"Errant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... doctrine, but the practice which they condemned. With the accession of the house of Plantagenet, the people were made to feel that the Norman monarchy was a curse, without alloy. Richard I. was a knight-errant and a crusader, who cared little for the realm; John was an adulterer, traitor, and coward, who roused the people's anger by first quarrelling with the Pope, and then basely giving him the kingdom to receive it again as a papal fief. The nation, ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... could have flattered her into self-consciousness, it was Jemima's. Mr Bradshaw never dreamed that his daughter could feel herself inferior to the minister's protegee, but so it was; and no knight-errant of old could consider himself more honoured by his ladye's commands than did Jemima, if Ruth allowed her to do anything for her or for her boy. Ruth loved her heartily, even while she was rather annoyed at the open expressions Jemima used ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... native brought a letter from the errant lady addressed to her furious spouse. This missive is (without explaining how he got it) reproduced by an American journalist, T. Everett Harre, in a series of articles, The Heavenly Sinner: "I suggest," runs an extract, "you come to your senses and give me my freedom ... I am going with a man ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... for the sight, it beckoned with fantastic issues. Even the name breathed magic. Wizard spells hovered there; the railroad had not broken them—the cars and locomotives, entering, did not disturb the brooding vastness. A man might still ride errant into those slumberous spaces and discover for himself; might boldly awaken the realm and rule with ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... living tangle of gold and crimson reflected brokenly in the lake where frogs made merry, the frogs being about the only wild animals left in the Stromovka. Things were very different in this park when it was known as the Thiergarten, Hortus Ferarum, as long ago as the days of King John, the knight-errant ruler of Bohemia. It appears that bison, "aurochs," were kept here, and it is recorded that the sole surviving specimen died in 1566, which fact Archduke Ferdinand, the Kaiser's lieutenant, reported to Emperor Maximilian; he was thereupon ordered ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... upon the 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 ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... only anxiety was to find her elusive quarters for the strange cruise, to learn whether or not her new knight-errant were alive or dead from the ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... an 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 ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... 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; ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... read the lives of the Saints. Consciousness of guilt, a fiery temper, and a wild imagination, the common ingredients of enthusiasm, made this madman devote himself to the particular service of the Virgin Mary; whose knight-errant he declared himself, in the very same form in which the old knight-errants in romances used to declare themselves the knights and champions of certain beautiful and incomparable princesses, whom sometimes they had, but oftener had not, seen. For Dulcinea ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... and commonplace phrase, but potent to plunge errant, winging fancies down to earth. The chattering ceased short. No one had thought of tickets, nor even of money. The girls of the party looked appalled—in Cherryvale the girls never dreamed of carrying money to school; then furtively they glanced at the boys. ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... representation in bronze of the same reprehensible goddess, clothed, to be sure, a little more in accordance with the views of a retired New England community, yet leaving much to be desired in this direction. Kitty Waters attentively filled his empty cup, beaming the while, and the once errant Annabel, sitting on a low stool at his feet, with a red bow in her pretty hair, and her great brown eyes fixed adoringly on his face as he directed the fascinating incomprehensible little song straight at her charming self, was obviously ...
— A Philanthropist • Josephine Daskam
... Mac-Ivor and riding awhile with the Baron's Lowland cavalry, the Prince returned to the Count of Beaujeu, saying with a sigh, as he reined his charger beside him, "Ah, my friend, believe me this business of prince-errant is no bed ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... the leader and 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 Tribe), itself ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... the house-bride, homewards bring Maid yearning for new married fere, Her mind with fondness manacling, As the tough ivy here and there Errant ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... principal 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; as, man-servant, men-servants; ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... smiled, and only corrected his nonsense by saying, "I think we mustn't be too romantic. You will become a knight-errant, I suppose. You ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... wanted amusement. My room soon became insupportable. I abandoned it, and sought what is technically called the travellers'-room. This is a public room set apart at most inns for the accommodation of a class of wayfarers called travellers, or riders; a kind of commercial knights-errant, who are incessantly scouring the kingdom in gigs, on horseback, or by coach. They are the only successors that I know of, at the present day, to the knights-errant of yore. They lead the same kind of roving adventurous life, only changing the lance for a driving-whip, ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... applied to the knights of Charlemagne, and by extension, to any knight errant, or chivalrous ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... terms they are part of himself; if he poses with high dramatic action he has made that deportment his second nature. Such defects as these are not incompatible with a general benevolence and a certain quality of errant and purely ideal chivalry, which distinguishes the paladin from the knight. Canalis has not devotion enough for a Don Quixote, but he has too much elevation of thought not to put himself on the nobler side of questions and things. His poetry, which takes ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... bugbear to the reservation Indians, and a terror to Arizona. If a man was killed or a woman missed, the Indians came galloping and the scouts lay on his trail. If he met a woman in the defiles, he stretched her dead if she did not please his errant fancy. He took pot-shots at the men ploughing in their little fields, and knocked the Mexican bull-drivers on the head as they plodded through the blinding dust of the Globe Road. He even sat like a vulture on the rim-rock ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... 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 that we refrained ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... 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.
... 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 ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... Indi. Nubij. Nestorini. Arriani.] Aliqui namque eorum dicuntur Christiani Iacobitae: hij errant circa peccatorum remissionem, dicentes, non debere confiteri homini sed soli Deo. Alij Syrij, Isti in fermentato pane conficiunt Sacramentum altaris ritu Graecorum. Alij Indi, Nubij, Nestorini, et Arriani. Praefatus autem mons ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... took his 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 ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... an horse laden with spears. And this knight that sat at the well seemed by his countenance to be passing heavy. Then Sir Tristram rode near him and said: Fair knight, why sit ye so drooping? ye seem to be a knight-errant by your arms and harness, and therefore dress you to joust with one of us, or with both. Therewithal that knight made no words, but took his shield and buckled it about his neck, and lightly he took his horse and leapt upon him. ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... code in the Middle Ages the challenge and the single combat were recognized institutions; and they say that knights-errant used to go riding through the country seeking worthy opponents. And according to the cow-boy code in southeastern Arizona during the early eighties among the outlaws, a champion must be ready to try conclusions in very much that same ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... very clear to the bright little minds for whom it was intended. Politics were evidently their grand interest; the Duke of Wellington their demi-god. All that related to him belonged to the heroic age. Did Charlotte want a knight-errant, or a devoted lover, the Marquis of Douro, or Lord Charles Wellesley, came ready to her hand. There is hardly one of her prose-writings at this time in which they are not the principal personages, and in which their "august father" ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... you see me without bruise or scratch. Only Yorick and I got tangled up with a herd of buffaloes on the Kajiar Road. In his fright, the little fool slipped half over the khud, and if a knight-errant had not fallen from heaven, in the nick of time, we should both be lying somewhere in the valley by now, 'spoiling ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... 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. [Footnote: On reflection, at the distance of several years, I wonder that my venerable fellow-traveller should have read this passage ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... and wrung it fondly When both had recovered calmness, they went on speaking of their work, which might be considered past the stage when the projector is racked by misgivings. They went into the breakfast-room together, prepared to bear the singular meeting with the errant wife whose return was so unexpected. But she preferred not to take the step so soon, and, as Rebecca also kept away, warned by Hedwig, who might appear at the board, the three ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... received its peculiar impress: the delicately blown breath of the first cold. The stubbles straggle wanly sunwards, and the falling leaves rustle to the earth, with a sound as of errant silkworms. ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... of Miss Pimpernell's little party, this patriotic gentleman, in the presence of ladies, whom he reverenced with a knight- errant's devotion and homage, was the life of our circle. He carried an aroma of fun and light-heartedness about him that was simply contagious. He sang Beranger's ditties with a verve and elan that brought back bonny Paris and student ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... a princess, then this man is a knight," he murmured with conviction. "A knight as I live! A descendant of the immortal hidalgo errant upon the sea. It would be good for us to have him for a friend. Seriously I think ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... enough to give up the semblance after having already parted with the substance. Like all women she is timid, and incapable of a great resolution! How many letters have I not written to her since I last saw her! After the battle of Eylau—like a miserable adventurer—a knight-errant—I went in disguise to the village where she had at length promised to meet me at her brother's house. What a wretched rendezvous it was! Nothing but a farewell scene! She desires to go into a convent, ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... KASTRIL]. A very errant rogue, sir, and a cheater, Employ'd here by another conjurer That does not love the doctor, and would cross him, If ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... was bewildering. She had been swept off her feet by emotion, and the very considerations she thought she had conquered were now tugging at her heart-strings. He must not go away as her knight errant, eager and ready to slay dragons for ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... true knight errant," says Prescott; "of all that glorious troop of adventurers which the Spain of the sixteenth century sent forth to a career of discovery and conquest, there was not one more deeply imbued with the spirit of romantic enterprise ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... hear a melancholy old barrel-organ in the courtyard, go to the window and give a penny to the poor errant [Footnote: Errant: wandering.] musician—perhaps it is Don Gaetano! If you find that his organ disturbs you, try if you like it, better by making him stand a little farther off, but don't send him away with harshness! He has to bear so many hard words as it is; why should not ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... strongly in words against the code of honour; it was the constant object of vituperation on his part, even from the pulpit. His notions on this point, however, never gained ground with his hearers, who could not be brought to believe that their master (himself as true a knight errant as ever drew sword or pen,) was serious when he told them that the spirit of chivalry was ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... 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
... more ridiculous animal, than one who seems to regard the good of others. He, in civil life, whose thoughts turn upon schemes which may be of general benefit, without further reflection, is called a projector; and the man whose mind seems intent upon glorious achievements, a knight-errant. The ridicule among us runs strong against laudable actions; nay, in the ordinary course of things, and the common regards of life, negligence of the public is an epidemic vice. The brewer in his excise, the merchant in his customs, and, for aught we know, the soldier in his muster-rolls, ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... strange, sudden, unaccountable sounds, caused in all probability by a boa-constrictor, a buck, or some other creature startled into quick movement by the scent of a human being, wafted to their nostrils by an errant draught of air, were even more startling to the nerves than the distant roar of the jaguar, or the call of the bell bird which irresistibly suggested the incongruous idea that at no great distance in those gloomy forest depths would be found ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... her mother. She thought how all during that awful time she had been safe and sheltered in the convent, and her life guarded; and moreover, she understood why her father had always treated her mother as if she were higher than the angels and with the courtesy and gentleness of a knight errant. He had bowed to her slightest wish, and no wonder her mother thought that when he received her request to return to her, and give up his hope, he would ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... story, with a sequence of events so surprising that one is prepared for the fact that much of it is founded on actual happenings; but Mr. Dixon has, as before, a deeper purpose—he has aimed to show that the original formers of the Ku Klux Klan were modern knights errant taking the only means at ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... 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 ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... portentous gravity as he assigned the desserts for each table. What an ordeal it was for shy freshmen to rise and walk the length of the dining-room! How many tables were kept waiting for the next course while errant students surveyed the sunset through the kitchen windows! Some of us remember the tragic moments when, coming in hot and tired from crew practice, we found on the bulletin-board by the dining-room the fateful words, 'strawberries for dinner', and we knew it was our lot to prepare ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... 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 to break ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... uncommon name of "Brown," who, it will be remembered, was the maker of the shoes of the spinster aunt when she eloped with the faithless Jingle; "in a po-chay from the 'Blue Lion' at Muggleton," as one of Mr. Wardle's men said; and the discovery of the said shoes led to the identification of the errant pair at the "White Hart" in the Borough. After Sam Weller had described nearly all the visitors staying in the hotel from an examination of ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... and hollow, by mead and lawn, Thro' shine and shade of dingle and glade, Fast and far as I hurry on My eager seeking you still evade. But, were you shod with the errant breeze, Spirit of shadow and fire and dew, O'er trackless deserts of lands and seas Still would I follow ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... reign Arthur fought twelve memorable battles, and, not content with this activity, often rode out like other knights-errant in quest of adventure, challenging any one who wanted to fight, rescuing captives, and aiding damsels in distress. In these encounters Arthur wore the peerless armor made by Merlin, and sometimes carried a shield so brilliant that it blinded all who gazed upon it. It was, ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... be slow to find in Volapk and the White Knight's inventions a common characteristic—their fantasticness. Perhaps there really is some analogy in the fact that both inventors had to mount their hobby-horses and ride errant through sundry lands, thrusting their creations on an unwilling world. But the particular kind of white night of which Volapk was born is the nuit blanche, literally "white night," but idiomatically "night ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... with the Divinity]. Can our plummet even sound it and explore in the deep abyss, the matchless wonder of the immeasurable being? And because the revolving wheel of my spirit has found no rest in all that it has seen, known, possessed and enjoyed, it stretched its errant senses continuously towards what was still held back, and kept, by the strong rock of omnipotence; to struggle towards which with a fresh attack I resolutely determined, and would be sent away with nothing less than the kingdom and the ruling power of the Holy Ghost." ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... very clever, a very rising young man, and so feeling, said Mrs. Ledwich to Mary while this was going on. 'In fact, he is a perfect knight-errant on this subject. He is gone to London this morning to see what can be done by means of the press. I tell Matilda it is quite a romance of modern life; and indeed, the sweet girl is very romantic still—very young, even after all she has ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to doubt of the ultimate success of his pursuit. The uncertainty itself, and the probable danger of the expedition, were not without their charm to a youthful and adventurous spirit. In fact, Edward would not have been altogether satisfied to recover the errant damsel, without first doing battle in ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... certain he became of the father's guilt, the more certain also he became of the daughter's merits. It was very hard. The whole thing was cruelly hard. It was cruelly hard upon him that he should be brought into this trouble, and be forced to take upon himself the armour of a knight-errant for the redress of the wrong on the part of the young lady. But when alone in his house, or with his child, he declared to himself that he would do so. It might well be that he could not live in Barsetshire ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... and abbot to Mount Alban's peer A goodly welcome in their house accord; Who asked, but not before with savoury cheer He amply had his wearied strength restored, If in that tract, by errant cavalier, Often adventurous quest might be explored, In which a man might prove, by dangerous deed, If blame or glory were his ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... to the powerful machines I saw working along the southern frontier. Nevertheless it is a useful means of reconnaissance, nor is a journey in it devoid of interest. An armoured train! The very name sounds strange; a locomotive disguised as a knight-errant; the agent of civilisation in the habiliments of chivalry. Mr. Morley attired as Sir Lancelot would seem scarcely more incongruous. The possibilities of attack added to the keenness of the experience. We started at one o'clock. ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... of strong character and, after the shock of hearing the report of her husband's death, took up her duties with composure, though the lines in her face seemed deeper, and Rodney saw that an errant lock of her hair, which he had always thought a part of the attractiveness of her fair face, was now quite gray, and, as she pushed it aside, a familiar way she had, he noticed how thin and white her hand was and ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... the Poetical Art? For want of the latter, our Author has sometimes made gross Mistakes in the Characters which he has drawn from History, against the Equality and Conveniency of Manners of his Dramatical Persons. Witness Menenius in the following Tragedy, whom he has made an errant Buffoon, which is a great Absurdity. For he might as well have imagin'd a grave majestick Jack-Pudding, as a Buffoon in a Roman Senator. Aufidius the General of the Volscians is shewn a base and a profligate Villain. ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... balanced, and above-board. It seemed incredible that his father could thus have vanished without, as it were, announcing his intention, without last words to his son, and due farewells. And those incoherent allusions of little Holly to 'the lady in grey,' of Mademoiselle Beauce to a Madame Errant (as it sounded) involved all things in a mist, lifted a little when he read his father's will and the codicil thereto. It had been his duty as executor of that will and codicil to inform Irene, wife of his cousin Soames, of her life interest in fifteen thousand ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Yerkes, and the woman signed to us to go on in. Yerkes led the way again impulsively as any knight-errant rescuing beleaguered dames, but I looked back and saw that the Syrian woman had locked the outer door. Before I could tell Will that, he was in the next room, so I followed, and, like him, ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... could muster, the burgesses from the towns, the clergy from all the great centres of the Church, on mules and soft-pacing palfreys, would gather for the meetings of Parliament. It scarcely wanted a knight-errant like the fourth James, with his chivalrous tastes and devices, to fill the noble town with brightness, for all these fine sights were familiar to Edinburgh. But the brightest ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... continuous expression, has ever been suspect of the English mind. He was "highly caressed in France." To Evelyn Sir Kenelm was a "teller of strange things," and again the Diarist called him "an errant mountebank"—though Evelyn sought his society, and was grateful for its stimulus. Lady Fanshawe, who met him at Calais, at the Governor's table, says he "enlarged somewhat more in extraordinary stories than ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... any adventure. And then upon a Monday in the morning, as they were departed from an abbey, they came to a cross which departed two ways, and in that cross were letters written that said thus: Now, ye knights errant, the which goeth to seek knights adventurous, see here two ways; that one way defendeth thee that thou ne go that way, for he shall not go out of the way again but if he be a good man and a worthy knight; and ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... exertion of strength remove the tree; and if we sent back for assistance, it would have been a work of time. SO we dismounted, got the ladies to alight, and Aaron Bang, Transom, and myself, like true knights—errant, undertook to ride the mulos ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... Spanish servant, and I have no fear of his running away with the horses during the journey, after having perhaps knocked me on the head in some lone posada. He is moreover acquainted with every road, cross-road, river, and mountain in Spain, and is therefore a very suitable squire for an errant knight, like myself. On my arrival in Biscay I shall perhaps engage one of the uncorrupted Basque peasants, who has never left his native mountains and is utterly ignorant of the Spanish language, for I am told that they are ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... 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 for more than ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... the regnant lady; which is not to be wondered at, considering that both the gentlemen attending her, Philip and her husband, quitted her table with shouts at the announcement of his name, and her husband hauled him in unwashed before her, crying that the lost was found, the errant returned, the Prodigal Pat recovered by his kinsman! and she had to submit to the introduction of the disturber: and a bedchamber had to be thought of for the unexpected guest, and the dinner to be delayed in middle course, and her husband corrected between ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Wagnerian tragedienne which she became later, but in a transitional character—that of Carmen in Bizet's opera of that name. Lehmann as the gipsy cigarette maker, with her Habanera and Seguidilla, with her errant fancy wandering from a sentimental brigadier to a dashing bull fighter, is a conception which will not come easy to the admirers of the later Brnnhilde and Isolde; and, indeed, she was a puzzling phenomenon to the experienced observers of that time. ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... and although the fact that his generalship achieved this, might have caused some jealousy to the other commanders, this might have died away could he between the battles have been a general, and nothing more. But, alas! he is in addition a knight-errant—and such a knight-errant as Europe has never seen before. Wherever there is danger, Richard will plunge into the midst. There are brave men in all the three armies; but the strongest and bravest are as children ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... beehives, she recalled all the old stories she had ever heard of knights who went out into the world to seek their fortunes, and waved farewell to some ladye fair in her watch-tower. She felt, in a vague way, that she had been bidden farewell by a brave knight errant. Although she was burning with curiosity when she delivered the message about the turquoises and Alaka, and wondered why Lloyd and Joyce exchanged such meaning glances, something kept her from asking questions, and she had gone on wondering all these years what it meant, and why there ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Zerbino all the arms unites, And hangs like a fair trophy, on a pine. And, to preserve them safe from errant knights, Natives or foreigners, in one short line Upon the sapling's verdant surface writes, ORLANDO'S ARMS, KING CHARLES'S PALADINE. As he would say, "Let none this harness move, Who cannot with its lord ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... having been brought to the ground by a deep cut in the head, he was made prisoner; not, however, before he had flung his sword far over the heads of the assailants, disdaining, in the true spirit of a knight-errant, to yield it to the rabble around ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... woman made for comfort, housewifery, and motherhood, and by no means for racing about Europe in charge of a disreputable parent. I could picture her settled equably on a garden seat with a lapdog and needlework, blinking happily over green lawns and mildly rating an errant gardener. I could fancy her sitting in a summer parlour, very orderly and dainty, writing lengthy epistles to a tribe of nieces. I could see her marshalling a household in the family pew, or riding serenely in the family coach behind fat bay horses. But here, ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... fox, is this protector of fair ladies! I could not get a sight of him. I decided at last to waylay him (when he would be out driving with the veiled lady), to pretend that I was a betrayed husband in search of his errant wife, and ask to see the face of his veiled companion. This, naturally, he would refuse. A duel would be the result; and as he has not for years had a weapon in his hand, and as I am a dead shot, you can guess the result—a hermit against a Spadassin! With a bullet ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... other useful modes of employing riches. In particular, one of his favourite ideas is that of an order of Chivalry, composed of the most generous and self-devoted of the rich, voluntarily dedicating themselves, like knights-errant of old, to the redressing of wrongs, and the protection of the weak and oppressed. He remarks, that oppression, in modern life, can seldom reach, or even venture to attack, the life or liberty of its victims (he forgets the case of domestic tyranny), but only ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... that makes for living and surviving is good. He who follows the fact cannot go astray, while he who has no reverence for the fact wanders afar. Chivalry went mad over an idea. It idealised, if you please. It made of love a fine art, and countless knights-errant devoted themselves to the service of the little god. It sentimentalised over ladies' gloves and forgot to make for living and surviving. And while chivalry committed suicide over its ladies' gloves, the stout, wooden-headed burghers, with an eye to the facts of life, ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... the more purely intellectual side of mysticism comes out more strongly than the exstatic—so dominant in these societies of the fourteenth—and we have Cardinal Nicolas of Cusa, with Giordano Bruno, the martyred knight-errant of philosophy, and Paracelsus, the much slandered scientist, who drew his knowledge directly from the original eastern fountain, instead ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... 18th, Mr. Adrian Gilbert and John Davys reconcyled themselves to me, and disclosed some of Emery his most unhonest, hypocriticall, and devilish dealings and devises agaynst me and other, and likewise of that errant strompet her abominable wordes and dedes; and John Davis sayd that he might curse the tyme that ever he knew Emery, and so much followed his wicked cownsayle and advyse. So just is God! Oct. 31st, payed xxs. fyne for me and Jane my wife to the Lord of Wimbleton ...
— The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee - And the Catalog of His Library of Manuscripts • John Dee
... origin, who had enlisted as a private soldier at the age of seventeen, and who, by sheer force of energy, bravery and aptitude for his profession, had fought his way to military rank and honour. After seeing much service on the continent, and passing through as many adventures as a knight-errant of old, he was transferred to British North America. His gallant services in this country are imperfectly recorded in various accounts of the War of 1812, and in Tupper's "Life of Brock." Every Canadian is, or ought to be, familiar with the circumstances ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... now vanish along with the bonnet rouge and the jargon of the Terror. His bent had ever been for the material and practical: and now that faith in the Jacobinical creed was vanishing, it was more than ever desirable to grapple that errant balloon to substantial facts. Evidently, the Revolution must now trust to the clinging of the peasant proprietors to the recently confiscated lands of the Church and of the emigrant nobles. If all else was vain and transitory, here surely was a solid basis of material interests to which the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... spreading over undue space on one of the benches push up, and he enjoyed a rich moment of self-satisfaction in his forbearance. He was there, to be sure, an alien and a heretic, out of mere curiosity, and they were there probably so rapt in their devout attention that they did not notice their errant step-brother, and so did not think to offer him the hospitality of their mother church's house. But he would not make any such allowance; he condemned them with the unsparing severity of the strap-hanger in a trolley-car, who blushes with shame for the serried ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... you have endured have plunged you to the very deeps, have stripped you of your manhood. And yet—yours is no murderer's face even when you scowl and clench your fist! 'Twas so you looked when you fought that rough boy on my behalf so many years ago when you were Sir Martin the Knight-errant and I was Princess Damaris. And now, Martin, you that were my playmate and had forgot—you that were so ready to fight on my behalf—in this desolation there is none you may do battle with for ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... 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 even in ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... 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
... come in pursuit of her errant swain. Mrs. Morel would find a strange girl at the door, and immediately ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... strained to Madness, the whole Story runs on Chastity and Courage. The Damsel is mounted on a white Palfrey, as an Emblem of her Innocence; and, to avoid Scandal, must have a Dwarf for her Page. She is not to think of a Man, 'till some Misfortune has brought a Knight-Errant to her Relief. The Knight falls in Love, and did not Gratitude restrain her from murdering her Deliverer, would die at her Feet by her Disdain. However he must wait some Years in the Desart, before her Virgin Heart can think of a Surrender. The Knight ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... now caused a shudder, now set tingling the full blood of enthusiasm, and opened up unconsciously to her view a rude field of knight-errantry, whose principles sat strangely close with the best traditions of her own earlier land and time. They were knights-errant, and for all on the Ellisville trail there was but one lady. So hopeless was the case of each that they forbore ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... represents not only a vanished taste in architecture, but sentiments also which are now even more remote. The Earl of Harrington, under whom the Gothic transfiguration was accomplished, seems to have regarded himself as a species of knight-errant. Round the fluted pillars by which the roof of the hall is supported—a hall which he christened "the Hall of the Fair Star"—were strapped imitation lances, and the windows were darkened by scrolls which all bore ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... willingly sanction the landing of a Spanish army on English shores. Thus, among the more ardent Catholics, especially the refugees at the Seminary at Rheims, a crown in heaven was held out to any spiritual knight-errant who would remove the obstacle. The enterprise itself was not a difficult one. Elizabeth was aware of her danger, but she was personally fearless. She refused to distrust the Catholics. Her household was full of them. She admitted anyone ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... couriers brought the news at dusk That Lion-Heart, while wandering home thro' Europe, In jet-black armour, like an errant knight, Despite the great red cross upon his shield, Was captured by some wicked prince and thrust Into a dungeon. Only a song, they say, Can break those prison-bars. There is a minstrel That loves his King. If he should ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... as you please," cried Lord de Winter, "but don't try to bite, for I warn you that it would be to your disadvantage. There are here no procurators who regulate successions beforehand. There is no knight-errant to come and seek a quarrel with me on account of the fair lady I detain a prisoner; but I have judges quite ready who will quickly dispose of a woman so shameless as to glide, a bigamist, into the bed of Lord de Winter, my brother. And these judges, I warn you, will soon send you to an executioner ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... 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 ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... walking unarmed and without police escort in Tulla and Athenry was as great as ever was displayed by a knight-errant of old. The Nationalist papers, no longer able to taunt him with cowardice, took to declaring him to be a ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... more brush or chopping I set Pop to laying stone wall and said I would employ him steadily for a year. But that was a mistake. Old Pop was a free lance, a knight errant. Anything that savored of permanency smelled to him of vassalage. He laid a rod of stone wall—solid wall that will be there for Gabriel to stand on when he plays his last trump—blows it, I mean—in that neighborhood. But then he collected, one evening, and vanished, and I did ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... force if necessary and pausing on your way to tell the large man in the corner that, if he looks at you like that, you will knock his head off. What I mean is, she made me feel alert and dashing, like a jolly old knight-errant or something of that kind. I felt that I was with her in this ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... The horse belonging to Don Quixote who was the romantic and absurdly chivalric hero of a satirical Spanish novel entitled The History of the Valorous and Witty Knight Errant, Don Quixote of the Mancha ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... while Molly suddenly whirled down the street and pounced on the errant collie. Seeing this, Constable McSherry turned to continue his leisurely course ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... all the properties the princesses-errant took with them; but Jean, as her old nurse sometimes declared, loved Skywing better than all the weans, and Elleen's small travelling-harp was all that she owned of her father's—except the spirit that ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... brazen age, brilliant but cold, succeeds. This was an age of knowledge, art and war, When the knights-errant of the ancient world, Adventures seeking, roamed with brazen swords Which by a wondrous art—then known, now lost— Were hard as flint, and edged to cut a hair Or cleave in twain a warrior armor-clad And armed with ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... G. Volrees' wrath knew no bounds. "What do they take me to be, a knight errant of hell and a simpleton withal? I swear by every shining star that I shall probe to the bottom of this matter if it shakes the foundations of the earth," said he. He took the first train back to Almaville, his spirit crushed within him, ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... enclosed[11] and desire an answer. I make no more apologies, for I take you to be in earnest; but if you can talk of sincerity without having it, I am glad it is in my power to punish you, for sincerity is not only the favourite expression of my knight-errant, but ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... days ago, we almost held it, The love we so desired; But our shut eyes saw not, and fate dispelled it Before our pulses fired To flame, and errant fortune bade us stand Hand ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... over the turnip-field. How can you expect a man to make 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 ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... contrast—especially the shoes, and the way of dressing the hair; we almost came to the conclusion that female beauty when unadorned is adorned the most. It awes and chastens one so! and wakes up the knight-errant inside! even the smartest French boots can't do this! not the pinkest silken hose in all Paris! Not all the frills and underfrills and wonderfrills that M. Paul Bourget can ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... a moment on this matter. I do not believe that Raymond had ever thought, in seriousness, of any such gift. It must have been at best an errant fancy, and if concerned with commemorating anybody concerned with commemorating himself. But I will say this for him: he never was disposed to try getting things out of people, for he hated attempts at trickery almost as much as he detested the exercise of the shrewdness ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... Happily, the 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. ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... 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 of the Earl of Carlisle, as stated to Auckland some time in September. After asking whether ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... that it was, he laughed genially, and, turning to the landlord, said: "He does not look like a knight-errant who flies to the rescue of maids, and Tory maids at that, does he? But see here, youngster, since you have brought this little traitress into my household, you will have to do your share in converting her to the true principles of liberty ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... out—distinct—deliberate—coming over the stones from the lake side—leisurely, lazily, careful, soft footsteps with rests between—The Ranger would not have been surprised to see the missing outlaw limp from the mist—Then, the head of his own errant mule bobbed forward, and another roll of mist came up from the lake. Wayland caught the trailing halter, headed the amazed little animal back down the goat track with an urgent kick and sprang after it to a clatter of rolling stones. ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... the 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
... in the errant world, That e'er the Trojan Ripheus in this round Could be the fifth one of these holy lights? Now knoweth he enough of what the world Has not the power to see of grace divine, Although his sight may ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... tax-payers of a small community when the father of several small children deserted his wife and the expenses of supporting his family devolved upon them. It would call for little imagination to picture these respectable members of society scrambling to pass laws for the punishment of the errant one and to force him back to his wife and support-producing labor. But, basically, the legal favoritism which has arisen in the past thirty years in America, is probably due to a desire on the part of the employing class to protect and make secure the mothers ...
— Women As Sex Vendors - or, Why Women Are Conservative (Being a View of the Economic - Status of Woman) • R. B. Tobias
... to a quiet spot in the wood, and lived in a camp of his own making, where he read tales of war and knights-errant, and in his enthusiasm fought imaginary enemies. At last he could bear dreaming no longer, and started off again to roam the world ...
— The Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith • E. Boyd Smith
... struggles through the deep defile? What checks the fiery soul of James? Why sits that champion of the dames Inactive on his steed, And sees between him and his land, Between him and Tweed's southern strand, His host Lord Surrey lead? What 'vails the vain knight-errant's brand? O, Douglas, for thy leading wand! Fierce Randolph, for thy speed! O for one hour of Wallace wight, Or well-skilled Bruce, to rule the fight, And cry 'Saint Andrew and our right!' Another sight had seen that morn, From Fate's ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... come to Court!" she shrilled into sudden tinkling laughter; "there be ladies there more worthy of your ardour than a poor errant ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... bottled-up geni (or djinn) into modern life, so Smollett transferred Don Quixote. His hero, a young baronet of wealth, and of a benevolent and generous temper, is crossed in love. Though not mad, he is eccentric, and commences knight- errant. Scott, and others, object to his armour, and say that, in his ordinary clothes, and with his well-filled purse, he would have been more successful in righting wrongs. Certainly, but then the comic fantasy of ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... no further; put them in your pocket; and to relieve our position of any shadow of embarrassment, tell me by what name I am to address my knight-errant, for I find myself reduced to the awkwardness ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at a loss what to think, when, Hippolito coming into the Room to give the Lady an Account of his Errant, was no less astonished to find she was departed, and had left Two Old Signiors in her stead. He knew Don Fabio's Face, for Aurelian had shewn him his Father at the Tilting; but being confident he ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve
... the turnings well enough to venture on an attempt at choosing the quietest streets; and besides, it occurred to him that where the passengers were most numerous there was, perhaps, the most chance of meeting with Monna Ghita and finding an end to his knight-errant-ship. So he made straight for Porta Rossa, and on to Ognissanti, showing his usual bright propitiatory face to the mixed observers who threw their jests at him and his little heavy-shod maiden with much liberality. Mingled with the more decent holiday-makers ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... through the distress in her eyes, through her warm and generous nature that had disclosed itself with her first words, she became a living, breathing, lovely, and lovable woman. All of the young man's chivalry leaped to the call. He had gone back several centuries. In feeling, he was a knight-errant rescuing beauty in distress from a dungeon cell. To the girl, he was a reckless young person with a dirty face and eyes that gave confidence. But, though a knight-errant, Ford was a modern knight-errant. He wasted no time in ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... what makes a man manliest;—not puny resolve, not crude determination, not errant purpose, but that strong and indefatigable will which treads down difficulties and danger as a boy treads down the heaving frost-lands of winter,—which kindles his eye and brain with a proud pulse-beat toward the unattainable. Will makes ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... 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 had projected it before ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... courage of a knight-errant Cochrane added the shrewd and humorous sagacity of a Scotchman. If he had commanded fleets he would have rivalled the victories of Nelson, and perhaps even have outshone the Nile and Trafalgar. And to warlike genius of the first order Cochrane added a certain weird and ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... goes arter work goes on a fool's errant," responded Abner, dejectedly. "There ain' no work nowhar, an a feller might jess ez well sit down to hum an wait till ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... anything beyond a hundred yards distant in any direction. 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 into camp without ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... when theology makes it acknowledge the existence of supernatural beings who are agreeable to our desires, but who have no reality as objects of experience; it is a "master," when it pursues its inquiries into the phenomena of the objective world, at the bidding of an errant curiosity, without reference to the well-being of man; it is in its true place as a "servant" when it studies the objective world freely, but only with reference to the end fixed for it by the affections. "L'univers doit etre etudie non pour lui-meme, mais pour l'homme, ou plutot ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... understood but little of the 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 proud of my achievement. In ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... they will 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 the romances ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... highest qualities of the race. And small wonder it was that out of that fruitful soil which had grown the Cid and the warriors of the heroic age, who should be rightly classed as prechivalric, there sprung up that ranker produce, the knights-errant. Of these, the seekers after adventure, the bohemians of the knightly order, Spain, as her native historians boast, was the teeming mother. No other country in that age, or in the previous one, could show the world such a scene as that gravely enacted before King Juan ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... 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 the people came after, making their ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... "stooped" on them like hawks sure of their prey. But to the airdrome near St.-Omer came later models, out of date a few weeks after their delivery, replaced by still more powerful types more perfectly equipped for fighting. Our knights-errant of the air were challenging the German champions on equal terms, and beating them back from the lines unless they flew in clusters. There were times when our flying-men gained an absolute supremacy by greater daring—there ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... in the miller's family, I will gladly bow to my own blood wherever I find it, and claim cousinship. Meantime, my dear sister, do keep a corner of your loving heart well swept and dusted for your errant sailor-boy." ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... an adjoining room with Blanche, who there informed him artlessly of Crombie's consideration and attentiveness in restoring the errant shoes. When they came back Littimer insisted upon having the young man remain a little longer and drink a glass of port with him. Before taking his departure, however, Crombie, who felt free to speak since Blanche had retired, made a brief statement ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... "I told you Denis was jealous," she exclaimed. "Knights errant always are. I've always suspected that St. George was jealous of ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... imitate the begging friars of Francis and Dominic: he pursued with blind and cruel zeal the enemies of the faith; and the best of kings twice descended from his throne to seek the adventures of a spiritual knight-errant. A monkish historian would have been content to applaud the most despicable part of his character; but the noble and gallant Joinville, [94] who shared the friendship and captivity of Louis, has traced with the pencil of nature the free portrait of his virtues ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... extraordinary magnetic attraction which glass has for the missile of the juvenile thrower, the orchid-house, on the opposite side of the path from the pear-tree, drew the errant stone to ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... 