"Errant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... attention, perhaps, was his scheme for the teacher's receiving punishment, in certain circumstances, at the hands of an offending pupil, whereby the sense of shame might be quickened in the mind of the errant child. The school was denounced in the press, was not pecuniarily successful, and in 1839 was given up, although Alcott had won the affection of his pupils, and his educational experiments had challenged the attention of students of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... immediately, and crossed the room aimlessly to sit in another chair. She pressed her palms tightly against both cheeks, drew in her breath as if she were going to speak, and, after all, said nothing. She looked out of the window, pushing back the errant strand ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... errant spheres together grind With monstrous ruin in the vast of space, Destruction born of that malign embrace, Their hapless peoples all to death consigned— Not so when our intangible worlds of mind, Even mine and yours, each with its spirit race Of beings shadowy ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... him thankfully. All the surgeon's serene confidence in himself returned in these emergencies, and he was doing invaluable work. People were grateful, but the man's ways and looks were so strange, his restlessness so tragic, that they dubbed him "le Juif Errant." ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Saturday, an errant breeze from the east veiled the clear starlight of the early evening as if by magic, and by morning had marshaled long, heavy rows of slate-hued clouds which drove over the city from the lake. The temperature, too, rose above the freezing ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... at myself in the mirror and shook a disapproving head. "You're no knight-errant," I told my impassive image. "You're too correct, too indifferent-looking altogether. Better not get beyond your depth!" I decided for luncheon, followed by a leisurely knotting of the threads of my Parisian acquaintance. Then, as if some malign hypnotist ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... this most forlorn and errant damsel, Sir Euan?" she inquired. "For if I doubt her when I see her, no more than I doubt you when I look at you, something should be done in her behalf without delay.... The poor, unhappy child! And what a little fool! The Lord looks after his lambs, surely, surely—drat the ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... all classes of readers. Every school-boy thumbs to pieces the most wretched translations of his romance, and knows the lantern jaws of the Knight Errant, and the broad cheeks of the Squire, as well as the faces of his own playfellows. The most experienced and fastidious judges are amazed at the perfection of that art which extracts inextinguishable laughter ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... livery rolled up to the door. The striking contrast of this audience with that of other years, in the almost perfect conformity of the manner and dress of the women to those of other women who rule in the fashionable world and are supposed to look down upon these knights-errant of the sex, was not greater than that between the treatment of Miss Anthony now and in other times. In former years they came to scoff at this wiry and resolute champion of her sex. Now every word she utters is received with almost reverent rapture. ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... of the iris grew sweeter, fresher. Many new buds had unfolded since high noon. One stalk had fallen across the path and Clive's dragging feet passed over it where he moved blindly, at hazard, with stumbling steps along the path—errant, ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... his life. He was to be no errant musician, improvising according to his mood; the score he was to play was before him, and he must play it note for note, paying strict attention to rests, keys, andantes, fortissimos, pianissimos. He had been born to this, had been made conscious of his destiny from babyhood, ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... knight-errant in armor in the Middle Ages. Have the notions and habits, though, of the present day mixed with the necessities of that. No pockets in the armor. No way to manage certain requirements of nature. Can't scratch. Cold in the head and can't ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... but several of Pitt's supporters doubted the advisability of so far-reaching a measure. Thus, on 4th July 1798, Hatsell, Clerk of the House of Commons, wrote to Auckland that of all possible plans a Union was the worst, "full of difficulties, to be brought about by errant jobs; and, when done, not answering the purpose. You must take out the teeth, or give the Catholics sops to eat. One or other; but the half-measure won't do." Better balanced was the judgement ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... Fool as I have been, and fool as I have declared myself upon the forefront of this very book, I have never said in my heart, THERE IS NO GOD; but much and loudly have maintained the affirmative. And although I have been sadly, wickedly, detestably errant from His way, there is one divine precept which I have never failed to keep, and that is, LOVE ONE ANOTHER. All other affections, additions, accidents, accessories of men, however, from the lowest, which is Money, to the highest, which is Polite Education, ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... the half-crazed preaching of Peter down to the Fall of Jerusalem. Those leaders! It would take a second Homer to do them justice. Godfrey the perfect soldier and leader, Bohemund the unscrupulous and formidable, Tancred the ideal knight errant, Robert of Normandy the half-mad hero! Here is material so rich that one feels one is not worthy to handle it. What richest imagination could ever evolve anything more marvellous and thrilling than the actual ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... streaming from her mild eyes, calling me by Endearing names, and ever and anon taking my hand in hers, and sinking on her knees to the sodden floor (with no thought of soiling her kirtle), while with profound Fervour she prayed for the conversion of errant Me. Sure there are Hearts of Gold among those Broadbrims and their fair strait-laced Daughters. Many a Merchant's Money-bags I have spared for the sake of Mr. Barzillai Shapcott (late of Aylesbury). ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... count among his acquaintances, whose lives have been signalized by numberless escapes; who never cross the river but in a storm, or take a journey into the country without more adventures than befel the knights-errant of ancient times in pathless forests or enchanted castles! How many must he know, to whom portents and prodigies are of daily occurrence; and for whom nature is hourly working wonders invisible to every other eye, only to supply them with subjects ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... among them is Buerger's "Lenore," that ghostly and resonant ballad, the lure and foil of the translators. Few will deny that Coleridge's wondrous "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" stands at their very head. "Le Juif-Errant" would have claims, had Beranger been a greater poet; and, but for their remoteness from popular sympathy, "The Lady of Shalott" and "The Blessed Damozel" might be added to the list. It was given to Edgar Allan Poe to produce two lyrics, "The Bells" and The Raven, each of which, ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... saint was more successful. Laurentia, a maiden of youthful years, placed by her father within the sheltering walls of a cloister, to assume ultimately monastic vows, was quickly captured by an errant demon. As an irrefutable demonstration of the impure origin of her infirmity, an annalist asserts, this spirit promptly answered in elegant Latinity all questions propounded; but the strongest confirmation of this belief was the miraculous ability which enabled ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... picked troops advanced into close view, they could be seen all the more distinctly for the absence of dancing glitter. Tall and tough Scotch archers, Swiss halberdiers fierce and ponderous, nimble Gascons ready to wheel and climb, cavalry in which each man looked like a knight-errant with his indomitable spear and charger—it was satisfactory to be assured that they would injure nobody but the enemies of God! With that confidence at heart it was a less dubious pleasure to look at the array of strength and splendour in nobles and knights, and youthful ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... in the Louisville Courier-Journal, early in 1901, said: "A remarkable transformation, or rather a development, has taken place in Mark Twain. The genial humorist of the earlier day is now a reformer of the vigorous kind, a sort of knight errant who does not hesitate to break a lance with either Church or State if he thinks them interposing on that broad highway over which he believes not a part but the whole of mankind has the privilege of passing in the onward march of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... it done and be off, he adopted the practice which seemed to us rather foolish, of vigorously sounding his gong time after time, at the same time shouting "Alphonse, Alphonse," with the result that all our men vanished "tout-de-suite," leaving him and the errant Alphonse to face any whizz-bangs which might result. Truly, the ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... country in France that a little peasant boy whose name was destined to become famous in the annals of his country led his father's sheep, that they might crop the scanty pasture. Vincent was a homely little boy, but he had the soul of a knight-errant, and the grace of God shone from eyes that were never to lose their merry gleam ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... plains, wander the Guahibos, the Chiricoas, and the Guamos; nations, proud of their savage independence, whom it is difficult to fix to the soil, or habituate to regular labour. The Spanish missionaries characterise them well by the name of Indios andantes (errant or vagabond Indians), because they are perpetually moving from place to place. To the east of the Orinoco, between the neighbouring sources of the Caura, Cataniapo, and Ventuari, live the Macos, the Salives, the Curacicanas, Parecas, and Maquiritares, mild, tranquil tribes, addicted ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... down went, Like two arrand Deans, two Deans errant I meant; So that Christmas appears at Bellcampe like a Lent, Gives the gamesters of both houses great discontent. Our parsons agree here, as those did at Trent, Dan's forehead has got a most damnable dent, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... are full of Poppies, and the skies are very blue, By the Temple in the coppice, I wait, Beloved, for you. The level land is sunny, and the errant air is gay, With scent of rose and honey; will you ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... be—that he is paid little for it—and regularly: while you traffickers, and exchangers, and others occupied in presumably benevolent business, like to be paid much for it—and by chance. I never can make out how it is that a knight-errant does not expect to be paid for his trouble, but a pedlar-errant always does;—that people are willing to take hard knocks for nothing, but never to sell ribands cheap;—that they are ready to go on fervent crusades to recover the tomb of a buried God, never on any ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... prose too, they have (to borrow the words of Andres) their Boccaccio in Martorell; whose fiction of "Tirante el Blanco" is honored by the commendation of the curate in Don Quixote, as "the best book in the world of the kind, since the knights- errant in it eat, drink, sleep, and die quietly in their beds, like other folk, and very unlike most heroes of romance." The productions of these, and some other of their distinguished contemporaries, obtained a general circulation ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... What on earth can she have gone there for? With whom? What happened there?" He remembered the gas-jets that were being extinguished along the Boulevard des Italiens when he had met her, when all hope was gone among the errant shades upon that night which had seemed to him almost supernatural and which now (that night of a period when he had not even to ask himself whether he would be annoying her by looking for her and ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... bundles in one hand, little pouches slung over the shoulder, plain travelling-suits, subdued hats, and resolute but benign countenances, our three errant damsels set forth one bright June day, to wander through France at their own sweet will. Not a fear assailed them; for all men were civil, all women friendly, and the world wore its sunniest aspect. Not a doubt perplexed them; for the gifted Amanda spoke many tongues, ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... son, who was a chum of Master Crossjay's, and errant-fellow with him upon many adventures; for this boy's passion was to become a gamekeeper, and accompanied by one of the head-gamekeeper's youngsters, he and Crossjay were in the habit of rangeing over the country, preparing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... two, when I have had time to put my thoughts on paper; but, if I mistake not, some of the most important points will be discussed before that, for Fellowes, I hear, is a very knight-errant of 'spiritualism,' and it is a thousand to one but he attempts to convert me. I intend to let him have ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... astonished! You seem to wonder and ask yourselves who is this modern Quixote. What mean this costume of by-gone centuries—this golden chariot—these richly caparisoned steeds? What is the name and purpose of this curious knight-errant? Gentlemen, I will condescend to answer your queries. I am Monsieur Mangin, the great charlatan of France! Yes, gentlemen, I am a charlatan—a mountebank; it is my profession, not from choice, but from necessity. You, gentlemen, ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... exertion Kellup Cobb come into our house of a errant, and I asked him if he was goin' to the exertion; and he said he would like to go, ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... term was applied to the knights of Charlemagne, and by extension, to any knight errant, or chivalrous and ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... You accept Maurice and Jean as your knights-errant? I am delighted with the arrangement, and I hope that Mlle. ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... that the least the fair damsel could do for her knight-errant was to bind up his wounds, but Cis was too shy to show any disposition so to do, and it was Mrs. Talbot who salved the scratch for him. She had a feeling for the motherless youth, upon whom she foreboded that a ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... path,' Fitz-Eustace said, 'Such as where errant-knights might see Adventures of high chivalry; Might meet some damsel flying fast, With hair unbound, and looks aghast; And smooth and level course were here, In her defence ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... to this my will) to be squandered as he shall think fit: I leave it him for that purpose, and hope no better from him." A generous disdain and reflection, upon how little he deserved from so excellent a father, reformed the young man, and made Edward, from an errant rake, become a ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... opinion that he should have been born in the active days of knights-errant—to have had nothing more serious to do than to ride abroad with a blue ribbon fastened to the point of his lance, and with the spirit to unhorse any one who objected to its color, or to the claims of superiority of the noble ...
— The Princess Aline • Richard Harding Davis
... as chief of the Turks. On seeing those two personages so pitted, some wit observed, "There go the heroes of history and fable." The Duke de Guise might indeed be very aptly compared to a mythological entity, or to a knight errant of the age of chivalry. His duels, his romantic amours, his profusion, the varied adventures of his life, rendered him exceptionable in everything. He died ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... born knight-errant. When he said that a thing wanted doing, his heart ached until he could do it. A Celtic strain of blood in him showed itself in the heat of his belief, the impetuosity of his actions. In Ethel this strain had taken an artistic turn; but the same ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... all ancient philosophies, and many Eastern languages. And with this flood of erudition came the generous hope, so often disabused, of reconciling the philosophers with one another, and all alike with the Church. At last he came to Rome. There, like some knight- errant of philosophy, he offered to defend nine hundred bold paradoxes, drawn from the most opposite sources, against all comers. But the pontifical court was led to suspect the orthodoxy of some of these propositions, and even the reading of the book which contained them was ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... had caught his game and given him his toy, they would brook no longer delay than was absolutely necessitated by the storm, and married or not married, he and she should both be carried off together, let the damsel-errant give herself what haughty airs she would. It was a weak concession on their part to the old Puritan scruples that he might have got rid of by this time, to attempt to bring about the marriage. They jested at him for being afraid of her, and then ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sense the hundreds of thousands of American soldiers who go to France are modern crusaders. Like the valiant men of the Middle Ages who traveled far to fight in strange lands for the ideal that possessed their souls, these twentieth-century knights-errant go to defend the ideals of liberty and right and honor which are the issues of this war and which our Allies have successfully upheld ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... free and accepted members of this order of modern knights-errant, from hot-headed, ill-fated Pilatre de Rozier down to Gaston Tissandier, the man who still edits La Nature in the lower strata of an ocean into the treacherous upper depths of which he has risen seven miles. Your true aeronaut is not ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... a sort of Yankee knight-errant to fight for his country. He had the wisdom to fight with his visor down, and quarter on the enemy. He took heavy tribute from Blackwood and others for his articles vindicating America, which came to be extravagantly quoted and read. His article for Blackwood on the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... destruction loading, the word went onward still— The blaze of creeds passed into it, the hiss of horrid fires, The headlong spear, the scarlet cross, the hair-shirt and the briars, The cloistered brethren's thunderous chaunt, the errant champion's song, The shifting of the crowns and thrones, the tangle ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... astonishingly loose joints. Every stroke of his hero's sword-arm seems to him of weight. No doubt it was, once; but not in a chronicle of this sort, where the Cypriote gests must take a lowly place among others fair and foul of this King-errant. Let me put Milo on the shelf for ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... breathing in the cool freshness of the dewy lawns, he felt himself assailed by all the passionate expectancy that transforms the soul of youth into the incoherent canvas of an unfinished romance of love. Long ago he had known such evenings, those evenings of errant fancy, when he had allowed his caprice to roam through imaginary adventures, and he was astonished to feel a return of sensations that did not now ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... down on their knees and prayed the pardon of the king for suffering him to come to such a strait. But he replied, "Pardon ye cannot have, for, truly, ye have nothing sinned; but here ye see what ill adventure may ofttimes befall knights-errant, for to my own hurt, and his danger also, I have fought with ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... urgency of the case, when I requested his leave to take my lessons each morning at six o'clock, for I dared not absent myself during the day without exciting suspicion; and never, I will venture to assert, did knight-errant of old strive harder for the hand of his lady-love than did I during that weary fortnight, if a hippogriff had been the animal I bestrode, instead of being, as it was, an old wall-eyed grey, I could not have felt more misgivings at my temerity, or more ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... Japan stay that Bedient pleased himself often with the thought that somewhere in the world was a woman meant for him—a woman with a mind and soul, as well as flesh. If the waiting seemed long—why should he not be content, since she was waiting, too? He would know her instantly. The slightest errant fancy of doubt would be enough to assure him that she was not ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... house. The piano was old, but tuned to the middle of the note, and the keys were swept by a master hand. The wires were not hammered; they were touched knowingly as by the player's own fingers, and so they sang—and from out among the chords there stole an errant melody. This was not "piano-playing" and not a pianist's triumphant nimbleness—it was music. Art is the language of a heart that knows how to speak, and a heart that knew how was speaking here. What it told was something immeasurably wistful, something that ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... lovers, in connection with which there are many old rhymes. Beans have not lost their popularity; and the leaves of the laurel still reveal the hidden fortune, having been also burnt in olden times by girls to win back their errant lovers. ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... to the Oregon tribes, and now come hither to the mountain market of 1835 as knight-errant of the Gospel, pulled up his horse at the edge of the encampment and gazed in sheer amazement. His party—except Whitman, who reined in his horse at his friend's side—passed on and joined the shouting throng. Apparently they conveyed certain ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... dear, To see your buried partner here; I come to tell you where to find A treasure, which I left behind: I had not time to let you know it, But follow me, and now I'll shew it." John trembled at the awful sight, But hopes of gain suppress'd his fright; Oft will the parching thirst of gold, Make even errant cowards bold. ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... of its contents and of its calligraphy. But learning accidentally that the scroll had been pawned to the merchant from whom he had obtained it, he instituted inquiries as to its owner, and ultimately restored the scroll to him with the addition of five gold ryo. The owner was a knight-errant (ronin) named Imagawa Motome, who thereafter entered Masamune's service and ultimately rose to be a general of infantry (ashigaru). The sympathy which taught Masamune to estimate the pain with which the owner of the scroll must have parted with it was a fine trait of character. Another ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... hearth, crumbling in hearts of fire: on the outer edges the ashes grew grey. The candles of coarse mould, stuck in a rude sconce upon the wall above the mantelshelf, guttered to their end, set aslant by wafts of errant wind that came in through the half-open door and crevices of the window. It grew cold, and Montaiglon shook himself into wakefulness. He sat up in his chair and looked about him with some sense of apprehension, with the undescribable instinct of a man who feels himself observed by eyes ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... was real—the invitation in that letter—the inclination that he had always known she felt. It was just because it was a genuine impulse in her that he realized how strong was the calculation in her that had always been able to keep the errant ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... it's the kind of place for a hermit," said Monica. "He could have had a little cell and told his beads without being disturbed by anybody, except an occasional knight-errant who would blow a horn from the opposite bank. I wonder if one ever ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... nobler strife than tilt or tourney, Rides forth the errant knight, with brow elate; Still patient pilgrims take, in hope, their journey; Still meek and cloistered ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... case, resultant upon lack of understanding of the characteristic vagaries of this type, was the action of a vigorous knight errant. He was the one who rescued her. Hearing her ask in the drug store for the carbolic acid, which she did not get, he thought she was desperate and questioned her, but she tearfully refused to answer. He quietly followed her until she got to the river, and ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... way than merely to shake hands with in passing. She had been tremendously impressed. She could smile at it now. But, really, she had been like one of the younger sisters, and for a year or so after that he had been to her a sort of vague knight errant. ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... me," said Sir Dagonet, "I pick Wales, since Kinkenadon is the nearer to Ireland. My fool's head still fancies that we shall have need to turn there ere we shall find this errant knight." ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... winter in Egypt or Italy, a summer in Norway, a spring or autumn at Biarritz, or Pau, or some other resort of wealthy and idle Englishmen. These wanderings had been begun with the laudable object of weaning Margaret's heart away from Wyvis Brand, but they had been continued long after Margaret's errant fancy had been chided back to its wonted resting place. The habit of wandering easily grows, and the two years had slipped away so pleasantly that it was with a feeling almost of surprise that the Adairs reckoned up the time that had elapsed since they left England. Then ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Polyphemus in antro Lanigeras claudit pecudes, atque ubera pressat, Centum alii curva hæc habitant ad littora vulgo Infandi Cyclopes, et altis montibus errant.” Æn. iii. 641. ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... are out for glory and some of them play a deeper game, sometimes it's a girl," came back to him. If it was for her, to win her commendation and respect, that Gibson was fighting, then, John thought, Gibson was a modern knight-errant riding into battle against the forces of evil, a twentieth century Sir Galahad. And what a "lady ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... letter was phrased for the purpose of passing Charles's censorship. He took the liberty of disregarding his master's orders; the troops were not disbanded, and he held himself in readiness to go to fetch the errant monarch if he did not return speedily from the enemy's country. His letter to the king and the unwritten additions delivered by his confidential messengers terrified his liege lest too much zeal on his behalf in France might work him ill in Liege. A week later ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... a long way to Madame Bernard's, and Juliet's knight-errant was weary, after an exhausting day in town. He paused outside the gate long enough to clean the dust from his shoes with the most soiled of his two handkerchiefs, then went boldly up the steps and rang ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... continue to be governed, by masterful-looking resultants, masters of nothing but compromise, and that little fancy of an inner conspiracy of control within the machine and behind ostensible politics is really on all fours with the wonderful Rodin (of the Juif Errant) and as probable as anything else in ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... fond of you, Royal," she said, bravely, "you know, that—that I cannot bear to think of you doing anything in this world that is not fine and for the best. But if you will be a knight errant, and seek out dangers and fight windmills, promise me to be a true knight and that you will fight only when you must and only on the side that is just, and then you will come back bringing your sheaves ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... compose a chronicle of the wars of the time; but there were no books to tell him of the past, no regular communication between nations to inform him of the present; so he followed the fashion of knights errant, and set out on horseback, not to seek adventures, but, as an itinerant historian, to find materials for his chronicle. He wandered from town to town, and from castle to castle, to see the places of which he would write, and to learn events ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... flapped heavily into a tall pine near by, settled his feet comfortably upon a smooth place in the limb, craned his neck and blinked into the wind, fluffed his feathers and in a deep baritone voice he called aloud upon his errant mate. ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... even forswear, in melancholy penitence, that which has served to give it flavor, and vow him vows of abstemiousness at which the grosser part of him chuckles ironically; or, he may blindly follow the first errant impulse for change of environment, in the half-formed hope that new scenes may, without further effort on his part, serve to make of him a new man—a man for whom ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... am not respected I am feared. I refused my consent to the loan by aid of which Great Britain's enemies had designed to prosecute a war against her. None of those theatrical displays with which sometimes I have impressed the errant vulgar were necessary. The greatest name in European finance was refused to the transaction—and the Great War died in the hour of ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... This liberal spirit is the only circumstance of antient chivalry, which I think was worth preserving. It had formerly flourished in England, but was almost extinguished in a succession of civil wars, which are always productive of cruelty and rancour. It was Henry IV. of France, (a real knight errant) who revived it in Europe. He possessed that greatness of mind, which can forgive injuries of the deepest dye: and as he had also the faculty of distinguishing characters, he found his account, in favouring with his friendship ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... with refreshments, should courteously offer to bring her something. If he is a total stranger he will attempt no conversation beyond the civilities of the case; but these he will cordially though unobtrusively offer. The young man who does these little things with the gentle grace of a knight errant, may not know that he is simply charming, from a woman's standpoint; but ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... Boston, our errant knight, before setting out upon his quest for the Fame and Fortune to whose service he was sworn, spent some hours in wandering about the old town, with mind open to the quickening influences of historic association and ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... gives upon the view. The roof is leaded, and surmounted by a wooden ball and tall, three-sided spike. These last, as well as the plastered, windowless walls are painted white. Within, the hollow of the dome is decorated in fresco, with groups of gaily clad ladies and their attendant cavaliers, with errant cupids, garlands of flowers, trophies of rather impossible musical instruments, and cages full of imprisoned, and therefore doubtless very naughty, loves. The colours have grown faint by action of insweeping wind and weather; but this lends a pathos to the ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... his to the daughter of an outlaw. Truths I call them, but I uttered them more by rote than by conviction, and he heard them unmoved. And meanwhile I snatched recklessly at his own solution. If it imparted into our adventure a strain of crazy chivalry more suited to knights-errant of the Middle Ages than to sober modern youths—well, thank Heaven, I was not too sober, and still young enough to snatch at that fancy with an ardour of imagination, if not of character; perhaps, too, of character, for Galahads are not so common but that ordinary folk must needs ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... Mrs. Morpher's to inquire after his errant pupil that night, he found Aristides in bed, smelling strongly of soap and water, and sinking into a feverish sleep. As he muttered from time to time some incoherent sentence, tossing restlessly in his cot, the master turned to those about him and ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... California." Thus the headlines put it. And Benito was relieved to find no mention of himself. Harpending he knew and liked, despite his Southern sympathies; Rubery he had met; an English lad, high-spirited and well connected. In fact, John Bright soon had his errant nephew out of jail. And when, a few months later, Harpending and Greathouse were released, Benito deemed the story happily ended. He heard nothing from McTurpin. No ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... for whites, and attack all who endeavour to penetrate into the forest. Don't be too rash, lad. Remember that it will not add to your lady-love's happiness to learn that you have been massacred in your attempt to carry out your knight-errant adventure, and if you are careless about your own life, don't forget that its loss will probably entail the loss of your brother's also. Dangers, of course, you must meet and face, but remember that prudence is a ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... whipped by those Prussian pigs, we!" He came up to Weiss and grasped him violently by the lapel of his coat. His entire long frame, lean as that of the immortal Knight Errant, seemed to breathe defiance and unmitigated contempt for the foe, whoever he might be, regardless of time, place, or any other circumstance. "Listen to what I tell you, sir. If the Prussians dare to show their faces here, we will kick them home again. You hear me? we will kick them from here to ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... the name, turning his rather errant steps in the direction of the summons; "are you people still there? Must have heard everything cows got to say by this time. If you haven't, no use waiting. After all, it's a Russian legend, and Russian Chrismush Eve not due for 'nother ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... him. The return observation was, 'I never met anybody with such a bright, at moments almost weird, genius-gifted eye, as that of Stevenson.' Sir George could fire imagination in the most ordinary mortal, carrying him off into enchanted realms. He sailed to strange skies, a knight-errant of a star, and he could tow the masses with him. He lifted them out of themselves, and put a label on their vague yearnings. They had imagination, the instinct upward, and were grateful to ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... of strain. She assumed an attitude of very haughty contempt toward the errant pair, devoted herself to Wiggins, and let them coldly alone. From this attitude Wiggins was the chief sufferer: the Terror had the princess and the princess had the Terror; Erebus enjoyed her display of haughty contempt, but Wiggins missed the strenuous life, the rushing games, ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... suppliants bearing the sacred branch? The objects of her rescue were not to be sought out by her fancy: they were chosen for her. She yearned towards the perfect Right, that it might make a throne within her, and rule her errant will. "What should I do—how should I act now, this very day, if I could clutch my own pain, and compel it to silence, and think ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... early morning when errant bats flitted home to cling to the ridge-pole, squeaking and fussy flutterings denoted unwonted disturbance. Daylight revealed a half concealed, sleeping snake, which seemed to be afflicted with twin tumours. A ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... America, west of that river and south of the lakes, intact, which shows how the common consent of nations accorded to French valor in exploration the bulk of the North American continent. Essentially chivalrous, the French explorer proved the knight-errant among American discoverers. By the treaty of 1803, Napoleon ceded 1,171,931 square miles to the United States, a tract eight times as large as France itself. France, by rights acquired by discoveries, owned ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... the bold knight-errant, From his castle who would roam, Trusting her, my faithful steward, For a strict account of home; And each day I toil, and hazard All that any man may dare, For a resting-place at even, And the love ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... Quixote de la Mancha, as, among other slight indications of an infirm understanding, he is stated, by his veracious historian, Cid Hamet Benengeli, to have exchanged fields and farms for folios and quartos of chivalry. In this species of exploit, the good knight-errant has been imitated by lords, knights, and squires of our own day, though we have not yet heard of any that has mistaken an inn for a castle, or laid his lance in rest against a windmill. Mr. Oldbuck did not follow these ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... or riders, but Walkers, a still more ancient and honorable class, I trust. The chivalric and heroic spirit which once belonged to the Rider seems now to reside in, or perchance to have subsided into, the Walker,—not the Knight, but Walker Errant. He is a sort of fourth estate, outside of Church ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... the scroll of my young life as it had been unfolded hitherto. I reviewed its beginnings in the greyness of Mondolfo, under the tutelage of my poor, dolorous mother who had striven so fiercely to set my feet upon the ways of sanctity. But my ways had been errant ways, even though, myself, I had sought to walk as she directed. I had strayed and blundered, veered and veered again, a very mockery of what she strove to make me—a strolling saint, indeed, as Cosimo had dubbed me, a wandering mummer when ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... students of the sixteenth century. We see him first in a Dominican convent, but the old- world scholasticism had no charms for him. The narrow groove of the cloister was irksome to his freedom-loving soul. He cast off his monkish garb, and wandered through Europe as a knight-errant of philosophy, multum ille et terris jactatus et alto, teaching letters. In 1580 we find him at Geneva conferring with Calvin and Beza, but Calvinism did not commend itself to his philosophic mind. Thence he journeyed to Paris, where in 1582 he produced one of his ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... pilgrimage; Rough lone knight-errant on uncourtly ways, And wrong and woe were charter'd on his page, With some horizon-glimpse of sweeter days. And on the land the message of his lays Smote like the strong North-wind, and cleansed the sky With wholesome blast and ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... errant knight of the press who has just arrived on the Delectable Mountains, comes rushing in, looks over my shoulder, and says, "A deuced expensive thing a Viceroy." This little errant knight would take the thunder ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... Torrebianca?" She tried the name on her tongue. "Yes, for an impromptu, Torrebianca is n't bad. It's picturesque, and high-sounding, and yet not—not invraisemblable. You don't think it invraisemblable? So here 's luck to that bold adventuress, that knightess-errant, the ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... errant tear away, and made her way to a store—a new place sprung up, like the bank and the hotel, with the growing importance of the town. The stock of ready-made clothing drove her to despair. It seemed that what women ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... customers for their books and phamphlets. At the small hostelry whose hospitality they sought the hawkers gave their names as Gasparini and Romano, names which masked the identities of the knight-errant Duc and ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... great force and kindness, and Charles Sumner, passing through the burning torture under the hands of French surgeons, which is approved of by the brains of English surgeons. Do you remember the Jesuit's agony, in the 'Juif Errant'? Precisely that. Exposed to the living coal for seven minutes, and the burns taking six weeks to heal. Mr. Sumner refused chloroform—from some foolish heroic principle, I imagine, and suffered intensely. Of course he is not able to ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... specialists would be assigned to some white units.[14-106] At the same time Gray was not prepared to admit that the incident demonstrated how open his plan was to evasion, just as he refused to admit that his rescinding of the errant message represented a change in policy. He would continue, in effect, the plan approved by the Secretary of Defense on 30 September, ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... soon afterwards felt inclined for wider fields of honourable adventure. It was impossible that knight-errant so true should not feel keenest sympathy with an oppressed people struggling against such odds, as the Netherlanders were doing in their contest with Spain. So soon as the treaty with England was arranged, it was his ambition to take part in the dark and dangerous enterprise, and, being son-in-law ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... ex oculis lacrymas arcere paratae. Ergo non Lycidam jam lamentantur agrestes. Divus eris ripae, puer, hoc ex tempore nobis, Grande, nec immerito, veniens in munus; opemque Poscent usque tuam, dubiis quot in aestubus errant. Haec incultus aquis puer ilicibusque canebat; Processit dum mane silens talaribus albis. Multa manu teneris discrimina tentat avenis, Dorica non studio modulatus carmina segni: Et jam sol abiens colles extenderat omnes, Jamque sub Hesperium se praecipitaverat alveum. Surrexit ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... track by inclining somewhat to the right; and I had so much faith also in True's sagacity that I had hopes he would find it. However, I gave him more credit than he deserved. He was always happy in the woods, like a knight-errant in search of adventures, plenty of which he was indeed likely to ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... which not a stick or a stone that one looks at is one's own, and whence one may be evicted or evade, with a week's notice or a week's rent, any day—this sort of life is natural and even delightful to some people. There are those who, like strawberry plants, are of such an errant disposition, that grow them where you will, they will soon absorb all the pleasantness of their habitat, and begin casting out runners elsewhere; may, if not frequently transplanted, would actually wither and ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... of Emile a knight-errant, a redresser of wrongs, a paladin? Shall he thrust himself into public life, play the sage and the defender of the laws before the great, before the magistrates, before the king? Shall he lay petitions before the judges and plead in the law courts? That I cannot say. The ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... power. Brenton is brilliant; but his mind works in a series of swift flashes, and the flashes dazzle him till they spoil all of his perspective. Instead of taking them for what they are, mere sparks flying from the ends of broken mental contact, he thinks that they are errant gleams of universal truth, vouchsafed to him alone. Then his seven-horse-power conscience goes to work, and bids him scatter the gleams across a darkening world. If he didn't mean so very well, he would do infinitely better. ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... I perceive an errant curl—my daughters, madam, will bear me out when I say that only excess of feeling prevents their mother from joining in this—may I call it ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... I in perfunctory acknowledgment, but with errant thoughts. "I trust, sir, that I shall always bear myself ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... men of might! Crusader! errant squire, and knight! Our coats and customs soften,— To rise would only make ye weep— Sleep on, in rusty iron sleep, As in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... in cottage and hall for merry tales of errant knights, lovers, lords, ladies, dwarfs, friars, thieves, witches, goblins, for old stories told by the fireside, with a toast of ale on the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... wife. 'For a while Mrs Giles bore his absence with a fortitude born, perhaps, of no very great love for her partner. Then she suddenly took it into her head to have him home. She did not telegraph, she did not even write; but one day the errant husband was seen by the astonished villagers hurrying towards his deserted home. And his footsteps were marked with blood! The witch-wife had compelled his return in such haste that not only the soles of his boots, but those of his ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... border of the two lands, to shame King Arthur; so that all his folk who were of the knightly order, and dwelt at his court, and sought for adventure, should shun their land when they heard the tidings of the vengeance wrought by them upon knights-errant who would prove their fate ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... contrasting so prettily with the white fence in front: the sloping fields of green painted with daisies, through which, unshackled, the buoyant breeze swept so peacefully. It was an invariable rule, in those days, to troop through the meadows at early morn and, like a young knight-errant, bear home in triumph "Marguerite," the peerless daisy, rescued from the clutches of unmentionable dragons, and now to beam brightly on us for the rest of the day from a neighboring mantel-piece. And it was with great reluctance ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... in a wolfskin bunda, and with a large astrachan cap on his head drawn down over his eyes. Inside it one could make out nothing but the face. It was a peculiar face, with eyes that looked strangely at you. An errant spirit seemed to dwell in them; they spoke of a mind that had been destined for great, for amazing things. But fate, environment, and neglect had here been too much for destiny, and the man had grown content to be extraordinary in mere trifles, ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... circuitous route up a flight of back stairs to a little balcony where they indulged in peace. But this was not for long. One day in his second week the detective met him in a nook of the stairs, on his descent, and told him sternly that next time he'd be reported to Mr. Macy. Dalyrimple felt like an errant schoolboy. ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... now covered the table, made the most congenial refuge conceivable. His thoughts were in exact harmony with everything there, from the Venetian blinds to the portrait of his great-grandmother. The only discordant element was the presence of a few errant bread-crumbs, and happily they were under ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... Burgundy confirmed the report of the spy, announced Duke Charles's intention of sending a fleet to prevent Warwick's invasion, and rated King Edward sharply for his supineness in not preparing suitably against so formidable a foe. The gay and reckless presumption of Edward, worthier of a knight-errant than a monarch, laughed at the word invasion. "Pest on Burgundy's ships! I only wish that the earl would land!" [Com, iii. c. 5] he said to his council. None echoed the wish! But later in the day came a third messenger ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... become a redresser of grievances; there only wanted a lady in the way to be a knight-errant in form. This defect was soon supplied; I presently had two. I frequently went to see my father at Nion, a small city in the Vaudois country, where he was now settled. Being universally respected, the affection entertained for him extended to me: and, during my visits, the question ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... himself agreeable under such appalling circumstances? The heart of the adventurer sinks within him. Lo! there is a rustling of robes near; what if Calyba or Urganda were at hand? Fuyons! And the knight-errant retreats, with drooping crest and smirched armor—a melancholy contrast to the preux chevalier who went forth but now chanting his war-song, conquering and to conquer. The remarks of the discomfited one, after such a failure, were, I fear, the reverse of complimentary; and the unpleasant word ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... the better part of a century, had been deposed from their old-time place of honour. These stories, however, were as yet so imperfectly known—and only to a few—that the most to be said is that some connection between their reviving popularity and the name of Smollett's knight-errant hero is ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... was traversing the country in quest of adventure, professedly bent on redressing wrongs and enforcing rights, sometimes in fulfilment of some vow of religion or of love. These wandering knights were called knights-errant; they were welcome guests in the castles of the nobility, for their presence enlivened the dulness of those secluded abodes, and they were received with honor at the abbeys, which often owed the best ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... shrine, God made me look into a woman's eyes; And I, who thought all earthly wisdom mine, Knew in a moment that the eternal skies Were measured but in inches, to the quest That lay before me in that mystic gaze. "Surely I have been errant: it is best That I should tread, with men their human ways." God took the teacher, ere the task was learned, And to my lonely books ...
— In Flanders Fields and Other Poems - With an Essay in Character, by Sir Andrew Macphail • John McCrae
... sweet milk of the breasts of the mother of many children? Has it too the old, ever-fresh forbearance and impartiality? Does it look with the same love on the last-born and on those hardening toward stature, and on the errant, and on those who disdain all strength of assault ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... maniac, bedlamite^, candidate for Bedlam, raver^, madcap, crazy; energumen^; automaniac^, monomaniac, dipsomaniac, kleptomaniac; hypochondriac &c (low spirits);; crank, Tom o'Bedlam. dreamer &c 515; rhapsodist, seer, highflier^, enthusiast, fanatic, fanatico [Sp.]; exalte [Fr.]; knight errant, Don Quixote. idiot ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... in ejusmodi Fraternitatem sive participationem orationum aliorumque bonorum spiritualium sive monachorum sive aliarum Ecclesiarum et jam Cathedralium admissi errant, sive ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... was left for a knight-errant in the Spain of to-day, ruling by steel and shot and flame and gold? It must be rather awful, the listener reflected, to see your own country go rotten like that in a generation. Yet there was no bitterness in the old ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... incontestable verity, there is an infallible method of knowing this verity, and by the knowledge of it, those who accept it as a rule may give their will a sovereign power that will make them the masters of all inferior things and of all errant spirits; that is to say, will make them the Arbiters and ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... judge of mankind. We have the confirmation of the Church (or, in earlier times, of the Tribe) by means of a Eucharist or Communion which binds together all the members, living or dead, and restores errant individuals through the Sacrifice of the hero and the Forgiveness of their sins; and we have the belief in a bodily Resurrection and continued life of the members within the fold of the Church (or ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... musicians errant still strum their mandoline as you dine. The old trattoria in the Toledo is as good as ever, as bright, as comfortable. I have found my old corner in one of the little rooms, and something of the old gusto for zuppa di vongole. The homely wine ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... Fortunately I had walked little more than a mile when shouts in Piet's high-pitched voice reached my ears, and presently, guided by my shouts in reply, the Hottentot hove in sight, mounted upon Tempest and leading the errant Jack by the bridle— the latter having galloped straight to the wagon, as I had fully expected he would; and half an hour later we rode ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... noun of a compound noun, whether it precedes or follows the descriptive part, is in most cases the noun that changes in forming the plural; as, mothers-in-law, knights-errant, mouse-traps. In a few compound words, both parts take a plural form; ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... puer, cornu nunc suscipe cantum. Per segetes errant pecudes, per pascua vacc. Ah, ubi nunc ovium custos tam parvulus absit? En, gregis ...
— Chenodia - The Classic Mother Goose • Jacob Bigelow
... dear fellow," said Roger, "on being once more a free man, with no one to suspect, except your own immediate relatives, the errant Captain Bates." ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... Holy War were most magnificent and glorious, and the rise, I believe, of the adventures of knights errant and romances. The solemnities , of processions in and about the churches, and the perambulations in the fields, besides their convenience, were fine pleasing diversions: the priests went before in their formalities, singing the Latin service, and ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... proud—proud as an Indian; it was hard for her to make admissions about her husband. But then—we were like two errant school-girls, who had been caught m an escapade! "I don't know what I'm going to do about him," she said, with a wry smile. "He really won't listen—I can't make any ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... he had loved the little woman now sleeping in her grave, who had scattered flowers with an errant fancy, he would have thought it preposterous to object to an order so calmly spoken, so evidently intended for execution. There was something in the tone of Miss Johns in giving directions that drew off all moral power ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... Romances of Chivalry,—huge interminable fictions, filled with the most extravagant visions that ever visited the slumbers of a mad poet. Merely to unravel the story of one of these gigantic romances is a task which would tax the strongest brain. They dealt with the adventures of Knights-Errant, who wandered about the earth redressing grievances and succoring the oppressed. Those who venture into these vast jungles of romance are occasionally rewarded by passages of great sweetness, nobility, and charm; but the modern reader soon grows weary of enchanted forests, haunted by giants, dragons, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... of might! Crusader, errant squire, and knight! Our coats and customs soften; To rise would only make you weep— Sleep on, in rusty-iron sleep, As ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... attracted by his graces and ability, had so put questions for her own enlightenment as to reveal to him that she possessed a secret. To cajole it from her, so far as she knew it, had been no greater difficulty than it was to the fox to get the cheese from the crow: and while to him she was the errant unprotected young lady of large and tempting fortune, he could easily make himself appear to her the missing link in the pursuit. He could do what as a woman she could not accomplish, and what her brothers ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... shall forget the impression made upon my fancy by some of the ladies' maids tripping about in neat morning dresses. After seeing for a long time little but rusticity, their lively manner, and gay inviting appearance, pleased me so much, that I thought, for the moment, I could have been a knight-errant for them[952]. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... brother's glance took in the disreputable younger, his once handsome face marred—one doesn't foregather with swine in the sty without acquiring marks of the association—his clothing in rags. Thus errant youth, that was youth no longer, came back from that far country. Under such circumstances one generally has to walk most of the way. He had often heard the chimes at midnight, sleeping coldly in the straw stack of the fields, and the dust of ...
— A Little Book for Christmas • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... and premature hypotheses of the physiologists of his day that the greatest and noblest intellect in Greece revolted. Socrates was the knight-errant of philosophy. ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... thought no more of the excuses which he had been building in his mind; of all the practical suggestions which he had been prepared to make. Common-sense died away within him. The matter-of-fact man of thirty was ready to tread in the footsteps of this great predecessor, and play the modern knight-errant with the whole-heartedness of Don Quixote himself. He fancied himself by her side, and his heart leaped with joy of it. He thought no more of abandoned cricket matches and neglected house parties. A finger of fire had been laid upon his ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in thee the shadow find. Thou, in our astronomy An opaker star, Seen haply from afar, Above the horizon's hoop, A moment, by the railway troop, As o'er some bolder height they speed,— By circumspect ambition, By errant gain, By feasters and the frivolous,— Recallest us, And makest sane. Mute orator! well skilled to plead, And send conviction without phrase, Thou dost succor and remede The shortness of our days, And promise, on thy Founder's truth, Long ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... brilliant attractions of Eaverson strongly tempted her to take his moral fitness for granted; but wiser counsels prevailed in her mind; and with a vigorous hand laid upon her heart to keep down its errant impulses, she exercised, with coolness and a well-balanced mind, the powers of discrimination which God had given ...
— Married Life; Its Shadows and Sunshine • T. S. Arthur |
