"Errant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... then recognizing me as the person who picked up the contents of aunt Celia's bag, she said, dimpling in the most distracting manner (that's another thing there ought to be a law against), "Thank you again; you seem to be a sort of knight-errant!" ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... his day and the rather pedantic spirit with which classical studies were there pursued. Moreover, he had brought from Europe a new manner, full of the affections of ardent youth, and this he wore without ease in a society highly satisfied with itself; the young knight-errant was therefore subjected to considerable ridicule. A little volume of poetry, translations and original pieces, published in 1823 gave its author no fame. As time passed, and custom created familiarity, his style, personal and literary, was seen to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... usually in the same village; and to that condition, law, custom, habits, morals, have adapted themselves. The whole plan and conception of human society is based on the rustic home and the needs and characteristics of the agricultural family. There have been gipsies, wanderers, knaves, knights-errant and adventurers, no doubt, but the settled permanent rustic home and the tenure of land about it, and the hens and the cow, have constituted the fundamental reality of the whole scene. Now, the really wonderful thing in this ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... and things went on in the old way with the Blake family. Mike had sprouted out into a fine gossoon of a boy, and exercised his errant disposition by running after the gentlemen when they went out shooting, and helping the keepers to carry the game. One day, a gentleman who was shooting in the neighbourhood called at his father's cabin, ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... "Nonsense, errant nonsense, as ever was talked!" cried Mr. Knightley.—"Robert Martin's manners have sense, sincerity, and good-humour to recommend them; and his mind has more true gentility than ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... She wiped an errant tear away, and made her way to a store—a new place sprung up, like the bank and the hotel, with the growing importance of the town. The stock of ready-made clothing drove her to despair. It seemed that what women ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... capital of a ducal family that had a hard fight at times for existence, holds an honorable position in the annals of German literature. The Babenberg dukes were generous patrons of the Muses. Their court was frequented by minnesingers and knights-errant. Their praises were sung by Walther von der Vogelweide, Ulrich von Lichtenstein and others. Walther, in his ode to Duke Leopold, has almost anticipated Shakespeare, when ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... his tear-dimmed eyes New lights arise. He drops his treasured pennies on the ground, They roll and bound And scattered, rest. Now with what zest He runs to find his errant wealth again! ...
— Trees and Other Poems • Joyce Kilmer
... kind of place for a hermit," said Monica. "He could have had a little cell and told his beads without being disturbed by anybody, except an occasional knight-errant who would blow a horn from the opposite bank. I wonder if ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... in Boston, our errant knight, before setting out upon his quest for the Fame and Fortune to whose service he was sworn, spent some hours in wandering about the old town, with mind open to the quickening influences of historic association and eye to the ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... always succeeded in diminishing the long list of those pitiful affronts and offences, which play such important parts in the social drama of country society. She was a perfect Apostle-errant of the order of Reconciliation; and wherever she went, cast out the devil Sulkiness from all his strongholds—the lofty and the lowly alike. Our good rector used to call her his Volunteer Curate; and declare that she preached by a timely word, ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... forgetfulness, and the local candidate Miss Blair reappears. Favoured as she was by his father, it would have been easy to bring things to a climax, but on her mother's part there was some not unnatural coldness over his indiscreet talk about his love of the heiress. Bozzy was a convivial knight-errant in what was called 'Saving the ladies.' At clubs and gatherings any member would toast his idol in a bumper, and then another champion would enter his peerless Dulcinea in two bumpers, to be routed by the ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... differ much from the opinions prevailing in society! Now even Mercy had not escaped some notion of things of which the air about her was full; and she felt the glow of a conscious attraction towards men—somehow, she did not know how—like old-fashioned knights errant in their ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... the hearth, crumbling in hearts of fire: on the outer edges the ashes grew grey. The candles of coarse mould, stuck in a rude sconce upon the wall above the mantelshelf, guttered to their end, set aslant by wafts of errant wind that came in through the half-open door and crevices of the window. It grew cold, and Montaiglon shook himself into wakefulness. He sat up in his chair and looked about him with some sense of ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... classical allusion, even to hexameters of astonishingly loose joints. Every stroke of his hero's sword-arm seems to him of weight. No doubt it was, once; but not in a chronicle of this sort, where the Cypriote gests must take a lowly place among others fair and foul of this King-errant. Let me put Milo on the shelf ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... age doubtless with its differences of more or less imaginative individual minds—with one, here or there, eminent, though but by a little, above a merely receptive majority, the spokesman of a universal, though faintly-felt prepossession, attaching the errant fancies of the people around him to definite names and images. The myth grew up gradually, and at many distant places, in many minds, independent of each other, but dealing in a common temper with certain elements and aspects of the natural world, as one here, and another ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... freshness of the dewy lawns, he felt himself assailed by all the passionate expectancy that transforms the soul of youth into the incoherent canvas of an unfinished romance of love. Long ago he had known such evenings, those evenings of errant fancy, when he had allowed his caprice to roam through imaginary adventures, and he was astonished to feel a return of sensations that did not ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... history of France both highly suggestive as regards the development of civilization, and picturesque and dramatic as a narrative, the greatest allowance for brilliant theorizing, political sympathies, and an errant fancy are indispensable in order to attain to a clear view of genuine facts and absolute principles. It has been said that "leading ideas" are fatal to accuracy of statement; and these dominate in the minds of French ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... mantelpiece, and the cloth of indigo plushette which now covered the table, made the most congenial refuge conceivable. His thoughts were in exact harmony with everything there, from the Venetian blinds to the portrait of his great-grandmother. The only discordant element was the presence of a few errant bread-crumbs, and happily they were under ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... Lassalle wrested from his opponents a magnificently conclusive victory—one that made the children of the countess absolutely safe. It was a battle fought with the determination of a soldier, with the gallantry of a knight errant, and the intellectual acumen ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... forty-six, good-looking in a dissolute sort of way, possessing the charm of the wanderer, generous with his money. It was known that Tessie's barbs were permitted to prick him without retaliation because Tessie herself appealed to his errant fancy. ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... genealogical tree of the house of Grey, and, if you can trace a fibre that ramifies in the miller's family, I will gladly bow to my own blood wherever I find it, and claim cousinship. Meantime, my dear sister, do keep a corner of your loving heart well swept and dusted for your errant sailor-boy." ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... on the play, up an' down, for a day or so, makin' out a plan. He don't want to go back himse'f; the agent knows him, an' them Injuns knows him, an' it's even money, if he comes pokin' into their bailiwick, they'll tumble to his errant. In sech events, they're shore doo to corral him an' give them ants another holiday. It's the ant part that gives ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... grew at a sharp angle over the water, and the branches were so far up that it was necessary to climb out a short distance in order to reach them. Mr. Opp's soul was undoubtedly that of a knight-errant, but his body, alas! was not. When he found himself astride the slender, swaying trunk, with the bank dropping sharply to the river flowing dizzily beneath him, he went suddenly and unexpectedly blind. Between admiration for himself for ever having gotten there, and despair of ever getting back, ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... Montfort to compose a chronicle of the wars of the time; but there were no books to tell him of the past, no regular communication between nations to inform him of the present; so he followed the fashion of knights errant, and set out on horseback, not to seek adventures, but, as an itinerant historian, to find materials for his chronicle. He wandered from town to town, and from castle to castle, to see the places of which ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... astonished! You seem to wonder and ask yourselves who is this modern Quixote. What mean this costume of by-gone centuries—this golden chariot—these richly caparisoned steeds? What is the name and purpose of this curious knight-errant? Gentlemen, I will condescend to answer your queries. I am Monsieur Mangin, the great charlatan of France! Yes, gentlemen, I am a charlatan—a mountebank; it is my profession, not from choice, but from necessity. You, gentlemen, created that ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... older than Calhoun, but they had been playmates from babyhood, and were great friends. Jennie called him her knight-errant. More than once he had carried a pair of black eyes in fighting her battles when some of the larger boys ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... seemed incredible that his father could thus have vanished without, as it were, announcing his intention, without last words to his son, and due farewells. And those incoherent allusions of little Holly to 'the lady in grey,' of Mademoiselle Beauce to a Madame Errant (as it sounded) involved all things in a mist, lifted a little when he read his father's will and the codicil thereto. It had been his duty as executor of that will and codicil to inform Irene, wife of his cousin Soames, of her life interest in fifteen thousand ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... was twofold upon the aristocracy. Those who municipalized themselves became more enlightened, more lettered, more refined, and, at the same time, less chivalrous and less martial than their ancestors. The characters of buccaneer, land-pirate, knight-errant could not be conveniently united with those of banker, exchange broker, dealer in dry ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... of introductions goes on duly, a small staff of energetic professional gentlemen, styled M.C.'s (which in London, you know, stands for Master of the Ceremonies), flit ever hither and thither amongst the throng, now catching a wildly errant waltzing couple in politely resolute arms and sending them back into the regular ring, now getting up sets for Lancers and quadrilles, and at all points doing their best to keep the ball a-rolling. Useful members ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... sudden flight, M. Fould received a letter from the errant diva, in which she demanded permission to return and fill her contract. M. Fould consented, and accepted her plea of "a misunderstanding," but the public were not so easily placated, and when she appeared on the stage as Valentine ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... heard of Jurand, of the imprisonment of his daughter, of Zbyszko's marriage, and of his deadly fight with Rotgier. These things interested her greatly, so much so that it seemed to her one of those knight-errant stories or one of the minstrel songs in Germany, and the rybalt songs in Mazowsze. Indeed, the Knights of the Cross were not inimical to her, as they were to princess Anna Danuta, the wife of Prince Janusz, ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... bluebell-teeming groves, and nymphs, with eglantine and roses in their neatly-braided hair, went hand in hand to the flowery mead to weave garlands for their lambkins. If by chance some rude, uncivil fellow dared to molest them, or attempted to throw thorns in their path, there was sure to be a knight-errant not far off ready to rush forward in their defence. But alas! in these degenerate days it is not so. Should a harmless cottage-maid wander out of the highway to pluck a primrose or two in the neighbouring field, ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... become a redresser of grievances; there only wanted a lady in the way to be a knight-errant in form. This defect was soon supplied; I presently had two. I frequently went to see my father at Nion, a small city in the Vaudois country, where he was now settled. Being universally respected, the affection entertained ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... more intimate way than merely to shake hands with in passing. She had been tremendously impressed. She could smile at it now. But, really, she had been like one of the younger sisters, and for a year or so after that he had been to her a sort of vague knight errant. ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... The horse belonging to Don Quixote who was the romantic and absurdly chivalric hero of a satirical Spanish novel entitled The History of the Valorous and Witty Knight Errant, Don Quixote of the Mancha ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... lamp that shut the two of them into an enchanted circle, Roger's arm about her as they danced, the drive home in the dark. Why had it all been so thrilling? She had no doubt as to the answer, indeed her certainty on this point made her pull herself up sharply, resolving to restrain her errant fancy, not to allow herself to take too much ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... sharing bed and board with them under all kinds of adverse conditions, but always maintaining a stoic abstemiousness, and never feeling other than a keen regret at the waste of so much genuine ability and kindliness on the part of those knights errant of the key whose inevitable fate might so ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... mind, and mingled itself with his old delusions in a manner which to most Englishmen must seem singular, but which those who know how close was the union between religion and chivalry in Spain will be at no loss to understand. He would still be a soldier, he would still be a knight errant; but the soldier and knight errant of the spouse of Christ. He would smite the Great Red Dragon. He would be the champion of the Woman clothed with the Sun. He would break the charm under which false prophets held the souls of men in bondage. His restless spirit led ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the constant object of vituperation on his part, even from the pulpit. His notions on this point, however, never gained ground with his hearers, who could not be brought to believe that their master (himself as true a knight errant as ever drew sword or pen,) was serious when he told them that the spirit of ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... and the woman signed to us to go on in. Yerkes led the way again impulsively as any knight-errant rescuing beleaguered dames, but I looked back and saw that the Syrian woman had locked the outer door. Before I could tell Will that, he was in the next room, so I followed, and, ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... office-boy-in-charge, who had quietly suppressed it. No one is a hero to one's own office-boy, and he evidently considered that a quarter of a million was an unwarrantable outlay for such a doubtfully advantageous object as the repatriation of an errant newspaper staff. So he drew the editorial and other salaries, forged what signatures were necessary, engaged new reporters, did what sub-editing he could, and made as much use as possible of the large accumulation of special articles that was held in reserve for emergencies. ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... page of the paper the names in a brief item arrested his errant glance. It disclosed that Mr. Percival Bines had left New York the day before with a party of guests on his special car, to shoot quail in North Carolina. Mr. Milbrey glanced at the two shells of the orange which the butler ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... our knights-errant," said he, "let us hear what they have to say. Have you seen the ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... "Don Quijote," Part I, chap. 45. The words were addressed by Don Quijote to members of the rural police who were arresting him for depredations committed on the highway. The full sentence in Ormsby's translation reads: "Who was he that did not know that knights-errant are independent of all jurisdictions, that their law is their sword, their charter their prowess, and their edicts their will?" This Spanish declaration of independence was frequently used as a slogan by the Romanticists. Espronceda ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... many petty enterprises which his master had intrusted to him. Quentin's imagination had filled up the sketch in his own way, and assimilated his successful and adventurous uncle (whose exploits probably lost nothing in the telling) to some of the champions and knights errant of whom minstrels sung and who won crowns and kings' daughters by dint of sword and lance. He was now compelled to rank his kinsman greatly lower in the scale of chivalry; but, blinded by the high respect paid to parents and those ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... seeing where some of his calves had invaded Temple property, followed the errant calves himself instead of sending one of his men. And as he rode he was apt to forget his strayed cattle as he watched through the trees for a fluttering, ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... tired of his dumb visitor, and leaning on his axe he said, "Look here, Sis, what have you come for? What's your errant? Do you want apples? Or cider? Or what? Speak out, or GIT out, one ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... and St Stephen's Day, and is accounted for by a legend concerning an evil fairy who lured many men to destruction, but had to assume the form of a wren to escape punishment at the hands of an ingenious knight-errant. ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... she had pinned her girlish faith to the coat-sleeve of the tall, reserved young cavalryman. To him she was a child, even younger by a year than the little sister he had left, and of whom he soon began to tell her. To her he was a young knight-errant, the hero of a budding maiden's shyest, sweetest, fondest fancy, and ere long the idol of the dreams and thoughts she dared not whisper even to herself. Paquita, with the wisdom of elder sisterhood, more than half ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... Gregory deposed, the errant one, seen sliding out of the swinging door, and summoned in a loud, clear voice to come back, had flatly disobeyed and had gone upon his ways 'Grinning at me,' said the aggrieved Mr Gregory, 'like a dashed ape.' A most unjust description of ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... rivaled the monarch in splendor and power. Constantin established his capital at Vladimir, about one hundred and fifty miles west of Moscow. The warlike Mstislaf, greedy of renown, with the chivalry of a knight-errant, sought to have a hand in every quarrel then raging far or near. Southern Russia continued in a state of incessant embroilments; and the princes of the provinces, but nominally in subjection to the crown, lived in a state of interminable war. Occasionally they would sheath ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... my good knight-errant," said the Nun: "the fair Quaker will be too hard for half-a-dozen antagonists, and wants not your protection:—but your poor Nun bespeaks it," whispered she, "who has not a word to say for herself." Mr. B. answered her in Italian (I wish I understood Italian!)—and ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... that the scroll had been pawned to the merchant from whom he had obtained it, he instituted inquiries as to its owner, and ultimately restored the scroll to him with the addition of five gold ryo. The owner was a knight-errant (ronin) named Imagawa Motome, who thereafter entered Masamune's service and ultimately rose to be a general of infantry (ashigaru). The sympathy which taught Masamune to estimate the pain with which the owner of the scroll must have parted with it was a fine trait of character. Another ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... the house-bride, homewards bring Maid yearning for new married fere, Her mind with fondness manacling, As the tough ivy here and there Errant ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... I hope he may prove a knight-errant, and deliver me from Giant Despair's castle," said the frivolous girl, while she twisted her long, shining curls around ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... creatures eating acorns, like pigs. The Augustan Age was comical enough, if we may trust some of Horace's satires. Much comicality was displayed in the Middle Ages, in the proceedings of the knights errant, the doings in Palestine, and the mode adopted by the priests of inculcating religion on the minds of the people. In the Elizabethan Age several comic incidents occurred at court; particularly when any of the courtiers were guilty of personal impertinence to their ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh
... owes General Jackson reparation. His personality needs indeed complete reconstruction in the popular mind, which misconceives him a rough frontiersman having few or none of the social graces. In point of fact he came into the world a gentleman, a leader, a knight-errant who captivated women ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... The rector had but one surplice, and that had been stolen from the clothes-line, mayhap by one of his dusky flock; thus it was that Amarilly received a call from the Reverend Virgil Washington, who had heard of the errant surplice, which he offered ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... about in neat morning dresses. After seeing for a long time little but rusticity, their lively manner, and gay inviting appearance, pleased me so much, that I thought, for the moment, I could have been a knight-errant for them[952]. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... an emptiness you know not of— A night profounder that it late has held Marsh-lights of promise. My last altar lies Smoking in ruins; and I stand alone Of all the universe. But my Will be done! My errant tortured Will, my bitter Will, ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... us a face, plain, sagacious, yet full of an expression of kindly benevolence. The exigencies of a busy life have transformed romance into reality and common-sense; the adventurer and knight-errant has but obeyed the law of his age, and become a noble example of the power of the Anglo-Saxon mind to organize in the face of adverse circumstances a state, and to construct out of most unpromising elements the good fabric of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... century, had been deposed from their old-time place of honour. These stories, however, were as yet so imperfectly known—and only to a few—that the most to be said is that some connection between their reviving popularity and the name of Smollett's knight-errant hero is ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... 13, 1707, in a country place named Roshult in Smaland, near Skane, Sweden. He was called Charles after the well known Swedish knight errant, King Charles XII., then at the height of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various
... to your home A destined errant-knight I come, 475 Announced by prophet sooth and old, Doomed, doubtless, for achievement bold, I'll lightly front each high emprise, For one kind glance of those bright eyes. Permit me, first, ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... lands, to shame King Arthur; so that all his folk who were of the knightly order, and dwelt at his court, and sought for adventure, should shun their land when they heard the tidings of the vengeance wrought by them upon knights-errant who would prove ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... sake of her children, of whom Nikolaus was her idol. His first impression of nature was the silent solitude and vastness of the Hungarian plains, which probably helped to accentuate an inherent strain of melancholy. Led astray by a youthful errant passion, he is haunted by a feeling of guilt, of lost innocence, and Dame Melancholy becomes his faithful life companion. When later happiness in the guise of human love crosses his pathway, he does not dare stretch out his hand. Shuddering, he feels there is something "too fatally abnormal ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... to hear a melancholy old barrel-organ in the courtyard, go to the window and give a penny to the poor errant [Footnote: Errant: wandering.] musician—perhaps it is Don Gaetano! If you find that his organ disturbs you, try if you like it, better by making him stand a little farther off, but don't send him away with harshness! ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... the country, with the first knight- errant that starts up?' said the girl, in an aggrieved voice. 'And if I had ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... words of Mr. Wordsworth's own epitome, "his apprehensions that he had detained his auditors too long—invites them to his house—Solitary, disinclined to comply, rallies the Wanderer, and somewhat playfully draws a comparison between his itinerant profession and that of a knight-errant—which leads to the Wanderer giving an account of changes in the country, from the manufacturing spirit—Its favourable effects— The other side of the picture," etc., etc. After these very poetical themes are exhausted, they all go into the house, where they are introduced ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... the disinterested and chivalrous Champlain was not the enthusiasm of La Salle, nor had he any part in the self-devoted zeal of the early Jesuit explorers. He belonged not to the age of the knight-errant and the saint, but to the modern world of practical study and practical action. He was the hero, not of a principle nor of a faith, but simply of a fixt idea and a determined purpose. As often happens with concentered and energetic natures, his purpose was to him a passion and an inspiration; ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... wherefore thus supine Remain within thy chambers after nine? Come forth, suffer thyself to be admired, And blush not so, coy dean, to be desired." The captive churchman chafes with empty rage, Till some knight-errant free him from his cage. Pale fear and anger sit upon yon face Erst full of love and piety and grace, But not pale fear nor anger will undo The iron might of gimlet and of screw. Grin at the window, Williams, all is vain; The carpenter will come and let thee ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... child," wrote her mother, with gentle raillery. "What with your announcement of the presentation of the medal, and Mrs. Mason's enthusiastic letter, your father and I begin to believe that we have a kind of female knight errant for a daughter. I am afraid we never shall get our little ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... define the nature of the Indians, and their customs and vices. This is a memorandum-book in which I have employed myself for forty years, and I shall only say: Quadraginta annis proximus fui generationi huic, et dixi semper hi errant corde; [88] and I believe that Solomon himself would place this point of knowledge after the four things impossible to his understanding which he gives in chapter XXX, verse 18 of Proverbs. Only can they tell the One who knows them by pointing to the sky and saying, Ipse cognovit ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... York?" interrupted I; for I did not wish to hear the poor little fellow's list of miseries, which I knew by heart beforehand without his telling me, having been hopeless knight-errant of oppressed boyhood ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... have, prevailed. But Lincoln's personal reluctance to resist all entreaties on behalf of his own forerunner and his own rival was great; and then Fremont came to Lincoln and proposed to him a knight-errant's adventure to succour the oppressed Unionists of Tennessee by an expedition through West Virginia. So he was now to proceed there, but was kept for the present in the mountains near the Shenandoah valley. ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... lonely figure outlined darkly against the clear blue background of sky and distance. He gazed unseeingly into space; thought and movement alike were suspended. He was only conscious of pain. He knew all was ended. Thus his errant forbear from the north may have stood five hundred years ago, leaning upon his lance, a sword in ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... Company, and that common Vice of the Town, Gaming, soon run out my younger Brother's Fortune: for imagining, like some of the luckier Gamesters, to improve my Stock at the Groom Porter's, I ventur'd on, and lost all. My elder Brother, an errant Jew, had neither Friendship nor Honour enough to support me; but at last being mollified by Persuasions, and the hopes of being for ever rid of me, sent me hither with a small Cargo ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... had indeed disappeared. Charles XII was ere long to be a mere knight-errant at Bender. The Cossack independence, too, was a thing of the past. Its last and all too untrustworthy representative was to die in Turkey before many months were out—of despair, according to Russian testimony—of poison voluntarily swallowed, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... seems to be—that he is paid little for it—and regularly: while you traffickers, and exchangers, and others occupied in presumably benevolent business, like to be paid much for it—and by chance. I never can make out how it is that a knight-errant does not expect to be paid for his trouble, but a pedlar-errant always does;—that people are willing to take hard knocks for nothing, but never to sell ribands cheap;—that they are ready to go on fervent crusades to ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... will continue to be governed, by masterful-looking resultants, masters of nothing but compromise, and that little fancy of an inner conspiracy of control within the machine and behind ostensible politics is really on all fours with the wonderful Rodin (of the Juif Errant) and as probable as anything else in ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... was one of the principal superintendents, observes that the old-fashioned allowances to be found so often in the Pipe-Rolls, pro guidagio et spiagio, into the interior, may well be spared thereafter, since "the under sheriffs and bailiffs errant are better guides and spies in time of peace than they were found in tune of war." He adds, what we may very well believe, that the Earl of Tyrone complained he had so many eyes upon him, that he could not drink a cup of sack without the government ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... limited portion of the community which has been active in establishing them. To give it its most favorable interpretation, it is a sort of crazy counsel of perfection, incompatible with the healthy tenor and contents of human nature, and sure in the end to involve in its errant tentacles not only those who are the avowed objects of its pursuit, but likewise the lawmakers and enforcers themselves. Like all abuses, in its own entrails are the seeds of its destruction. Laws now on ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... welcomed him thankfully. All the surgeon's serene confidence in himself returned in these emergencies, and he was doing invaluable work. People were grateful, but the man's ways and looks were so strange, his restlessness so tragic, that they dubbed him "le Juif Errant." ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... aunt when she eloped with the faithless Jingle; "in a po-chay from the 'Blue Lion' at Muggleton," as one of Mr. Wardle's men said; and the discovery of the said shoes led to the identification of the errant pair at the "White Hart" in the Borough. After Sam Weller had described nearly all the visitors staying in the hotel from an examination of ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... female fashions for 1851 quite deplorable by contrast—especially the shoes, and the way of dressing the hair; we almost came to the conclusion that female beauty when unadorned is adorned the most. It awes and chastens one so! and wakes up the knight-errant inside! even the smartest French boots can't do this! not the pinkest silken hose in all Paris! Not all the frills and underfrills and wonderfrills that M. Paul ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... Admitting their premises, the Jews were right in charging Jesus with blasphemy, in that being a man {181} he made himself God. If Christ is not God, he is not even a good man. And if the Scriptures are not inerrant, they are worse than errant; since, being literature, they make themselves the ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... 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] later Renaissance was invincibly young. The theoretic recognition of ...
— Giordano Bruno • Walter Horatio Pater
... Seat[3] which was formerly more benign unto the righteous poor (not through itself but through him who sits there and degenerates[4]), he asked not to dispense or two or three for six,[5] not the fortune of the first vacancy, non decimas, quae sunt pauperum Dei,[6] but leave to fight against the errant world for that seed[7] of which four and twenty plants are girding thee. Then with doctrine and with will, together with the apostolic office,[8] he went forth like a torrent which a lofty vein pours out, and on the ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... as the excuse for a visit to the Lawn. He wanted pounds for very trivial purposes; but he wanted them desperately. A lover without pounds is the most helpless and contemptible of mankind; he is a knight-errant without his armour, a troubadour ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... is the case with all men of rare capacities, there was a concentration of powers in the mind of my ancestor, which soon brought all his errant sympathies, the mere exuberance of acute and overflowing feelings, into a proper and useful subjection, centring all in the one absorbing and capacious receptacle of self. I do not claim for my father any peculiar ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... little of the urgency of the case, when I requested his leave to take my lessons each morning at six o'clock, for I dared not absent myself during the day without exciting suspicion; and never, I will venture to assert, did knight-errant of old strive harder for the hand of his lady-love than did I during that weary fortnight, if a hippogriff had been the animal I bestrode, instead of being, as it was, an old wall-eyed grey, I could not ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... milk of the breasts of the mother of many children? Has it too the old, ever-fresh forbearance and impartiality? Does it look with the same love on the last-born and on those hardening toward stature, and on the errant, and on those who disdain all strength of ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... men-at-arms, as many as he could muster, the burgesses from the towns, the clergy from all the great centres of the Church, on mules and soft-pacing palfreys, would gather for the meetings of Parliament. It scarcely wanted a knight-errant like the fourth James, with his chivalrous tastes and devices, to fill the noble town with brightness, for all these fine sights were familiar to Edinburgh. But the brightest day was now ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... of France—of Navarre—of Aragon—in disguise; nay, at the Whit-Sunday banquet there were those who cast anxious glances to the door, expecting that, in the very land of King Arthur, she would walk in like his errant dames at Pentecost, to demand a champion. And when a joust was given on the sward, young Sir John de Mohun, the Lord of Dunster, announced his intention of tilting in honour of no one save the Queen of the Dew-drops. The ladies of the court were rather scandalized, and appealed to the King whether ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... journey from Paris and of his dealings with Tressan and his subsequent adventures at Condillac. He dwelt passingly upon the manner in which they had treated him, and found it difficult to choose words to express the reason for his returning in disguise to play the knight-errant to Valerie. He passed on to speak of last night's happenings and of his escape. Throughout, the Marquis heard him with a grave countenance and a sober, attentive glance, yet, when he had finished a smile crept round the ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... two errant spheres together grind With monstrous ruin in the vast of space, Destruction born of that malign embrace, Their hapless peoples all to death consigned— Not so when our intangible worlds of mind, Even mine and yours, each ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... strength—the invalid would have done for an honorary member of the club of fat people recorded in the Spectator; and we looked, with disdain on the level territory on the banks of the Usk, and longed for hills to climb, and walls to get over, and rocks to overcome, like knights-errant in search of adventures. No walk was too great for us. We thought of challenging Captain Barclay to a match against time, or of travelling through England as the Pedestrian Wonders. Walker, the twopenny postman, would have had no chance against ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... knowen in my time such of them, as studied more vpon what apparel they should weare, and what countenaunces they should keepe at the times of their audience, then they did vpon th'effect of their errant or commission. ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... education had been administered solely by his mother till he was fourteen, and she had brought him up on mathematics, French, and heroism. His extensive reading of history had been focussed on the personality of heroes, chiefly knights errant, and revolutionaries. He had carried the worship of them to the Agricultural College, where he had spent four years; and a rather rough time there had not succeeded in knocking romance out of him. He had found that you could not have such beliefs comfortably without fighting for them, and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... abbot to Mount Alban's peer A goodly welcome in their house accord; Who asked, but not before with savoury cheer He amply had his wearied strength restored, If in that tract, by errant cavalier, Often adventurous quest might be explored, In which a man might prove, by dangerous deed, If blame or glory were ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... friend; it seemed to Sybil that he could be her only friend. The disposition of Lord Marney was not opposed to the habits of his wife. Men, when they are married, often shrink from the glare and bustle of those social multitudes which are entered by bachelors with the excitement of knights-errant in a fairy wilderness, because they are supposed to be rife with adventures, and, perhaps, fruitful of a heroine. The adventure sometimes turns out to be a catastrophe, and the heroine a copy instead of an original; but let ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... who, with Moren Pedro de Margarit, the strategist, respectively represented the religious and military powers; there was Roldan, another insubordinate, the first alcalde of the Espanola; there were Alonzo de Ojeda and Guevara, true knights-errant, who were soon to distinguish themselves: the first by the capture of the chief Caonabo, the second by his romantic love-affair with Higuemota, the daughter of the chiefess Anacaona. There was Adrian Mojica, destined shortly to be hanged on the ramparts of Fort Concepcion by order of the ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... smiled:—'Since to your home A destined errant-knight I come, Announced by prophet sooth and old, Doomed, doubtless, for achievement bold, I 'll lightly front each high emprise For one kind glance of those bright eyes. Permit me first the task to guide Your fairy frigate o'er the tide.' The maid, with smile suppressed ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... pleasant path,' Fitz-Eustace said, 'Such as where errant-knights might see Adventures of high chivalry; Might meet some damsel flying fast, With hair unbound, and looks aghast; And smooth and level course were here, In her defence to ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... first floor, of which not a stick or a stone that one looks at is one's own, and whence one may be evicted or evade, with a week's notice or a week's rent, any day—this sort of life is natural and even delightful to some people. There are those who, like strawberry plants, are of such an errant disposition, that grow them where you will, they will soon absorb all the pleasantness of their habitat, and begin casting out runners elsewhere; may, if not frequently transplanted, would actually wither and die. Of such ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... acquaintance of an old sealer. He had formerly been very sensitive on the point of honour; would resent an insult as promptly as any knight-errant; but by making an idol of his honour his life had been a grievous burden to him. And he was not even a gentleman, and never had been one. He ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... pine-tree; another which was called the meadow of the Thorn; there was a carrefour, where, in four roads, four knights might meet; and, above all, there was a forest called devoyable, having no path, so favourable for errant knights who might there enter for strange adventures, and, as chance directed, encounter others as bewildered as themselves. Our chivalric Sandricourt found nine young seigneurs of the court of Charles the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Emanuella in Madrid,[10] or Cleomelia in Bengal expose the raptures and agonies of their passions. The hero of "The Double Marriage" (1726) rescues a distressed damsel in the woods outside of Plymouth exactly as one of Ariosto's or Spenser's knights-errant might have done in the fairy country of old romance. In the sordid tale of "Irish Artifice," printed in Curll's "Female Dunciad" (1728), no reader could distinguish in the romantic names Aglaura and Merovius the nationality or the meanness of a villainous Irish ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... is the young officer who, the other day, declared that he wished for no adventures save those that came in the course of a campaign, and now he is declaring that he would like to become a very knight errant, and go about rescuing ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... dropped Mr. Saffron's scepter into Captain Duggle's grave (had he known that it was Captain Duggle's, and not been a prey to the ridiculous but haunting fancy that it had been destined for, or even—oh, these errant fancies—already occupied by, Mr. Saffron himself, Neddy would have been less agitated) Mike dealt with him roundly. In bitter hissing whispers, and in language suited thereto, he pointed out the folly of vain superstitions, ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... the impression made upon my fancy by some of the ladies' maids tripping about in neat morning dresses. After seeing for a long time little but rusticity, their lively manner, and gay inciting appearance, pleased me so much, that I thought for a moment I could have been a knight-errant for them."] Mr. Macaulay afterwards passed the evening with the travellers at their inn, and provoked Johnson into what Boswell calls warmth, and anyone else would call brutality, by the very proper remark that he had no notion of people being in earnest in good professions ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... the tempest I which, I may say, brought me under your roof. 'It is an ill wind,' says the proverb, 'that blows nobody good;' and it is a clear case, my very kind hostess, that at this moment we are mutually ignorant of each other. I assure you, then, madam, that I am not a knight-errant travelling in disguise and in quest of adventure, but a plain gentleman, by name Woodward, step-son to a neighbor of yours, Mr. Lindsay, of Rathfillan House. I need scarcely say that I am Mrs. Lindsay's son by her first husband. And now, madam, may I beg to know the name ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Pitt's supporters doubted the advisability of so far-reaching a measure. Thus, on 4th July 1798, Hatsell, Clerk of the House of Commons, wrote to Auckland that of all possible plans a Union was the worst, "full of difficulties, to be brought about by errant jobs; and, when done, not answering the purpose. You must take out the teeth, or give the Catholics sops to eat. One or other; but the half-measure won't do." Better balanced was the judgement of the Earl of Carlisle, as stated to Auckland some ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... stray into such blasphemous imaginations. Fool as I have been, and fool as I have declared myself upon the forefront of this very book, I have never said in my heart, THERE IS NO GOD; but much and loudly have maintained the affirmative. And although I have been sadly, wickedly, detestably errant from His way, there is one divine precept which I have never failed to keep, and that is, LOVE ONE ANOTHER. All other affections, additions, accidents, accessories of men, however, from the lowest, which is Money, to the highest, which is Polite Education, I have been able to ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... and do valorous battles against them in the rescue of damsels and the like—such seem to have been the Gondwana woods to the ancient Hindu imagination. It was not distressed damsels, however, whom they figured as being assisted by the arms of the errant protectors, but religious devotees, who dwelt in the seclusion of the forest, and who were protected from the pranks and machinations of the savage denizens by opportune heroes of the northern race. It appears, however, that the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... me without bruise or scratch. Only Yorick and I got tangled up with a herd of buffaloes on the Kajiar Road. In his fright, the little fool slipped half over the khud, and if a knight-errant had not fallen from heaven, in the nick of time, we should both be lying somewhere in the valley by now, 'spoiling ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... head lovingly as it leant against the motherly bosom upon which had so often rested errant lambs and stricken pullets. ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... in civil life, whose thoughts turn upon schemes which may be of general benefit, without further reflection, is called a projector; and the man whose mind seems intent upon glorious achievements, a knight-errant. The ridicule among us runs strong against laudable actions; nay, in the ordinary course of things, and the common regards of life, negligence of the public is an epidemic vice. The brewer in his excise, the merchant ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... eternal hill, A world's destruction loading, the word went onward still— The blaze of creeds passed into it, the hiss of horrid fires, The headlong spear, the scarlet cross, the hair-shirt and the briars, The cloistered brethren's thunderous chaunt, the errant champion's song, The shifting of the crowns and thrones, ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... shed blood to regain his own lost kingdom; but he was a true knight-errant and redresser of wrongs. He asked leave from William to raise a Saxon army to restore his nephew to the Scottish throne; and such was the reliance that even the scoffer William had learnt to place on ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... De Valette to himself, when a full examination had satisfied him,—"an errant fool; 'tis strange, that one image must be forever in my mind; that I should tremble at the very sound of a bridal, lest, perchance, ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... the leader and judge of mankind. We have the confirmation of the Church (or, in earlier times, of the Tribe) by means of a Eucharist or Communion which binds together all the members, living or dead, and restores errant individuals through the Sacrifice of the hero and the Forgiveness of their sins; and we have the belief in a bodily Resurrection and continued life of the members within the fold of the Church (or ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... profound sense and nonsense, between childish play and matured humor." Two brothers who have lost their sisters appear, and then an insolent giant, swaggering with a double-edged sword and attended by an enamored fool, and finally a knight-errant devoting his fortune to pay the stingy sexton for the burial of a victim of poverty; they are now hunting for the princess, the sisters, and the beloved lady, and to free them from the sorcerer; none ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... religious faith, our hatred of war and oppression. His great genius seemed to me to be always held firmly in hand by a sense of duty, and by the practical common sense of a shrewd man of business. He fought through life like an old knight-errant, but without enthusiasm. He had no personal ideals. I remember once how he remonstrated with me for my admiration for General Gordon. He looked upon that wonderful personality as a wild fighter, a rash adventurer, doing evil ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... bright little minds for whom it was intended. Politics were evidently their grand interest; the Duke of Wellington their demi-god. All that related to him belonged to the heroic age. Did Charlotte want a knight-errant, or a devoted lover, the Marquis of Douro, or Lord Charles Wellesley, came ready to her hand. There is hardly one of her prose-writings at this time in which they are not the principal personages, and in which their "august father" ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... limbs. It ran up the tossed arms of the fallen monarch and sheltered itself in some friendly foliage. The master, reaching the old seat, found the nest still warm; looking up in the intertwining branches, he met the black eyes of the errant Mliss. They gazed at each other without speaking. She was ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... will meet and not be foes, E'en as the rue may stand beside the rose And not affront it,—as a lonely tree May guard a shrine and not upon the lea Be deem'd obtrusive,—as an errant knight May serve the sovereign of his soul's delight And not, thereby, be deem'd of less account Than he who keeps her daily in ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... of clouds of butterflies. He could think of nothing else. White, cotton-like clouds unfolded above the blossoming trees; patches of blue appeared and disappeared; and he wandered on again, beguiled this time by many errant scents and wilful ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... bride, the lovely Princess Sabra, in his castle near Coventry, soon levied a powerful army; and, setting sail, no longer as a knight-errant, but as a renowned general, he arrived with his forces on the coast of Portugal, where he was joined by the other six Champions, who each brought troops in proportion to the size of his country. So enchanted were the Portuguese with Saint ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... Then after calming the Clan Mac-Ivor and riding awhile with the Baron's Lowland cavalry, the Prince returned to the Count of Beaujeu, saying with a sigh, as he reined his charger beside him, "Ah, my friend, believe me this business of prince-errant is no ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... build and fiery red head—there glowed a brave, generous and tender spirit. The man was a preux chevalier. He was a knight-errant. All women—especially all good and discerning women who knew him and who could intuitively read beneath that clumsy personality his fine sense of respect—even ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... proud, because he saw plain signs That he should be a father; and so he Strutted through hell, and pushed the devils by, Like a magnifico of Venice. Ere long, His heir was born; but then—ho! ho!—the brat Had wings upon his heels, and thievish ways, And a vile squint, like errant Mercury's, Which honest Vulcan could not understand;— ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... the bold knight-errant, From his castle who would roam, Trusting her, my faithful steward, For a strict account of home; And each day I toil, and hazard All that any man may dare, For a resting-place at even, And the love that waits ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... this letter was phrased for the purpose of passing Charles's censorship. He took the liberty of disregarding his master's orders; the troops were not disbanded, and he held himself in readiness to go to fetch the errant monarch if he did not return speedily from the enemy's country. His letter to the king and the unwritten additions delivered by his confidential messengers terrified his liege lest too much zeal on his behalf in France ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... his debut in the role of knight-errant. He went with many qualms and misgivings, uncertain how each new person would take it. The next evening he was promised for a theatre-party with Siegfried Harvey; and they had supper in a private room at ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... shot from the heights startled the errant and plodding column. The Boers had indeed been taken by surprise, but were at once on the alert and the crest line was soon occupied. The column marching in fours halted and turned to the right and, except ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... very clever, a very rising young man, and so feeling, said Mrs. Ledwich to Mary while this was going on. 'In fact, he is a perfect knight-errant on this subject. He is gone to London this morning to see what can be done by means of the press. I tell Matilda it is quite a romance of modern life; and indeed, the sweet girl is very romantic still—very young, even after all ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... noun of a compound noun, whether it precedes or follows the descriptive part, is in most cases the noun that changes in forming the plural; as, mothers-in-law, knights-errant, mouse-traps. In a few compound words, both parts take a plural form; as, man-servant, men-servants; ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... to consider, while Molly suddenly whirled down the street and pounced on the errant collie. Seeing this, Constable McSherry turned to continue ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... compare the strength of the little brown man with that of a Nile beetle, which can raise many times its own weight. Then, behind him, appeared a second figure, which immediately claimed the whole of my errant attention. ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... with which princes cheered their leisure. Or he was traversing the country in quest of adventure, professedly bent on redressing wrongs and enforcing rights, sometimes in fulfilment of some vow of religion or of love. These wandering knights were called knights-errant; they were welcome guests in the castles of the nobility, for their presence enlivened the dulness of those secluded abodes, and they were received with honor at the abbeys, which often owed the best ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... Rufa from Bononia Rufulus gallants, Menenius' errant lady, she that in grave-yards (You've seen her often) snaps from every pile her meal, When hotly chasing dusty loaves the fire rolls down, She felt some half-shorn corpseman and his hand's big ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... hopes of his conceiving. At any rate, he was free to bring her his daily tale of worship, to glean a look of kindness from her clear eyes. This was his happiness. For her sake he would sacrifice it. For Zora's sake he would marry Emmy. The heart of Septimus was that of a Knight-Errant confident in the righteousness of his quest. The certainty had come all at once in the flash of inspiration. Besides, was he not carrying out Zora's wish? He remembered her words. It would be the greatest pleasure he ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... the care which the management enjoined from the first, accidents were, perhaps, not altogether unavoidable. Sometimes the errant "human factor" showed itself in tragic fashion even in those distant days. By a melancholy coincidence, the first serious mishap occurred close to Abermule, a name since associated in the public memory with the last and the ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... said, "hesitate no further; put them in your pocket; and to relieve our position of any shadow of embarrassment, tell me by what name I am to address my knight-errant, for I find myself reduced to the awkwardness ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... earth can she have gone there for? With whom? What happened there?" He remembered the gas-jets that were being extinguished along the Boulevard des Italiens when he had met her, when all hope was gone among the errant shades upon that night which had seemed to him almost supernatural and which now (that night of a period when he had not even to ask himself whether he would be annoying her by looking for her and by finding ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... far as the eye could see from left to right stretched a black and dense forest of unknown antiquity. Behind and beyond it at increasing distances peak upon lofty peak, mountain after mountain, like Babel, reached upward for the sky. Of these the one nearest and directly in front of the knights errant claimed attention. ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... little boy! Oh mischief, mischief!" and she scrapes one index finger over the other at him in a try for errant childishness. Then she and her perfume come closer and this time she looks around before she speaks and there is some little real concern ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet |
