"Craven" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... boldly he entered the Netherby Hall, Among bride's-men, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all: Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword, For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word, 'O come ye in peace here, or come ye in war, Or to dance at our bridal, ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... it therefore enacted, by his Excellency, William, Lord Craven, Palatine, and the rest of the true and absolute Lords and Proprietors of this Province, by and with the advice and consent of the rest of the members of the General Assembly, now met at Charlestown, for the South-west part of this ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... centre or as one of the picturesque market towns of the dale country. If you arrive by train, you come out of the station upon such vast cotton-mills, and such a strong flavour of the bustling activity of the southern parts of Yorkshire, that you might easily imagine that the capital of Craven has no part in any holiday-making portion of the county. But if you come by road from Bolton Abbey, you enter the place at a considerable height, and, passing round the margin of the wooded Haw Beck, you have a fine view of the castle, as well as the church and the broad and not ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... above such a hard lot there fell upon his heart the craven fear some day that Lenoir, who was chained to the next oar, would break loose ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... bones under ground. And he looked up at the dark lines of the brig looming like the black skeleton of an evil thing against the darkness of the night, and he cursed himself for a traitor to both women—for a hypocrite, a craven, a man sold to the highest bidder. Well, well, Captain Traverse, there are curses that cling! And Louie sat in the gloom at the window of the fisherman's cottage down below the town, and sighed and wondered and ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... LAYNEZ. (THE TEST.) Brooding sat Diego Laynez o'er the insult to his name, Nobler and more ancient far than Inigo Abarca's fame; For he felt that strength was wanting to avenge the craven blow, If he himself at such an age to fight should think to go. Sleepless he passed the weary nights, his food untasted lay, Ne'er raised his eyes from off the ground, nor ventured forth to stray, Refused ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... well secure! What vales of plenty those calm floods supply! Shall not our love this rough, sweet land make sure, Her bounds preserve inviolate, though we die? O strong hearts of the North, Let flame your loyalty forth, And put the craven and base to an open shame, Till earth shall know the Child of Nations by ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... give in, give up; cave in; suffer judgment by default; bend, bend to one's yoke, bend before the storm; reel back; bend down, knuckle down, knuckle to, knuckle under; knock under. eat dirt, eat the leek, eat humble pie; bite the dust, lick the dust; be at one's feet, fall at one's feet; craven; crouch before, throw oneself at the feet of; swallow the leek, swallow the pill; kiss the rod; turn the other cheek; avaler les couleuvres[Fr], gulp down. obey &c. 743; kneel to, bow to, pay homage to, cringe to, truckle to; bend the neck, bend the knee; kneel, fall on one's knees, bow ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Mr. Chairman, I rise to express sentiments similar to those of the gentleman from Craven. For my part, were it practicable to put an end to the importation of slaves immediately, it would give me the greatest pleasure, for it certainly is a trade utterly inconsistent with the rights ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... deserved, created some consternation in the family circle; while the reading set at Cambridge was duly scandalised at the influence which one, whose classical attainments were rather discursive than exact, had gained over a Craven scholar. To this hour men may be found in remote parsonages who mildly resent the fascination which Austin of Jesus exercised over Macaulay of Trinity. [It was at this period of his career that Macaulay said to the late Mr. Hampden ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... Gordon died! A year ago to-night, the Desert still Crouched on the spring, and panted for its fill Of lust and blood. Their old art statesmen plied, And paltered, and evaded, and denied; Guiltless as yet, except for feeble will, And craven heart, and calculated skill In long delays, of their ...
— Grass of Parnassus • Andrew Lang
... Thus thought the tyrant in his traitorous mind, But durst not follow what he had decreed, Yet if the innocents some mercy find, From cowardice, not truth, did that proceed, His noble foes durst not his craven kind Exasperate by such a bloody deed. For if he need, what grace could then be got, If thus of peace he broke or ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... any, available halls for these meetings. The only resort was the colored churches. Those under the auspices of white denominations had members who objected to their use for such a purpose. Craven and fawning, content with the crumbs that fell from these peace-loving Christians, who deprecated the discussion of slavery while they ignored the claim of outraged humanity, these churches were ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... or tormentors of this craven followed after him, and Jimmy himself fell in at the rear, and, instead of going with the rest towards the well, where the loser was bathing his face, Phoebus softly stepped over the low sill of the back door, the woman's ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... in your craven throat; it seems a trifle shady. You said "I saw the gentleman," and then ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... immediately discover it and rain maledictions on his head. I saw a picador once enter the ring as pale as death. He kept carefully out of the way of the bull for a few minutes. The sharp-eyed Spaniards noticed it, and commenced shouting, "Craven! He wants to live forever!" They threw orange-skins at him, and at last, their rage vanquishing their economy, they pelted him with oranges. His pallor gave way to a flush of shame and anger. He attacked the ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... two her dark gaze sought his with a strange hesitation, and then, as if the truth in him awoke all the truth in her, the natural daring of her spirit rose proudly to meet this kindred soul. She would let no falsehood, no craven ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... of the rock, he likewise arose and pursued the affrighted culprit with all his speed towards the top of the hill. Wringhim was braying out, "Murder! murder!" at which George, being disgusted, and his spirits all in a ferment from some hurried idea of intended harm, the moment he came up with the craven he seized him rudely by the shoulder, and clapped his hand on his mouth. "Murder, you beast!" said he; "what do you mean by roaring out murder in that way? Who the devil is murdering you, ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... thine." Upon his saying such things, and not daring to look upon him, whom he is entreating with his voice, {Perseus} says, "What am I able to give thee, most cowardly Phineus, and, a great boon to a craven, that will I give; lay aside thy fears; thou shalt be hurt by no weapon. Moreover, I will give thee a monument to last forever, and in the house of my father-in-law thou shalt always be seen, that my wife may comfort herself with the form of her betrothed." ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... the eager response of the army which flocked to the Empress, "kissing me, embracing my hands, my feet, my dress, and calling me their saviour"; the marching of the insurgent troops to Oranienbaum, with Catherine, astride on horseback, at their head; and Peter's craven submission, when he crawled on his knees to his wife, with whimpering and tears, begging her to allow him to keep "his mistress, his dog, his negro, ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... me, What knowest thou of love almighty? Naught except that craven spirit Measuring, weighing, calculating, That goes shivering to its bridal. On this deathless soul, all hazard Here I take, and if it perish, Let it perish. From the socket This right eye I'd pluck, extinguish This right hand, if he ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... which commonly accompany the machine. For payment of this to Mr. Woodmason, the seller, whose printed letter I have enclosed, you will herewith receive a bill of eight Guineas payable at sight. If, after paying for all these, there should be any remnant, there is a tailour in Craven Street, one Heddington, an acquaintance of James M'Pherson, to whom I owe some shillings, I believe under ten, certainly under twenty; pay him what I owe. He is a very honest man, and will ask no more than is due. Before I left London I had sent several times for ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... peril it with younger men." And, greatly moved, then Rustum made reply:— "O Gudurz, wherefore dost thou say such words? Thou knowest better words than this to say. What is one more, one less, obscure or famed, Valiant or craven, young or old, to me? Are not they mortal, am not I myself? But who for men of nought would do great deeds? Come, thou shalt see how Rustum hoards his fame! But I will fight unknown, and in plain arms; Let not men say of Rustum, he was match'd In single fight with ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... Esten Cooke's novels and his lives of Stonewall Jackson and Lee, two or three collections of the war poetry of the South, Gayarre's histories, the "War between the States", by Alexander H. Stephens, Craven's "Prison Life of Jefferson Davis", and Dabney's "Defense of Virginia" are perhaps the most significant. J. Wood Davidson's "Living Writers of the South", published in 1869, gives the best general idea of the extent and quality of the post-bellum writing. ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... nobles were gone to honor the Emperor's command, came a band of mercenaries of the Emperor's sending, who stole the customs and by their lawless acts frightened the people who fled for safety to the convents, denouncing Frederick as false and craven; while the governors sent by him, in despite of his solemn treaty, made havoc in the land, proclaiming in ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... I would to St. John she had sent old Dorothy on the errand, and bound thee for thy Valentine service to that bundle of dry bones, with never a tooth in her head. She were fittest Valentine in Perth for so craven ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... and at nine o'clock I sent Frison out again; and at ten and eleven—always with the same result. I was like a man waiting and looking and, above all, listening for a reprieve; and as sick as any craven. But when he came back, at eleven, I gave up hope and dressed myself carefully. I suppose I had an odd look then, however, for Frison stopped me at the door, and asked me, with evident alarm, where I ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... Peyton, of Pelham, knight and baronet. Sir Edward's relative, the first American Peyton, settled in Westmoreland County. Within one generation the family had spread to Stafford County, and within another to Loudoun County also. Thus it befell that there was a Mr. Craven Peyton, of Loudoun County, justice of the peace, vestryman, and chief warden of Shelburne Parish. He was the father of nine sons and two daughters. One of the sons ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... who had no reason to exhibit her in a favourable light. He understood her point of view and sympathised with it. An idealist, how could she trust herself to Eustace Hignett? How could she be content with a craven who, instead of scouring the world in the quest for deeds of daring do, had fallen down so lamentably on his first assignment? There was a specious attractiveness about poor old Eustace which might conceivably win a girl's heart for a time; he wrote poetry, talked well, and had a nice ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... craven fear my truth accused, Thine idlehood my trust abused; He that draws to harbour late, Must sleep without, or ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... fulfilling my commands, wait for my summons, where their eyes cannot see what we do. The danger is of a kind in which the boldest son of the East would be more craven, perhaps, that the daintiest Sybarite of Europe, who would shrink from a panther and laugh at a ghost. In the creed of the Dervish, and of all who adventure into that realm of Nature which is closed to philosophy and open to magic, there are races ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... "why, what craven spirit has come over thee? Is not the boat ready? am not I ready, and is ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... thought. Was the Sheffield cutler, the Barnsley miner, the Bradford handloom-weaver, and the Leeds forge-man to find no outlet in dialect verse for his thoughts and emotions, his hopes and his fears? Or, if dialect poetry must be concerned only with rustic life, was the Craven dalesman to have no voice in the matter? Questions such as these may well have passed through the minds of West Riding men as they saw the steady growth of North Riding poetry in the first forty years ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... it. They pointed out the big hotels opposite, and recommended more than one of the little ones in Craven Street. But the big hotels were all full to overflowing; and at the only little one he tried the boy lost his temper like a man on being requested to deposit six shillings before proceeding to his room. Pocket ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... exactly what she was. Everything about her was definite and decided, though she was various and unexpected as our British weather. She was an extraordinary mixture of whimsicality and common sense, of heroic courage and craven timidity, of violence and tenderness, of impulsiveness and caution. In very truth a delightful bundle of paradox. Quick-witted and impatient, she had yet infinite toleration for the simpleton, and could on occasion suffer ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... a hard blow and made Frye wince, for it was the first time he had ever been openly called a villain, but, craven hypocrite that he was, he made no protest. Instead, he silently wrote a check for Albert's due and handed ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... round the run, inspected the flock, and had to pass near the hut again on his return homeward. The hut-keeper, Charles Craven he called himself, was on the ...
— The Gilpins and their Fortunes - A Story of Early Days in Australia • William H. G. Kingston
... Next, think over with some care the things for which you may pray, the aspirations which your children can share with you. Few things are more difficult than this, so to pray that all can make the prayer their own. Let it also be a prayer of love and joy, not a craven begging off from punishments, nor a cowardly plea for protection and provision. We can pray over all these things with gratitude and with confidence toward the God of love. Do not try to preach in your prayers. Many prayers have ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... nature. The stars wear for me the same mocking menace which, if our chronicles do not err, they once wore for Pyrrhus—for him, doomed to strive for all things, to enjoy none—all attacking, nothing gaining—battles without fruit, laurels without triumph, fame without success; at last made craven by his own superstitions, and slain like a dog by a tile from the hand of an old woman! Verily, the stars flatter when they give me a type in this fool of war—when they promise to the ardour of my wisdom the same results as to the madness of his ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... bestowed upon him her grace. Few weeks, however, passed, before Amalasuentha was a prisoner, hurried away to a little lonely island in the Lake of Bolsena in Tuscany by order of the partner of her throne. Having taken this step, Theodahad began with craven apologies to excuse it to the Eastern Caesar. "He had done no harm to Amalasuentha; he would do no harm to her, though she had been guilty of the most nefarious designs against him: he only sought ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... verdict with a shudder. Given the nature of the man, his mortal fear was the dreadfullest torture that could be devised. The game little cockney peered into his distorted face, and wondered. Never was there a more pitiful coward, and yet the craven had passed through the same agony full twenty times during the last few years. Murguia knew nothing of the noble motives which make a man stronger than terror, but he did know a miser's passion. He begrudged even the costlier fuel that was ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... no urging and they were soon on their way to Craven Street. When they arrived, Rose left Oliver in the coach, and sending up her card, requested to see Mr. Brownlow on business. She was shown up stairs, and presented to Mr. Brownlow, an elderly gentleman of benevolent appearance, in a bottle-green coat, and with him was his friend, Mr. Grimwig. ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... which there are three sub-divisions—the East Anglian of Norfolk and Suffolk; the Middle Anglian of Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and East Derbyshire; and the North Anglian of the West Riding of Yorkshire—spoken most purely in the central part of the mountainous district of Craven. 5.Northumbrian," spoken throughout the Lowlands of Scotland, Northumberland, Durham, and nearly the whole ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... admit, you have given to me a Capital hint, and the like idea, Friends, had occurred to myself before. Truly if anything good befell He would be wanting, I know full well, Wanting to take to the togs once more. Nevertheless, while in these I'm vested, Ne'er shall you find me craven-crested, No, for a dittany look I'll wear, Aye and methinks it will soon be tested, Hark! how the ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes
... lost in both courage and physical stature; he slouched along with shuffling step, his head bent and his face pale. Ross was now profoundly sorry for him, so utterly craven and ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... and adders in such place I lay, and slumbering smiled, O'erstrewn with myrtle wild, And laurel, by the god's peculiar grace No craven-hearted child." ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... that he is alive, or was, for these men saw him and Jeffrey Stokes and Martin the priest, no craven as I know, fighting like devils till the Turks overwhelmed them by numbers, and, having bound their hands, carried them all three unwounded on board one of their ships, wishing doubtless to make slaves of such ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... whose craven soul rejects the fight And flees abjectly from the booming strife Achieves the summits of his greatest might Upon the blood-red battle-fields of life. Be strong to dare! And if the conflict's lost, Men boast the fight ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... public place.... The second chapter directs that no man in harvest—before settled to be in the month of August—shall leave the village in which he lived during the winter, except the inhabitants of Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire, Craven, and the marches of Wales and Scotland—the occasion of which is, that there are large tracts of mountain or moorland in all these counties and districts, where nothing can be raised but oats, which are not usually ripe till October; and, consequently, if they were not employed ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... another boy his fag, and you express a sneering pity for the boy who consents to fag. You have read Dr. Birch and His Young Friends, and you would like to break the head of Master Hewlett, who shies his shoe at the poor shivering, craven Nightingale, and you justly remark that close observation of John Bull seems to warrant the conclusion that the nature of his bovine ancestor is still far from eliminated from his descendant. And what is the secret of your feeling? Simply that you hate bullying. Why, ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... wife, is brave enough to be the treasurer of the National Suffrage Association. He turned to Mr. Thurman and demanded for the petition of more than 10,000 women at least the courtesy which would be given to any other.... Then the craven Senate declared Thurman's motion, which was only an insult, carried. Let it be recorded of the Senate of the Forty-fifth Congress that the one petition which it received as a preposterous joke and treated with utter contempt and outrage ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... since the reception of the Empress Josephine, and only one remained of the time which had been allowed to my cousin Sibylle in which she might save her lover, and capture the terrible Toussac. For my own part I was not so very anxious that she should save this craven lover of hers, whose handsome face belied the poor spirit within him. And yet this lonely beautiful woman, with the strong will and the loyal heart, had touched my feelings, and I felt that I would help her to anything—even against my own better judgment, if she should desire it. ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Bush got to a police-station above the barracks, and got muskets and a few cartridges from a discharged African soldier who was in the police establishment. Being joined by the policemen, Corporal Craven {175} and Ensign Pogson, they concealed themselves on an eminence above, and as the mutineers (about 100 in number) approached, the fire of muskets opened on them from the little ambush. The little party fired separately, loading as fast as they discharged ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... for the threat was fearful, and the danger imminent; the harsh, deep tones of his voice, with the ferocious determination of his manner, sent a thrill of horror to every heart. More than this, he could not effect; there was not a craven spirit ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... exhibited a glorious defiance. He defied the concrete Gedge. He defied the more abstract, but none the less real, tormenting Furies. He defied remorse. In accepting Sir Anthony's praise he defied the craven ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... trance of stupefaction which seemed to have seized me while this frightful tragedy was in progress. "You have taken a human life, and branded yourselves as murderers. And for what? Simply because that poor craven of a fellow appropriated a small morsel of putrid meat and a few drops of disgusting liquid that, evenly divided among you all, could have done you no appreciable good. At most, it could but have prolonged your ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... of exploring the wonderful old town that day. They turned into a little side street, where there was nothing particular to see, but where, outside the agent's office, a number of donkeys were waiting. Marjorie caught hold of Miss Craven, her cabin ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... Uffington, and Baron Craven of Hamstead Marshall, owns Combe Abbey in Warwickshire, where is to be seen the finest water-jet in England; and in Berkshire two baronies, Hamstead Marshall, on the facade of which are five Gothic lanterns sunk ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... flames aspire, the whirling March winds fanning them, Yet search their hearts, no blemish'd parts are found all eyes though scanning them. They rush elate to stern debate, the battle call has never Found tardy cheer or craven fear, or grudge the prey to sever. Ah, fell their wrath! The dance[123] of death sends legs and arms a flying, And thick the life blood's reek ascends of the downfallen and the dying. Clandonuil, still my darling theme, is the prime of every clan, How oft the heady war in, has it ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... intuitively shrank. Her natural sensitiveness and all the prejudices of her life rebelled against it, and she could not look forward to it without fear and trembling. Every meeting now found her, she says, like a craven, dreading to hear the summons which would oblige her to rise and open her lips before the two or three gathered there. Vainly did she try to "hide herself from the Lord." The evidence came distinctly to her one morning that some words of admonition were required of her; but so appalling ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... I loathe a coward, and I thought you were a brave man. When I heard—when I was told—O, it does not seem possible that you could be so craven." ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... It is too good For food so craven; Its worth be graven On funeral stone, But not upon A name which beareth The stain thine weareth. One exploit brave Sank 'neath the wave; The next one failed thee, Nor aught availed thee; Thy bow rust broke, Not thou. ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... Elizabeth of York (1502).] may likewise choose the French Josse or Gosse. Goss may also be a dialect pronunciation of gorse, the older form of which has given the name Gorst. Coward, though humble, cow-herd, is no more timid than Craven, the name of a district in ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... by Flambeau himself, who had with him a lean man with iron-grey hair and papers in his hand: Inspector Craven from Scotland Yard. The entrance hall was mostly stripped and empty; but the pale, sneering faces of one or two of the wicked Ogilvies looked down out of black periwigs and ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... suddenly as she had flown into a passion, she burst into tears and flung her arms about her boy and clung to him and mothered him until in the depths of his surly, craven heart ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... the webs of others. Brave insect, thou art my model! While I have breath in my body, the world and all its crosses, Fortune and all her malignity, shall not prevail against me! What man ever yet failed until he himself grew craven, and sold his soul to the arch fiend, Despair! 'Tis but a girl and a fortune lost,—they were gallantly fought for, that is some comfort. Now to what is yet left ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book XI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... craven souls! Go off yourselves! Thank heaven I have a heart That quails not at the thought of meeting men; I will discharge your ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... till her bodice would appear to crackle at the armpits, the seven hairs on her upper lip would bristle all the worse against her purpling face as she cried it was the little Lyons shopkeeper in his mother's grandfather that was in his craven legs. Doubt it who will, an imminent danger will not wholly dispel the sense of humour, and Montaiglon, as he ran before the footpads, ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... trial in full harness, man to man, thy bow and showers of shafts would nothing avail thee, but now thou boastest vainly, for that thou hast grazed the sole of my foot. I care not, more than if a woman had struck me or a senseless boy, for feeble is the dart of a craven man and a worthless. In other wise from my hand, yea, if it do but touch, the sharp shaft flieth, and straightway layeth low its man, and torn are the cheeks of his wife, and fatherless his children, and he, reddening the earth ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... wood behind the village. A little open glade was soon found; the ground was soon measured; the pistols were soon loaded. De Caylus looked horribly pale, but it was the pallor of concentrated rage, with nothing of the craven hue in it. Dalrymple, on the contrary, had neither more nor less color than usual, and puffed away at his cigar with as much indifference as if he were waiting his turn at the pit of the Comedie Francaise. Both were clothed ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... whatever they may be - what, I ask you, will you say of that working-man, since such I must acknowledge him to be, who, at such a time, deserts his post, and sells his flag; who, at such a time, turns a traitor and a craven and a recreant, who, at such a time, is not ashamed to make to you the dastardly and humiliating avowal that he will hold himself aloof, and will not be one of those associated in the gallant stand ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... distance shall bid my reft heart undergo Those pangs that alone the poor exile can know— Away! like a craven why should I complain? Farewell! for I ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... meet that flaming glance. Wild horses could not have dragged him to face this man had he been free. Even now a chill crept over Girty. For a moment he was enthralled by a mysterious fear, half paralyzed by a foreshadowing of what would be this hunter's vengeance. Then he shook off his craven fear. He was free; the hunter's doom was sure. His sharp face was again wreathed in a savage leer, and he spat ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... were at its heart; each noble deed Revealed self-seeking as its primal seed. Love, honor, virtue—each was but a name! Naught marked us off, vile creatures of the dust, From ravening brutes, save on the smiling face A honeyed falseness—in the heart so base A craven weakness and a fiercer lust. Where was a friend had not his friend betrayed A brother guiltless of a brother's death, A wife that hid no poisoned sting beneath A fond embrace? Of one clay all were made! Thus I became as they. Since only fear Could tame that ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... doing,' he faltered, shrinking before her like the veriest craven; 'it was the girls—Urania and Bessie—who started the notion as a practical joke, just to see what you would think of me, believing me to be my cousin. And when you seemed to like me—a little—Bessie, who is fond of me and who adores you, urged me ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... mouth of the king of gangland there came a shriek of awful fear. The tightening tentacle shut it off in a choking gurgle. Cadorna was captured at last—by a monster he could not see, a monster that struck terror to his craven soul. ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... enveloped in smoke or vapour, or in firing off muskets in platoons at the word of command. This kind of merely manual valour is often born of trepidation at the heart. There may be men, individually craven, who, united, may display even temerity. Yet it would be false to deny that, in some in-stances, the lowest privates have acquitted themselves with even more gallantry than their commodores. True heroism is not in the hand, but in the ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... perhaps to single out one set for especial praise; but my advice is, on no account miss the Second Scene of the Prologue, "on the Battlements of a Castle in Normandy," painted by W. TELBIN. "Rosamond's Bower," by HAWES CRAVEN, is equally perfect in another and of course totally distinct line. To pronounce upon Professor STANFORD'S music when "the play's the thing" is impossible. The entr'actes deserve such special attention as they are not likely to command when the audience is relaxing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various
... soldiers went limping to the rear, seeking surgical aid; while badly wounded men were eagerly caught up and borne off the field by their "comrades in battle" or by white-livered recreants, anxious to desert their braver companions and place themselves in safety. A certain percentage of such craven-hearted libels on humanity—let it be said here—are always to be found in every army and on every battle-field, dusky backgrounds against which brave men show the brighter, and ever ready to take advantage of any circumstance that will help them to the rear. In the armies ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... the other archer; "the girl is not here, but gone on to the bailiff. So let the burghers settle whether this craven be guilty or no: for we caught him not in the act: and let ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... flashed the patriot's eye and he sternly answered—"No! I'll never turn a craven back upon my country's foe: Doolan aboo, for Liberty! . . . and anyhow" (says he) "The Government's locked the kitchen-door and ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... sent a manuscript letter to the Astronomical Society, inviting controversy: he was answered by a recommendation to study {297} dynamics. The above pamphlet was the consequence, in which, calling the Council of the Society "craven dunghill cocks," he set them right about their doctrines. From all I can learn, the life of a worthy man and a creditable officer was completely embittered by his want of power to see that no person is bound in reason to enter into controversy with every one who chooses ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... Spaniard for herself, and to have been deceived, tricked like a child; this brought her slender brows together, ominously, and made her eyes glitter in a way that Manuela would have known well. On the other hand—here was a romantic spot, a young soldier, apparently craven, but certainly wounded, and very good-looking; and here was luncheon, and she was ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... he said, bitterly. "She detests me for having spoiled her triumph. She is not just," he added, angrily. "She has no sense of justice, or she would not blame me. What a mean-spirited craven I should have been had I shrunk away under her taunts yesterday. Well, ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... and he knew it; but my Lord Chesterfield was far too polite to more than hint to Topham Beauclerc that he had fallen asleep over his throw. Selwyn and Lord March lounged into the coffee house arm in arm. On their heels came Sir James Craven, the choicest blackleg ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... consorted with her for your mutual shame and death, and then called it "seeing life." Had your mother met you, you would have shrunk away like a craven cur. Had your sister interviewed you, she had blushed to bear your name; or had she been seen by you in company with some other whoremaster, for similar commerce, you would have wished that she had been dead. Now what think you of this "seeing life?" And it is for this that tens of ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... the "Green Book," more briefly and cogently in the admirable statement which Italy made to the Powers when she declared war on Austria. That the Italian Government was not only within its treaty rights in demanding those "compensations" from Austria, but would have been craven to pass the incident of the attack on Serbia without notice, seems to me clear. That it was a real necessity, not a mere trading question, for Italy to secure a stronger frontier and control of the Adriatic, seems to me equally ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... out a-laughing loudly, till all the dusk wood rang with the merry sound of his fresh voice; at last he said: "Well, well, thou art but a craven to be a secret murderer: the Lord God would have had an easy bargain of Cain, had he been such as thou. Come on, and do thine errand to Jack of the Tofts, and I will hold thee harmless, so far as I may. Though, sooth to say, I guessed what thine errand was, after the horses ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... can see that as plainly as I can see your name on this card. But I can't keep away from them. I've no pride. At least, I've got the pride, but there's something in me stronger than pride that makes me a kind of craven. I'm like a dog that doesn't mind being kicked so long as he can hang about under the dining-room table to sniff up crumbs. With my temperament it's perfectly humiliating, but I can't help it. I've got the taste for that English life as a Frenchman gets a ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... Mary? Sometimes he thought so, and then cast the thought away as treason. His love for her was ever sinking deeper into him, and raising and purifying him. Light and strength and life came from that source; craven weariness and coldness of heart, come from whence they might, were not from that quarter. But precious as his love was to him, and deeply as it affected his whole life, he felt that there must be something beyond it—that its full satisfaction would not ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... back now!" the old man cried vehemently. "No, no, that would be too craven. We have everything in our favour, and all that we want is a stout heart. Oh, my boy, my boy, on the one side of you are ruin, dishonour, a sordid existence, and the scorn of your old companions; on ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that President Wilson had been elected with an absolute mandate to keep the peace at all costs, the Germans declared for unrestricted submarine warfare, expecting a craven neutrality ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... English merchant should have been ruined, whose goods he had in his hands, and the way being mountainous and most extreme stony, I knew that I must have lost twenty good men in taking a town not worth two groats.' The Governor of Lanzarote continued to be in a craven state of anxiety, and would not hear of trading. We cannot blame him, especially when we find that less than eight months later his island was invaded by genuine Algerine bandits, his town utterly sacked, and 900 Christians taken off into Moslem ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... common politics prevents me from exposing the ungenerous spirit she has displayed in this allusion. To be dismissed in a single paragraph after years of—But I anticipate. To put up with this feeble and forced acknowledgment of services rendered would be a confession of a craven spirit, which, thank God, though "fragile" and only "nineteen," I do not possess. I may not have the "blood of a Howard" in my veins, as some people, whom I shall not disgrace myself by naming, claim to have, but I have yet to learn that the race of McGillup ever yet brooked slight ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... life's story you will find The miser—with his hoarded gold— A hermit, dreary and unkind, An outcast from the human fold. Men hold him up to view with scorn, A creature by his wealth enslaved, A spirit craven and forlorn, Doomed by the money ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest
... very antagonistic. She had already announced the betrothal to certain of her friends, and the facts that day had discovered made her both anxious and angry. She was a woman of intermittent courage, but her paroxysms of pluck soon passed and between them she was craven and easily cast down. For the moment, however, she felt no fear and echoed the mood in which Sabina had returned from Bridport an ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... there comes to every coward and bully under similar circumstances, a crumbling of the veneer of bravado which had long masqueraded as courage and with it crumbled his code of ethics. Now was Es-sat no longer chief of Kor-ul-ja—instead he was a whimpering craven battling for life. Clutching at Om-at, clutching at the nearest pegs he sought any support that would save him from that awful fall, and as he strove to push aside the hand of death, whose cold fingers he already felt upon his heart, ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... story—I don't vouch for the truth of it—that the Duke of Gloucester and Lord Craven had had some very high words at Coombe Abbey, where the former was on a visit. It began from strong opinions expressed by the former regarding the Queen, which the latter attacked; and it ended in the Royal personage going from his visit ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... my sister to the reivers? Oh, what may not they be doing to her? Let us go back and fall on them, Halbert; better die saving her than know her in Walter Stewart's hands. Then were I the wretched craven he ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... thought it possible there might be trouble; but I decided to go on, not wishing to show fear before that craven. He cried aloud in awe and wonder when I told him that little boys threw stones ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... buffeted by winds, They found a narrow channel, where the fleet Halted for council. One returned to Spain Laden with falsehood and with mutiny. On sailed the others valiantly, their hearts Remembering their Admiral's haughty words Flung at his craven captain, "I will see This great voyage to the end, though we should eat The leather from the yards!" And thus they reached The end of that strait path of Destiny, And saw beyond the ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... the silver candle-sticks lay a horse-pistol. As the fingers approached it, their trembling increased. Twice they hesitated, craven flesh rebelling against a recreant will. They shook so frightfully upon encountering the butt that it seemed as if to grasp it were beyond their power. Once they had seized it, however, the trembling left them and passed ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... few more names, and then close another chapter of my memory. There was Mr. J.A. Craven, the Duke of St. Albans, the Duke of Beaufort, Montagu Tharp, Major Egerton, General Pearson, Lord Calthorpe, Henry Saville, Douglas Gordon (Mr. Briggs), Oliver Montagu, Henry Leeson, the Earl of Milltown, Sir Henry Devereux, Johnny ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... argued, fumed and ranted. They were losing precious time, time which might mean all the difference between failure and success. It was expedient to get ahead of the rabble. He, for one, was no craven; he had staked his all on this trip. He had studied the records of Arctic explorers. He thought he was no man's fool. If others were cowardly enough to hold ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... brave commander and over a hundred of her crew. A few escaped, the last of whom was the pilot. As the pilot was rushing for the hatchway that led to the open air and to life, he met at the foot of a narrow ladder Commander Craven. Craven stepped back, saying gravely, "After you, pilot;" and the pilot passed out. "There was nothing after me," said he, in relating the story afterwards; "for as I sprang out of the hatchway the water rushed in, carrying all behind ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... shrine being from time to time gutted, pulled to pieces, or removed. On the other hand, doubtless much that existed in the fancy, or real thought, of the author still remains, as the door-knocker of No. 8 Craven Street, Strand, the conjectured original of which is described in the "Christmas Carol," which appeared to the luckless Scrooge as "not a knocker but Marley's face;" or the Spaniards Inn on Hampstead Heath described in the XLVI. Chapter of Pickwick, which stands to-day ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... fortissimo is their favourite note of expression. "Straack up a bit, Jock! straack up a bit," a Yorkshire parson used to shout to his clerk, when he wanted the Old Hundredth to be sung. Well do I remember a delightful old clerk in the Craven district, who used to give out the hymn in the accustomed form with charming manner. He liked not itinerant choirs, which were not uncommon forty or fifty years ago, and used to migrate from church to church, and sometimes to ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... flee, though thou shouldst know me doomed. I am not born a craven. Thy friendly counsels all I will receive, as long ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... was in Prince's Street at supper at Mr Page's, and at ten o'clock at night Mr Page went home with me; and, coming down Drury Lane there stood a coach by my Lord Craven's door, and the hood of the coach was drawn, and a great many men stood by it. Just as I came to the place where the coach stood, two soldiers came and pushed me from Mr Page, and four or five men came up to them, and they knocked ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... message to Harte, who waits with impatience for your letter. He is very happy now in having free access to all Lord Craven's papers, which, he says, give him great lights into the 'bellum tricenale'; the old Lord Craven having been the professed and valorous knight-errant, and perhaps something more, to the Queen of Bohemia; at least, like Sir Peter Pride, he had the honor of spending great part ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... before noon the public vote was taken; one or two faint-hearted members sought a craven's refuge and slunk quietly from the chamber. As each name was called, the deputy rose in his place and gave his vote, there was no secret ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... to fight he took the medals along. Not to show. But he felt that the time might come when he would not be sure of himself. A good many men on the way to war have felt that way. The body has a way of turning craven, in spite of high resolves. It would be rather comforting, he felt, to have those medals somewhere about him at that time. He never looked at them without a proud little intake of breath and a ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of the Bungalow was Mrs. Craven, a sympathetic woman of heroic mould, and with a wide experience in war work. She has two South African medals, and for twelve months was matron of the hospital at Bar-le-Duc that Fritzie once termed "that damned little British hospital," just eight ...
— Through St. Dunstan's to Light • James H. Rawlinson
... or cower in empty phrase, 135 The victim of thy genius, not its mate!" Life may be given in many ways, And loyalty to Truth be sealed As bravely in the closet as the field, So bountiful is Fate; 140 But then to stand beside her, When craven churls deride her, To front a lie in arms and not to yield, This shows, methinks, God's plan And measure of a stalwart man, 145 Limbed like the old heroic breeds, Who stands self-poised on manhood's solid earth; Not forced to frame excuses for his birth, Fed ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell |
