously sneaked between the legs of the horses, which of course gave the gentleman of the house a high opinion of his own prowess—so much so, indeed, that the craven spirit of Brusa never before appeared in such a despicable light. He cringed and howled with terror, which so flattered the vanity of the other that a ferocious attack was the immediate consequence. Fortunately, a kick from one of the horses laid Brusa's ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... ideals. To describe these lives in all their miserable 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 ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James

... word Said now the figure motionless, with sword In hand. This sovereign soul seemed to commune With self beneath his metal sheath; yet soon And suddenly, with tranquil voice said he, "Princes, your craven spirit wearies me. No phantom—only man am I. Arise! I like not to be dreaded otherwise Than with the fear to which I'm used; know me, For it is ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... other side. Halt! I there recognize the voice of the Duke of Ormskirk. I came into this country to find John Bulmer; and John Bulmer would most certainly have spurred his gallant charger upon the craven who is just now molesting yonder female. In consequence, my gallant charger, we will at once proceed to ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... Thy counsel is craven, Thy caution I slight, No brave-hearted champion Should shrink from the fight. The blood I inherit Doth prompt me to do— Let us go to the challenge, To the Ford let ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy

... you loved me! You have owned it since. Ah, my darling, how I have hated myself for my dulness that night!—hated myself for not having seized you in my arms, if need were, and carried you off to the end of the world to make you my wife. What a fool and craven I must have been to be put ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... of the Newhaven steamer, Paris, you're no craven; Grim and growling was the gale that you from your dead reckoning bore; And, but for your brave behaving, she might never have made haven, But have foundered in mid-Channel, or been wrecked on a lee-shore. With your paddle-floats unfeathered, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 8, 1890 • Various

... 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

... know them all—Ledyard, who died stainless, with his own sword murdered; Herkimer, who died because he was not brave enough to do his duty and be called a coward for doing it; Woolsey, the craven Major at the Middle Fort, stammering filthy speeches in his terror when Sir John Johnson's rangers closed in; Poor, who threw his life away for vanity when that life belonged to the land! Yes, we know them all—great, greater, and less great—our ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers

... Roumanian 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, Mrs. Sydney ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... Roberts and Stanfield, Grieve and Telbin, and to come down to the present time, Beverley and Calcott, Hawes Craven and O'Connor, there seems little occasion to speak; the achievements of these artists are matters of almost universal knowledge. It is sufficient to say that in their hands the art they practise has been greatly advanced, even to the eclipse now and ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... "Craven Street. Really!" The girls were plainly shocked, but Ida rallied bravely, and said in her most courteous air: "It must be so interesting to live in a street! So much to see. And have you very interesting people ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... acted together in the matter of the incarceration of Lady Elizabeth; for, while the former pleaded for it, the latter ordered it. It was spent partly at the house of Alderman Bennet,[30] and partly at that of Sir William Craven,[31] Lord Mayor of London in the years 1610 and 1618, and father of the first Earl of Craven. In both houses she was doubtless treated with all respect, and she must have occupied a position in them something between that of a paying-guest and a lunatic ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville

... given, and I should be a craven if I stayed away now, just because an old crone sitting at a quernstone tells me I am going ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum

... bred Doth come into the pitt with greater grace, Brislinge his feathers, settinge upp his plumes, Clappinge his winges and crowinge lowder out Then doth a cocke of game that meanes to fight; Yett after, when he feeles the spurres to pricke, Crakes like a Craven and bewrayes himself: Even soe my bigbond Daines, adrest to fight As though they meant to scale the Cope of heaven, (And like the Giants graple with the gods) At first encounter rush uppon theire foes But straight retire: retire? nay, run awaye As men distraught with lightninge from ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... is craven, doubtless; but I am awe-stricken and tremble, for truly, "the rage of the ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler

... If you should see them again, or hear where they are, oblige me by conveying this card to Mr. Waife. My employer, ma'am, Mr. Gotobed, Craven Street, Strand,—eminent solicitor. He has something of importance ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... give up his office. He says that so long as he and his family are preserved, so long will he strive to do his duty towards his fellow men. There be many like him—our good Lord Mayor for one; and my Lord Craven, who will not fly, as almost all the great ones have done, but stays to help to govern the city wisely, and to see that the alms are distributed aright to the poor at ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green

... the torrents voice would thrill Each craven breast with fear; For dumb distress or human ill There drops ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various

... sorrowing, and the sinner. The mere appearance of the congregation in a prosperous Protestant church in an American city is a mockery of Christianity. Any man who preaches to men who can own a seat in God's house is a craven opportunist. Until the doors of the churches are open all the week, and the seats in the churches free, to claim that the Christ is there is little short of blasphemy. It is no wonder that those who need Him most, never dream of seeking for ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... she recounted her benefits, the strength there was in her arose, protesting. She called herself harsh names: egoist, craven, faineant. But it was no use to attack herself. In the deeps of her poor, eager, passionate, hungry woman's nature something wept, and needed, and could not be comforted, and could not be schooled. It complained as one feeble, but really it must be strong; for it ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... must pardon my using her own words; 'but if thou darest go in their stead, thou mayst be the saviour of king and kingdoms; if thou art afraid, keep secret, I will myself try the adventure.' Now may Heaven forbid, that Geoffrey Hudson were craven enough, said I, to let thee run such a risk! You know not—you cannot know, what belongs to such ambuscades and concealments—I am accustomed to them—have lurked in the pocket of a giant, and have formed the ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... been uneasiness as to all the small and many of the large "industrials," belief in National Woolens and in the stability of John Dumont had remained strong. But of all the cowards that stand sentinel for capital, the most craven is Confidence. At the deafening crash of the fall of Dumont's private character, Confidence girded its loins and tightened its vocal cords to be in readiness for ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips

... marry Lieutenant Reynolds if he had only his ears left to hear me tell him how much I love and honor him! Arthur Grey! Don't talk to me of him! the craven coward, who will neither volunteer nor give a cent for our poor, suffering soldiers, but turns people off with: 'Government provides,' or 'the stores do not reach them,' and all those subterfuges to which mean men resort to keep from giving, and to avoid the draft ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... pounds—less than a lazy evening's work. So I'll let the trifling theft pass." But the cowards were not content with Jack's generosity, and seizing upon him, they thrust him neck and crop through the window. They were seventeen to one, the craven-hearted loons; and I could but leave the marks of my nails on the cheek of the foremost, and follow my hero into the yard, where we took coach, and drove sulkily ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... great old hall in the north-east of Lancashire, in a part they call the Trough of Bolland, adjoining that other district named Craven. Starkey Manor-House is rather like a number of rooms clustered round a grey, massive, old keep than a regularly-built hall. Indeed, I suppose that the house only consisted of the great tower in ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... 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 ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed

... stands For the old Flag, wherever flying! Brave WALLIS, gallant GRANT, clasp hands! My sons! Unfaltering, undying, Beneath grey hairs, or youth's brown locks, The spirit proud of patriot valour! Not desperate odds in war's wild shocks Shall strike its flush to craven pallor. Mud-fort, or "mealey" bastion, deck Of shot-torn ship, or red "death-valley," What odds? Of danger nought I reck, Whilst thus my sons to me can rally. Come what, come will! Whilst centuried age And ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 25, 1891 • Various

... the flying sea-spray drenches Fore and aft the rowers' benches, Not a single heart is craven Of the champions there ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... since the reception of the Empress Josephine, and only one remained of the time which had been allowed to my cousin Sibylle in which she might save her lover, and capture the terrible Toussac. For my own part I was not so very anxious that she should save this craven lover of hers, whose handsome face belied the poor spirit within him. And yet this lonely beautiful woman, with the strong will and the loyal heart, had touched my feelings, and I felt that I would help her to anything—even against my ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle

... John Esten Cooke's novels and his lives of Stonewall Jackson and Lee, two or three collections of the war poetry of the South, Gayarre's histories, the "War between the States", by Alexander H. Stephens, Craven's "Prison Life of Jefferson Davis", and Dabney's "Defense of Virginia" are perhaps the most significant. J. Wood Davidson's "Living Writers of the South", published in 1869, gives the best general idea of the extent and quality of the ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims

... 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

... 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 of craven would you hear. This is the language of one, ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... hoards his fame, And shuns to peril it with younger men." And, greatly moved, then Rustum made reply:— "O Gudurz, wherefore dost thou say such words? Thou knowest better words than this to say. What is one more, one less, obscure or famed, Valiant or craven, young or old, to me? Are not they mortal, am not I myself? But who for men of nought would do great deeds? Come, thou shalt see how Rustum hoards his fame! But I will fight unknown, and in plain arms; Let not men say of ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... exhibition of cowardice was almost successful in winning for Walford an ignominious release. The mutineers were so unutterably disgusted that, for a moment, their impulse was to kick him out of the cabin like a craven hound and henceforward ignore his existence. But this impulse lasted only for a moment; they recalled to mind the insolent arrogance with which this same cowering creature had treated them when he deemed himself secure from retaliation; and they determined that, while his miserable ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood

... mortification he was unable to carry out his part of the programme; but on the evening of the 4th the Tecumseh arrived, together with the Richmond, which had been for a few days at Pensacola preparing for the fight. "I regret to have detained you, admiral," said Craven, the commander of the monitor, "but had it not been for Captain Jenkins (of the Richmond), God knows when I should have been here. When your order came I had not received an ounce of coal." In his report of the battle, Farragut warmly acknowledged ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan

... argued with herself, but still she staid on. For love makes the proudest a craven, and turns the strength of the strongest into weakness; and so, in spite of herself, she staid, ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... it is difficult, perhaps to single out one set for especial praise; but my advice is, on no account miss the Second Scene of the Prologue, "on the Battlements of a Castle in Normandy," painted by W. TELBIN. "Rosamond's Bower," by HAWES CRAVEN, is equally perfect in another and of course totally distinct line. To pronounce upon Professor STANFORD'S music when "the play's the thing" is impossible. The entr'actes deserve such special attention as they ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various

... glory floats In every trumpet's cheering notes! Go forth, to where a freeman's death Glares in each cannon's fiery breath! Go forth and triumph o'er the foe; Or failing that, with pleasure go To molder on the battle-plain, Freed ever from the tyrant's chain! But if your hearts should craven prove, Forgetful of your zeal—your love For rights and franchises of men, My heart will break; but even then, Whilst bidding life and earth adieu, This be the prayer I'll breathe for you: 'Passing from guilt to misery, May this for aye your portion be,— ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various

... 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— "Oh, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war, Or to dance at our bridal, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... Once again were damsels rescued, dragons disembowelled, and giants, in every corner of the orchard, deprived of their already superfluous number of heads; while Palamides the Saracen waited for us by the well, and Sir Breuse Saunce Pite vanished in craven flight before the skilled spear that was his terror and his bane. Once more the lists were dight in Camelot, and all was gay with shimmer of silk and gold; the earth shook with thunder of horses, ash-staves flew in splinters; and the firmament rang to the clash of ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame

... many humane instincts, as many hours of decent work and responsibility as any other ordinary man. But behind all this he has his real weaknesses, the real ironies of his soul: behind all these ordinary merits lie the mean compromises, the craven silences, the sullen vanities, the secret brutalities, the unmanly visions of revenge. It is to these that satire should reach if it is to touch the man at whom it is aimed. And to reach these it must pass and salute a whole army ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton

... and over in my heart, Michael Daragh. I caught hold of him and shook him and I was so strong I scared myself. "You pitiful, craven-hearted old coward," I said, "all you can think of is your sour old self! If you loved him—if you knew the first faint beginning of love—" I snatched up the letter I had addressed to Dan'l and ran over to the dresser for my purse. ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell

... Moreover, though the law might be impotent to deal with Murrell, he could not hope to escape the vengeance of the powerful class he had plotted to destroy; he would have to quit the country. Ware gloated in this idea of craven flight. Thank God, he had ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... "The craven that he is!" cried Hagen hoarsely. "Once he was a king, and worthy to be obeyed; but now who is the king? That upstart Siegfried has but to say what shall be done, and our master Gunther, blindly and like a child, complies. Four days ago ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin

... since Gordon died! A year ago to-night, the Desert still Crouched on the spring, and panted for its fill Of lust and blood. Their old art statesmen plied, And paltered, and evaded, and denied; Guiltless as yet, except for feeble will, And craven heart, and calculated skill In long delays, of their ...
— Grass of Parnassus • Andrew Lang

... goats stood shivering, watching the struggle with yellow, staring eyes which showed no trace of fear. Like brave generals of a craven band they were alone in their hardihood and, with their feet upon the promised land, were doomed either to proceed alone or return to their companions. So at last they did, plunging in suddenly, while the man on the mule ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... deposited Silas 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, with infinite trouble and complaint, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... as unscrupulous. He never hesitated to cheat where he had an opportunity, trusting to his powers of blustering and browbeating to sustain him. When these failed, that is, when he encountered persons who were not imposed on nor intimidated by his swaggering, bullying mien, he showed his craven nature by an abject submission. From being an errand boy in an old-established paper house in the city, he had himself become the proprietor of a large business in the same line. He had but a single idea—to ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... as not deigning Those craven ranks to see; 10 Naught spake he to Lars Porsena, To Sextus naught spake he; But he saw on Palatinus The white porch of his home; And he spake to the noble river 15 That rolls ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... up and leaned with his back against the wall, bracing his legs which threatened to crumple up under him. With a sort of craven bravado, he inhaled deeply. The end of the cigarette created a passing but none the less comforting glow which died away almost instantly. A jolly brave thing, a cigarette,—No wonder the soldiers smoked them! Nerve ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon

... or whatever yer name is," said Dunn, as he led the way into the presence of Mr. Grimshaw, the lean, haggard-looking man we have before described. His dark, craven features, as he sat peering through his glasses at the morning news, gave him the appearance of a man of whom little was, to be expected by those who had the misfortune to fall into ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams

... although 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, not without ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews

... let us for a moment turn to another accusation levelled against Catholic men of science by anti-Catholic writers, that of concealing their real opinions on scientific matters, and even of professing views which they do not really hold, out of a craven fear of ecclesiastical denunciations. The attitude which permits of such an accusation is hardly courteous, but, stripped of its verbiage, that is the accusation as it is made. Now, as there are usually at least some ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle

... a sudden, strange, and indefinite suspicion; to fling myself in his way; to take him by the shoulders as if he were a child, and turn his craven face, perforce, towards the board, were with me ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various

... Mr. Cole, Aug. 22.-Chatterton. Attacks on Walpole in the Critical Review. Lord Hardwicke and the Carleton Papers. Literary squabbles. The "Old English Baron." Lady Craven's ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... 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 ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond

... more, he became extravagant, and brought home books for her and Christine, bidding them improve their minds, and Bessie found herself the possessor of several nice books, not wholly instructive—for "Lorna Doone," and Miss Austen's "Emma," and "A Sister's Story," by Mrs. Craven, ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... They turn them on their track, Look at the caitiff craven wights Repentant, hurrying back! Grown ashamed of nowhere, Of rags endured for years, Lust for velvet in their hearts, Pierced with Mammon's spears, All but a few fanatics Give up their darling goal, Seek to be as others are, Stultify the soul. Reapings now confront ...
— General William Booth enters into Heaven and other Poems • Vachel Lindsay

... may satisfy it, have undoubtedly the effect of binding us to earth and earthly conditions; they come between us and faith in true immortality. They cannot restore to us what death takes away. They cannot lay the spectre which made Claudio a craven. ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge

... Johannesboorg or Council Bluffs. But where were they? That was th' question. An idee struck me. War is as much a matther iv ingenooty an' thought as iv fire an' slaughter. I sint out f'r an avenin' paper an' as I suspicted, it announced that th' craven foe was about two blocks away. At that very moment, th' sthrains iv th' "Bloo Danoob" was wafted to me ears an' me suspicions was confirmed. On such occasions there is no sleep f'r th' modhren sojer. Napolyon wud've gone to bed but slumber niver crost me tired eyelids. 'Twas six ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne

... heard it supported as an interesting experiment in Zionism. I have heard it denounced as a craven concession to Zionism. I think it is quite obviously a flat and violent contradiction to Zionism. Zionism, as I have always understood it, and indeed as I have always defended it, consists in maintaining that it would be better for all parties if Israel ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton

... speak not to me, What knowest thou of love almighty? Naught except that craven spirit Measuring, weighing, calculating, That goes shivering to its bridal. On this deathless soul, all hazard Here I take, and if it perish, Let it perish. From the socket This right eye I'd pluck, extinguish This right hand, if he desire it, And go maim'd through all ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney

... coercion. Public meetings were suppressed, and the liberty of the press was invaded. The insulted citizens of Paris rose in arms, barricades were erected, and the king, as cowardly as he was corrupt, had not the manhood to stand by his own measures, but fled, with craven spirit, to take refuge in the country whose queen and people he had betrayed. Under the common English name of Smith this proud prince found means of escaping from the country he had deceived, pillaged, and oppressed, and which allowed him to pass ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... for the moment. Perhaps he was satisfied at the success of his taunt, even though the terror within his craven soul still caused the cold shiver to course up and down his spine. Chauvelin had once more turned to the window; his gaze was fixed upon the distance far away. The window gave on the North. That way, in a straight line, lay Calais, Boulogne, England—where he ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... almighty wave of faith in themselves the German people ceased playing the political craven; came out boldly for what they hold to be their too ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel

... ocean's foam, And lit thy banner as it stood unfurl'd; When, from thy farthest mountain to the sea, All rose to bless that banner and be free, Where perch'd thy eagle, in victorious might, While the proud, lordly lion fled in craven flight. ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas

... on every face As the wronged ones took their stand On the right of all to a resting-place In a tinfoil fatherland; Yes, each one, knowing he fought for home, Cast craven fear to the gales, And the oil was whipped to a creamy foam By the lashing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various

... for the news of his mother's death. When word was at length brought him that she had escaped, his craven soul was filled with terror. If this should get abroad; if she should call on her slaves, on the army, on the senate; if the people should learn of the plot of murder, and rise in riot; if any of a dozen contingencies should ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... was faithless to another. His punishments were refinements of cruelty, the starvation of children, the crushing old men under copes of lead. His court was a brothel where no woman was safe from the royal lust, and where his cynicism loved to publish the news of his victims' shame. He was as craven in his superstition as he was daring in his impiety. Though he scoffed at priests and turned his back on the mass even amidst the solemnities of his coronation, he never stirred on a journey without hanging relics round his neck. But with the wickedness ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green

... in that most delightful of all books about London, The Town, tells us that No. 7 Craven Street, Strand, was once the dwelling of Benjamin Franklin, and he adds, with the manliness which is always such a curious element of his unmanliness: "What a change along the shore of the Thames in a few years (for two centuries are less than a few in the lapse ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... in Skipton-in-Craven Is never a haven, But many a day foul weather; And he that would say A pretty girl nay, I wish for his cravat ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... craven silence? Oh, fling it to the wind, The parchment wall that bars us from the least of human kind, That makes us cringe and temporize, and dumbly stand at rest, While Pity's burning flood of words is red-hot ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... only challenged, but even pursued him, and blocked up his passage in the public highway; outrages which he (Sir Launcelot) would not suffer to pass unpunished. Accordingly, he insisted on the combat, on pain of treating Sycamore as a craven, and a recreant. This declaration was reinforced by Dawdle, who told him, that, should he now decline the engagement, all the world would look upon him as an ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... would himself have betrayed; and he thought, too, that I had only promised him his life and the gold to make him speak, and that now I would keep him prisoner and perhaps kill him in the end. So he fell on his knees, like the craven that he was, and begged for mercy, and told Hartness of my promise, and with Hartness's lips I told him only that he must have patience and wait until it was my pleasure to do ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith

... they had been out-generalled, and they understood their deficiencies. Not a man among them knew the finer points of warfare. They were thugs and roustabouts and ill-omened fellows who could stab in the back; they were craven in the face of ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... 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

... they proceeded to Hereson the next evening at nine o'clock, accompanied by Mrs Justina Cohen, her daughter Lucy, and Mr Benjamin Gomperz. On the ground they were met by Cresford the builder, with his nephew, also Grundy with his son, and Craven his partner. Everything having been properly prepared, Mr Montefiore covered the part on which the wall near the Holy Ark for the reception of the sacred scrolls of the Pentateuch was to be built, with Terra Santa, which they had brought with them from Jerusalem. Upon this Mr Montefiore, ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore

... not a little distracted by these and a great many other incoherent exclamations of joy, Rose read the address, which was Craven Street, in the Strand. She very soon determined upon turning ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... flaw in mere brute courage that it will break at the pinch. No sooner did the volunteer captain catch a glimpse of his up-coming reinforcements than he must needs show us a clean pair of heels, running like a craven coward and shouting madly to his men to close with ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... his head in his hands, turned in his tracks as if struck with vertigo. A flash of craven inspiration suggested to him an expedient not unknown to European statesmen when they wish to delay a difficult negotiation. Booted and spurred, he scrambled into the hammock with undignified haste. His handsome face had turned yellow with the strain of weighty cares. The ridge of his shapely ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... and relaxation from your professional duties? Is there any topographical history of your neighbourhood? I remember reading White's Natural History and Antiquities of Selbourne with great pleasure, when a boy at school, and I have lately read Dr. Whitaker's History of Craven and Whalley, both with profit and pleasure. Would it not be worth your while to give some of your leisure hours to a work of this kind, making those works partly your model, and adding thereto from the ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... self-poised Boston. Changing his subject, he spoke with hostile, yet chivalrous, respect of the pluck of the Black Republicans in Congress. They had never faltered; they had vouchsafed no hint of concession; while, on the other hand, Southerners had shamed him by their craven spirit. It grieved, it mortified him, to see such a man as Crittenden on his knees to the North, begging, actually with tears, for what he ought to demand as a right, with head erect and hands clenched. He departed with a mysterious allusion to some secret of his for taking Fort Sumter,—some ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various



Words linked to "Craven" :   cowardly, fearful, poltroon, cravenness, coward



Copyright © 2025 Free-Translator.com