"Courtier" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... My Lady rides, The bravest, gayest courtier Would lose her, if he weren't besides A ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... In the course of the conversation, in which, as before, Buckle touched points in the whole circle of literature and science, giving us quotations even in Hebrew from the Talmud and the Bible, he made a very pretty compliment to our host, introduced as adroitly as from the lips of a professed courtier, but evidently spoken on the moment. It was something in this way. Hekekyan and Buckle were in an argument, and Buckle said, "Ah, you mistake a necessary condition for the cause." "What is cause ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... very low and very respectfully, Chauvelin advanced towards her, with all the airs of a disgraced courtier craving ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... on his arrival at Rome, Tasso was received by the Cardinals Cinzio and Pietro Aldobrandini, nephews of the pope, not as a courtier, but as a friend. At their palace he completed the "Jerusalem Conquered," and published it with a dedication to Cardinal Cinzio. This work was preferred by its author to the "Jerusalem Delivered." It is remarkable that Milton made a similar error ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... early days! Lucky did they count themselves if they had news ten times a year, and not more than four months old. One of the best of their stories is of a certain lover whose gallant grace was not unworthy a courtier of Queen Elizabeth. One evening this swain, after securing at the post-office his treasured mail budget, was escorting his lady-love home through the muddy, ill-lighted streets of little Christchurch. A light of some sort was needed at an especially miry crossing. The devoted squire did ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... chorus: "These I take to be the Puritan governors of Massachusetts: Endicott, Winthrop, Vane, Dudley, Haynes, Bellingham, Leverett, Bradstreet." Then came a rude soldier, mailed, begirt with arms: the tyrant Andros; a brown-faced man with a sailor's gait: Sir William Phipps; a courtier wigged and jewelled: Earl Bellomont; the crafty, well-mannered Dudley; the twinkling, red-nosed Shute; the ponderous Burnet; the gouty Belcher; Shirley, Pownall, Bernard, Hutchinson; then a soldier, whose cocked hat he ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... were filled with peace, since he had learned how to get on with Miss Thorne. When she showed herself stubborn and unyielding, he retreated gracefully, and with a suggestion of amusement, as a courtier may step aside gallantly for an angry lady to pass. Ruth felt his mental attitude and, even though she resented it, she ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... biographers of Signorelli, following the lead of Vasari, have dwelt much on his friendship with contemporary princes—the Baglioni, Vitelli, etc.; till we have grown to think of him rather as a silk-clad courtier than a hard-working burgher and painter. It may well be that, like Leonardo, he combined work with luxury, but the evidence is of too slight a nature to allow us to consider that side of his life, if it really existed. Of his friendship with Lorenzo dei Medici, however, ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell
... heart true; and in the stately society of his time, if Bacon were the philosopher, Shakespeare the poet, Burleigh the counsellor, Raleigh the soldier, Drake the sailor, Hooker the theologian, Essex the courtier, and Gresham the merchant, was not Philip Sidney as distinctively the gentleman? Heroes stood beside him in clusters, poets in constellations; all the illustrious men of the age achieved more tangible results ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... embodied his intimate feelings, and that lively spirit of satire which the baseness of the Pontifical court summoned into life. This satiric vein had, indeed, already shown itself in his mocking counsel to le Poete courtisan: the courtier poet is to be a gentleman who writes at ease; he is not to trouble himself with study of the ancients; he is to produce only pieces of occasion, and these in a negligent style; the rarer and the smaller they are the better; and happily at last ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... the habit of command impart a certain elevation to the manner and the bearing. There was probably more of dignity in the poorest Spartan citizen than in the wealthiest noble of Corinth—the most voluptuous courtier of Syracuse. And thus the reserve, the decorum, the stately simplicity of the Spartan mien could not but impose upon the imagination of the other Greeks, and obtain the credit for correspondent qualities which did not always exist beneath that lofty exterior. ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... he assumed the Protectorship. Upon the restoration of Charles, Waller wrote another in praise of him, and presented it to the King in person. After his Majesty had read the poem, he told Waller that he wrote a better on Cromwell. "Please your Majesty," said Waller, like a true courtier, "we poets are always more happy ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... her crown many months when she found herself in considerable danger of losing not only her dignities but even her liberty. For some time, it is said, she had been engaged in a liaison with William Mons, a handsome, gay young courtier, brother to a former mistress of the Tsar. The love affair had been common knowledge at the Court—to all but Peter himself, and it was accident that at last opened his eyes to his wife's dishonour. One moonlight night, ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... de Pompadour is not generally known in all its particulars, though much has been written of her by persons of every shade of opinion. Some have exalted her virtues, while others have multiplied her crimes. Both parties are right, and both wrong. A courtier, and a man seeking to be revenged, are not historians when they write. With a little patience, and by a careful study of the writers of the eighteenth century, we are enabled to seize here and there a faithful trait of this extraordinary, yet most ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... care-fraught hearts, huddled over a fire, grown selfish and grovelling through suffering. Without the aid of servants, it was necessary to discharge all household duties; hands unused to such labour must knead the bread, or in the absence of flour, the statesmen or perfumed courtier must undertake the butcher's office. Poor and rich were now equal, or rather the poor were the superior, since they entered on such tasks with alacrity and experience; while ignorance, inaptitude, and habits of repose, rendered them fatiguing to the luxurious, galling ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... silent. Aleck lifted the hand which he held, touched it gently with his lips and laid it back beside its fellow on Melanie's lap. Then he rose and lifted both hands before her, half in fun and half in earnestness, as if he were a courtier ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... to talk of Horatio being his 'servant.' When the others speak of their 'duty' to him, he answers, 'Your love, as mine to you.' He speaks to the actor precisely as he does to an honest courtier. He is not in the least a revolutionary, but still, in effect, a king and a beggar are all one to him. He cares for nothing but human worth, and his pitilessness towards Polonius and Osric and his 'school-fellows' ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... that you have quickly learned the courtier's language. Under proffer of service you are really demanding pardon ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... of the courtier spirit, I afterwards learned that Luttichau, who had had to wait for me in the anteroom during this audience, had been very much put out by its long duration. In the whole course of my life I was only admitted twice more to ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... born elsewhere. But thou hast developed from close bud to full-blown flower in a single afternoon. Who cut the strings of thy tongue, and took the bands from thy wits? Thou didst speak like a ten years courtier at the least. I will confess that I hearkened to ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... times, in all places, and amid surroundings which have been known to test the moral fibre of more boisterous politicians. Though profoundly attached to the Throne and to the Hanoverian succession, he was no courtier. The year 1688 was his sacred date, and he had a habit of applying the principles of our English Revolution to the issues of ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... attitude, the lawless bulk of him again encased in striped pyjamas; a guardsman brought up the rear with his rifle at the trail: and his majesty was further accompanied by a Rarotongan whalerman and the playful courtier with the turban of frizzed hair. There was never a more lively deputation. The whalerman was gapingly, tearfully tipsy: the courtier walked on air; the king himself was even sportive. Seated in a chair in the ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... your votary restore: Oh, be some god his convoy to our shore! Due pains shall punish then this slave's offence, And humble all his airs of insolence, Who, proudly stalking, leaves the herds at large, Commences courtier, and neglects ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... aristocrat who had impressed some of his school-fellows as having no ambitions higher than to be a courtier, had forsaken "pigtail Toryism," as he called it, and was developing along liberal lines. He had been a consistent advocate of Catholic emancipation, an admirer of Canning's broad views, and hospitable to moderate ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... with all the dignity of a courtier, "I have come to request the hand of your niece in marriage. I have ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... the lodging of the Lieutenant, where they found him seated with his lady. They were received by both with that decorous civility which Master Heriot's character and supposed influence demanded, even at the hand of a punctilious old soldier and courtier like Sir Edward Mansel. Lady Mansel received Margaret with like courtesy, and informed Master George that she was now only her guest, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... all ruined by neglect. At the back of the hall a marble staircase, guarded by a pair of marble lions, ran up to a landing and divided. Wogan set foot on the staircase and heard an exclamation of surprise. He looked up. A burly, good-humoured man in the gay embroideries of a courtier was ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... March crosses the level, further north, and the huge freight-trains go smoking and clanking over the fen all day. I often walk along the grassy flood-bank for a mile or two, to the tiny decayed village of Mepal, with a little ancient church, where an old courtier lies, an Englishman, but with property near Lisbon, who was a gentleman-in-waiting to James II. in his French exile, retired invalided, and spent the rest of his days "between Portugal and Byall Fen"—an odd pair of ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... night it was my pleasant duty to put the paper to bed alone. A King or courtier or a courtesan or a community was going to die or get a new Constitution, or do something that was important on the other side of the world, and the paper was to be held open till the latest possible minute ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... vengeance, and not servants "by the grace of God, and by the mercy of God," as they style themselves. 2. Let them take heed that they be not such servants as Gehazi was; he was a false servant, he ran away after the courtier Naaman, seeking gifts, and said his master sent him, when (God knows) his master sent him not; at the time he should have been praying to the Lord, to help his poor kirk and comfort her; the curse and vengeance of God came upon him, and ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... languages he spoke also Italian and English. Before he was an artist, Rubens, like Durer and Leonardo da Vinci, was a child of rare intelligence. As a little chap he went to Antwerp with his mother—this was after his father's death—and in Belgium he took for the first time the role of courtier, in which he was to become so successful later in life. The charming little fellow, dressed in velvet and lace, took his place in the household of the Countess ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... lived in stirring times, although he was a soldier and a courtier, he does not, in the book by which we know him best, write of battles and of pomp, of kings and of princes. In this book we find plain, everyday people, people of the great middle class of merchants and tradesmen and others of like calling, to which Chaucer himself belonged. It was ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... soon a rival courtier came— A dashing dapper Lieut. R.N.; And, as this paragon pressed his claim, Oh, what could William hope for then? How could a wobbly-braided swain Vie with the actual Royal Navy, Whose stripes were half as broad again And straight, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 3, 1916 • Various
... had him at his mercy, however, Mannikin, turning to the Princess, assured her that he had no desire to kill anyone who called himself her courtier, and then he bade the furious and humiliated Fadasse rise and thank the Princess to whom he owed his life. Then, amid the sounding of the trumpets and the shoutings of the people, he and Mousta retired gravely ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... revelled in social psychology. It studied in turn the soldier, the priest and the courtier, and shewed how each of these has a secondary character, a professional mind, a class morality impressed and imposed upon him by his education and employment. Looking down from the vantage ground of their philosophic salon upon their contemporaries in French ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... not the language of a courtier. It seems to be a genuine expression of the belief that the King was the living representative of Deity, and from this point of view is much more interesting and remarkable than if treated as a mere outpouring ...
— Egyptian Literature
... up to-morrow. He'll look in on you on the way if he can. This new war scare has taken him up. I shan't be in Town myself till Miltoun's election is over. The fact is, I daren't leave him down here alone. He sees his 'Anonyma' every day. That Mr. Courtier, who wrote the book against War—rather cool for a man who's been a soldier of fortune, don't you think?—is staying at the inn, working for the Radical. He knows her, too—and, one can only hope, for Miltoun's sake, too ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... you. Getting my youth back. Do you know what a very pretty young girl feels like? Did you know what I used to feel like when you were engaged to me? Like a queen with a crowd of courtiers at her orders and you the most courtier-like of them all! You used to hang on every word I said and promise me heaven and earth, and my every look was law. Oh! the power a pretty young girl ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... one must grant that Charles acquitted himself very well for the most part, on that occasion—very much better than he was in the habit of doing. He passed his pup to a courtier, and took off his cap to Joan as if she had been a queen. Then he stepped from his throne and raised her, and showed quite a spirited and manly joy and gratitude in welcoming her and thanking her for her extraordinary achievement ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... of a fellow-countryman just returned from Rome, unwilling to pass through Liege without presenting his compliments to the lovely and unfortunate marquise. Desgrais had just the manner of the younger son of a great house: he was as flattering as a courtier, as enterprising as a musketeer. In this first visit he made himself attractive by his wit and his audacity, so much so that more easily than he had dared to hope, he got leave to pay a second call. The second visit was not long delayed: Desgrais presented ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... its prototype, and Addison in Italy had become familiar with the force of "Manners" by Casa, and the "Courtier" by Castiglione. Then he knew the character of La Bruyere, and this gave the cue for the Spectator Club, with Sir Roger de Coverley, Sir Andrew Freeport, Will Honeycomb, Captain Sentry ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... own great authors yet imagined there was no fame for an Englishman unless he neglected his maternal language for the artificial labour of the idiom of ancient Rome. Bacon had even his own domestic Essays translated into Latin; and the king found a courtier-bishop to perform the same task for his majesty's writings. There was something prescient in this view of the national language, by the king, who contemplated in it those latent powers which had not yet burst ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... with ambitious just desire, To mastery in so fire an art aspire, Must all extreams first diligently shun, And in a settled course of vertue run. Let him not fortune with stiff greatness climb, Nor, courtier-like, with cringes undermine: Nor all the brother blockheads of the pot, Ever persuade him to become a sot; Nor flatter poets to acquire the fame Of, I protest, a pretty gentleman. But whether in the war he wou'd be great, Or, in the gentler arts that rule a state; Or, else his amorous breast ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... to life like a courtier in the palace of the Sleeping Beauty. He shook himself, and rose stiffly from ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... be any chairs around, only yours," she continued. Then, with a quick gesture of the hand: "No, don't get up. Set right still now. One o' your friends here can get me a chair, I guess," and she looked very meaningly into the face of a foppish young courtier who stood near her, twisting his thin ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... recommencing courtier, and endeavoured to gain the kindness of Mrs. Howard, remembering what Mrs. Masham had performed in former times: but his flatteries were like those of other wits, unsuccessful; the lady either wanted power, or had ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... by the sheer force of her love, which will go on loving — loving what it can have, when that which it would rather have is for the time unattainable. His Pandarus is a gentleman, though a gentleman with a flaw in him; a man who, in his courtier-like good-nature, places the claims of comradeship above those of honour, and plots away the virtue of his niece, that he may appease the love-sorrow of his friend; all the time conscious that he is not acting as a gentleman should, and desirous ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... the three females was now common, each holding out her hand, with an involuntary impulse, to receive the note. Nick drew the missive from a fold of his garment, and placed it in the hand of Mrs. Willoughby, with a quiet grace that a courtier might have wished ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... first person takes precedence of the second and the second takes precedence of the third. When Cardinal Wolsey said Ego et Rex (I and the King), he showed he was a good grammarian, but a bad courtier. ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... BASSOMPIERRE, FRANCOIS DE (1579-1646), French courtier, son of Christophe de Bassompierre (1547-1596), was born at the castle of Harrouel in Lorraine. He was descended from an old family which had for generations served the dukes of Burgundy and Lorraine, and after being educated with his brothers in Bavaria and Italy, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... do. And, true enough, they could do everything just as they had said. And now the King began to distil the elixir of life with their aid. He had finished, but not yet imbibed it when a misfortune overtook his family. His son had been playing with a courtier and the latter had heedlessly wounded him. Fearing that the prince might punish him, he joined other discontented persons and excited a revolt. And the emperor, when he heard of it, sent one of his captains to judge between the King and ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... Seneca's character was represented by his philosophy is, we believe, a fairly open question. That the beginning and the close of his career were in accordance with his teachings, is certain. That as a courtier, he was in suspicious proximity to, if not in complicity with, gross scandals and crimes, is equally certain. The evidence against him is weighty, but by no means conclusive. He may have lingered ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... highest places of power and trust, as suddenly consigns them to the hand of the executioner, and gives himself up to the unbridled indulgence of his passions. The history of Haman's sudden rise and fall is that of many an oriental courtier since his day. The Jews, we are told, "slew of their foes seventy and five thousand." This was a very great slaughter; but we must remember that it was distributed through all the provinces of the kingdom. Ch. 9:16. The permission ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... always the way with these sudden-come-ups, they never have the easy carriage that comes from breeding, and 'tis too much to expect she should be a topping courtier. ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... white flannel suit that looked well enough in those dim lights. The make-up gave him an air of rakish youth. Eshwell had got himself into an ordinary sack suit. Tempest was in the tattered and dirty finery of a seventeenth-century courtier. The paint and black made Eshwell's face fat and comic; it gave Tempest distinction, made his hollow blazing eyes brilliant and large. All traces of habitation were effaced from the "auditorium"; the lamps were lighted, a ticket box was set up on the rear deck and ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... contemptuous smile played on the lips of this man, and a flash of hatred, and, withal, of scorn burst from his eyes. But this never lasted longer than a moment; his pale and sickly face immediately resumed its impenetrable aspect, and the smile of a polite courtier reappeared on his lips. This was Talleyrand, first minister of the emperor—Talleyrand, who had originally served the Church as a priest, then the republic as a minister—who had deserted and betrayed both to become minister of the empire, and to combat and deny all the principles he had formerly ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... and beheld the Chieftain Tecumseh, and with him one, who, in the full uniform of the British Staff, united, in his tall and portly figure, the martial bearing of the soldier to the more polished graces of the habitual courtier. ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... brilliant circle where beauty and genius reigned triumphant; for it was discovered that his talent for music was of the highest order; his voice, in singing, of rare perfection; his verses full of grace and fire, his manners equal to those of the most finished courtier; and his judgment in the weighty decisions of the courts of Love, sound and good. Even the poets and musicians, who saw him distinguished for the time above themselves, felt little envy towards him, since they shared ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... this discovery was, for the moment, almost pitiable. But change of opinion is a resource too convenient in courts for this experienced courtier not to have learned to avail himself of it. His criticisms were all, of course, recanted instantly: he was seized with an admiration of the King's verses, as unbounded as, he begged him to believe, it was disinterested; and the following week saw him in possession ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... Simpson as Governor of the Northern department;—an appointment for which, by his abilities natural and acquired, he was well qualified. Mr. Simpson combined with the prepossessing manners of a gentleman all the craft and subtlety of an intriguing courtier; while his cold and callous heart was incapable of sympathising with the woes and pains of his fellow-men. On his first arrival, he carefully concealed from those whom he was about to supersede, the powers with which he was invested; he studied the characters of individuals, scrutinized ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... trouble and convulsion through which the Early Middle Ages struggled into the Renaissance, so long delayed with us. Ascham was one of our chief representatives of the Renaissance itself—that is to say, of a type at once scholarly and man-of-the-worldly, a courtier and a diplomatist as well as a "don" and a man of letters; a sportsman as well as a schoolmaster. And while from all these points of view his letters have interest, there is one thing about them which is perhaps more interesting to us than any other: and that is the fact that while he ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... nature; and even such careful scholars as Charles de Remusat and Dean Church, who have devoted careful and instructive volumes to the survey of Bacon's career and works, insist that with all his intellectual supremacy, he was a servile courtier, a false friend, and a corrupt judge. Yet there are few important names in human history of men who have left us so complete materials for a just judgment of their conduct; and it is only a lover of paradox who can read these and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... nothing, and the king's wrath now turned towards Wolsey, whom he suspected of secretly thwarting his measures. The accomplished courtier, so long accustomed to the smiles and favors of royalty, could not bear his disgrace with dignity. The proudest man in England became, all at once, the meanest. He wept, he cringed, he lost his spirits; he surrendered his palace, his ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... course, expected some reward for this courtier-like attention to the son of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the poet and his friends again believed that his future was assured when they heard that Her Royal Highness had said, or at least was reported to have said, that she should "take up the hare"—an allusion ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... necessity of giving me this check. I knew him, however, as both mathematician and poet, and my measures were adapted to his capacity, with reference to the circumstances by which he was surrounded. I knew him as a courtier, too, and as a bold intriguant. Such a man, I considered, could not fail to be aware of the ordinary political modes of action. He could not have failed to anticipate—and events have proved that he did not fail to anticipate—the waylayings ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... on every side the old cry of the courtier and the parasite. At every new aggression, at every additional outrage, new advocates rise to defend the source of patronage, wealth and fame—the department of the Executive! Such assistance has always waited on the malignant efforts of tyranny. Nero had his ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... Moreover, the colonists possessed a skillful leader in the person of the aristocratic Virginian planter who has already been mentioned as taking a part in the French and Indian War. At first, George Washington was criticized for bringing the gravity of a judge and the dignified bearing of a courtier to the battlefield, but he soon proved his ability. He was wise enough to retreat before superior forces, always keeping just out of harm's way, and occasionally catching his incautious pursuer unawares, as at Princeton ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... availed himself of the rare opportunity with that adroitness for which he was celebrated. Nothing could be more polite, more affable, more kind, than his Grace's manner! but the uncle cared little for politeness, or affability, or kindness. The crafty courtier wanted candour, and that was absent. That ingenuous openness of disposition, that frank and affectionate demeanour, for which the Duke of St. James had been so remarkable in his early youth, and with the aid of which Lord ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... babe was born, the governor sent a messenger to the king with a letter telling him of his good fortune. Now it happened this messenger was a courtier, who wished to keep on good terms with all the royal family. So, as soon as he got the letter, he went to Donegilde, the king's mother, and asked her if she had any message to ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... to a man so high in rank under the government which he himself served. He found it necessary to apologize for his garb, suited rather to the trail than to the drawing-room. He stood in the hall of the Chouteau home, a picture of the soldier of the frontier rather than the courtier of the capital. ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... by profession, the sleek courtier Horace spared the emperor's vice, contenting himself with only declaring that play was forbidden.(27) The two following verses of his, usually applied to the effects of gaming, really refer ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... this courtier affected sympathy, and even some anxiety, to please Miss Carden, and divert all suspicion from himself. But the true ring was wanting to his words, and both the women felt them jar, and got away from him, and laid their heads together, in agitated ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... died, a successor was appointed, but the Emperor, who had heard of the death and not of the appointment to fill the vacancy, gave another, and the Prince says: 'Courtier as I am, I sent away my dog to my head-forester's and kept the gift one, but as I do not like him I leave him at Berlin.' Here the favourite reigns, and her name is Rebekkah, and she answers very prettily to the name of Bex. The old gentleman is dear in his polite ways.... ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... at all, but a Peninsular and Oriental Company's cabin-boy, who became the barber of one of the last kings of Oudh, Nasir-ud-Din, in the early part of the nineteenth century, and rose to the position of a favourite courtier. He was entrusted with the supply of every European article used at court, and by degrees became a regular guest at the royal table, and sat down to take dinner with the king as a matter of right; nor would his majesty taste a bottle of wine opened by any ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... opposite is the monument (52), an altar tomb with shields and initials, of Bishop Salcot (or Capon), whose notoriety as a "time-serving courtier" is mentioned ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... the fashion for young courtiers to embrace each other repeatedly with exaggerated gestures, uttering all the while loud exclamations. The Viscount de Jodelet is the caricature of a courtier of a former reign; he is very old, very pale, dressed in sombre colours, speaks slowly and through the nose. Geoffrin, the actor, who played this part, was at ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... his mortal career. The jocose ruffians here enliven the scene—one by being cast into a dungeon for asking Ottocar (evidently the Colburn of his day), an exorbitant price for the copyright of a certain manuscript; the other, by calling the courtier a man of genius, and being taken into his service, as no doubt, "first robber." To support this character, a change of apparel is necessary: and no wonder, for Wolfstein has on precisely the same clothes he wore fifteen ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... him, which assuredly shall fall, except it be prevented. Sir, Dagon shall not stand before the ark of the Lord, and these names of blasphemy that he wears of arch and lord bishop, will have a fearful end. Not one book is to be given to Haman, suppose he were as great a courtier as ever he was; suppose the decree was given out, and sealed with the king's ring, deliverance will come to us elsewhere, and not by him, who has been so sore an instrument, not against our persons, that were nothing, (for I protest to you, Sir, in the sight ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... Shakespeare's advice in dress by people who know nothing else that he wrote, and who would have his support for their extravagance, when, in fact, we do not know what Shakespeare would have thought upon the subject, had he lived now. It is the advice of a worldly-minded old courtier to his son, given as a mere prudential maxim, at a time when, to make an impression and get on at court, a man had need to be richly dressed. That ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... the thing; I wonder where, What courtier with what courtesy First played it, with what lady fair, To music of what minstrelsy? I wonder did he seem to see Such eyes wherein a sunbeam starts, And did he love (as I) while she Played ping-pong ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... Tilbury, marshal of the kingdom of Arles, well known in every great town of Italy and Sicily, afterwards the writer of Otia Imperialia for the Emperor Otto IV., wrote a book of anecdotes, now lost, for the younger King Henry. Gerald of Wales, a busy courtier, and later a chaplain of the king, was the brilliant historian of the Irish conquest and the mighty deeds of his cousins, the Fitz Geralds and Fitz Stephens. "In process of time when the work was completed, not willing ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... chosen is one of the most powerful scenes in the play. It is that in which the King, sceptical of the divine inspiration of the Maid, determines to test her by substituting a courtier upon his throne.... When she is not only not deceived, but proceeds also to interpret many of the King's innermost thoughts, the surprise of the monarch, passing into hushed reverence, calls for a studied piece of ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... highest breeding lent their sanction to the practice. Lord Bacon playfully declared himself a descendant of 'Og, the King of Bashan. Sir Philip Sidney, with his last breath, reproached the soldier who brought him water, for wasting a casque full upon a dying man. A courtier, who saw Othello performed at the Globe Theatre, remarked, that the blackamoor was a brute, and not a man. 'Thou hast reason,' replied a great Lord, 'according to Plato his saying; for this be a two-legged animal with feathers.' ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... care; from his bonnet of black velvet trailed a long white ostrich plume pinned by three huge rubies; at the richly chased gold belt dangled a dagger, the scabbard and hilt glistening with jewels, and his fingers flashed with many rings. It was the typical costume of a courtier of the Plantagenets—fops in dress and ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... great a courtier not to see and feel it. He bowed respectfully, replying to his Majesty, "Sire, I would not presume to follow the King's eyes, however much I ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... upon speakers in this assembly of his friends and foes to express their opinions of his administration, and when a member of his household rose to extol his work and to declare that he had "surpassed the very greatest of his predecessors." This courtier-like declaration, which would have been excusable even if it had had a less basis of truth than it unquestionably possessed in the case of Hwangti, was received with murmurs and marks of dissent by the literati. One of them rose and denounced ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... part are heretics. Our bodies we commit to the physicians, who never themselves take any physic. And then we entrust our goods to the lawyers, who never go to law against one another. You speak like a courtier, quoth Pantagruel. But the first point of your assertion is to be denied; for we daily see how good theologues make it their chief business, their whole and sole employment, by their deeds, their words, and writings, to extirpate errors and heresies out ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... major's wife, "he's a perfect prince—he's just as royal as he can be! I never saw such manners, such ease. Why, girlie, he's a courtier!" ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... another party, Sir Pertinax—ha, ha, ha! we had what was called the cabinet council, which was composed of a duke and a haberdasher,—a red hot patriot and a sneering courtier,—a discarded statesman and his scribbling chaplain,—with a busy, bawling, muckle-headed, prerogative lawyer;—all of whom were every minute ready to gang together by the lugs, about the in and the out ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin
... certain, where a man can do, or at any rate attempt to do, some special thing. A man there if he sticks to that and does not travel beyond it, need not be popular, need not be a partisan, need not be eloquent, need not be a courtier. He should understand his profession, as should a lawyer or a doctor. If he does that thoroughly he can serve his country without recourse to that parliamentary strategy for which I know that ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... with the established reputation of Cadwallon, and summoned him to sing something which might command the applause of his sovereign and the gratitude of the company. The young man was ambitious, and understood the arts of a courtier. He commenced a poem, in which, although under a feigned name, he drew such a poetic picture of Eveline Berenger, that Gwenwyn was enraptured; and while all who had seen the beautiful original at ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... Cleander, in the space of three years, had accumulated more wealth than had ever yet been possessed by any freedman. [22] Commodus was perfectly satisfied with the magnificent presents which the artful courtier laid at his feet in the most seasonable moments. To divert the public envy, Cleander, under the emperor's name, erected baths, porticos, and places of exercise, for the use of the people. [23] He flattered himself that the Romans, dazzled and amused by this apparent ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... music was played rather slowly, to give Aunt Ruth time to get about, and the result was almost the stately effect of a minuet. Never had he put more grace and finish into his steps, and when he bowed to Aunt Ruth it was as a courtier drops knee before a queen. His unfamiliarity with the figures gave him excuse to keep his eyes upon Roberta, and she found him a pupil to whom she had only to nod or make the slightest gesture of the hand to ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... no longer recognised the dog, that friend of man, the attached and faithful companion—the lively and honest courtier. He is here a gloomy egotist, and cut off from all human intercourse without being the less a slave. He does not know him whose house he protects, and devours his corpse without repugnance." Travels in Lower ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... Prussian sympathies, and he therefore disapproved of the strong line which Palmerston took up in this matter. It was not only Palmerston's policy, however, but the independence with which he was accustomed to carry it out, which annoyed the Court. He was a bad courtier; he domineered over princelings and kings abroad, and his behaviour to his own Sovereign did not in any way resemble Disraeli's. He not only "never contradicted, only sometimes forgot"; on the contrary, he often omitted to tell the Queen what ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... had been so common, that hints, in the delicate dressing of the old knight, came on him almost like gracious civilities. There was no love lost between the Chevalier and the chaplain, that was plain; but how could there be between an ancient French courtier and a sober English divine? However, to Mr. Adderley's great relief, no attempts were made on Berenger's faith, his kinsman even was disposed to promote his attendance at such Calvinist places of worship as they passed on the road, and treated him in all things as a ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was closed. The courtier of Charles II. had rushed up; the elephant was pulled and hustled and kicked; for him swiftly the vision of power and glory and vengeance was over, and once again he was the tied and governed prisoner of modern civilisation. The top-hat lay, a battered and hapless ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... passport into their society, but by no means all who possessed this formal title were held to belong to the inner circle. Women who came to court but once a week, although of great family, were known as "Sunday ladies." The true courtier lived always in the refulgent presence of his ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... belonged to the privileged classes. Frequently religious communities embarked in these ventures, and used their commodious buildings as granaries. Syndicates were formed in which all varieties of speculators entered, from the bourgeois shopkeeper of the provincial town to the courtier and even the King. But popular resentment, the bitter cry of the starving, applied the same name to all of them: from Louis XV to the inconspicuous monk they were all accapareurs de ble, cornerers of wheat. And their profits rose ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... the emperor and of the empire. The party of reason and of delay was strenuously maintained by Victor, who had corrected, by the lessons of experience, the native fierceness of the Sarmatian character; while Sebastian, with the flexible and obsequious eloquence of a courtier, represented every precaution, and every measure, that implied a doubt of immediate victory, as unworthy of the courage and majesty of their invincible monarch. The ruin of Valens was precipitated by the deceitful arts of Fritigern, and the prudent admonitions of the emperor of the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... dreamily enough within the convent walls as he wandered over space and time an indefatigable reader of books, would be fed physically now by ear and eye, by large matter-of-fact experience, as he journeys from university to university; yet still, less as a teacher than a courtier, a citizen of the world, a knight-errant of intellectual light. The philosophic need to try all things had given reasonable justification to the stirring desire for travel common to youth, in which, if in nothing else, that whole age of the [242] ...
— Giordano Bruno • Walter Horatio Pater
... was a born courtier and revelled in the "atmosphere of passion, love, and pleasure, that radiant aurora." He was always a very dissipated man, but in July, 1662, "regularised" his life by marrying Madeleine Lambert, daughter of the music-master of the court. "The honour of the new family, ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... met, the lordly Main Played but a courtier's part; Crowned Queen was I; and earth and sky, And sun and sea were my domain, Since love was in my heart. Before, beyond, above, Was ...
— The Englishman and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Providence, as we are all aware, that most men must end their temporal course pretty much as they began it; nor will the thoughtful repine at this dispensation. In lands where nature in the many is not trampled upon by injustice, feelingly may the peasant say to the courtier— ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... the unexpected word, scarcely capable of believing the testimony of my own ears. Yet as I did so my heart almost ceased its throbbing, while I felt the hot blood rush to my face. That was an age of social gallantry; yet I was no gay courtier of the town, but a hunter of the woods, attired in rough habiliments, little fitted to attract the attention of womanly eyes amid ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... 'lob-stick,—marks two more rippling rapids. The Crooked Rapids send canoes twisting round point after point almost to the forks of the South Saskatchewan. Here, five miles below the modern fur post, at a bend in the river commanding a great sweep of approach, a gay courtier of France built Fort La Corne. Who called the bold sand-walls to the right Heart Hills? And how comes it that here are Cadotte Rapids, named after the famous voyageur family of Cadottes, whose ancestor gave his life and his name to one section of ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... the evening of Saturday, February 21st. That night he reached a village called Corkthrop,[75] where he lay concealed till Wednesday; and then, not in the astrologer's orange-tawny dress, but in "a courtier's coat and buttoned cap," which he had by some means contrived to procure, he set out again on his forlorn journey, making for the nearest sea-port, Bristol, where the police were looking out to receive ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... to the throne, the clause was repealed. Had it not been repealed, the Act of Settlement would have been, not a blessing, but a curse to the country. There was no want, indeed, of plausible and popular commonplaces in favour of this clause. No man, it was said, can serve two masters. A courtier cannot be a good guardian of public liberty. A man who derives his subsistence from the taxes cannot be trusted to check the public expenditure. You will never have purity, you will never have economy, till the stewards of the nation are independent ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... ground once more, he seized the monarch's rein, Amidst the pale and wildered looks of all the courtier train; And with a fierce, o'ermastering grasp, the rearing war-horse led, And sternly set them face to face,—the king ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... a conversation with the baroness. He spoke of himself as a neighbor, and of his recent visit to Fuerstenstein, and his regret, great regret, at not meeting her on that occasion. But with all his chatter, the prince kept himself well within bounds, and was the polite and agreeable courtier. He knew full well that the wife of the Prussian ambassador, no matter how young and beautiful, was not to be approached with vapid, idle compliments. Hartmut had made that error in addressing the unknown girl in the wood, but Egon had the advantage of knowing to whom he spoke, and succeeded ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... even the eyes of the most zealous spy could find no blot upon her escutcheon. Like a royal lily she proudly bloomed with undisputed splendor in the midst of this court, whose petty cabals and intrigues could not soil her fair fame. Her presence spread around her a sort of magic. The most audacious courtier, the most presumptuous cavalier, approached her with only reverence; they ventured not in her presence to use such words and jests as but too well pleased the empress; there was something in Eleonore's glance ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... any Power, any Force that could tear me from thee? You might sooner tear a Pension out of the Hands of a Courtier, a Fee from a Lawyer, a pretty Woman from a Looking-glass, or any Woman from Quadrille.—But to tear me from thee ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... bag. When James the First dedicated to the Duke of Buckingham his meditation on the Lord's Prayer, he gave a very sensible reason for selecting his Grace for that honor; "For," saith the king, "it is made upon a very short and plain prayer, and, therefore, the fitter for a courtier, for courtiers are for the most part thought neither to have lust nor leisure to say long prayers, liking best courte messe et long disner." I suppose it was for a similar reason that my father persisted ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was not a favor to be asked. . . . Madam Van de Weyer is not spoiled, certainly, by the prominent part she was called to play in this great centre of the world at so early an age, and makes an excellent courtier. I could not help pitying her, however, for looking forward to going through, year after year, the same round of ceremonies, forms, and society. For us, it is a new study, and invaluable for a short time; but I could not bear it for life, as these European diplomatists. Besides, we ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)
... cheek and thinking how hard it was to be practical and keep remote benefits in mind when she was so beautiful and so tempting and so trustful. He said aloud: "I am impatient, soul's delight! Is it strange?" And he bowed like a stage courtier to a stage queen and ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... cried that young woman, with the air of a playful potentate who has requested a favoured courtier to drop the ceremonious "Your Majesty" ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... amongst them; and on the other side how prettily they curtsied and received me, standing in proper Rows, and advancing as fast as they saw their Elders, or their Betters, dispatch'd by me. But so it is, Mr. SPECTATOR, that all our good Breeding is of late lost by the unhappy Arrival of a Courtier, or Town Gentleman, who came lately among us: This Person where-ever he came into a Room made a profound Bow, and fell back, then recovered with a soft Air, and made a Bow to the next, and so to one or two more, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... entrance she gave a soft cry, and raised herself on one white arm. I stepped forward as though I were a courtier saluting a queen, and pressed my ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... began to write to Caprera, urging the general to give his co-operation to the projected movement. It is notorious that the scheme, until almost the last moment, did not find favour with Garibaldi. In spite of his perilous enterprises, the chief had never been a courtier of failure, and he understood more clearly than his correspondent what failure at that particular juncture would have meant. The ventures of the Bandieras and of Pisacane, similar in their general plan to the one now in view (though ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... you would always find me when I should not appear before you as a courtier! Well, then, here I am," said Jeliotte. "Now you may see me ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... bottle and crusts, shows him the small amount of liberty at court, discourses upon the folly of ambition, lays bare the rapine, avarice, and covetousness of the worldly-minded, and demonstrates that the court is "painted fair without, but within it is ugly and vile." He then gives the picture of a courtier's life, which is cited below. He tells how the minstrels and singers, philosophers, poets, and orators are but the slaves of patronizing princes; how beautiful women deceive; describes to him, who has known nothing but a diet of bread and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... lost to the world. He sent it to a friend, who had it printed and circulated. What the lady thought does not appear, but it made the fortune of the poet. Though the son of a wine merchant, and without rank, he had little more of the spirit of a courtier than Voltaire, and his biting epigrams were no less feared. "If he were one of us, he would be insupportable," said Conde. But his caprices were tolerated for the sake of his inexhaustible wit, and he was petted and ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... studied in Cologne, in Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, and probably also in the University of Erfurt, though he attained no University degree. His period of systematic study being over, about 1511 he threw himself into the life of a courtier, with the prospect of a successful worldly career before him. Luther's heroic contest against the evils and corruptions of the Church and his proclamation of a Reforming faith shook the prosperous courtier wide awake and turned ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... them not only life but royal favour, the king turning from his evil ways to follow their counsel. A character of importance not mentioned here is Aristippus, 'a pleasant gentleman' and a successful courtier, whose friendship with Carisophus, an alliance hollow, suspicious, and most unloving on one side at least, forms an admirable foil for the true ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... however, that Miss Bishop was a young woman and a lady; and in the latitude into which Lord Julian had strayed this was a phenomenon sufficiently rare to command attention. On his side, with his title and position, his personal grace and the charm of a practised courtier, he bore about him the atmosphere of the great world in which normally he had his being—a world that was little more than a name to her, who had spent most of her life in the Antilles. It is not therefore wonderful that they should have ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... refusal: she, an upstart, having got within the gates of Castle Moyna by some servility, when her proper place was a shebeen in Cruarig, offered him charity from a low motive. She felt a rebuke from a priest as a courtier a blow from his king; but keeping her temper, she made many excuses for him in her own mind, without losing the firm will to teach him better manners in her own reverent way. The Countess heard of it, and made a sharp complaint to ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... of a courtier of King Charles Second, which are here gathered together, the Castles are at their best, reviving all the fragrant charm of those books, like The Pride of Jennico, in which they first showed an instinct, amounting to genius, for sunny ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... the weapon—an elegant instrument well adorned with silver on the hilt and sheath; caught it at the point, and, leaning the hilt upon his left wrist in the manner of the courtier slightly exaggerated, and true to the delicacies of the salle-d'armes, ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... bowed to the throng on the dais and spoke a few words to a courtier who advanced as he sat down. The courtier must have spoken of them, for the king at once looked down at Johnston and Thorn-dyke and nodded his head. The courtier spoke to a page, and the youth left the dais ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... did not in the least affect his hearers. General Antuna, the comandante, a square-faced man with the airs of a courtier, but with the bold, hard eyes of ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... easily conceive that it was thought more prudent to sacrifice the dead, than the living; and the fame of Mirabeau being less valuable than the safety of those who survived him, there would be no great harm in attributing to him what he was very likely to have done.— The corruption of a notorious courtier would have made no impression: the King had already been overwhelmed with such accusations, and they had lost their effect: but to have seduced the virtuous Mirabeau, the very Confucius of the revolution, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady |
