"Recreant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... conceded to him because he had more than once replaced the instructor in still-life there. But there remained a misgiving with some whether Cornelia was right in giving up her art for him; whether she were not recreant to the Synthesis in doing that; the doubt, freshly raised by her beauty, was not appeased till Charmian met it with the assertion that Cornelia was not going to give up her art at all, but after her marriage was coming back to study ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... black silk gown. She had a muddy skin and magnificent eyes. She also was tentatively effusive. "We waited for you, monsieur," she said, smirking timidly, with the careful charm of a woman a little along in years who relies still on infantine graces. As the recreant young man offered his apologies, "Oh, we know you are much occupied, Monsieur Rouletabille. My husband said that to me only a moment ago. But he knew you would come finally. In the end one always accepts my husband's invitation." ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... leather-cutter who never achieved even to the honors and emoluments of a saddler. There were seven children in the family, and never a servant crossed the threshold. One daughter survived Immanuel, and in her eighty-fourth year she expressed regrets that her brother had proved so recreant to the teachings of his parents as practically to alienate him from all his relatives. One brother became a Lutheran minister and lived out an honored career; the others vanish and fade away ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... delivery by the Archduke John, into whose hands he first fell. But where he is, no one exactly knows. The news has created an immense excitement in the kingdom, and all are resolved to sacrifice any of their treasures which may be demanded in order to satisfy the ransom which the recreant emperor has placed upon the king. Shame is it indeed that a Christian sovereign should hold another in captivity. Still more, when that other was returning through his dominions as a crusader coming ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... as a sort of duty. This sum, large as it was, really amounted to nothing in comparison with the sum he owed the company; but it formed his only means of restitution, and if he did not take it and use it to that end, he might be held recreant to his moral obligations. He contended, from that vestibule of his soul where he was not a thief, with that self of his inmost where he was a thief, that it was all most fortunate, if not providential, as it had fallen out. Not only had his broker sent him that large check ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... family meal the young men sat outside in the shed-room, and smoked and lazily talked together. Their words reached the silent group at the table. Kirkwood's companions were deriding him as a recreant sportsman. He puffed his short-stemmed pipe and looked at them tranquilly. He was not dissatisfied with his ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... and the free-trader at the other, in order to be certain that none proved recreant in so trying a moment. Near them were Alida, Seadrift, and the Alderman, with ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... Jessie to-night," she answered firmly. "She has flown back to me in wild affright—the mere wreck of what she was, poor child! when I gave her into your keeping—and the inviolable sanctity of my house is around her. I much fear, Leon Dexter, that you have proved recreant to your trust—that you have not loved, protected, and cherished that delicate flower. The sweetness of her ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... laws of chivalry and knightly honor, and for this cause had he been condemned to suffer death. Great sorrow reigned among all the lords and dames, and Queen Guinevere, on bent knees, had sued the king's pardon for the recreant knight. At length, after many entreaties, Arthur's generous heart relented, and he gave the doomed life into the queen's hands to do with ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... his routed forces, checked but not conquered; he again advances on his recreant foe and seizes the vacant throne without a struggle. Ill-fated northeast! hadst thou but ruled with moderation when thou hadst gained, with masterly manoeuvre, the throne of the air; hadst thou reserved thy forces against surprise, and not, with prodigal profuseness, lavished them ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... the laws of the Union, and not the other? Why, sir, if the people of Pennsylvania could sustain a distinction so odious, the very shades of their ancestors would rise from the battlefields of the Revolution, from Paoli and Germantown, and call their children bondmen of Carolina, vassals and recreant slaves! I speak not now of the whiskey insurrection, when, at the order of Washington, the militia of Virginia and of other States moved against the people of Western Pennsylvania, under the command of the Governor of Virginia ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and Failer, acknowledge yourselves a couple of recreant knights: Sir Timorous is mine: I have won him in fair field ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... a majority of three, recreant Liberals again helping to defeat the just claim of a man whom they disliked; and Bradlaugh did not take his seat until the new Parliament in 1886 admitted, without a division, the right which the old Parliament had denied. Meanwhile, a few of us, actuated by the desperate ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... Did this strong-minded, politic, crafty woman feel that her daughter was placed under influences which might draw her from the idols of her mother, and make her recreant to the policy of her ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... Trenholme started off the third time to reproach the recreant driver of the ox-cart, he had no intention of again dealing with him directly. He bent his steps to the largest house in the neighbourhood, the house of the family called Turrifs; whose present head, being the second of his generation on the same farm, held a position of loosely ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... cat'ract, Faction's clam'rous tongue, Or by its sweetness charm, like Virgil's song, For him, whose mighty spirit rous'd afar Europe's plum'd legions to the hallow'd war; But who, ah! hapless tale! could not inspire Their recreant chiefs with his heroic fire; Who, as they pass'd the tyrant Conqu'ror's yoke, Felt, as the bolt of Heav'n, the ruthless stroke; And having long, in vain, the tempest brav'd, Could breathe no ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... while in such condition; nor to the faithful in the Church, whose voice and actions are weakened or neutralized by majorities. This important and hazardous task throughout the ages has not been committed to a Church, that is recreant at any point; nor to individuals, that are true at every point; but to a distinctive body of earnest, faithful, and fearless believers. For this purpose the Lord has divided, and sub-divided, His people time and again. He will have a testimony by a Church that is distinct from every ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... for this, mainly, that I sacrifice myself, but also because I cannot endure the dishonour of a laggard in love and a recreant bridegroom. ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... the ground. Then they fought with swords with many great strokes and much blood-shed on both sides. Finally by a mighty blow from his enemy,—a passing big man of might,—Arthur's sword was smitten in two pieces, and he was called upon to yield himself as overcome and recreant, or die. ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler
... the present volume completes the history of the Boat Club, that my young readers will wish to know something of the subsequent fortunes of the prominent characters of the association. It gives me pleasure to say that not one of them has been recreant to his opportunities, or abandoned his high standard of character; that the moral, mental, and physical discipline of the organization has proved salutary in the highest degree. The members of the boat clubs are now active members ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... unfitness for the task. His own words about God as long-suffering seem to suggest another reason, that he feared to go with a message of judgment which seemed to him so unlikely to be executed by the long-suffering God. If so, then what made him recreant was not so much fear from personal motives as intellectual perplexity and imperfect comprehension of the ways of God. Then we hear of his pitiable flight with its absurdity and its wickedness. Then comes the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... to behave like men and not turn back in battle. Yet probably over half of these same doughty black soldiers had been dervishes before they came over to us. "Victory or death," was the cry of these fiery Amazons to their warrior lovers. He would have been recreant indeed or a marvellously brave man that would have returned to one of them a confessed runaway from battle. It was not surprising that the Sirdar did not object to their presence in the field, and occasionally saw that they were ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... not?" said Lord Dalgarno, "or what are these fellows fit for, but to play the intellectual gladiators before us? He of them who declares himself recreant, should, d—n him, be restricted to muddy ale, and the patronage of the Waterman's Company. I promise you, that many a pretty fellow has been mortally wounded with a quibble or a carwitchet at the Mermaid, and sent from thence, in a ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... Blake said he would rather none of his people intruded at "Starlight," and so it happened that we were around the fire when Gleason rode in about nine o'clock, and with him Lieutenant Baker, also the recreant Potts. ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... you say so, Mistress Thankful," said Washington quietly; "for 'twould have been natural for you to have sought an interview with your recreant lover in yonder camp, though the attempt would have ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... their way slowly back to the little cottage, the poor old tidy bonnet drooping lower than it was wont. Meadows came back to dinner; he had a mutton-chop in his study, for it was a busy day. While thus employed there came almost bursting into the room a man struck with remorse—Jefferies, the recreant postmaster. ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... and all her doubts, showing only too plainly that she would be altogether broken-hearted if anything should interfere with the grandeur and prosperity which seemed to be partly within reach, but not altogether within reach of her darling child. If he, Carstairs, should prove to be a recreant young lord! If Aristotle and Socrates should put love out of his heart! If those other wicked young lords at Christ-Church were to teach him that it was a foolish thing for a young lord to become engaged to his tutor's daughter before he ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... mistress who engages a maid without such credentials is regarded as recreant to her order. In England, too, the former mistress is held partly responsible for the mischief done, if she turn loose upon other households a woman like ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... valiant De Bracy! It is Front-de- Boeuf who calls! It is your master, ye traitor squires! Your ally—your brother in arms, ye perjured and faithless knights! All the curses due to traitors upon your recreant heads, do you abandon me to perish thus miserably! They hear me not—they cannot hear me—my voice is lost in the din of battle. The smoke rolls thicker and thicker, the fire has caught upon the floor below. O, for one draught of the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... involuntarily keeping time to the rhythmic rise and fall of the white slippers as they flew by as indefatigably as if winged. When little Vladimir finally relinquished her, with assurances that he was 'desolated to leave so early', she was ready to rest, and see how her recreant knight had borne ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... belongs to the gentry, yet no fighting Irishman could match her temper when roused, and the Billingsgate which passes through the dumb-waiter between our Mary and the tradespeople is enough to turn the colour of the walls. Yet though I have seen her pull a recreant grocery boy in by his hair, literally by his hair, tradesmen, one and all, adore her, and do errands for her which ought to earn their discharge, and they bring her the pick of the market to avoid having anything less choice thrown in their faces ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... white. A group of girlish shapes in these colors, seen newly lighted at a doorway from a passing carriage, gave as they pressed eagerly forward a supreme effect of that sentiment in English dress which I hope I am not recreant in liking. Occasionally, also, there was a scarf, lightly escaping, lightly caught, which, with an endearing sash, renewed for a fleeting moment a bygone age of Sensibility, as we find it recorded in many a graceful page, on many ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... the hall door looking for a moment after his friend—the friend he had tried to cast out of his heart as a recreant. The mist had cleared—the stars glittered countless in the frosty heaven; a golden crescent-moon hung low; the lights and shadows lay almost poetically upon the little street. A rush of tender thoughts whelmed ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... endeavoured with all possible address and expedition to make his separate peace with Lady Angelica. Her ladyship, however, was proud to show that she had too much sense and spirit to accept again the homage of this recreant knight. He had not time to sue for pardon—his adventure might have ended in a jail; so forthwith he took his departure from Hungerford Castle, undetermined whether he should again haste to court to beg a place, or bend his course to the city, there to barter his fashion against the solid gold ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... you will kindle the wrath of Levi, and rise in rebellion against Judah, but you will not accomplish aught against them, for the angel of the Lord is their guide, and Israel will perish through them. And if you turn recreant to the Lord, you will execute every kind of evil thing, and do the abominations of the heathen, committing unchastity with the wives of the godless, while the tempter spirits are at work among you. Therefore you will be carried away into captivity, and in the ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... said the stranger with dignity, whilst he slowly seated himself; "sir, you are justified in thus misdoubting me; for though a gentleman should, like the wife of Caesar, be above suspicion, never yet knew chivalry a time but there were recreant knights. Moreover, I can perceive that circumstances now must shadow, and, as with refracting influence, distort me, so that I may well stand here seeming to be deformed, although my soul, if you could ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... approached, reappeared some moments later in Yerba's salon as Don Caesar and Dona Anna, with a benignly different expression. Dona Anna especially greeted him with so much of the ostentatious archness of a confident and forgiving woman to a momentarily recreant lover, that he felt absurdly embarrassed in Yerba's presence. He was thinking how he could excuse himself, when he noticed a beautiful basket of flowers on the table and a tiny note bearing a baron's crest. Yerba had put it aside with—as it seemed to him at the moment—an almost too ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... essentially iconoclastic, and the method of a reformer at close quarters with a mighty system of wrong cannot be measured by the standards of cool and polite debate. Phillips did not shrink from the sternest denunciation, or ridicule or scorn, of those who seemed to him recreant to freedom and humanity. The idols of a purely conventional virtue he delighted to shatter, because no public enemy seemed to him more deadly than the American who made moral ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... has been done very often in private in this city, and in many instances with complete success. What a cause for rejoicing would it be then, if the proper degree of 'impressibility' were general with those who have failing and recreant teeth, that the dentist and his magnetiser might be one and indivisible? Surgery in all its branches would be benefitted by the same connection; but this strange physical condition is not an invariable concomitant of ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... possible and easy for the country to take advantage of the change? There can be only one answer to that question. We must act now, at whatever sacrifice to ourselves. It is a duty which the circumstances forbid us to postpone. I should be recreant to my deepest convictions of public obligation did I not press it upon you ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... last fifty years or so, should be arranged, with certificate from each Squire of his satisfaction, to such and such a point, with the portrait of Lightfoot, or Lucifer, or Will o' the Wisp; and due notification, for perhaps a recreant and degenerate future, of the virtues and perfections at this time sought and secured in the English horse. Would not such a chamber of chivalry have, in its kind, a quite indisputable authority and historical value, not to be shaken ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... Clara, the moment she entered the room, "I am a wretch. It was I who compelled Medwin to promise me, upon his honor as a man, that he would not fight Allington; and now that all the world has frowned upon him, I, too, have turned recreant, and cast him off. Mother, speak to me no word of command or remonstrance. I will never see Mr. Allington again; and I will this very hour go to Medwin, and throw myself on my knees before him. Yes, we shall ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... had been built up around the house of McGuire, the mystery surrounding the awe-inspiring prowler, the night vigils, the secrecy—all seemed to fade into a piece of hobbledehoy buffoonery at Beth's contemptuous description of her recreant relative. And he smiled ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... great speeches made on that evening. Mr. Gresham delivered an oration of which men said that it would be known in England as long as there were any words remaining of English eloquence. In it he taunted Mr. Turnbull with being a recreant to the people, of whom he called himself so often the champion. But Mr. Turnbull was not in the least moved. Mr. Gresham knew well enough that Mr. Turnbull was not to be moved by any words;—but the words were not the less telling to the House and to the country. Men, who heard ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... thou wind and turn, good Ximen?" said the Jew, shaking his head; "thou knowest well what my words drive at. Thy master is the pretended Almamen; and that recreant Israelite (if Israelite, indeed, still be one who hath forsaken the customs and the forms of his forefathers) is he who hath stirred up the Jews of Cordova and Guadix, and whose folly hath brought upon us these dread things. Holy Abraham! this Jew hath ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... which should say that he was ready to defy his mother, and abide by his first promise. But no such letter came, and at last, when she could bear the suspense no longer, Ethelyn wrote herself to her recreant lover, asking if it were really so that hereafter their lives lay apart from each other. If such was his wish, she was content, she said, and Frank Van Buren, who could not detect the air of superb scorn which breathed in every line of that letter, felt somehow aggrieved that "Ethie should ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... rapture yield, The stern Atrides rages round the field: So some fell lion whom the woods obey, Roars through the desert, and demands his prey. Paris he seeks, impatient to destroy, But seeks in vain along the troops of Troy; Even those had yielded to a foe so brave The recreant warrior, hateful as the grave. Then speaking thus, the king of kings arose, "Ye Trojans, Dardans, all our generous foes! Hear and attest! from Heaven with conquest crown'd, Our brother's arms the just success ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... we lose; a loss can be made gain by a king's brave death. Why should not our example rouse and unite all who survive us? Which the nobler example—the one best fitted to protect our country—the recreant backs of living chiefs, or the glorious dead with their fronts to the foe? Come what may, life or death, at least we will thin the Norman numbers, and heap the barriers of our corpses on the Norman march. At least, we can show to ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... rated according to the Jurisdiction order for the Ministers Maintaynance." The delinquents were ordered to bring their "rate" to the Deacon's house at once. A presuming young man ventured to suggest that the recreant members who would not pay in the face of the whole congregation would hardly rush to the Deacon's door to give in their "rate." He was severely ordered to keep silence in the company of wiser and elder people; but time proved his simply wise supposition to be correct; ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... to the above was told by the late Judge John Pearson shortly before his death. In the February term, 1850, of the Circuit Court of Vermilion County, Illinois, a case was being tried in which a young lady had brought suit for $10,000 against a recreant lover who had married another girl. The amount sued for was thought to be an enormous sum in those days, and the ablest talent to be found was brought into requisition by both sides. Richard Thompson and Daniel ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... the wind of a spirit not wholly his; that his mind rebels; that another girds him and carries him whither he would not. It came now to Herrick, with the authority of a revelation. There was no escape possible. The open door was closed in his recreant face. He must go back into the world and amongst men without illusion. He must stagger on to the end with the pack of his responsibility and his disgrace, until a cold, a blow, a merciful chance ball, or the more merciful hangman, should dismiss him from ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... amour-propre—that base quality of which women have so much—would revolt from it. Englishwomen are either the best or the worst of their sex. Dieu sait que je les deteste comme la peste, ordinairement" (this between his recreant teeth). "I apply to an Englishwoman to rescue me. What is ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... accommodation-ladder. Ghita now descended; and as soon as her uncle and she were seated, the skiff, for it was little more, whirled away from the ship's side, though two or three more, who had also been left by recreant boatmen for better fares, called out to ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... when pushed far enough becomes incoherence. The psychologist prefers vision and it would display none to believe that she did it. In the abstract, that is to be regretted. A lovely assassin! A beautiful girl slaying a recreant lover! A future prima donna killing a local millionaire! Monty Paliser murdered by the Viscountess of Casa-Evora! And at the opera! If I had ever put anything of the kind in my copy, reviewers would have indolently asked: "Why ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... were found smoking out of hours, or were missing from count,—"Never mind—it's only Hawthorne!" It may be, of course, that my personal charm was so irresistible that every official from the warden down fell victim to it, and would rather prove recreant to their oath of office than interfere with me; my vanity craves to believe so, yet I hesitate. At any rate, with whatever sugar the gag was sweetened, or whether the suggestion of it was inadvertent, I did ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... the friends of Viscellinus [Footnote: Spurius Cassius Viscellinus, the author of the earliest agrarian law, passed, but never carried into execution. He was condemned to death,—probably a victim to the rancorous opposition of the patrician order, of which he was regarded as a recreant member by virtue of his advocacy of the rights or just claims of the plebs. Cicero in early life was by no means so hostile to the principle underlying the agrarian laws, and to the memory of the Gracchi, as he was after he ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... loves, we must enjoy our breakfasts, even without the recreant Loftus. Mabel, my dear, what delicious raspberries! They give ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... recreant yet! The great word went from England to my soul, And I arose. The end is ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... And Longstreet, too, and gallant Hill, and Rhodes, and brave Huger,[1] And he whose name is worth a host, our bold, devoted Lee; And back to where the lordly James his scornful billow rolls, The recreant foe is fleeing fast—those ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... Gerard—about the first sensible word he has uttered. She makes a fiery answer as to Love sometimes banishing from his servants all sense and reason. But for the time the subject again drops. It is, however, reopened at night, and some small pity comes on one for the recreant Gerard, inasmuch as she keeps him awake by wailing about her love. At last she "draws" the sluggard to some extent. "Has not he been in love, and does not he know all about it? But he was never such a fool as ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... To be spiritually adulterous, as the rabbis construed the utterances of the prophets, was to be false to the covenant by which the Jewish nations claimed distinction, as the worshipers of Jehovah, and to be wholly recreant and reprobate. Convicted on such a charge those sign-seeking Pharisees and scribes understood that Jesus classed them as worse than the idolatrous heathen. The words "adultery" and "idolatry" are of related ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... slay the inmates and capture the fortress, is the saddest and most tragic of all. We saw high up in the wall, frowning over the river, the window of the chamber from which she had thrown herself after slaying her recreant lover in her rage and despair. A weird story it is, but if the luckless maiden still haunts the scene of her blighted love, an observant sojourner who fitly writes of Ludlow in poetic phrase never saw her. "Nearly every midnight for a month," ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... devotion to the fair! Never did Moorish beauty consider the fame of her charms established, until she had an Abencerrage for a lover; and never did an Abencerrage prove recreant to his vows. Lovely Granada! City of delights! Who ever bore the favors of thy dames more proudly on their casques, or championed them more gallantly in the chivalrous tilts of the Vivarambla? Or who ever made thy moon-lit balconies, thy gardens of myrtles and roses, of oranges, citrons, ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... high treason against Miss Helen Woodbourne; and as protecting disconsolate damsels is the bounden duty of a true knight and cavalier, I advise you never to mention the subject, on pain of being considered a discourteous recreant.' ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... anything which it is the duty of the whole people to never intrust to any hands but their own, that thing is the preservation and perpetuity of their own liberties and institutions. And if they shall think as I do, that the extension of slavery endangers them more than any or all other causes, how recreant to themselves if they submit The question, and with it the fate of their country, to a mere handful of men bent only on seif-interest. If this question of slavery extension were an insignificant one, one having no power to do harm—it might ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... gentlemen of the South for using this threat of rending God's creation from foundation to turret. They have tried it fifty times, and fifty times they have found weak and recreant tremblers in the North who have been affected by it, and who have retreated ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... contest shall last between good and evil in this world, we have a right to declaim against all encroachments on liberty and sound morality and an evangelical piety from any quarter whatever, and we are recreant to our duties unless we speak our minds. Hence, from the light I have, I pronounce judgment against the Society of Jesus as a dangerous institution, unfortunately planted among us, but which we cannot help, and can attack only with the weapons ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... not bear even Lesley's arm about her, or the support of Maurice's brotherly hand. Harry Duchesne's dark face in the background seemed in some inexplicable sort of way the worst of all. For she knew that he loved and admired her, and she was shamed by a recreant lover before his ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... if, 'mid the cannons' thunder, Whistling shot and bursting bomb, When my brothers fall around me, Should my heart grow cold and numb?' But the drum Answered, 'Come! Better there in death united, than in life a recreant,—Come!'" ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... subtle explanation, Babbalanja. You must allude, then, to those recreant tribes; which, while in their own eyes presenting a sublime moral spectacle to Mardi,—in King Bello's, do but present a hopeless example of bad debts. And these, the tribes ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... In children's children recurrent appears The ancestral crime. When the dark hour comes that the gods have decreed And the Fury burns with wrathful fires, A demon unholy, with ire unabated, Lies like black night on the halls of the fated; And the recreant Son plunges guiltily on To perfect the ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... the indiscretion of the lover who made public the story of the famous pledge given la Chatre, she lost her fancy for the recreant, and though friendly, refused any closer tie. He knew that he had done Ninon an injury and begged to be reinstated in her favor. He was of charming manners and fascinating in his pleading, but he made no impression on her heart. She agreed to pardon him for his folly and declined ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... I beg you to wait until those days may come when I can show you all the devotion I yearn now to give you, but must not, for every moment that voice may reach me from beyond the grave, and I would be recreant to the most sacred obligations, and deep responsibilities that seem now to shape themselves before me, to our common humanity, if I forfeited an instant of inattention. I beg you to remember all this and wait, wait, until the depthless power of my love for you ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... asked, arranging her scarf. "I never desire to be with him, or with any man recreant to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... in the plains of Tigris I upraised the sacred standard of our chosen race, and called them from their bondage; how, despairing of his recreant fathers, and inspired by human power alone, I vainly claimed the mighty office for his sacred blood alone reserved. God of my fathers, grant that future service, the humble service of a contrite ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... adventure. And the emperor summoned Greeks and Germans alike to horse. Through all the host the barons speedily arm themselves and mount. But the Saxon knight, all armed, his visor laced, has continued to pursue Cliges at a gallop. Cliges, who never wished to have aught in common with a recreant or coward, sees him come alone. First of all the knight has assailed him with words: he stoutly calls him baseborn fellow, for he could not conceal the mind he had of him. "Fellow," quoth he, "here wilt thou leave the forfeit for my lord, whom ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... And, therefore, this recreant Scot anathematizes the Scottish people for not applauding blasphemy, calumny, and every species of literary criminality! Such are the monstrous passions that swell out the poisonous breast of genius, ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... which actuates all men and all communities. A nobler feeling, too, moves them. They feel the obligation that exists to extend to the Venetians that freedom which is now enjoyed by all Italians except the Venetians and a small portion of the Pope's subjects. They would be recreant to the dictates of duty, and disregardful of those of honor, were they to leave Venetia in the hands of Austria. What their feelings on this momentous subject are may be gathered from Garibaldi's address to his companions-in-arms, when, having completed his immediate work, he withdrew ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... dead long ago. As to this Chute, he seems to me perhaps to have been a kind of tool of the lover, who employed him probably to settle his forgery business, and also to take care of the unhappy woman whom he had ruined and deserted. He wrote these few letters to keep the recreant lover informed about her fate. In the midst of these there is the last despairing farewell of the unhappy creature herself. All these the conscience-stricken lover has carefully preserved. In addition ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... boy his religious difficulties, and in proposing his own doubts drew forth her latent scepticism as to the orthodox beliefs. "It was in answering Robert Browning;" she wrote, "that my mind refused to bring forward argument, turned recreant, and sided with the enemy." Something of this period of Browning's Sturm und Drang can be divined through the ideas ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... great than the change within. His reception could scarcely be called cordial; though not wanting in the technical respect and ceremony due to him as a gentleman of wealth and influence, he could perceive a half concealed suspense and misgiving, due unmistakably to his attitude as a recreant clergyman. ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... "Hold, enough!" Nor drugged their audience with the tragic stuff. Yet at their judgment let his Lordship laugh, [lii] And case his volumes in congenial calf; Yes! doff that covering, where Morocco shines, And hang a calf-skin on those recreant lines. [114] 740 ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... cowardice, 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
... that says so; Yet now I know thee, I do lie that say it, For if she be a villain like thyself, A perjur'd traitor, recreant, miscreant, Dog—a dog, a ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... the case against Lois Montgomery, reducing it to its harshest terms for Phil's contemplation. It was in Phil's mind that she had nothing to do with those things; that the woman against whose cheek she had laid her own was not Thomas Kirkwood's recreant wife, but another and very different person. She did not know how to express this; it seemed preposterous to insist to her father that his former wife was not the same woman that she had ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... with this, Fillmore had no support from New York. The Whigs of that State had sent a delegation to impeach him before the nation for faithlessness to principle, and to demand that votes of other States should not impose on New York a recreant son to confound and destroy ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... the old lady looked forward to his visits with agreeable anticipation. For three weeks he had not been to Oakwood, and she was determined no longer to endure such neglect,—at any rate, to investigate it. To this end she had sent Sydney to Dr. Morgan's to inquire of him news of the recreant German. And Sydney had not stayed to see ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... innate love, These to my wish must recreant prove; Nor whilst an impulse here remain, Can ever hope the soul to gain; For memory scanning all the past, Relaxes her firm bonds at last, And gives to candor all the grace The heart can in ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... recreant, the apostate, the only seceder of our family from the just cause, who speaks thus?" said the old woman lifting her head with a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... recreant lover had married another, would Aunt Jane have kept her treasure chest and her wedding gown? Ruth knew that she herself would not, but she understood that aunts were in a class by themselves. It was possible that Charles Winfield was an earlier lover, and she had kept the paper without ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... demand; As fell diseases that with cankering maw Eat the distempered flesh from off the bones, Madness and panic fears that haunt by night; Then banishment from human intercourse; From the libation, from the loving cup, And from the altar, whence a father's wrath Unseen should drive the recreant; at the last Death without honour and without a friend.— Think ye that I such oracles could slight? And if I did, the deed must still be done; For many motives join to set me on: The gods command, my murdered father calls For ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... fortress-palace by the Shannon, and with "all their people and all their chattels" went deep into the forests of Cratloe and the rocky fastnesses of the County Clare; and there they lived the life of robber chieftains, harassing and plundering the Danes of Limerick and their recreant Irish allies, and guarding against frequent surprise and attack. But so hazardous and unsettled a life was terribly exhausting, and "at length each party of them became tired of the other," and finally King Mahon made peace with ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... the man of law smoothly, "I dare swear this same knight will never come to settlement this day, but will prove recreant. Nevertheless, we will seek some means to gain his lands ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... displeas'd, her own lov'd Spring surveys Passing, with volant step, o'er russet plains; Sees her to Summer's fierce embraces speed, Pale, and unrobed.—Faithless! thou well may'st hide Close in his sultry breast thy recreant head, That did'st, neglecting thy distinguish'd Isle, In Winter's icy arms so long abide, While Britain vainly languish'd ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... of devout Christendom may praise Jane Douglas, the pious queen who has succeeded in the holy work of bringing the rebellious and recreant son of the Church, Henry the Eighth, back to the Holy Father in Rome, to the only consecrated lord of the Church, truly penitent. On, on, my daughter; do not despond. A high aim beckons you, and a brilliant fortune awaits you! Our holy ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... marquis, of the stole Was groom to the second James; He all but caught that recreant king When flying o'er the Thames. Devotion rare! by Orange Will With a Scotch county paid; He gained one more—in Ireland—when ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... link between that world in which each one struggles to "live respectable," and that nether world in which are also found cases of devotion and of enduring affection arising out of the midst of the folly and the shame. The girl there who through all tribulation supports her recreant "lover," or the girl who overcomes, her drink and opium habits, who renounces luxuries and goes back to uninteresting daily toil for the sake of the good opinion of a man who wishes her to "appear decent," although he never means ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... should they not have their pens publicly broke over their heads, as the swords of recreant knights in old times were, and an oath administered to them that they should never ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... decree, Yet can I think what thy heart's grief must be That as its own my recreant child receiv'd, And now of both its children is bereav'd. But 'tis a rule of universal sway That ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... lion's hide! doff it for shame, And hang a calf-skin on those recreant limbs. Shakespeare, King John, act iii. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... yet more forcibly to Fielding's readers the cruel results of the pleasures (or speculations) of the needy gambler,—the 'Destruction of Familys,' thereby incurred, no less than the breeding of highwaymen. Who does not remember "that famous scene when Amelia is spreading, for the recreant who is losing his money at the Kings Arms, the historic little supper of hashed mutton, which she has cooked with her own hands, and denying herself a glass of white wine to save the paltry sum of sixpence, 'while her Husband was paying a Debt of several Guineas incurred by the Ace ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... that the Catholic Church spares no pains and stops at no sacrifice in order to induce mankind to embrace her faith. Otherwise she would be recreant to her sacred mission. But she scorns to exercise any undue influence in her ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... having no Christian religion be a title to favour, in exclusion to the largest description of Christians who hold all the doctrines of Christianity, though holding along with them some errors and some superfluities, is rather more than any man, who has not become recreant and apostate from his baptism, will, I believe, choose to affirm. The countenance given from a spirit of controversy to that negative religion may, by degrees, encourage light and unthinking people to a total indifference to everything positive in matters of doctrine; ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... gentleman, and not only challenged, but even pursued him, and blocked up his passage in the public highway; outrages which he (Sir Launcelot) would not suffer to pass unpunished. Accordingly, he insisted on the combat, on pain of treating Sycamore as a craven, and a recreant. This declaration was reinforced by Dawdle, who told him, that, should he now decline the engagement, all the world would look upon him ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... this reason, then, for this reason, when they yesterday saw Cleonymus the recreant, on this account they became stags, because they saw ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... their coaches? Is this the hand I kissed to the divine Georgiana? with which I pledged Lady Blessington, and ratified my bond to Lord Lovely? This the hand that Georgiana clasped to her bosom, when she vowed she was mine?—Out of sight, recreant and apostate!—deep down—disappear in this foul monkey-jacket pocket where I ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... neither, Mr. Thorn, till you have heard me. I came here to see you on the part of others I should be a recreant to my charge if I allowed you or myself to draw me into anything that might prevent my fulfilling it. That must be ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... question, Sir John. Time hastens, and I reply. Your knight of the silver mantle I proclaim a recreant, as treacherous as he is base. Sir John, for my—no, for ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... made for the traitor who was known to the Haussas as MacGreg. His horse, surrounded by half a dozen badly-charred corpses, was discovered, but of the rider there were no signs. Reluctantly Wilmshurst was forced to come to the conclusion that fortune had favoured the recreant, and that under cover of the dense smoke the fellow had either crawled away or else had been carried by ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... of either mode of faith, it appears to have been a natural consequence of his birth and early associations that he should cling to the house of the Stuarts. One would almost have applied to the young nobleman the term "recreant," had he wavered when the descendant of Mary Stuart claimed his services. But such a course was far from his inclination. It was afterwards deemed expedient by his friends to plead for him on the ground of natural weakness of ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... slavery. While the master was away fighting to forge the fetters upon the slave, he left his wife and children with no protectors save the Negroes themselves. And yet during those years of trust and peril, no Negro proved recreant to his trust and no white man returned to a ...
— The Red Record - Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... was a commotion, as the ladies flocked with the children into the hall, with many exclamations of astonishment and reproach, surrounding the recreant young men. Mr. Errol, the Captain, the veteran, and even Mr. Perrowne, came to learn what was the matter. When they heard the intentions of the pair, Mr. Thomas and the parson were prepared to make the ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... the treasures he acquired thereby. His "adventures" is among the list of Historic Tales in the Book of Leinster, but unfortunately there is no copy of this tract in existence. It was probably about this time that a recreant Irish chieftain tried to induce Agricola to invade Ireland. But the Irish Celts had extended the fame of their military prowess even to distant lands,[88] and the Roman general thought it better policy to keep what he had than to risk its loss, and, perhaps, obtain no compensation. Previous ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... liberties, and compel them to receive officials so lost to self-respect as to accept appointments against the known and expressed wish of the people, and so craven and degraded as to need an army to protect them in their position, we feel that we should be recreant to every principle of self-respect, honor, integrity, and patriotism to bow tamely to such high-handed tyranny, a parallel for which is only found in the attempts of the British government, in its most corrupt stages, against ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... been looking everywhere for you. Come with me, and don't sit starving here," said Tom, with a scornful look from her empty plate to that of her recreant escort, which was piled ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... will never a recreant turn, While the knightly badge on his arm is borne; And long, beneath the Syrian sun, He fasted and fought, and ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... bread baked from thy master." The Lord took it ill of Isaac that he cheered him with such kind words. "To Mine enemy," He reproached him, "thou sayest, 'What shall I do for thee, my son?'" Isaac replied, "O that he might find grace with Thee!" God: "He is a recreant." Isaac: "Doth he not act righteously when he honors his parents?" God: "In the land of uprightness will he deal wrongfully, he will stretch his hand forth in days to come against the Temple." Isaac: "Then let him enjoy much good in this ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... "Or possibly he has returned home. I no longer take account of his existence. Felix, I shall never leave my wife. I had rather prove recreant to the oath I took before I realized the worth of the woman whose happiness I vowed to destroy. This is what I have come to tell you. Make it easy for me, Felix. You are a man who has loved and suffered. Let us ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... much injured by its charges in fitting out an armament against the Spaniards, during the time of the Armada, as by the fines and confiscations levied on it by Elizabeth for harbouring of priests, obstinate recusancy, and popish misdoings. A recreant of James's time was momentarily perverted from his religion by the arguments of that great theologian, and the fortunes of the family somewhat restored by his timely weakness. But the Earl of Camelot, of the reign of Charles, returned ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... It was William Pfeiffer. I knew the look; I knew the gait. He was gone in a moment and the carriage rolled on. But I knew my doom as well that minute as I did an hour later. My husband was alive and he was here. He had escaped the perils of the Klondike and wandered east to reclaim his recreant wife. There had been time for him to do this since the rescue party left home in search of him; time for him to recover, time for him to reach home, time for him to reach the east. He had heard of my wedding; it was in all the ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... said Bernard teasingly, alluding to the recreant Jim. "I wouldn't have a dog that ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... "The recreant goes to betray us to the Southron," he said; "his pride rests on his possessing that sea worn hold which can admit the English into Lothian [the castle of Dunbar]. Nay, look not alarmed, my liege, I will hold good what I say. Nevertheless, it is yet time. Speak but the word, my liege—say but ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... Guardian-Mother, made Penn Sharp, to whom she was largely indebted for the fortune to which she had succeeded, the captain of her. The steam-yacht was the Viking, and Mrs. Scoble sailed in her to New York, and then to England, where she obtained a divorce from her recreant husband, and became the wife of Captain Sharp, who was now in command of the Blanche, the white steamer that sailed abreast of the Guardian-Mother when the wreck in the ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... away. The dying man lay on his bearskin pallet on the floor, motionless now and silent, but still breathing, and calm at last. It was dawn when the recreant servant ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... with mayne blowes their Armours are vnbras'd, And as the French before the English fled, With their browne Bills their recreant backs they baste, And from their shoulders their faint Armes doe shred, One with a gleaue neere cut off by the waste, Another runnes to ground with halfe a head: Another stumbling falleth in his flight, Wanting a legge, and on ...
— The Battaile of Agincourt • Michael Drayton
... her own to some maiden of the outer and everyday world. And, then and there, I threw myself hurriedly at the feet of Eleonora, and offered up a vow, to herself and to Heaven, that I would never bind myself in marriage to any daughter of Earth—that I would in no manner prove recreant to her dear memory, or to the memory of the devout affection with which she had blessed me. And I called the Mighty Ruler of the Universe to witness the pious solemnity of my vow. And the curse which I invoked of Him and of her, a saint in ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... adverse party had an obstinate match at wrestling. They tugged, and strained, and panted, without either getting the mastery, until both came to the ground, and rolled upon the green. Just then, the disconsolate Phoebe came by. She saw her recreant lover in fierce contest, as she thought, and in danger. In a moment pride, pique, and coquetry, were forgotten; she rushed into the ring, seized upon the rival champion by the hair, and was on the point of wreaking on him her puny vengeance, when ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... her rightful husband, but as a property which, according to the laws of war in that age, she had purchased with her gold. The day of marriage was fixed; Orlando presented himself with a splendid retinue; Camiola also appeared, decorated as for her bridal; but instead of bestowing her hand on the recreant, she reproached him in the presence of all with his breach of faith, declared her utter contempt for his baseness; and then freely bestowing on him the sum paid for his ransom, as a gift worthy of his mean soul, she turned away, and dedicated herself and her heart to heaven. In this resolution she ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... face, as we pass, an expression which is half sardonic, half pitiful. Evidently he has not forgotten my quondam oft-repeated vow that no child of mine should be taught the orthodox fairy tales in unlearning which I had spent some of the best years of my life. And now I am a recreant, and he who aided and abetted me in my asseverations of independence remains faithful. Yes, but Nick, poor fellow, has no children. His grin seems to say, "See what you are missing, poor old patriarch; Dorothy and I are off for a ten-mile ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... whereof I tell you that but a short while before I came back, I plucked it from his breast with my own hands." It boots not to ask if the lady was sorrow-stricken to receive such tidings of her best beloved. But after a while she said:—"'Twas the deed of a disloyal and recreant knight; for if I, unconstrained by him, made him lord of my love, and thereby did you wrong, 'twas I, not he, should have borne the penalty. But God forbid that fare of such high excellence as the heart ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... object of her evening wandering. But a bright gleam of sunshine darted through the trees—the stream foamed and leapt towards it—the waterfall sparkled beneath—the arrowy fern glittered like gold, and Netta's heart forgot her duty, and thought of her recreant lover. Her repentance must come in gloom, her ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... fundit tibi munera, quicquid Carpit Arabs, hortis quicquid frondescit Eois; Altius, en! Lebanon gaudentia culmina tollit; En! summo exultant nutantes vertice sylvae: Mittit aromaticas vallis Saronica nubes, Et juga Carmeli recreant fragrantia coelum. Deserti laeta mollescunt aspera voce: Auditur Deus! ecce Deus! reboantia circum Saxa sonant, Deus! ecce Deus! deflectitur aether, Demissumque Deum tellus capit; ardua cedrus, Gloria sylvarum, dominum ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... am trespassing too far away from my sworn fealty to Northern opinions and feelings. I begin to fear that I may be tempted to be recreant to my inborn, inbred notions of liberty, while holding converse with you, for there is something extremely seductive to a Northerner in slavery; it is like the apple and the serpent to the woman; ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... thou, Turnus? Wherefore this delay? Fierce arms, not swiftness, must decide the day. Shift as thou wilt, and every shape assume; Exhaust thy courage and thy craft, and pray For wings to soar with, or in earth's dark womb Sink low thy recreant head, and hide thee ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... Blancandrin spake, "Who every race would recreant make. And on all possessions of men would seize; But in whom doth he trust for feats like these?" "The Franks! the Franks!" Count Ganelon cried; "They love him, and never desert his side; For he lavisheth gifts ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... come from the disclosures he had just made. He had reason to distrust the tactics such men might employ. His relief arising from the show-down was tinged with regret; he was still sorry for the innocent losers in Egypt. To employ two escaped convicts and a recreant prison guard in his efforts to prevail on Britt and secure the rights due an innocent man promised to involve ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... such case the quarrel with him would be more internecine than with other foes, such as English members, Scotch members, Conservative Irish members, and Liberal Irish members, not sworn to follow certain leaders. A recreant one out of twenty friends would be regarded with more bitter hatred than perhaps six hundred and thirty ordinary enemies. It might be, therefore, that a time of tribulation was in store for Mr. O'Mahony, but he did not consider these matters very deeply when the cheers rang loud in the ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... strokes of his axe; and the saints were scandalized by the fall [971] of Peter the Hermit, who, after arming Europe against Asia, attempted to escape from the penance of a necessary fast. Of the multitude of recreant warriors, the names (says an historian) are blotted from the book of life; and the opprobrious epithet of the rope-dancers was applied to the deserters who dropped in the night from the walls of Antioch. The emperor Alexius, [98] who seemed to advance to the succor of the Latins, was dismayed ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon |
