"Emprise" Quotes from Famous Books
... kept his boyish dreams of the adventure girl who had beckoned him from the forests to deeds of emprise. He had found his adventure girl, but he would not consider that he had won her yet. He little knew that night that his opportunity was close at hand, and that the shadow which the coming event had cast before it had lurked there in the ... — The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... a purple cow! Oh, hinder not my wild emprise— Let me depart! For even now Perhaps, before some yokel's eyes The purpling creature dashes by, Bending its noble, horned brow. They see its glowing charms, but I— I never ... — The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... your home A destined errant-knight I come, Announced by prophet sooth and old, Doomed, doubtless, for achievement bold, I 'll lightly front each high emprise For one kind glance of those bright eyes. Permit me first the task to guide Your fairy frigate o'er the tide.' The maid, with smile suppressed and sly, The toil unwonted saw him try; For seldom, sure, if e'er before, ... — The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... in the temple-splendors of his darkened room. He had not forgotten that the only perfect peace he had ever experienced was there, and he remembered that peace as something which seemed to blend all the assuaged passion and confirmed dignity of old age with that energy of high emprise which thrills the nerves of manhood. He had tasted as many sources of earthly pleasure as any man I ever knew; but the ecstasies of form and color, wine, Eros, music, perfume, all the luxuries of surrounding which wealth could ... — The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... forth in the only remaining channel, that of self-consecration to perilous adventures, glorious services, feats of toil and penance. When arms and knight-errantry fell out of fashion, in a more settled age, this force of enthusiasm, no longer flashing forth in warlike emprise, illumined the saloon; the current of feeling, instead of being directed upon the field, circled in the breast, and sparkled out in genial talk and graceful forms. The idolatrous devotion to woman, which had nerved the arm of the knight, and upheld chivalry, ... — The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... smiled gently. It was pleasant to be made a heroine even for the small space of two hours. He was an idle young man, after a fashion; that was because he had not been waked up. But under his jest and under his laughter she was sure that there was courage and purpose and high emprise. Take care! she thought. Take care! Might not this little dream carry her too far out to sea?... To have met a man like this one in time! How gracefully, how boyishly, he had kissed her hand! More than this, there had been an artless admiration in his upturned eyes, an expression ... — The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... always high-minded and just; not free from the credulity that characterised his generation, but with a spirit of romantic endurance which leaves the New World still his debtor; with a love of high emprise unsullied by lust of gain or by cruelty or vain-glory. Like Moses, he went forth into a land of promise; and, like Moses, the place of his sepulchre is not known. It is, however, recorded that his remains ... — Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... ventrous youth, I love thy courage yet, and bold Emprise, 610 But here thy sword can do thee little stead, Farr other arms, and other weapons must Be those that quell the might of hellish charms, He with his bare wand can unthred thy joynts, ... — The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... with curtains of cloth of gold. On grand occasions, when all the court was present, the whole of the seats on the scaffolds, previously described, were filled with bright-eyed beauties, whose looks and plaudits stimulated to deeds of high emprise the knights, who styled themselves their "servants," and besought "favours" from them in the shape of a scarf, a veil, a sleeve, a bracelet, a ringlet, or a knot of ribands. At such times Henry himself would enter the lists; and, in his earlier days, and before he ... — The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... no longer, but rose and dressed himself, although the dawn was not fully come. By his open window he said his prayers, thanking God for mercies past, and praying that He would bless him in his great emprise. Presently the sun rose, and there came a great longing on him to be alone in the countryside, he who was country-born and hated towns, with only the sky and the birds and the trees ... — Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... her very much indeed, but the ingenious Don had secured a quantity of cutlery, linen and other household necessities from an acquaintance "in the wholesale trade," thus saving Flamby more than half the usual cost. Once committed to an emprise, ... — The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... dust for centuries Has lain beneath this stone, was one in whom Adventure, and endurance, and emprise Exalted the mind's faculties and strung The body's sinews. Brave he was in fight, Courteous in banquet, scornful of repose, And bountiful, and cruel, and devout, And quick to draw the sword in private feud. He pushed his quarrels to the death, yet prayed ... — Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... exasperating enough; for when deeds of desperate emprise are toward it is well to carry them through before the enthusiasm has time to cool. But it could not be helped, the wind was dead, and the ship could not be handled now until the sea breeze sprang up; and, after all, the delay was not an unmitigated misfortune, ... — Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... standing-ground for the men that are raising the waggon? Which of you is it who stands in converse with a burgher form? Thanks and blessings! the lads are safe, and full knightly hath been their first emprise. ... — The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... assures me that your curses cease. The dread Eumenides at length retire, The brazen gates of Tartarus I hear Behind them closing with a thund'ring clang. A quick'ning odour from the earth ascends, Inviting me to chase, upon its plains, The joys of life and deeds of high emprise. ... — Iphigenia in Tauris • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... hour of great emprise; No mounting cheer towards Mortlake roars; Lulled to full tide the river lies Unfretted by the fighting oars; The long high toil of strenuous play ... — Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... Hermit passed like a flame of fire across the provinces of Europe calling upon men to wrest the Holy places from the hands of the Saracen. In countless thousands they responded to his call, even little children arising and pressing eastward on the great emprise. Surely there is need enough for crusading to-day. Surely, too, there are multitudes who, for their own souls' sake, and for the sake of the Church, would be all the better for the health and vigour which a little crusading would bring. Upon us rests the obligation in Christ's name to ... — The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... is daring and Olivier wise, Both of marvellous high emprise; On their chargers mounted, and girt in mail, To the death in battle they will not quail. Brave are the counts, and their words are high, And the Pagans are fiercely riding nigh. "See, Roland, see them, ... — The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... not to involve himself in any until he had made an end of the one to which he was pledged, he would have attacked the whole of them, and would have made them return an answer in spite of themselves. But considering that it would not become him, nor be right, to begin any new emprise until he had established Micomicona in her kingdom, he was constrained to hold his peace and wait quietly to see what would be the upshot of the proceedings of those same travellers; one of whom found the youth they were seeking lying asleep ... — Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... pastry stood, And beside it the wine flask. Red as blood Was the wine which should bring the lustihood Of human life to his lady's veins. When all was ready, all which pertains To a simple meal was there, with eyes Lit by the joy of his great emprise, He reverently bade her come, And forsake for him her distant home. He put meat on her plate and filled her glass, And waited what ... — Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... well by reason men it call may The daisie, or els the eye of the day, The emprise, and floure ... — Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... ye less his perished worth, Who bade the conqueror go forth, And launched that thunderbolt of war On Egypt, Hafnia, Trafalgar; Who, born to guide such high emprise, For Britain's weal was early wise; Alas! to whom the Almighty gave, For Britain's sins, an early grave! His worth, who in his mightiest hour A bauble held the pride of power, Spurned at the sordid lust of pelf, And served his Albion for herself; Who, when the frantic crowd amain ... — Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... journey, he felt half afraid that he would be dead or something bad before the end, and Hirschvogel would be so lonely: that was what he thought most about; not much about himself, and not much about Dorothea and the house at home. He was "high strung to high emprise," and could not ... — Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... rest, The fox-red Agamemnon, round his crest The circlet of his kingship over kings, And at his thigh the sword gold-hilted swings Which Zeus gave Atreus once; and in his heart That gnawing doubt which twice had checkt his start For high emprise, having twice egged him to it, As stout Odysseus knew who had to rue it. Beside him Nestor sat, Nestor the old, White as the winter moon, with logic cold Instilled, as if the blood in him had fled And in his veins clear spirit ran instead, Which made men reasons ... — Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... were, in such wise, that that of which I speak is one simple Light. The universal form of this knot[45] I believe that I saw, because in saying this I feel that I more abundantly rejoice. One instant only is greater oblivion for me than five-and-twenty centuries to the emprise which made Neptune wonder at the shadow ... — Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... the eye still refuses to look, And yet we may gaze at our ease, when the thinnest of clouds o'er it lies. The honey's protected, forsooth, by the sting of the bees of the hive: So question the guards of the camp why they stay us in this our emprise. If my slaughter be what they desire, let them put off their rancours and stand From between us and leave her to deal with me and my life at her guise; For, I wot, not so deadly are they, when they set on a foe with their swords, ... — The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... Forrest. Also, Graham realized that the turning of her head and the waving of her arm was only partly in bravado, was more in aesthetic wisdom of the picture she composed, and was, most of all, sheer joy of daring and emprise of the blood and the flesh and the ... — The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... knights-errant when they set out on their adventures. Thus pacing along and dreaming of mighty deeds, he gave vent to his feelings in the following rhapsody: "What a theme for the eloquence of some great master of style—the feats of high emprise wrought by the valiant arm of Don Quixote de La Mancha! Happy the pen which shall describe them, happy the age which shall read the wondrous tale! And thou, brave steed, shalt have thy part in the honor which is done to thy master, when poet and sculptor and painter shall ... — Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... heaven Or add a height to Babel; oftener they That in the still fulfilment of each day's Pacific order hold great deeds in leash, That in the sober sheath of tranquil tasks Hide the attempered blade of high emprise, And leap like lightning ... — Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... Make helps, in war to lend him aid, In forms that change at will, arrayed, Of wizard skill and hero might, Outstrippers of the wind in flight, Skilled in the arts of counsel, wise, And Vishnu's peers in bold emprise; With heavenly arts and prudence fraught, By no devices to be caught; Skilled in all weapons' lore and use As they who drink the immortal juice. And let the nymphs supreme in grace, And maidens of the minstrel race, Monkeys and snakes, and those who rove Free spirits of the hill ... — Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... our Hope? Doth not the holy love of country swell within thy heart? Canst thou dash the cup of Freedom from thy lips and bear to drink the bitter draught of slaves? The emprise is great; maybe it shall fail, and thou with thy life, as we with ours, shalt pay the price of our endeavour. But what of it, Harmachis? Is life, then, so sweet? Are we so softly cushioned on the stony ... — Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... who hope to found a new dynasty, be proud of the lovely land which they have chosen for a refuge! If iron resolution, scorn of delights and contempt of death could do it, they would accomplish the emprise—mais l'homme propose et Dieu dispose. Without the directing mind and sustaining arm of the source of all wisdom and power, in vain is the labor of man. Ruin and disgrace shall overwhelm all undertakings not ... — The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... exasperated and very sleepy. "Now all is open as the day and we can pursue our career as honorable men and comrades in all high emprise. I mean," he explained, noticing Mr. Beale's open mouth and eyes more lobster-like than ever—"I mean that's all right, farver, and you see it don't make any difference to me. I knows you're straight now, even if it didn't begin ... — Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... is daring and Oliver wise, Both of marvelous high emprise; On their chargers mounted and girt in mail, To the death in battle they ... — With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... in one of the cottages on the Oakwood estate, where he worked intermittently, sandwiching between thin slices of manual labor thick layers of less legitimate emprise. ... — A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... horse! A horse! Ah, give me a horse! To bear me out afar, Where blackest need and grimmest deed And sweetest perils are. Hold thou my ways from glutted days Where poisoned leisure lies, And point the path of tears and wrath Which mounts to high emprise! ... — Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... tower to your skies. 'Gainst wind and wave we pile our stone and mold. Powered of genius, panoplied of gold, We build the bastions of our high emprise. But yet, but let the plunging torrent rise, The winds awake on glutted rivers rolled— We die as the reft robin fledgeling dies— We perish as the beast in ... — The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... Fame thine head now crown; The patriot-Soldier's, in fierce battles won; The "Pen's," than the "Sword's," mankind's greater boon, The bold Explorer's finding where was born The rivers' King, till now, like Nile's, unknown. * * * * * May years of high emprise increase thy fame, And with thy death arise ... — Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... from the Grim-Lands, from the Lands of High Emprise, From the Lands of Disillusion to the Truth that never dies; With rejoicing and with singing, Each his rightful sheaves home-bringing,— Evening brings us all at last, To ... — 'All's Well!' • John Oxenham
... go on this emprise, was Elizabeth, the younger sister of Colonel Zane. She was then young active and athletic;—with precipitancy to dare danger, and fortitude to sustain her in the midst of it. Disdaining to weigh the hazard ... — Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... more thing was the highest and most dangerous emprise of all that he had undertaken. Beyond the confines of the kingdom there dwelt a great horde of men that had come to Brittany from the East in many deep ships and had settled upon the coast, whence they would embark and, travelling hard by the land, ... — Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... had defied all that—some one had taken up the sword and gone forth to beat down that opposition! Montague looked at this little family of four, and wondered which of them was the driving force in this most desperate emprise! ... — The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... inform) arise chastise circumcise comprise compromise demise devise disfranchise disguise emprise enfranchise enterprise exercise exorcise franchise improvise incise merchandise premise reprise ... — Division of Words • Frederick W. Hamilton
... superior race a nobility of feeling, resulting from a habit of command and a sense of independence, which is peculiar to privileged orders of men in civilized society. This feeling is manifested in high bearing and sensitive honor, a refinement of sentiment and chivalrous emprise unknown to communities without caste. This is to be seen in the absence of everything little or mean. A noble hospitality, a scorn of bargaining, and a lofty yet eminently deferential deportment toward females: in this mould it has cast Southern society, and these traits ... — The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... Intelligence, Once chosen for my friend and worthy me: Not so wouldst thou have labored to be hence, Had my emprise been crowned with victory. When I was bright in heaven, thy seraph eyes Sought only mine. But he who every power Beside, while hope allured him, could despise, Changed and forsook ... — Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... but of envy? For that he himselve her ne winnen may. He speaketh her reprefe and villainy; As manis blabbing tongue is wont alway. Thus divers men full often make assay. For to disturben folk in sundry wise, For they may not acheven their emprise. ... — Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... praise, nor thirst of worldly good, Enticed us to follow this emprise, The Heavenly Father keep his sacred brood From foul infection of so great a vice: But by our zeal aye be that plague withstood, Let not those pleasures us to sin entice. His grace, his mercy, and his powerful hand Will keep us safe from ... — Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... them forth to thrust That none his secret counsel might understand aright And thereupon they armed them all through that day and night. And the next day in the dawning when soon the sun should rise, The Cid was armed and with him all the men of his emprise. My lord the Cid spake to them even ... — The Lay of the Cid • R. Selden Rose and Leonard Bacon
... conclusion will ever be possible; but you will admit, will you not? that it is poetic, and that Mademoiselle d'Este has a complying disposition. Has she not left you free? Has she gone with jealous feet to watch you in the salons of Paris? Has she imposed upon you the labors of some high emprise, such as paladins sought voluntarily in the olden time? No, she asks a perfectly spiritual and mystic alliance. Come to me when you are unhappy, wounded, weary. Tell me all, hide nothing; I have balms for all your ills. I am twenty years of age, dear friend, but I have the sense of fifty, and ... — Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... touch a coin, that he might deal gently with him. And great being the virtue of this ointment, albeit no mention is made thereof by Galen in any part of his Medicines, it had so gracious an effect that the threatened fire gave place to a cross, which he was to wear as if he were bound for the emprise over seas; and to make the ensign more handsome the inquisitor ordered that it should be yellow upon a black ground. Besides which, after pocketing the coin, he kept him dangling about him for some days, bidding him by way ... — The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... like lightning in the eyes Of robber despots, glorying in their might, And taught the world, by deeds of high emprise, The power of ... — War Poetry of the South • Various
... was plotting his arrest. 'If I thought he had the bare idea,' said Danton with something of Gargantuan hyperbole, 'I would eat his bowels out.' Such was the disdain with which the 'giant of the mighty bone and bold emprise' thought of our meagre-hearted pedant. The truth is that in the stormy and distracted times of politics, and perhaps in all times, contempt is a dangerous luxury. A man may be a very poor creature, and still ... — Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... universal dominion.... Believe it, this proud man did not enslave all Europe to become the liberator of Poland. Ah! trust me, that is but poor freedom which consists only In a change of masters. O Ladoinski! Ladoinski! give up this mad emprise; return to the bosom of your family; and when your compatriots arise to assert their rights at the call of their country, and not at the heartless beck of a stranger despot, I will buckle ... — Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore
... Being spirit truest proof; Whose spirit sure is lineal to that Which sang Magnificat: Chastest, since such you are, Take this curbed spirit of mine, Which your own eyes invest with light divine, For lofty love and high auxiliar In daily exalt emprise Which outsoars mortal eyes; This soul which on your soul is laid, As maid's breast against breast of maid; Beholding how your own I have engraved On it, and with what purging thoughts have laved This love of mine from all mortality Indeed the copy is a painful one, And with long labour ... — Poems • Francis Thompson
... the great wickedness of the antediluvians is described indicate a period of violence and outrage;—the age which preceded the Flood was an age of "giants" and of "mighty men," and of "men of renown,"—forgotten Attilas, Alarics, and Zingis Khans, mayhap,—"giants of mighty bone and bold emprise," who became famous for their "infinite manslaughter," and the thousands whom they destroyed. Such is decidedly the view which the brief Scriptural description suggested to the poets; and certainly, when a question comes to be one of guess work, no other class of persons ... — The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... of that magnetic ardor, produced by an influx of the nervous fluid, which lights a brazier in the midriff of ambitious men and lovers intent on high emprise, Popinot, so gentle and tranquil usually, pawed the earth like a thoroughbred before the race, when he came down into ... — Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... this Column is the Adventurous Bowman, past human achievement behind him, seeking a new emprise in the West, whither he has loosed his arrow. At his back is a figure of Humanity, signifying the support of mankind. By his side is the woman, ready to crown his success. (p. 58.) The question has often been asked, ... — The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... wholly centered in merely a shot well placed and a trophy quickly come by. Indeed, the latter is become almost an incidental; a very welcome and inspiriting incidental; a wonderful culmination; but a culmination that is necessary only occasionally as a guerdon of emprise rather than an invariably indispensability, lacking which the whole expedition must be classed ... — Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... outrun their very human devotees. Let us, then, turn to more mundane matters of honor and fairness. The world today is trade. The world has turned shopkeeper; history is economic history; living is earning a living. Is it necessary to ask how much of high emprise and honorable conduct has been found here? Something, to be sure. The establishment of world credit systems is built on splendid and realizable faith in fellow-men. But it is, after all, so low and elementary a step that sometimes ... — Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... Lo, an example to mankind I set Of amorous emprise; and who should thrive In love, if not Love's soldier, who doth press The doubtful siege, and will not own repulse. Lo, here I tender thee my fealty, To live thy duteous slave. My queen thou art, In frowns or smiles, to give me ... — The Love-Chase • James Sheridan Knowles
... ye sought with your bloodshed and toil, Was it slaves, or dominion, or rapine, or spoil? No! your lofty emprise was to fetter and foil The uprooter of Greece's domain, When he tore the last remnant of food from her soil, Till her famished sank pale ... — Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... and of the heir to it in a fashion only applicable to Alick Carruthers. He had given me hints, which I had been too dense to take, and he had certainly made more than one attempt to deter me from accompanying him on this fatal emprise; had he been more explicit, I might have made it my business to deter him. I could not say in my heart that Raffles had failed to satisfy such honor as I might reasonably expect to subsist between us. Yet it seems to me ... — A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... astonished at the thought. I had not expected to find court beauties on the frontier, yet the Chouteaus, the Gratiots, and the Papins were names I had often heard in my own home as men of wealth and vast emprise. ... — The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... fears, his apprehensions, his ignoble little emprise of revenge; he felt a better man, and he had his reward as one shall ever have who sits a space with childish merriment and woodland innocence. In his case it was something more direct and tangible than the immaterial efflux of the soul, though that too was not wanting: ... — Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... the street-parade, nor the large and expensive wild beasts did we linger. The swarm was thickest, sand the jabbering loudest, the "O-o-oh's," the "M! Looky's" the "Geeminently's" shrillest, in front of where the deeds of high emprise were set forth. Men with their fists clenched on their breasts, and their neatly slippered toes touching the backs of their heads, crashed through paper-covered hoops beneath which horses madly coursed; they flew through the air with the greatest ... — Back Home • Eugene Wood
... Of eager birds, the softly pattering feet Of furred and gentle beasts, I come to meet Your hard and wayward heart. In brown bright eyes That peep from out the brake, I stand confest. On every nest Where feathery Patience is content to brood And leaves her pleasure for the high emprise Of motherhood— ... — A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various
... seeking fresh fields and pastures new, and meditating new emprise, wealthy Milan shall itself equip her for the next campaign. For much of such expedient outfit Milan can supply, which, in remote Ravenna, might in vain be sought. There, beneath the shadow of those marble walls, where once the sainted Borromeo preached, the ... — A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... took with no word uttered, then Sir Rowland spoke. "With this foreboding that is on me," said he, "I could not go without seeing you, without saying something that I may never have another chance of saying; something that—who knows?—but for the emprise to which I am now wedded you had never heard ... — Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... fall and the shops to shine with lamps along the tree-beshadowed thoroughfares of Otto's capital, when the Countess started on her high emprise. She was jocund at heart; pleasure and interest had winged her beauty, and she knew it. She paused before the glowing jeweller's; she remarked and praised a costume in the milliner's window; and when she reached the lime-tree walk, with its high, umbrageous arches and stir of passers-by in the dim ... — The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the life story of one who was born on a farm, and died on a farm, yet who achieved a world-wide fame through his military exploits. It has been told many times, it will be told for centuries yet to come; for the world loves a man of high emprise, and such was Israel Putnam, the hero of ... — "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober |