"Recreant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Swine. Roscommon, Sheffield, etc., etc. ... ... tragic stuff. Yet at their judgment let his Lordship laugh, And case his volumes in congenial calf: Yes, doff that covering where morocco shines, "And hang a calf-skin on those recreant" lines. ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... son, For him whose god-like eloquence could stun, Like some vast cat'ract, Faction's clam'rous tongue, Or by its sweetness charm, like Virgil's song, For him, whose mighty spirit rous'd afar Europe's plum'd legions to the hallow'd war; But who, ah! hapless tale! could not inspire Their recreant chiefs with his heroic fire; Who, as they pass'd the tyrant Conqu'ror's yoke, Felt, as the bolt of Heav'n, the ruthless stroke; And having long, in vain, the tempest brav'd, Could breathe no longer in a ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... upon his head Who dares insult the noble dead, And basely scrawl his worthless name Upon the records of their fame! Nelson, arise! thy country gave A heartfelt tear, a hallow'd grave: Her eyes are dry, her recreant sons Dare to profane thy mould'ring bones! And you, ye heroes of the past, Who serv'd your country to the last, And bought her freedom with your blood, Cornwallis, Duncan, Collingwood! Rise, if ye can, and mark the wretch Who dares his impious ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various
... before him, looking like an angry queen about to condemn a recreant vassal to death. And Esterhazy, with the mien and gait of a culprit, carne into her presence with a bow that was almost ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... Ohio river, in the state of Illinois. The space between me and the house where I designed to stop, and the time between then and sun-down, were somewhat disproportionate; so I pricked gallantly forward; as gallantly at least as could be expected from a tired horse, and a knight whose recreant thoughts were intensely fixed on dollars and cents, supper, and other trifling affairs. By dint however of much patience in the steed, and much impatience in the rider, we got over the ground, and approached a house that had been in sight ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... was as much injured by its charges in fitting out an armament against the Spaniards, during the time of the Armada, as by the fines and confiscations levied on it by Elizabeth for harbouring of priests, obstinate recusancy, and popish misdoings. A recreant of James's time was momentarily perverted from his religion by the arguments of that great theologian, and the fortunes of the family somewhat restored by his timely weakness. But the Earl of Camelot, of the reign of Charles, returned to the old ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in provincial opinion at that time. With the glow-worm lights of country places, how could men see which were their own thoughts in the confusion of a Tory Ministry passing Liberal measures, of Tory nobles and electors being anxious to return Liberals rather than friends of the recreant Ministers, and of outcries for remedies which seemed to have a mysteriously remote bearing on private interest, and were made suspicious by the advocacy of disagreeable neighbors? Buyers of the Middlemarch newspapers found themselves in an anomalous ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... You must allude, then, to those recreant tribes; which, while in their own eyes presenting a sublime moral spectacle to Mardi,—in King Bello's, do but present a hopeless example of bad debts. And these, the tribes that ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... for renown than innate love, These to my wish must recreant prove; Nor whilst an impulse here remain, Can ever hope the soul to gain; For memory scanning all the past, Relaxes her firm bonds at last, And gives to candor all the grace The heart ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... easily attained as the flattery of small men; and yet no essence is more delicious to the soul of a sycophant, for it is he that loves to refresh his recreant spirit with human frailty. Mr. Pierce's comprehensive and very elastic mind had not yet made a point of analysing this as properly as it was ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... Victory, Whereto we're bound? Alack! or we must lose The Country, our dear nurse; or else thy Person, Our comfort in the Country. We must find An eminent calamity, though we had Our wish, which side shou'd win. For either thou Must, as a foreign Recreant, be led With manacles thorough our streets; or else Triumphantly tread on thy Country's ruin, And bear the palm, for having bravely shed Thy wife and children's blood. For myself, son, I purpose not to wait on Fortune, 'till These wars determine: if I can't persuade thee Rather to shew a ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... Christ as the husband (2 Cor. 11:2; compare Rev. 21:2). To be spiritually adulterous, as the rabbis construed the utterances of the prophets, was to be false to the covenant by which the Jewish nations claimed distinction, as the worshipers of Jehovah, and to be wholly recreant and reprobate. Convicted on such a charge those sign-seeking Pharisees and scribes understood that Jesus classed them as worse than the idolatrous heathen. The words "adultery" and "idolatry" are of related origin, each connoting the act of unfaithfulness and the turning away after ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... death, as him self did confesse. Immediatlie after dennar, the fyre was prepaired befoir the Ald Colledge,[53] and he led to the place of executioun. And yitt men suppoised that all was done but to geve unto him ane terrour, and to have caused him to have recanted, and have become recreant to those bloody beastis. But God, for his awin glorie, for the comforte of his servand, and for manifestatioun of thare beastly tyranny, had otherwiese decreed; for he so strenthened his faythfull witnes, that nether the ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... other? Why, sir, if the people of Pennsylvania could sustain a distinction so odious, the very shades of their ancestors would rise from the battlefields of the Revolution, from Paoli and Germantown, and call their children bondmen of Carolina, vassals and recreant slaves! I speak not now of the whiskey insurrection, when, at the order of Washington, the militia of Virginia and of other States moved against the people of Western Pennsylvania, under the command of the Governor of Virginia and Carolina, and the nation approved the deed; but I speak of the period, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... in judgment upon the recreant, surrounded by his chief nobility and vassal kings. The guilt of the prisoner was evident, nay undenied, and the respect in which his sire was held alone delayed the doom of a cruel death from ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... called upon to support. And in such case the quarrel with him would be more internecine than with other foes, such as English members, Scotch members, Conservative Irish members, and Liberal Irish members, not sworn to follow certain leaders. A recreant one out of twenty friends would be regarded with more bitter hatred than perhaps six hundred and thirty ordinary enemies. It might be, therefore, that a time of tribulation was in store for Mr. O'Mahony, but he did not consider these matters very deeply when the cheers rang loud ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... without rejoinder. "Invalid's pessimism," was my private comment. And yet the sick man was whole for the time being; the virile spirit was once more master of the recreant members; and it was with illogical relief that I found those I sought standing ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... not blame gentlemen of the South for using this threat of rending God's creation from foundation to turret. They have tried it fifty times, and fifty times they have found weak and recreant tremblers in the North who have been affected by it, and who have retreated before ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... was checked by passion at beholding him under the lather, so that the people praised Shagpat and the King. Then said he, 'O people, who shall forecast disasters and triumphs? Lo, I had this day at dawn intelligence from recreant Oolb, and its King and Court, and of their return to do honour to Shagpat! And I had this day at dawn tidings, O people, from Shiraz, and of the adhesion of that vain city and its provinces to the might ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the third time to reproach the recreant driver of the ox-cart, he had no intention of again dealing with him directly. He bent his steps to the largest house in the neighbourhood, the house of the family called Turrifs; whose present head, being the second of his generation ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... moment the light boat was at the foot of the accommodation-ladder. Ghita now descended; and as soon as her uncle and she were seated, the skiff, for it was little more, whirled away from the ship's side, though two or three more, who had also been left by recreant boatmen for better fares, called out to him ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... side he climbed, They loosed the dripping rope, and passed The harbour bar: then on them burst The sudden fury of the blast; And when their peril's cause they sought, The lot was on the recreant cast. ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
... Philoctetes, which are also emblems of the all-conquering rays of the sun. The recovery of the stolen treasure is like Menelaus's recovery of Helen, and it apparently brings as little happiness to Sigurd as his recreant wife ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... the above was told by the late Judge John Pearson shortly before his death. In the February term, 1850, of the Circuit Court of Vermilion County, Illinois, a case was being tried in which a young lady had brought suit for $10,000 against a recreant lover who had married another girl. The amount sued for was thought to be an enormous sum in those days, and the ablest talent to be found was brought into requisition by both sides. Richard Thompson and Daniel W. Voorhees were associated with O.L. Davis for the fair plaintiff. ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... rapid flight, In elder times the soft Phaeacian train In ease possess'd the wide Hyperian plain; Till the Cyclopean race in arms arose A lawless nation of gigantic foes; Then great Nausithous from Hyperia far, Through seas retreating from the sounds of war, The recreant nation to fair Scheria led, Where never science rear'd her laurell'd head; There round his tribes a strength of wall he raised; To heaven the glittering domes and temples blazed; Just to his realms, he parted grounds ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... for earnestness and sincerity. On the present occasion there was a fierceness, almost a ferocity, in his very countenance, to the fire of which friends and enemies were equally anxious to add fuel,—the friends in order that so might these recreant Tories be more thoroughly annihilated, and the enemies, that their enemy's indiscretion might act back upon himself to his confusion. For, indeed, it never could be denied that as a Prime Minister Mr. Gresham could be ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... when he looks forward to be the lord of a first-rate embassy; and a poor novelist, when he attempts to rival Dickens or rise above Fitzjeames, commits no fault, though he may be foolish. Sydney Smith truly said that in these recreant days we cannot expect to find the majesty of St. Paul beneath the cassock of a curate. If we look to our clergymen to be more than men, we shall probably teach ourselves to think that they are less, and can hardly hope to raise the character of ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... remained in contact with their heads to the southward. While this melee was in progress, the French flagship "Bucentaure" surrendered, at five minutes past two; but, before hauling down the flag, Villeneuve made a signal to his recreant van,—"The ships that are not engaged, take positions which will bring them most rapidly under fire." Thus summoned, the ten vessels which constituted the van began to go about, as they should have done before; and, although retarded by the slack wind, they had got their heads to the southward ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... disadvantage we would have been recreant to our trust, to ourselves, to our cause, and to our country. Profoundly loyal, and conscious of its strength, the Army of the Potomac will give or decline battle whenever its interests or ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... speake againe; Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled? Speake in some bush: Where dost thou hide thy head? Rob. Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars, Telling the bushes that thou look'st for wars, And wilt not come? Come recreant, come thou childe, Ile whip thee with a rod. He is defil'd That drawes a ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... quoth Robert with a hard smile, "when they dangled him up with a line out of the moat. Change and adventure are meet for all men. And I look that I do a good deed, when I restore a recreant shepherd to the fold." The priest went off, crying unworthy tears and cursing the new lord, to try and find a priest's office if he could; and Robert rode grimly away, back to his uncle, and told ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... at the goal. We have come shuddering to the awful mystery of being; strange and terrible words have been spoken—words never to be forgotten—"phenomenon," and "thing-in-itself"; not knowing what these words mean, you are ignorant and recreant to the truth; knowing what they mean, you tug no more at the veil. Also we have learned that time and change are our portion, "the plastic dance of circumstance"; we talk no more of immortality. We have turned our hopes to the new birth ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... shades worn tend to soft pallors, lavender, and pink, and creamy white. A group of girlish shapes in these colors, seen newly lighted at a doorway from a passing carriage, gave as they pressed eagerly forward a supreme effect of that sentiment in English dress which I hope I am not recreant in liking. Occasionally, also, there was a scarf, lightly escaping, lightly caught, which, with an endearing sash, renewed for a fleeting moment a bygone age of Sensibility, as we find it recorded in many a graceful page, on ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... was recreant, his heart false. In all our annals only this one officer's record is polluted, God forbid the rise of a second traitor. But, my sons, if treason should again threaten liberty, I know on which side ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... now Dead Shot's widow fully b'ars out that philos'pher who announces so plumb cold, that a-way, that women's the sublimation of the onexpected. Jack Moore's jest beginnin' to manoover that recreant public servant into p'sition on the widow's left hand, so's he can be married to the best advantage, an' the preacher sharp's gettin' out an' openin' his book of rooles, when the ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... Lady Seton.—Go, worthless recreant, and in thickest fight Blot out thy guilty purpose: know thy life Depends on this day's daring; and its deeds And wounds alone, won in the onset's ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... bonnet drooping lower than it was wont. Meadows came back to dinner; he had a mutton-chop in his study, for it was a busy day. While thus employed there came almost bursting into the room a man struck with remorse—Jefferies, the recreant postmaster. ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... Iconoclast, but a cold and shriveled and meaningless tradition. Oh! for the quick-pulsing, warm-beating, mighty human heart of the man of Galilee! Oh! for his uplifted hand, armed with a whip of scorpions, to depopulate the temples of the world, and lash his recreant preachers into devotion to the cause of his poor afflicted children!" ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... last of our friends to prove recreant," said this mariner, "else would the cases of many in company be bad enough, thine own included, Pippo; for, judging by the outward signs, the Swabian campaign has not ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... from the weighty strokes of his axe; and the saints were scandalized by the fall [971] of Peter the Hermit, who, after arming Europe against Asia, attempted to escape from the penance of a necessary fast. Of the multitude of recreant warriors, the names (says an historian) are blotted from the book of life; and the opprobrious epithet of the rope-dancers was applied to the deserters who dropped in the night from the walls of Antioch. The emperor ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... if, 'mid the cannons' thunder, Whistling shot and bursting bomb, When my brothers fall around me, Should my heart grow cold and numb?' But the drum Answered, 'Come! Better there in death united, than in life a recreant,—Come!'" —BRET HARTE. ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... ballad show a more saintly wife," cried Margaret. "And now what would you have me do for you, my most patient of Grisells? Write to my brother the King to restore your lands, and— and I suppose you would have this recreant fellow's given back since you say he has seen the error of following that make-bate Queen. But can you prove him free of Edmund's blood? Aught ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in triumph strown Passing, through the crowd alone,— Silent 'mid the exulting cry,— At Jerusalem to die: Thou, foreknowing all, didst know How Thy blood in vain would flow! How our madness oft would prove Recreant to the law of love: Wrongs that men from men endure Doing ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... on a question of public morality, and this in the very region in which church and clergy had been most stormily denounced by the little handful of abolitionists who gloried in the name of infidel[285:1] as recreant to ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... the Moors 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 tone, The Prelate said; "rash Prince, yon visioned form's ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... pacigo. Reconsider rekonsideri. Recopy rekopii. Record registri, raporti. Recount (relate) rakonti. Recourse, to have alkuri. Recover (find) retrovi. Recover (to get well) resanigxi. Recreant timulo. Recreate rekrei. Recreation ludtempo. Recriminate kontrauxdiradi. Recrimination kontrauxdirado. Recruit (health) resani, resanigi. Recruit varbi. Recruit varbito, rekruto. Recruiting varbo—ado. Rectangle rektangulo. Rectify ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... Landry, the recreant, the apostate, the only seceder of our family from the just cause, who speaks thus?" said the old woman lifting her ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... so much. In fact it presented the further theft as a sort of duty. This sum, large as it was, really amounted to nothing in comparison with the sum he owed the company; but it formed his only means of restitution, and if he did not take it and use it to that end, he might be held recreant to his moral obligations. He contended, from that vestibule of his soul where he was not a thief, with that self of his inmost where he was a thief, that it was all most fortunate, if not providential, ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... Rielle,'" she exclaimed, "you think you are entitled to pursue a recreant sheep of the flock even over here! Oh! it is not on account of the storm—I know that—that you follow me! I have seen this coming for some time, and I ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... "You recreant!" exclaimed the beauty, throwing down the novel which had occupied the moments intervening the completion of the extravagant toilet and the arrival of an admirer. "I feel very much inclined to impose severe punishment upon you. Is ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... with dignity, whilst he slowly seated himself; "sir, you are justified in thus misdoubting me; for though a gentleman should, like the wife of Caesar, be above suspicion, never yet knew chivalry a time but there were recreant knights. Moreover, I can perceive that circumstances now must shadow, and, as with refracting influence, distort me, so that I may well stand here seeming to be deformed, although my soul, if you could see it, ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... I should say it, far worse than inconsistent, most false to truth and virtue, most recreant to honor! Have not I, whose most ardent aspirations were set on glory virtuously won, whose soul, as I fancied, was athirst for knowledge and for truth, have not I bound myself by the most dire and dreadful oaths, to find my good in evil, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... have been, nor has the task been light, Holding all Erin's warriors at bay: No foot of ground have I in recreant flight Yielded to any man ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... doing valiantly Last die upon their spears? Nay, for by this I might perchance make Atreus' offspring glad. That may not be imagined. I must find Some act to let my grey-haired father feel No heartless recreant once called him sire. Shame on the wight who when beset with ill Cares to live on in misery unrelieved. Can hour outlasting hour make less or more Of death? Whereby then can it furnish joy? That mortal weighs ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... they bribed the son, To sell the priest and rob the sire; Their dogs were taught alike to run Upon the scent of wolf and friar. Among the poor, Or on the moor, Were hid the pious and the true— While traitor knave, And recreant slave, Had riches, rank, and retinue; And, exiled in those penal days, ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... obstinate match at wrestling. They tugged, and strained, and panted, without either getting the mastery, until both came to the ground, and rolled upon the green. Just then, the disconsolate Phoebe came by. She saw her recreant lover in fierce contest, as she thought, and in danger. In a moment pride, pique, and coquetry, were forgotten; she rushed into the ring, seized upon the rival champion by the hair, and was on the point of wreaking on him her puny vengeance, when a buxom, strapping ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... a good scolding, Monica," says Kit viciously, but with a lovely smile. "I am going to pick to some ferns for Aunt Pen; when I return I hope I shall find that recreant knight of yours—I mean mine—at ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... flesh has been cooked, it is shared out in like manner among all the people, everybody partaking of at least a morsel; not to partake of the feast would be equivalent to excommunication, it would be to place the recreant outside the pale of Aino fellowship. Formerly every particle of the bear, except the bones, had to be eaten up at the banquet, but this rule is now relaxed. The head, on being detached from the skin, is set up on a long pole beside the sacred wands (inao) outside of the house, where ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... by them as they thought proper. Reckless daring was held to be loyal courage; prudent delay was the excuse of a coward; moderation was the disguise of unmanly weakness; to know everything was to do nothing. Frantic energy was the true quality of a man. A conspirator who wanted to be safe was a recreant in disguise. The lover of violence was always trusted, and his opponent suspected. He who succeeded in a plot was deemed knowing, but a still greater master in craft was he who detected one. On the other hand, he who plotted from the first to have nothing to do with plots was a breaker-up of parties ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... stern Atrides rages round the field: So some fell lion whom the woods obey, Roars through the desert, and demands his prey. Paris he seeks, impatient to destroy, But seeks in vain along the troops of Troy; Even those had yielded to a foe so brave The recreant warrior, hateful as the grave. Then speaking thus, the king of kings arose, "Ye Trojans, Dardans, all our generous foes! Hear and attest! from Heaven with conquest crown'd, Our brother's arms the just ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... and the lion would be let loose upon him. He would confront the edict, tear it down, be seized by the apparitor, and hurried to the rack or the slow fire. Callista would hear of it, and would learn at length he was not quite the craven and the recreant ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... gazed inquiringly up the hill; but Bob was not observant of signs just then. He was Striving with his recreant memory for the words that ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... the hero of the romantic destinies that attended the early life of Virginia; and the historian who would attempt to tell of her fortunes and yet neglect his story would be recreant to his trust. Nations have generally owed their brightest days of power or of happiness to the genius of a single person—directing their energies, subduing their follies, enlightening their seasons of early ignorance. Assyria has had her Semiramis, China ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... at the expence of my life. Yet I dreaded to witness the anguish which my resolve might excite in Idris. I had vowed to my own heart never to shadow her countenance even with transient grief, and should I prove recreant at the hour of greatest need? I had begun my journey with anxious haste; now I desired to draw it out through the course of days and months. I longed to avoid the necessity of action; I strove to escape from thought—vainly—futurity, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... entry into Gaul, have run away from their old masters and betaken themselves to new ones. Let them be restored to their rightful owners. Rights must not be confounded under the rule of justice, nor ought the defender of liberty to favour recreant slaves. [Probably an allusion to the office of the Assertor Libertatis in the Liberalis Causa, as set forth in the Theodosian Code iv. 8.] Let other kings desire the glory of battles won, of cities taken, of ruins made; our purpose is, God helping us, so to rule ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... never intrust to any hands but their own, that thing is the preservation and perpetuity of their own liberties and institutions. And if they shall think as I do, that the extension of slavery endangers them more than any or all other causes, how recreant to themselves if they submit The question, and with it the fate of their country, to a mere handful of men bent only on seif-interest. If this question of slavery extension were an insignificant one, one having no power to do harm—it might be shuffled aside in this way; and being, ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... the old lady looked forward to his visits with agreeable anticipation. For three weeks he had not been to Oakwood, and she was determined no longer to endure such neglect,—at any rate, to investigate it. To this end she had sent Sydney to Dr. Morgan's to inquire of him news of the recreant German. And Sydney had not stayed to see ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... for nine weeks, indeed—but still, it was a little disappointing. However, Cousin Hans understood human nature, and he had seen enough of her that morning to know that her feelings towards her recreant lover could not have been true love. ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... transgressed the laws of chivalry and knightly honor, and for this cause had he been condemned to suffer death. Great sorrow reigned among all the lords and dames, and Queen Guinevere, on bent knees, had sued the king's pardon for the recreant knight. At length, after many entreaties, Arthur's generous heart relented, and he gave the doomed life into the queen's hands to do ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... do," said Mr. Furnival, who had not the slightest intention of waiting for Miss Biggs; and then he sat himself down to eat his bacon, and bethink himself what step he would take with this recreant ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... the blood of the traitor Baron,' returned her aunt. 'Ever have that recreant line injured us! My nephew's sword avenged the wrongs ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... liberties, and compel them to receive officials so lost to self-respect as to accept appointments against the known and expressed wish of the people, and so craven and degraded as to need an army to protect them in their position, we feel that we should be recreant to every principle of self-respect, honor, integrity, and patriotism to bow tamely to such high-handed tyranny, a parallel for which is only found in the attempts of the British government, in its most corrupt stages, against ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... No recreant I to a noble cause, Nor traitor base to a leader bold; 'Twas a fight where he won most applause Who captured most of his ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... cheek is blanched; yet wherefore? Comyn as I am, shall we claim kindred with a traitor, and turn away from the good cause, because, forsooth, a traitorous Comyn dies? No; were the Bruce's own right hand red with the recreant's blood—he ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... strange knight, "for you are wholly in my power and I can slay or release you as I will. Yield now to me as a recreant knight or I will slay you ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... throw aside her work and talk the moment the pen is out of my hand. Talk—and what about? Heaven knows! But I would rather hear that talk, though on the affairs of a hamlet, than babble again with recreant nobles and blundering professors about commonwealths and constitutions. When I want to see how little those last influence the happiness of wise men, have I not Machiavelli and Thucydides? Then, by and by, the parson will drop in, and we argue. ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... fear. It was William Pfeiffer. I knew the look; I knew the gait. He was gone in a moment and the carriage rolled on. But I knew my doom as well that minute as I did an hour later. My husband was alive and he was here. He had escaped the perils of the Klondike and wandered east to reclaim his recreant wife. There had been time for him to do this since the rescue party left home in search of him; time for him to recover, time for him to reach home, time for him to reach the east. He had heard of my wedding; ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... the frequenter; but the cathedral constantly offers a drama of irresistible appeal. We non-Catholics can feel this even at the distance to which our Protestantism has remanded us, and at your first visit to the Seville cathedral during mass you cannot help a moment of recreant regret when you wish that a part in the mystery enacting was your birthright. The esthetic emotion is not denied you; the organ-tide that floods the place bears you on it, too; the priests perform their ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... how recreant a knight Sir Felix had proved himself, who are aware that had Miss Melmotte succeeded in getting on board the ship she would have passed an hour of miserable suspense, looking everywhere for her lover, and would then at last have been carried to New York without ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... an age, ere the Colonel joined me. He had been to the jobbing-tailor's to be sewn up in several places, and attributed our defeat to the refusal of the detested Drowvey to fall. Finding her so obstinate he had said to her in a loud voice, "Die, recreant!" but had found her no more open to reason on that point ...
— The Trial of William Tinkling - Written by Himself at the Age of 8 Years • Charles Dickens
... to the condition of wild animals, when a sail whitened the horizon, and presently the two brigantines dropped anchor near the island. Ribero was no recreant. He had been convinced that Nicuesa was going farther and farther from the ships with every step that he took, and, unable to persuade him of that fact, he deliberately took matters into his own hands and retraced his ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... the young men sat outside in the shed-room, and smoked and lazily talked together. Their words reached the silent group at the table. Kirkwood's companions were deriding him as a recreant sportsman. He puffed his short-stemmed pipe and looked at them tranquilly. He was not dissatisfied with his share ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... accepted these statements with unquestioning faith, I went on to inquire whether he felt himself equal to the delicate duty of hanging about the yard of the Black Swan, and watching the doors of exit from that hotel, with a view to following my recreant nephew wherever he might go, even if considerably beyond the limits of Ullerton. I saw that the lad's intelligence was likely to be equal to this transaction, unless there should arise any difficult or complicated position by reason of the suspicion of Hawkehurst, or other mischance. ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... of Prata, and of Azzo him That dwelt with you; Tignoso and his troop, With Traversaro's house and Anastagio's, (Each race disherited) and beside these, The ladies and the knights, the toils and ease, That witch'd us into love and courtesy; Where now such malice reigns in recreant hearts. O Brettinoro! wherefore tarriest still, Since forth of thee thy family hath gone, And many, hating evil, join'd their steps? Well doeth he, that bids his lineage cease, Bagnacavallo; Castracaro ill, And Conio worse, who care to propagate A race ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... its best foundation on the sense of the power which wrong cannot provoke unchastised. Grant that we lose; a loss can be made gain by a king's brave death. Why should not our example rouse and unite all who survive us? Which the nobler example—the one best fitted to protect our country—the recreant backs of living chiefs, or the glorious dead with their fronts to the foe? Come what may, life or death, at least we will thin the Norman numbers, and heap the barriers of our corpses on the Norman march. At least, we can show to the rest of England how men should ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... repeated her brother-in-law laughing. "Well, perhaps a jilted bride and her father do not always want to speak a good word for a recreant lover, but that is not the case this time, and who knows but we may be able to persuade the mother to see as we do. Toni and I have both remarked that Will never was a man until now, and that—forgive me, Regine, but I must say it—he owes his ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... one faith, one hope, one country undivided and indivisible. Our Union means all this, and a great many things more which it has not yet entered into the heart of man to conceive. We can effect wonders if we will, for the individual effort makes the universal all. Who would prove recreant in such a cause? Come! it is pleasant to work for humanity; fatigue itself seems sweet, the strength of the race nerves the individual arm, labor grows into prayer, human sympathy and communion become godlike and open ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... they could hear their attitude mythologically expressed, and knew themselves as tooth-chattering ones, who flee from Nature because they fear the hand of Nature's God! Shrilly sound Pan's pipes; and behold the banker instantly concealed in the bank parlour! For to distrust one's impulses is to be recreant ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cultivated as well as the active capacities, and required to be nourished and enriched as well as guided. I did not, for an instant, lose sight of, or undervalue, that part of the truth which I had seen before; I never turned recreant to intellectual culture, or ceased to consider the power and practice of analysis as an essential condition both of individual and of social improvement But 1 thought that it had consequences which required to be corrected, by joining other ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... have given much to avoid this moment. But now that the discussion was upon him, he said to himself that he would not traffic with the insincerities, he would not be recreant to his own identity. He would not fawn, and bow, and play the smug squire of dames, full of specious flatteries, and kiss ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... keep them together. The night was so dark that Sirrah could not be seen, but the faithful animal had heard his master lament their absence in words which set him at once on the alert, and without more ado he had silently gone off in quest of the recreant flock. In vain Hogg and his assistant spent the whole night in searching for their lost charge; and they were on their way home to inform their master of their loss, when they discovered a lot of lambs at the bottom ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... could feel that part of the creating power was mine; for had I not trusted him? Let a man realize that there is some one who has faith in him, and the battle is half won. Even suppose he were to prove the recreant and the impostor predicted, the world would not be able to jeer at me; I could hug my wretched secret, and none would be the wiser. Decidedly, I was to be envied in the acquisition of this new interest. It would be almost like having ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... she saw her—not uncivilly, however, denies— coming-to by degrees! Nothing but the last offence, the honest wench tells me, in the language of her principals below, will do with her. The last offence is meditating. Yet this vile recreant heart ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... expedition of this monarch, and of all the treasures he acquired thereby. His "adventures" is among the list of Historic Tales in the Book of Leinster, but unfortunately there is no copy of this tract in existence. It was probably about this time that a recreant Irish chieftain tried to induce Agricola to invade Ireland. But the Irish Celts had extended the fame of their military prowess even to distant lands,[88] and the Roman general thought it better policy to keep what he had ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... many great strokes and much blood-shed on both sides. Finally by a mighty blow from his enemy,—a passing big man of might,—Arthur's sword was smitten in two pieces, and he was called upon to yield himself as overcome and recreant, or die. ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler
... without a smile; and, as Phillis seemed inclined to put him off with an excuse, he continued, more seriously: "Pardon me, but it is far too late, and the road far too lonely, for a young lady to go unattended. If you prefer it, I will go to the White House, and bring out the recreant Evans by force." ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... its beatings. The course of events is so rapidly hastening forward that the emergency may soon arise when you may be called upon to decide the momentous question whether you possess the power by force of arms to compel a State to remain in the Union. I should feel myself recreant to my duty were I not to express an opinion on ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... southwest collect his routed forces, checked but not conquered; he again advances on his recreant foe and seizes the vacant throne without a struggle. Ill-fated northeast! hadst thou but ruled with moderation when thou hadst gained, with masterly manoeuvre, the throne of the air; hadst thou reserved thy forces against surprise, and not, with prodigal ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... ... it is not possyble ... ... ... ... ... The smoothe face of the wanton lovelye Richard Should promise more true fortytude in love Then tourne a recreant to perswatyons. ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... proud enough of his pretty sister, and the still fine-looking grand dame Mrs. Wetherill. Then there was piquant Polly Wharton with her smiles and ready tongue, and even Andrew Henry was recreant enough to grace the occasion, which seemed to restore an atmosphere of amity ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... their pillage. There is no more horrible event in all history than that of the sack of Rome by the German mercenaries in the year 1527. Under General George von Frundsberg, who joined forces with the recreant constable Bourbon of France and the Spaniards, these lawless Germans invaded the fertile plains of Italy ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... son of Cuba! skulking about in the woods, while his brother soldiers were at the front, or, like Carlos, guarding the hill passes! This was indeed being only half a Cuban. She would have nothing to do with recreant soldiers; and she turned away with a face ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... that he cheered him with such kind words. "To Mine enemy," He reproached him, "thou sayest, 'What shall I do for thee, my son?'" Isaac replied, "O that he might find grace with Thee!" God: "He is a recreant." Isaac: "Doth he not act righteously when he honors his parents?" God: "In the land of uprightness will he deal wrongfully, he will stretch his hand forth in days to come against the Temple." Isaac: "Then let him ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... that, child," responded Mother Bunch, but in reality there was much fear; for the recreant Biddy, Mrs. O'Flaherty's eldest daughter, had been enjoying herself in a back part of the kitchen during the entire evening's entertainment. She slunk away now, afraid to meet her mother's wrath, should it descend upon her devoted head. Hester, accompanied ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... ungenial ground, Whose gems are crystals from the Epsom mine, Whose vineyards flow with antimonial wine, Whose gates admit no mirthful feature in, Save one gaunt mocker, the Sardonic grin, Whose pangs are real, not the woes of rhyme That blue-eyed misses warble out of time;— Truant, not recreant to thy sacred claim, Older by reckoning, but in heart the same, Freed for a moment from the chains of toil, I tread once more thy consecrated soil; Here at thy feet my old allegiance own, Thy subject still, and ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... you, my family are centuries before the Trethericks; but if my family had ever treated me in this way, and then asked me to turn my back on my best friend, I'd whistle them down the wind;" and here Kate snapped her fingers, bent her black brows, and glared around the room as if in search of a recreant Van Corlear. ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... to "live respectable," and that nether world in which are also found cases of devotion and of enduring affection arising out of the midst of the folly and the shame. The girl there who through all tribulation supports her recreant "lover," or the girl who overcomes, her drink and opium habits, who renounces luxuries and goes back to uninteresting daily toil for the sake of the good opinion of a man who wishes her to "appear decent," although he never means to marry her, these ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... the red men prayed for water. It is true that they could get it at Lake Ronkonkoma, but some of them were many miles from there, and, beside, they feared the spirits at that place: the girl who plied its waters in a phosphor-shining birch, seeking her recreant lover; and the powerful guardians that the Great Spirit had put in charge to keep the fish from being caught, for these fish were the souls of men, awaiting deliverance into another form. The people gathered about their villages in bands and besought the Great Spirit to give them drink. His voice ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... and that his belief in the fundamental principles of political economy was, at that time, doubted by all who knew him best! Are such statements as these to be submitted to by a man of honor? Never! PUNCHINELLO dares the recreant editor of the dirty sheet to do his worst! Of that base man he could tell much which would render him unfit for the association of any person living, but he forbears. This much, however, he will say. It is well known that the said calumniator did, at many periods of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various
... feel, that makes a prey Of all those energies that lift the soul To her congenial climes above the pole I know the various pangs that rend the heart; I know that noblest souls receive the dart Without defence, when Reason drops the shield And, recreant, to her foe resigns the field.— I saw the archer in his airy flight, I saw him when he check'd his arrow's flight: And when it reach'd the mark, I watched the god, And saw him win his way by force or fraud, As best befits his ends. His whirling throne ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... minute or two during which she pressed him over and over again to have an interview with her recreant lover, bringing up all the arguments that she knew, reminding him of their former affection for each other, telling him that she had no brother of her own, and that her own father was worse than useless in such a matter. A word or two she said ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... their own wills, right or wrong. Sir, when I heard the gentleman lay down principles which place the murderers of Alton side by side with Otis and Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I thought those pictured lips [pointing to the portraits in the hall] would have broken into voice to rebuke the recreant American—the slanderer ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... see Jessie to-night," she answered firmly. "She has flown back to me in wild affright—the mere wreck of what she was, poor child! when I gave her into your keeping—and the inviolable sanctity of my house is around her. I much fear, Leon Dexter, that you have proved recreant to your trust—that you have not loved, protected, and cherished that delicate flower. The sweetness of her life ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... pent-up fury of his breast. "Why stay'st thou, Turnus? Wherefore this delay? Fierce arms, not swiftness, must decide the day. Shift as thou wilt, and every shape assume; Exhaust thy courage and thy craft, and pray For wings to soar with, or in earth's dark womb Sink low thy recreant head, and hide thee ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... fear.] Cowardice. — N. cowardice, pusillanimity; cowardliness &c. adj.; timidity, effeminacy. poltroonery, baseness; dastardness[obs3], dastardy[obs3]; abject fear, funk; Dutch courage; fear &c. 860; white feather, faint heart; cold feet * [U. S.], yellow streak*. coward, poltroon, dastard, sneak, recreant; shy cock, dunghill cock; coistril[obs3], milksop, white liver, lily liver, nidget[obs3], one that cannot say " bo" to a goose; slink; Bob Acres, Jerry Sneak. alarmist, terrorist|!, pessimist; runagate &c. (fugitive) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the shield and sword of Rome Against the ravening brood of recreant France, Beside the man of men whom heaven took home When earth beheld the spring's first eyebeams glance And life and winter seemed alike a trance Eighteen years since, in sight of heaven and spring That saw the soul above all souls take wing, He too now ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Salle had sailed four hundred miles beyond the mouth of the river he sought. Unaware of his mistake, he determined to land and build a temporary fort; but the frigate Aimable, laden with stores, was wrecked upon a reef; Beaujeu, the recreant commander of the Joly, deserted his leader and made sail for France, and presently La Salle was left with only the little frigate Belle. Soon afterwards this vessel also sank beneath the stormy ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... reception could scarcely be called cordial; though not wanting in the technical respect and ceremony due to him as a gentleman of wealth and influence, he could perceive a half concealed suspense and misgiving, due unmistakably to his attitude as a recreant clergyman. ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... "Stonewall" Jackson, with ten thousand at his back; And Longstreet, too, and gallant Hill, and Rhodes, and brave Huger,[1] And he whose name is worth a host, our bold, devoted Lee; And back to where the lordly James his scornful billow rolls, The recreant foe is fleeing fast—those ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... softly smiling and holding out his womanish white hands. She would have rejoined him, but once again Constans forced her back. The dangling rope of the alarm-bell grazed his hand; he clutched at it, and a clang re-echoed through the court-yard, rousing the recreant warders from their slumbers. In that same instant Quinton Edge ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... and the conditions imposed neutralised each other. The settler who carried out labour, found his servant desert him to occupy land acquired by the capitalist who carried out money. Of three hundred persons embarked by Mr. Peel, in a few months not one remained to light his fire; but the recreant workmen were soon reduced to want. Many, under their broken indentures, claimed relief of Mr. Peel, whose flocks had been scattered, and his property destroyed by their desertion. He was glad to hide from ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... Romance all owe allegiance, and some of them are ready to pay it, to the queens of the Latin poets.[85] Virgil's Dido and Ovid's Medea taught the eloquence of love to the French poets, and the first chivalrous lovers are those who have learned to think poorly of the recreant ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... Leslie turning recreant?" he asked in a low voice. "A pretty tale to tell in the ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... fear, or from a sense of his unworthiness and unfitness for the task. His own words about God as long-suffering seem to suggest another reason, that he feared to go with a message of judgment which seemed to him so unlikely to be executed by the long-suffering God. If so, then what made him recreant was not so much fear from personal motives as intellectual perplexity and imperfect comprehension of the ways of God. Then we hear of his pitiable flight with its absurdity and its wickedness. Then comes the prayer which shows him to have been right and true at bottom, and teaches us that what ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... we parted for three months, and I hurried to meet my lover, who had promised to join me in Vermont, where my mother had gone to recruit her failing health. For the first time Maurice proved recreant, and wrote that imperative business detained him in New York. Did I doubt him, even then? Not in the least; but endeavored by cheerful letters to show him how patiently I could bear the separation that might result in pecuniary advantage ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... on the parade at the "assembly of the details," not so much to watch the work of the post adjutant pro tempore, as the effect of the sudden and unlooked for change on certain of the customary spectators. He had swiftly ridden to the camp of the recreant Stabber and purposely demanded speech with that influential chieftain. There had been the usual attempt on part of the old men left in charge to hoodwink and to temporize, but when sharply told that Stabber, with his ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King |
