"Poltroon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... while a cold sweat ran from his forehead. "Are you a coward?" tauntingly inquired the fiendlike mother. This is the charge which will always make the poltroon squirm. The young king nervously ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... swore away our liberty, and all our work has been turned to naught by the cowardly traitor. Listen to me, Haight, listen well, and when you see the poltroon tell him that Jim Cummings swore he would cut his heart out. Aye! I WILL DO IT, though he were guarded behind double bars. I'll search him out and tear the traitor heart from his breast and make him eat it, by God—make ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... do not know, woman's bully and poltroon, that you plot to sell yourself, because your day has come, and no woman will bid for such an outcast, saving one that you may threaten. Rise, vermin—rise, lest ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... heard Washington swear," Lafayette once remarked, "was when he called General Charles Lee a 'damned poltroon,' after the arrest of that officer for treasonable conduct." Nor was Washington the only person of self-restraint and good manners whose temper and angry passions were roused by this same ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... to be a brave man than a coward, even in a bad cause. Fortune often favors brave men in the wrong in preference to aiding cowards in the right, for Fortune loves not a poltroon. John Winch felt at that moment that nobody henceforth would love or favor him, and he began to frame excuses for his ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... the hardest of all qualities to predict or identify, in an individual case, before the actual trial. Many a man has been unable to discover, till the critical moment, whether he himself possessed it or not. It is often denied to the healthy and strong, and given to the weak. The pugilist may be a poltroon, and the bookworm a hero. We have seen the most purely ideal philosopher in this country face the black muzzles of a dozen loaded revolvers with his usual serene composure. And on the other hand, we have known ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... thing well done. We're better off without a coward like that. He'd be getting under our feet all the time, or else opening the doors to the Caesars, with the idea of currying favor with them. Where did you ever pick up such an arrant little poltroon? Most Japs are ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... poniard?" she asked. "When that door falls, this point enters my heart. There is nothing beyond that door, with thou, poltroon, to which death in this little chamber would not ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... poltroon or a palterer, cruel, dull, envious, full of hate? Then Nature, the mother of the strong and generous, will have no pity, but will turn and rend you with claws. 'Trust her with your whole heart,' says Mr. Meredith, 'and go forward courageously ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... found her bashful fear so irresistibly funny, that it roared again. Also, when the little cow-herd with a crown on his head, lifted his hand or foot toward his partner, and then shrank trembling away, it roared yet more at the poltroon manner ...
— The Field of Clover • Laurence Housman
... good for nothing; you are a poltroon! My son and I will go away from this place forever, forever! I will get a position for my son, I will find him a good position, do you understand? Just as I would be willing to sweep the streets with my tongue if I could gain a living for him in no other way, ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... enemy—and they will be dangerous for ever. Men fear them, and are fascinated by them. They know how to show their teeth charmingly; the more enlightened of them have perfected a superb technique of fascination. It was Nietzsche who called them the recreation of the warrior—not of the poltroon, remember, but of the warrior. A profound saying. They have an infinite capacity for rewarding masculine industry and enterprise with small and irresistible flatteries; their acute understanding combines with their capacity for evoking ideas of beauty ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... Coward, poltroon, shaker, squeamer, Blockhead, sluggard, dullard, dreamer, Shirker, shuffler, crawler, creeper, Sniffler, snuffler, wailer, weeper, Earthworm, maggot, tadpole, weevil! Set upon thy course of evil, Lest the King of Spectre-land Set on ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... elsewhere) to the care of his brother. And so, having drunk his death in a popish potion, he died unlamented. For his character, in all respects in nature, feature and manners, he resembled the tyrant Tiberius; and for all the numerous brood of bastards begot on other men's wives, he died a childless poltroon, having no legitimate heir to succeed him of his own body, according to the divine malediction, Write this man childless: for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting on the throne of David, and ruling ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... and, at the instant that brave officer was boarding her to take possession, he was (p. 139) treacherously shot through the head by the captain of the boat that had surrendered, which base conduct enabled the poltroon (with the assistance he received from the other boats) to escape. The third boat of Captain Somers' division kept to windward, firing at the boats and shipping in the harbour; had she gone down to his assistance, it is probable several ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... A drunken poltroon of a bargeman was coming up from Liffey-side, lurching and yawing like a Dutch hooker in a gale; and seeing them in a little bunch on the cobblestones, he took an anger at them in his wooden head, and, whether purposely or not I know not, but he elbowed up against Miss Maria and drove ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... to be done, they preferred to leave the ranks, and rush forward to loot and enrich themselves at our expense. Now, if 13 this conduct were to be the rule, general ruin would be the result. I do not deny that I have given blows to this man or the other who played the poltroon and refused to get up, helplessly abandoning himself to the enemy; and so I forced them to march on. For once in the severe wintry weather I myself happened to sit down for a long time, whilst waiting for a party who were getting their kit together, and I discovered how difficult it was to get ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... intellect, gradually weaving a common standard of international appeal, it is clear that nations must fight, and ought to fight. Not being convinced, it is base to pretend that you are convinced; and failing to be convinced by your neighbor's arguments, you confess yourself a poltroon (and moreover you invite injuries from every neighbor) if you pocket your wrongs. The only course in such a case is to thump your neighbor, and to thump him soundly for the present. This treatment ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... ruin, even a guilty villain, forever actuate the noble bosoms of Americans! But let not the miscreant host vainly imagine that we feared their arms. No, those we despised; we dread nothing but slavery. Death is the creature of a poltroon's brains; 'tis immortality to sacrifice ourselves for the salvation of our country. We fear not death. That gloomy night, the pale-face moon, and the affrighted stars that hurried through the sky, ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... Spring; two men, not highway, Saul Coplestone and John Cole; two marriageable sisters, Sarah and Christina Rowland. The highwaymen, being pestilential and murderous, badly wanted catching; of the two potential heroes, Saul was a stout enough fellow on the surface but a poltroon at bottom, while John, though less terrific in physique, was modest and courageous to a degree. Of the sisters, Sarah had most of the looks and Christina all the merits, so that at the beginning ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 4, 1914 • Various
... to his State Room to weep over the Situation, and the British Subject said: "The American is a Poltroon, for he will not defend his ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... man has not fled like a poltroon, we will make a hostage of him! I am the friend of the Citizen Delegate in charge of the Prefecture of Police, and I say it: you shall be avenged on the infamous Bargemont! Have you read the decree concerning ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... at last; "that will do. I see you turned poltroon and shrank back, to leave them to go on by themselves. Man, man! if you hadn't the honest British pluck in you to go, why didn't you ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... away, do you?" he said. "I have a mind, then, to thrash you where you stand, you canting poltroon! Do you hear me?—here, where ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... if it would, then, it's Carver that would quake like the aspin leaf—I know that. It's no malice at all in him; only just he's a mighty great poltroon. ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... The numskull runs amuck in a crowd, not because he has been inoculated with new rascality by the mysterious crowd influence, but because his habitual rascality now has its only chance to function safely. In other words, the numskull is vicious, but a poltroon. He refrains from all attempts at lynching a cappella, not because it takes suggestion to make him desire to lynch, but because it takes the protection of a crowd to make him brave ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... she said; "I see you are no poltroon. It is for my own sake—I could not bear to have you slain for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... do I. Every Englishman I ever knew was a liar, and a sneaking poltroon. I was brought up to hate the race, and always have. I can't say that I like you any better than the others. By God! I don't, for the matter of that. But just now you can be useful to me if you are of that mind. This is a business proposition, ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... the guardian who would have married her for her estates; you are the cousin who played the poltroon and outraged her pride of family; you are the lover who abandoned her,—abandoned her to torture and the tomahawk. Is it strange that it is her wish never to see you? You will spare your pride some hurts if you avoid her ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... "Poor, contemptible poltroon! Fifty men against one feeble woman! Verily, you have a brave set of fellows under a brave commander! But you dare not call upon your men; I could make forty friends of the number in quick time; but, even if I should fail, you are too much of a coward to trust fifty men with your secret, especially ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... the conversation. He perceived that he had made a terrible blunder; and, as it was not his business at that moment to vindicate the British constitution, but to serve Leonard Fairfield, he abandoned the cause of the aristocracy with the most poltroon and scandalous abruptness. Catching at the arm which Mr. Avenel had withdrawn from him, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... flattery, nor bribery, nor intrigue, nor deceit; instead of loading you with praise, he will point you to the better way. I scoff at Cleon's tricks and plotting; honesty and justice shall fight my cause; never will you find me a political poltroon, a prostitute ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes
... Pope, whom he greatly flattered, and who was fond of leaning on his arm while walking in the gardens. It was during these strolls that Gamba easily secured all sorts of little favours. However, he was a remarkable poltroon, and had such an intense fear of losing his influence that he never risked a request without having convinced himself by long meditation that no possible harm could come to ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... flight, though he will "return with shame" to Mycenae. Menelaus is of much better cheer: "Be of good courage, [blank space] ALL THE HOST OF THE [misprint]"—a thing which Agamemnon does habitually, though he is not a personal poltroon. As Menelaus has only a slight flesh wound after all, and as the Trojans are doomed men, Agamemnon is now "eager for glorious battle." He encourages the princes, but, of all men, rebukes Odysseus as "last at a fray and first at a feast": such ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... if he had to wait, he felt his courage oozing out at the tips of his fingers, like Bob Acres, but in the moment of peril he was himself again. In dreams he was a coward, because, as he argues, the natural man is a poltroon, and conscience, honour, all the spiritual and commanding part of our nature, goes to sleep in dreams. The animal terror asserts itself unchecked. It is a theory not without exceptions. In dreams one has plenty of conscience (at least that is my experience), though it usually takes ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... familiarity which he did not misunderstand. The dog that believes in you does it—from perplexity sometimes, sometimes from loneliness. Or, even when afraid—not fearing with the baser emotion of the poltroon, but afraid with that brave fear which is a wisdom too, and which feeds and brightens ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... of the Richard, the Alliance, likewise approached and retreated. This ship, commanded by a Frenchman, infamous in his own navy, and obnoxious in the service to which he at present belonged; this ship, foremost in insurgency to Paul hitherto, and which, for the most part, had crept like a poltroon from the fray; the Alliance now was at hand. Seeing her, Paul deemed the battle at an end. But to his horror, the Alliance threw a broadside full into the stern of the Richard, without touching the Serapis. Paul called to her, for God's sake to forbear destroying the Richard. The reply was, a second, ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... to entitle us to the rewards bestowed upon it by the fair sex, who value it above all others, is so wholly out of our control, that when suffering under sickness or disease, it deserts us; nay, for the time being, a violent stomach-ache will turn a hero into a poltroon. ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Fritz; they would say that Willis was a poltroon or a deserter, whichever he likes; they would very likely condemn him to the yard-arm by default, and carry out the operation when they get hold of him. But I will not endanger any one else; all I want is the ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... laughed. "What Fourier's afternoon visit has to do with Mme. d'Agen's journey?" he retorted, "I'll tell you, my good Clyffurde. Fourier went to see M. le Comte de Cambray this afternoon because he is a poltroon. He is terrified at the thought that the unfortunate Empress' money and treasure are still lying in the cellars of the Hotel de Ville and he went out to Brestalou in order to consult with the Comte what had best be done with ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... going to turn tail, as I always thought he would,—the cursed cowardly traitor!" replied the latter, gnashing his teeth. "But let him, and that pitiful poltroon of a Redding, go where they please. We will see to matters ourselves. I don't believe it is any thing more than a mere mob, who will scatter at the first fire. So follow me, Gale; and all the rest of ye, that aint afraid of your own shadows, follow me, and I'll soon ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... government, but an adventurer of fierce and reckless spirit, in manner and appearance a romantic outlaw, a man after his own heart. Henceforth Byron is reckoned at best a dupe, and at worst a sluggish poltroon; while Trelawny, it is said, imitated his hero so loyally that "he ate, dressed, and even spat in his manner." When the poet died Trelawny spoke ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... defeated and slew two other brothers, Khujistah Akhtar Jahan-Shah and Rafi-ash-Shan, and placed the surviving of the four sons of Bahadur [i.e. Mu'izz-ud-din] on the throne with the title of Jahandar ("World-owner"). The new Emperor was an irredeemable poltroon and an abandoned debauchee.' (The History of the Moghul Emperors of Hindustan illustrated by their Coins, Constable, 1892, and in Introd. to B. M. Catal. of Moghul ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... I confess, my mind was considerably relieved at the thoughts of not having killed him). 'And did the Bradys of Castle Brady consent to admit a poltroon like that into one of the most ancient and honourable families ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Prodigal Sons, To-day is a prodigious coxcomb, but To-morrow is a very poltroon, taking fright at the big words of his predecessor. To-day is the truculent captain of old world comedy, To-morrow ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... comfort the poor man about the rencounter between him and that poltroon Metcalfe? He acted in that affair like a man of true honour, and as I should have acted in the same circumstances. Tell him I say so; and that what happened he could neither ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... furniture went by the board; He saw—at a distance, the rebels appear, And "rode to the front," which was strangely the rear; He conquered—truth, decency, honor full soon, Pest, pilferer, puppy, pretender, poltroon; And was fain from the scene of his triumphs to slope. Sure there never ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... in frequently defying and inviting the vengeance of banded Rocky Mountain cut-throats by shooting down their comrades and leaders, and never offering to hide or fly, Slade showed that he was a man of peerless bravery. No coward would dare that. Many a notorious coward, many a chicken-livered poltroon, coarse, brutal, degraded, has made his dying speech without a quaver in his voice and been swung into eternity with what looked liked the calmest fortitude, and so we are justified in believing, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a greater poet than Wordsworth just as it made Peter a greater king than George III; but as it was, after all, only a negative qualification, it did not prevent Peter from being an appalling blackguard and an arrant poltroon, nor did it enable Byron to become a religious force like Shelley. Let us, then, leave Byron's Don Juan out of account. Mozart's is the last of the true Don Juans; for by the time he was of age, his cousin Faust had, in the hands of Goethe, taken his place and ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... after, this poltroon was in his turn superseded by a brave veteran, General Dugommier, and Napoleon could at last count on having his efforts backed. But, for the second time, the Representatives did their best to ruin his undertaking. ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... a madman in pursuit of me, and he threatens my life. An hour ago he got me to swear solemnly, and to put my hand to the oath, that I would renounce all pretensions to you, and never even speak to you again. I was a poltroon to submit to it. I know that well enough, and you cannot despise me more than I despise myself. But there is this to be said: until I consented to that declaration I never knew that I loved you. Perhaps, indeed, I had not done so. At any rate, now ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... the thing is settled," Perion agreed. "I know that nothing save your love for Melicent could possibly induce you to decline a proffered battle. When Demetrios enacts the poltroon I am the most hasty of all men living to assert that the excellency of his reason is indisputable. Let us get on! I have only five hundred sequins, but this will be enough to buy your passage back to Quesiton. And inasmuch as we are ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... to be saved under its system, and, in the name of common sense, study the Koran, or some less ascetic tome. Don't be gulled by a plausible slave, who wants nothing more than to multiply professors of his theory. Why don't you read the Bible, you miserable, puling poltroon, before you hug it as a treasure? Why don't you read it, and learn out of the mouth of the founder of Christianity, that there is one sin for which there is no forgiveness—blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, hey?—and that sin I myself have heard you commit by the hour—in my presence—in ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... afraid of?" continued he; at the same time trembling with such agitation that the whole carriage shook. This singular piece of behaviour incensed Miss Ramper so much that she cried, "D—n your pitiful soul, you are as arrant a poltroon, as ever was drummed out of a regiment. Stop the waggon, Joey—let me out, and by G—d, if I have rhetoric enough, the thief shall not only take your purse, but your skin also." So saying she leaped out with great agility. By this time the horseman came ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... known from the beginning; and I intend to set you free, when that cowardly miscreant has been secured. You would die to save your lover; you, proud, brave, noble natured, would sacrifice your precious life for that wretched, vile poltroon, who flees and leaves you to suffer in his stead! Truly, there is no mystery so profound, so complex, so subtle as a woman's heart. To die for his crimes, were a happier fate than to sully your fair soul by alliance with one so degraded; ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... named Irus, gluttonous and big-boned but a coward. Encouraged by the winkings and noddings of the suitors he bade Odysseus begone. A quiet answer made him imagine he had to deal with a poltroon and he challenged him to a fight. The proposal was welcomed with glee by the suitors, who promised on oath to see fair play for the old man in his quarrel with a younger. But when they saw the mighty limbs and stout frame ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... to the side of the house when, in an instant, without the slightest notice, my hat was struck off to the distance of several yards by a soldier, or rather a poltroon in a soldier's costume, and this courteous manoeuvre was performed with his gun and bayonet, accompanied with curses and taunts and the expression of a ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... you entertained an idea that war was imminent, would it not have been far better to have made your preparations in quiet, and when you found the war rumor blown over, to have said nothing about what you intended to do? Fie upon such cheap Lacedaemonianism! There is no poltroon in the world but can brag about what he WOULD have done: however, to do your Royal Highness's nation justice, ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")
... or to evil, takes, in this case, the evil part. Mere animal bravery has, unfortunately, such charms in the female eye, that a successful duellist is but too often regarded as a sort of hero; and the man who refuses to fight, though of truer courage, is thought a poltroon, who may be trampled on. Mr. Graves, a member of the American Legislature, who, early in 1838, killed a Mr. Cilley in a duel, truly and eloquently said, on the floor of the House of Representatives, when lamenting the unfortunate issue of that encounter, that society was more to blame than ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... Lieut. Col. Washington executed the plan. He paraded the cavalry in view of the block house and mounted the trunk of a pine tree upon three prongs, instead of a field piece, and which he manned with dismounted dragoons, then summoned Rugely to surrender, which the poltroon did, without hearing a report of this new invented piece of ordnance, and submitted himself with about 100 officers and men to be taken as prisoners ...
— A sketch of the life and services of Otho Holland Williams • Osmond Tiffany
... horse, about thirty paces before me, without a rider. The idea of being yet able to escape gave me fresh strength and served as a spur to me. I ran and laid hold of the bridle, which was fast in the hand of a man lying on the ground, whom I supposed dead; but, what was my surprise when the cowardly poltroon, who was suffering from nothing but fear, dared to remain in the most horrible fire to dispute the horse with me, at twenty paces from the enemy. All my menaces could not induce him to quit the bridle. Whilst we were disputing, a discharge from a cannon loaded with grape-shot fell at ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... his kind. He is, in fact, the weakest and least ferocious of the family. He is sufficiently voracious, but lives chiefly on carrion, and will not dare attack living creatures of half his own strength. He preys only on the smallest quadrupeds, and with all his voracity he is an arrant poltroon. A child of ten years will ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... shrinking from the path of honor because it is beset with danger. I did well not to let you know the nature of my last labors, for with your sighs and croakings you would have turned me back again into the highway of falsehood. But you are too late, poltroon. The work is done, and it shall see light." Gluck looked at his wife's face, and the expression he saw there made him pause. He was already sorry, and ready to atone. "No, no! I wrong you, my Egeria: not only ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... overt events of his life. "His meanest creatures," says Arthur Symons, "have in them a touch of honour, of honesty, or of heroism; his heroes have always some error, weakness, or mistake, some sin or crime, to redeem." What is Lord Jim, scoundrel and poltroon or gallant knight? What is Captain MacWhirr, hero or simply ass? What is Falk, beast or idealist? One leaves "Heart of Darkness" in that palpitating confusion which is shot through with intense curiosity. Kurtz is at once the most abominable ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... Wolf and the Lamb? We all know that old tale. But the Wolf, though a tyrant, was scarcely a cur. He bullied and lied, but he didn't turn pale, Or need poltroon terror as cruelty's spur. But a big, irresponsible, "fatherly" Prince Afeared—of a Jew? 'Tis too funny by far! The coldest of King-scorning cynics might wince At that comic conception, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, 13 June 1891 • Various
... mirth or anger prevailed at the clap-trap trick of this dramatic denouement. I am quite sure, however, that if I laughed at first, I very soon swore; for I have a distinct recollection of dashing my fist in the poltroon's face before ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... "Coward! Mind, gentlemen, he calls me a 'coward,' coward by my valor!" and when dared by Sir Lucius, he replies, "I don't mind the word 'coward;' 'coward' may be said in a joke; but if he called me 'poltroon,' ods, daggers and balls——" "Well, sir, what then?" "Why," rejoined Bob Acres, "I should certainly think him very ill-bred." Of course, he resigns all ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... "that little Prosper Leclere! He thinks himself one of the strongest—a fine fellow! But I tell you he is a coward. If he is clever? Yes. But he is a poltroon. He knows well that I can flatten him out like a crepe in the frying-pan. But he is afraid. He has not as much courage as the musk-rat. You stamp on the bank. He dives. ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... said U-Thor in his deep voice. "I bring you a new jeddak for all of Manator. No lying poltroon, but a courageous man whom ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... woman fascinates all who come within the sphere of their influence, and that women, does not, no earthly sage will ever know. As well ask what makes one man a Napoleon, another a poltroon. ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... to meet the bravery of true champions of the pit, stood for a little while and stared at this shifty foe. He must have decided that he was dealing with a poltroon with whom science and prudence were not needed. He stuck out his neck and ran at Long-legs, evidently expecting that Long-legs would turn and flee in a panic. Long-legs jumped to let him pass under, and came ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... his red skirts of the disputed territory, grown at least too hot for comfort, this Proctor—a fat poltroon—was now in hurried retreat through the forest-wilds of Canada West, at the head, not the rear, of an army composed of about nine hundred British regulars and two thousand Indian allies under the leadership of Tecumseh. On, in swift pursuit, ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... bell and the flunkey's appearance, he had clearly seen what he was capable, and what he was incapable, of doing. And the correction of England's error was among his incapacities. He could not face the Dean. He could not face any one. He was a poltroon in all these things; a poltroon. No use arguing! He ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... I had a chance to open school here and teach manners," and without more deliberation he set his horse to an amble, designed to betray neither complacency nor a poltroon's terrors. ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... left the hut. On the threshold I looked back, past the poltroon whom I had flung into the river one midsummer day, to that prone and bleeding figure. As I looked, it groaned and moved. The Indians behind me forced me on; a moment, and we were out beneath the stars. They shone so very brightly; there was one—large, steadfast, golden—just over ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... have been discharged from all the Texas dailies for incompetency, and are the author of editorials in the Chicago Inter-Ocean slandering the South; that you are a big over-grown bully who abuses weaker people, and a miserable little poltroon who has been kicked by every cripple between New York and Denver. All this is doubtless correct as far as it goes; now will you please inform me whether you have been ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... pusillanimity; cowardliness &c adj.; timidity, effeminacy. poltroonery, baseness; dastardness^, dastardy^; abject fear, funk; Dutch courage; fear &c 860; white feather, faint heart; cold feet [U.S.], yellow streak [Slang]. coward, poltroon, dastard, sneak, recreant; shy cock, dunghill cock; coistril^, milksop, white liver, lily liver, nidget^, one that cannot say 'boo' to a goose; slink; Bob Acres, Jerry Sneak. alarmist, terrorist^, pessimist; runagate &c (fugitive) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... what he wishes with the least force, whose indications are so clear that his horse cannot mistake them, and whose gentleness and fearlessness alike induce obedience to them. The noblest animal will obey such a rider, as surely as he will disregard the poltroon, or rebel against the savage. I say the noblest, because it is ever the noblest among them which rebel the most. For the dominion of man over the horse is an usurped dominion. And in riding a colt, or a restive ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... heart and soul—set, in her exulting imagination no lower than the angels, and beheld in the end,—with besmirched brow and debased mien, a disgraced sensualist, not merely a deceiver of another woman's innocent confidence, and her tempter to dishonor and wretchedness, but a poltroon—a whipped coward who had not dared to lift voice or pen in denial ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... them on. I have seen several of them suffer death with an admirable and even heroic composure, such as any man might envy when his last hour comes. It is not an unfrequent thing to see soldiers shot at Manilla for some misdemeanours, and I have not heard of one of them dying a poltroon; certainly, all those I have ever seen suffer, met their doom with the ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... fact, the total defect of heroic minds amongst the French of that day, neutralized the defects and more than compensated the blunders of Napoleon. But these were advantages that could not be depended on: a glass of brandy extraordinary might have emboldened the greatest poltroon to do that which, by once rousing a movement of popular enthusiasm, once making a beginning in that direction, would have precipitated the whole affair into hands which must have carried it far beyond the power of any party to control. ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... on his desk all the afternoon, beaten and broken-hearted. He told himself he was a poltroon; that he was losing his manhood; that the one he loved despised him, and did well to despise him; that a man of his age who gave way to such weakness must be entering senility. The habit of rectitude would cover him like armor, and proclaim him still ...
— The Indian On The Trail - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... they were about to return to the town-hall in a state of alarm, though they made a show of shrugging their shoulders and of treating Roudier as a poltroon and a dreamer, when Rougon, anxious to reassure them, thought of enabling them to view the plain over a distance of several leagues. Thereupon he led the little company to the Saint-Marc quarter and knocked at the door of the ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... replied to the lawyer's attack, pronouncing him to be "destitute of delicacy, decency, good manners, sound judgment, honesty, manhood, and humanity; a poltroon, a cat's-paw, the infamous tool of a party, a partisan, a political weathercock, ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... to be mistaken) that the cowardly Mexican man had, on his leaving, pulled off from her horse Mrs. Carson and her child, and having mounted the animal himself, was making good his escape. The Indians wished to keep up the ruse, pursue, Attempt to overtake and punish the poltroon; but Kit Carson was too thankful that matters had gone so well; therefore, he said that he felt that he could excuse such dastardly conduct, and requested the Indians to let it pass unnoticed. It is hardly necessary to add that with his faithful body-guard who ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... to every man to have that greater love which will make him lay down his life for a friend, but it is the sheer poltroon and craven who will watch a friend linger and expire in agony without lifting a finger to save him. Knave or fool—what does it matter when either ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... address in New York, the handful of "true Russians" in the third Duma attacked him with violent and insulting abuse, and Mr. Vladimir Purishkevich, one of their most influential leaders, said to him in open session: "You are a poltroon and traitor, in whose face I would willingly spit!" Such is the spirit of the "true Russians" whom the Czar has asked to help him in bringing about "the peaceful regeneration of our ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... What a poltroon, indeed, was Narcissus beside you at that moment. You ready to stake your life on the throw, he temporising and bargaining as over the terms of a lease. Surely, if he could for one moment have seen himself in the ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... and retired, leaving Cappy to grit his teeth and curse himself for a poltroon. "It's certainly hell when a man of my age and financial rating stands between his love and duty," he mourned. "Darn that fellow Skinner. If my bluff should fail to work and he got on his high horse and quit, I'd have to climb ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... thought; "no; I am not for public life. I have failed at the first test. Was ever so squeamish an exhibition? I have betrayed my country and the honour of public life. These Germans are now full of beer and pigeon-pie. What am I but a poltroon, unworthy to lace the shoes of the great leaders of my land? The sun has witnessed ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... companionship. He had hoped and expected that his eagerness to go with them on the wild and sudden campaign would reinstate him in their good graces, but it failed utterly. "Any man would seek that," was the verdict of the informal council held by the officers. "He would have been a poltroon if he hadn't sought to go; but, while he isn't a poltroon, he has done a contemptible thing." And so it stood. Rollins had cut him dead, refused his hand, and denied him a chance to explain. "Tell him he can't explain," was the savage reply he sent ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... to be found out, I know from my own experience, must be painful and odious, and cruelly mortifying to the inward vanity. Suppose I am a poltroon, let us say. With fierce mustache, loud talk, plentiful oaths, and an immense stick, I keep up nevertheless a character for courage. I swear fearfully at cabmen and women; brandish my bludgeon, and perhaps knock down a little man or ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... they want to. I've no use for monuments." Poor fellow, his cynical ideas were his ruin. Better a thousand times had he been "planted" at the front, manfully doing his duty, than to save a worthless life and return with the record of a poltroon, despised ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... giving, the name of Helvetius's informant. The adventurer who insisted on going forward when, at his first landing in Scotland, even Sir Thomas Sheridan, with all the chiefs present, advised retreat, cannot conceivably have been the poltroon of Hume's myth. Even Hume's correspondent, Sir John Pringle, was manifestly staggered by the anecdote, and tells Hume that another of his fables is denied by the very witness to whom Hume appealed. {20b} Hume had cited Lord ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... out of spirits. "He is a vile poltroon, this master of yours," said he, "consorting with these bloody pirates and leaving his daughter to pine away her days and nights within a little sail of him, while he struts about at the heel of a dirty freebooter dressed like a monkey! He doesn't deserve the daughter ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... I'm not boasting about myself! I have no merit at all in it. I am not courageous naturally. Only, I have not as yet had any occasion to meet with real fear. The day I do see it, perhaps I shall be more of a poltroon than the next one. Does one ever know what ...
— Pierre and Luce • Romain Rolland
... noble and defiant, presented a strange contrast to the aspect of vulgar ferocity that characterised the features of the man thus addressed. The insult was point blank, and would have aroused the veriest poltroon; but Arroyo possessed only the courage ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... Bob heard before he recovered sufficiently from the shock to move a limb. The officers were urging their prisoner forward, grinning and nodding to each other, whilst several voices from the crowd shouted abusively at the poltroon whose first instinct was to betray his associate. Bob turned his face away and walked on. He did not dare to run, yet the noises behind him kept his heart leaping with dread. A few paces and he was out of the alley. Even yet he durst not run. He ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... the hopes of a lifetime?" demanded Peregrine. "I, who have waited as long as Jacob, to be defrauded now I have you; and for the sake of the fellow who killed me in will if not in deed, and then ran away like a poltroon leaving you to ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with him. She still had her high moral sense, inherited from generations of Puritans. It was now a religious instinct, and she was almost a fanatic with him, because she loved him, or had loved him. If he sinned, she tortured him. If he drank, and lied, was often a poltroon, sometimes a knave, ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... like laws and discipline. The very man who shares our blanket and tent-cover, who draws rations from the same kettle, who drinks from the same canteen, and with whom we are compelled to come in contact daily, may be the veriest poltroon, whose diploma shows graduation at the Five Points, and whose presence alone is morally miasmatic. Consequently our camp is infested more or less with gambling, drunkenness, and profanity, and all their train of attending evils, ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... for such a poltroon to inspect them!" exclaimed Lord Strathern. "What are you dreaming of, L'Isle? It would be offering a bounty for accusations against the men. Half these rascals would swear away a man's ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... proffer of encounter with the husband whom he had wronged, and finally caused the death of his numerous brothers, the destruction of his native city, with all the wealth which it contained, and died himself the death of a pitiful poltroon, lamented only by his worthless leman, to show how well the rules of chivalry were ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... still closer home. Bertram would presently take his place and, retiring from active service, rule the estate in accordance with Challoner traditions and perhaps exert some influence in politics. Clarke had, however, shown him that Bertram, from whom so much was expected, had proved himself a poltroon and, what was even worse, had allowed an innocent man ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... a meagre beardless barber's apprentice on the other; what with going to the bastions at eleven, and seeing half one's companions drunk before twelve; what with trying to keep their fists off one's face when one politely asks them not to call one's general a traitor or a poltroon,—the work of the ramparts would be insupportable, if I did not take a pack of cards with me, and enjoy a quiet rubber with three other heroes in some sequestered corner. As for night work, nothing short of the indomitable fortitude of a Parisian could sustain it; the tents made expressly ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with grief and rage, I looked around for the cause, behold! my brave lieutenant Scott, at the head of his riflemen, came stooping along with his gun in his hand, and the black marks of shame and cowardice on his sheepish face. "Infamous poltroon," said I, shaking my sword over his head, "where is that hetacomb of robbers and murderers due to the vengeance of ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... to be pulled out to sea by the oars. They were soon beyond the reach of the guns. It was now night, serene and beautiful; the sea was smooth as glass, and the stars shone with unusual splendor in the clear sky. The poltroon monarch of all the Russias had not yet ventured upon deck, but was trembling in his cabin, surrounded by his dismayed mistresses, when the helmsman entered the cabin and ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... Mr Zachariah Lathrope, too, came down to the cuddy, attracted by the smell of breakfast, which the captain had directed the steward to go on getting as if nothing had happened—thus to punish the poltroon in a sort of way for his cowardly alarm; hence, the coast was left clear for the officers and men to put out the fire without being flurried by the fears and importunities ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... humble, haughty, beautiful, the devil!—coquettish to the last, as well with the "asp" as with Antony. After doing all she can to persuade him that—but why do they abuse him for cutting off that poltroon Cicero's head? Did not Tully tell Brutus it was a pity to have spared Antony? and did he not speak the Philippics? and are not "words things?" [2] and such "words" very pestilent "things" too? If ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... it is difficult for the mind to retain a sound and steadfast faith. A man labors for a decade before he succeeds in training his little church into orderly religion, and then some ignorant and vicious poltroon comes along to overthrow in a minute the patient labor of years. By the grace of God we have effected here in Wittenberg the form of a Christian church. The Word of God is taught as it should be, the Sacraments are administered, ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... me to be the judge of that. He insulted you, and then he behaved like a poltroon down at Silverbridge, and I will not have you know him any more. When I say so I suppose that will be enough." He waited for a reply, but she said nothing. "I ask you to tell me that you will obey me ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... under. A sea drove his head against the ship's side; the boat swung with tremendous force. Scraunch! and the poor fellow was gone, with his head crushed like a walnut. Joe tried to grab him with the boathook, but it was useless, and the unhappy poltroon's ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... who had supported Mr. Wilson as long as they believed him determined to redeem his promises—"the governments have acquiesced in the Fourteen Points.... Hypocrisy. Each one cherished mental reservations. Virtue was exalted and vice practised. The poltroon eulogized heroism; the imperialist lauded the spirit of justice. For the past month we have been picking up ideas about the worth of the adhesions to the Fourteen Points, and never before has a more sinister or a more odious comedy ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... themselves, there are those who would prefer their father's serving-man, or throw themselves away on some fellow they might chance to see in the street, mistaking, perhaps, an impostor and swaggering poltroon for a gentleman, since passion too easily blinds the understanding, so indispensably necessary in deciding on that most important point, matrimony, which is peculiarly exposed to the danger of a mistake, and therefore needs all the caution that human prudence can supply, aided by ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... to bursting point. Were her knees going to give way?... They should not!... Play the poltroon?... Never!... Rage boiled up in her; brain and will were afire.... She submit to the humiliation of arrest, the long-drawn-out agonies of cross-examinations, the tortures of imprisonment in Noumea?... ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... have a kind heart, Jean Paulet," she mocked. "But I think perhaps you are right. You are too much of a poltroon to be a safe comrade ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... and so well able to appreciate courage, one day sharply rebuked a colonel for having punished a young officer just arrived from school at Fontainebleau because he gave evidence of fear in his first engagement. "Know, colonel," said he, "none but a poltroon (the term was oven more strong) will boast ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... him! High temper may be dangerous, and the rough hand something to be avoided and reprobated; but there is something worse in the extreme opposite, and humanity worse sickens at the sight of an abject poltroon, than at any other worthless fungus that springs as an ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... prejudices of society. Umbrellas may be 'hedged about' by cobweb statutes; I will not swear it is not so; there may exist laws that make such things property; but sure I am that the hissing contempt, the loud-mouthed indignation of all civilised society, 'would sibilate and roar at the bloodless poltroon who should engage law on his side to obtain for him the ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster
... himself with that stroke better than he knew, and he of Hochfels bit his lip and fumed inwardly, but to no purpose. Not that he believed the peril to be great, but the fact he could not grasp it goaded him, and he cursed the trooper for a dolt and a poltroon that a mere fool should have vanquished him. And so he had left him, with a last look of disgust at the silent lips that could not do his bidding, and had proceeded to the royal pavilion, where the final act of the day's drama—more momentous than the king or other spectators realized—was to ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... honour: your second will, I presume, be the same with respect to yours. It is for me only to question the latter, and to declare you solemnly to be void alike of principle and courage, a villain, and a poltroon. ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "What a poltroon!" he cried contemptuously. "But I'll see you get no harm by this right-about face. He is mistaken if he thinks his treachery will give him a hold on ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... "Coward, lache, poltroon, runaway!" he hissed through his clenched teeth, and was about to make a thrust in tierce which must infallibly have been fatal, when the Princess Jaqueline, in her shape as a wasp, stung him fiercely on ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang
... said, "I see you are no poltroon. It is for my own sake - I could not bear to have you slain ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... paternal feelings. "Be brave, be watchful; but be prudent under all circumstances. Bravery and Prudence ought to be twin sisters, and I hope you will always have one of them on each side of you. I am not afraid that you will be a poltroon, a coward; but I do fear that your enthusiasm may carry you farther ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... Throwing down his weapons, he gave himself up to what he knew would be certain torture. Had he winced or whined as they tore the nails from his fingers and the hair from his head, the Iroquois would probably have brained him on the spot for a poltroon; but the young man, bound to a stake, pointed to a gathering storm as sign of Heaven's displeasure. The high spirit pleased the Iroquois. They unbound him and took him with them in their wanderings for ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... who was a quiet, sober fellow, and always on good terms with himself. By accident he became entangled in an affair of honour,—I say by accident, because he himself was never in any way aggressive; and although most of the fellows looked upon him as a poor thing, as a poltroon, he yet showed so much firm and resolute courage in this affair as greatly to excite everybody's admiration. But from that time onwards he was also completely changed. The sober and industrious youth became a bragging, insufferable bully. He was always drinking and rioting, and fighting about all ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... claim that the party could not afford to stultify itself by the choice of a candidate who favored monopolies. He had given his promise, the word of a man of honor, and a business man. What escape was there from the predicament? If he vetoed the bill, would he not be a liar and a poltroon? If he signed it, the senatorship would slip through his fingers. The thought occurred to him to send for Elton and throw himself on his mercy, but he shrank from such an interview. Elton was a business man, and a promise was a promise. He had enjoyed the consideration ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... tone now, and she meant it to be so. If the man had a scrap of courage in him, she must fan it into active life, but if he were a poltroon, pure and simple, then she must do the best she could ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... thought of it," he said, "if Grettir had been able to defend himself or if you had killed him in honourable battle. But now you need not hope that I will try to save my life by becoming a poltroon like you. I tell you at once that if I live no man shall be more burdensome to you than I. Long will it be before I forget how you have dealt with Grettir; far sooner will I ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... yelled the editor, backing out upon the sidewalk and drawing his repeater, "I denounce you as a traitor, a poltroon, and a coward!" Men darted away, dodged, peeped, ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... fancied that we chased him into Toulon; for, blind as I am, I could see his water line, when he clued his topsails up, shutting in Sepet. But from the time of his meeting Captain Hawker in the ISIS, I never heard of his acting otherwise than as a poltroon and a liar. Contempt is the best mode of treating such a miscreant." In spite, however, of contempt, the impudence of this Frenchman half angered him. He said to his brother: "You will have seen Latouche's letter; how he chased me and how I ran. I keep it; and if ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... breast-pocket beneath a packet of unpaid Boston tailors' bills and a note from my landlady asking if I would let her aunt do my washing while I was on shore. Oh! what would they all think of me? Would they brand me as a deserter, a poltroon, and a thief, letting my name presently sink down in shame and mystery in the shadowy realm of the forgotten? Dreadful thoughts! I would think ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... man, so helpless was she in the midst of all her hollow grandeur, so lonely amongst a nation of curs whom she strove in vain to save, and should she escape destruction with them, doomed to so sad and repulsive a fate, namely to become the wife of a fat poltroon who was her own uncle. Well, we know to what emotion pity is akin, and the catastrophe had occurred a little sooner than I had ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... who's t' blame, don't ye? The likes o' ye an' that poltroon, Jay, up there in New York. See who started ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... was a knave who held, somehow, the keys to a courtlier and nobler world. These tales made living seem a braver business, for all that they were written by a poltroon. Was it pure posturing? Patricia, at least, thought it was not. At worst, such dexterous maintenance of a pose was hardly despicable, she considered. And, anyhow, she preferred to believe that Charteris had by some miracle put ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... the army shook hands with a gallant lieut.-colonel (who had distinguished himself in the Peninsula) at one of the West End gaming houses, and Lieut. N—, who was present, upbraided the colonel with the epithet of "poltroon." On a fit opportunity the colonel inflicted summary justice upon the lieutenant with a cane or horse-whip. This produced a challenge; but the colonel was advised that he would degrade himself by combat ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... few of his regiment who survived the carnage of Waterloo. And yet this man, who had been familiar with death more than half his life, and who at times talked as though he were a perfect tornado in the field, was as arrant a poltroon as ever skulked. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... which a gaping rent had been carefully gummed together, that you might not see it, has melted and given way. The thought of these things makes a man feel like Vesuvius on the eve of an eruption; but you must wait for relief till Dhobie day next week, and then the poltroon has stayed at home, and sent his brother to report that he is suffering from a severe stomachache. When the miscreant makes his next appearance in person, he stands on one leg, with joined palms and a piteous bleat, and pleads an alibi. He was absent about the marriage of a ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... dear Miss Featherstone. I am such a confounded poltroon"—and he seized her hands again—"that I dare not risk my fate; but that person is"—and he looked down upon her, his heart beating so violently that he could ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... do you want? Out with it. Dogs are loth to quit their kennels when they can dream of the game they never catch when awake. Come, Henderson, I sha'n't parley any longer. I suppose you are come to beg, like a poltroon, to be taken back to that precious office in Corn Street. Get Lambert ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... half moral, and denounce him bitterly as a Pecksniff, a Tartuffe and a Pinto. In that judgment, as we shall show, there is naught save a stupid incapacity to understand an unlike man—in brief, no more than the dunderheadedness which makes a German regard every Englishman as a snuffling poltroon, hiding behind his vassals, and causes an Englishman to look upon every German as a fiend in human form, up ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... said the captain, clenching his teeth and his fists; "let them kill you; die, you rascal, but go!" Then he uttered a horrible oath. "Ah, the infamous poltroon! he has sat down!" In fact, the boy, whose head he had hitherto been able to see projecting above a field of grain, had disappeared, as though he had fallen; but, after the lapse of a minute, his head came into sight again; finally, it was lost behind the ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... in Naples, but how? He was enamored of a Duchess, whose rightful lover became jealous, and sent three or four fellows to give him his choice between drinking poison out of a cup and being assassinated. He chose the former, but being an Italian poltroon he died ALONE, and allowed his murderers to live on in peace and quiet. I would at least (in my own room) have taken a couple with me into the next world, if absolutely obliged to die myself. Such an admirable singer is ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... repeated until they became conventionalized. There is always a very bad and a very good woman, a very generous and noble man and one so bad as to seem a monster. There is the type of the "love-lorn maiden," of "the lily-livered" hero, of the faithful friend, of the poltroon. It is supposed by many that such types repeated in play after play do not mark the highest original power, but rather poverty of invention, weak and shadowy conception, indistinctness of coloring. Professor Thorndike, ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... tyro at fence, or such a poltroon as to be afraid to meet him? No, Hyacinth, I go with you to Dover, or I stand my ground ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... I have killed you, poltroon!" cried d'Artagnan, making the best face possible, and never retreating one step before his three assailants, who continued to shower ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... pitiful rascal never showed the white feather. Not once was he known to take a purse with his own hand, the summit of his achievement being to hold the horses' heads while his accomplice spoke with the passengers. A poltroon before his arrest, in Court he whimpered and whinnied for mercy; he was carried to the cart pallid and trembling, and not even his preposterous finery availed to hearten him at the gallows. Taxed with his timidity, he attempted to excuse himself on the inadmissible ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... a while. That this Sir George Covert should call the patroon a poltroon hurt me, for he was kin to us both; yet it seemed that there might be truth in the insolent fling, for selfishness and ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... mention it, Miss Newville. I should indeed be a poltroon did I not resent an indignity to a lady, especially to you. I esteem it an honor to have made your acquaintance. May I say I cannot find words to express the pleasure I have had in your society? I do not know that I shall see you again before we ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin |