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 at a quarter of the price, and ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... felt he knew the sound of those syllables as well as he did the name of the Pless, strive as he might he failed to make them convey anything tangible to his intelligence. When had he heard of it? At what time had his errant footsteps taken him through this curious survival of ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... assemble a company of ragamuffins, and carry her off on her way to Canterbury. Hubert contrives to get enlisted among them, so as to be able to watch over his sweetheart, and Dame Margery, Sir Christopher's wife, also in disguise, joins the pilgrims, in the hope of keeping an eye upon her errant spouse. In the second act the pilgrims arrive at Sidenbourne. Dame Margery helps the lovers to escape, and taking Cicely's place receives the vows and sighs of her husband. In the third act the lovers have been overtaken and caught by the irate Geoffrey, and Hubert is dragged to trial before Sir ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... on her one foot with as much dignity as possible, and then recognizing me as the person who picked up the contents of aunt Celia's bag, she said, dimpling in the most distracting manner (that's another thing there ought to be a law against), "Thank you again; you seem to be a sort of knight-errant!" ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... spirit of romance in the boy's nature flamed. This was a great adventure. He had become a knight errant, the rescuer of a damsel in distress. He shot the bolts back, turned out the lights, took Joan's hand and led ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... happiness, and should sway men's lives with a lonely mirth. It was a bold and moving conception to show us these mature and tragic human groups all at the supreme moment eavesdropping upon the solitude of a child. And it was an even more precise instinct which made Browning make the errant benefactor a woman. A man's good work is effected by doing what he does, a woman's by being what ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... difficult, but, in the utter absence of information, certainty there could be none. Under any circumstances, it was to be expected that Rhoda would think and speak of Mrs. Widdowson no less severely than of the errant Bella Royston. ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... difference whether there was a roomful of listeners, or only a couple, Fiddlin' Jack was just as glad to play. With a little, quiet audience, he loved to try the quaint, plaintive airs of the old French songs—"A la Claire Fontaine," "Un Canadien Errant," and "Isabeau s'y Promene"—and bits of simple melody from the great composers, and familiar Scotch and English ballads—things that he had picked up heaven knows where, and into which he put a world of meaning, ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... meta-physics stands, despite the labors of Stewart, Hamilton, Hegel, Comte, very much where it did when Socrates ran amuck among the casuistical Quixotes of his day, and left the philosophic tilters of Greece, the knights-errant in search of the supreme good, in the same plight with the chivalry of Spain after Cervantes, the science of mind, and particularly mental pathology, has made some steps forward on crutches furnished ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... sabbath bells At evening in the golden fells I heard; the tinkle of the rills In haunts where childish fancy fed; I saw the orchard daffodils About the calm homestead; Ah, saddest thought that ever fills An errant heart that memory thrills, The heath-smell of his homeland hills To one ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... 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 ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... role of knight-errant which she seemed to discern in him, but he talked earnestly of her future, and once or twice, soothed by his voice, she dozed—but he didn't know it. Indeed, he told himself afterward that her silences showed ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... deplorable conditions. But two things fall to be noticed: In the first place, I never was in actual pain; and in the second, I was never funny. I'll tell you the worst day that I remember. I had a haemorrhage, and was not allowed to speak; then, induced by the devil, or an errant doctor, I was led to partake of that bowl which neither cheers nor inebriates - the castor-oil bowl. Now, when castor-oil goes right, it is one thing; but when it goes wrong, it is another. And it went WRONG with me that day. The waves of faintness and nausea succeeded each other for twelve hours, ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the reefed top-sails of the Good Intent showed up against the horizon of bleak slate-grey which was the Irish Sea. The North Channel foamed boisterously to the left, heaping many waters together, a perpetual cave of the winds, a play-ground for errant tides, or rather, as the folk on its shores say, the meeting-place of ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... some of which had two stories, were arranged so as to enclose a large grassy square, which was guarded by a strong palisade from the encroachments of errant hogs, goats, and fowls. This spot, among other uses, served as a convenient day-nursery for the babies, and also a place of occasional frolic and recreation to ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... dwell in the country, but she holds London the goodliest forest in England to shelter a great belly. She reads Greene's works over and over, but is so carried away with the "Mirror of Knighthood," she is many times resolved to run out of her self and become a lady-errant. The pedant of the house, though he promise her marriage, cannot grow further inward with her; she hath paid for her credulity often, and now grows weary. She likes the form of our marriage very well, in that a woman is not tied to answer to any articles concerning questions of virginity. ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... life, the most striking external expression was embodied in the Crusades. Strangely compounded of religious enthusiasm and political ambition, of the redeless spirit of the knight-errant and the cool calculation of the commercial bandit, these half-military and half-migratory movements of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries mark the beginning of that return of the West upon the East which is so persistent a factor in all modern history. Christendom, ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... them, are practically strangers to us. They have their own affairs and interests, and if these touch ours it is generally through the desire to inherit what we have. So Elsa went her way alone. From her father she had inherited a remarkable and seldom errant judgment. To her, faces were generally book-covers, they repelled or attracted; and she found large and undiminishing interest in the faculty of pressing back the covers and reading the text. Often battered covers ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... know that I ever felt more embarrassed and perplexed than I did when I sat in the Splash that day, with Miss Kate Loraine at my side, her dress hanging "slinky" and dripping upon her. Certainly there was nothing sentimental in the affair, for, though I was willing to become a knight errant in a good cause, the situation was so awkward that I could not ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... girl! How that proves what I have maintained! The birth of the little one will bring the errant father to his senses. The tiny hands will unite its parents as if they were the hands of a priest drawing them together. That child is the divine messenger ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... 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 draw courage ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... over—Dante and Michael Angelo and Homer and Shakespeare and that knight-errant Spaniard and the rest of 'em. But I'm not talking of poets and philosophers and the like. I'm talking of the men who bossed the job when they ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... business is to cut a figure (as they call it)in a side box at the play, from whence their next step is to the Green Room behind the scenes, sometimes their non ultra. Hither at last, then, in this hopeful quest of his fortune, came this gentleman-errant, not doubting but the fickle dame, while he was thus qualified to receive her, might be tempted to fall into his lap. And though possibly the charms of our theatrical nymphs might have their share ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... salutation, she leaned forward and galloped out into the riot and confusion of the rodeo, skirting the edge of the bellowing herd until she disappeared in the dust. And somehow, even by the childlike obliviousness with which she scampered away, she managed to convey a pang to her errant lover which clutched at ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... "Let us the brave knight-errant / receive so courteously That we in nought shall merit / his hate, for strong is he. He is so keen of spirit / he must be treated fair: He has by his own valor / done many ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... who, if you deprived him of his honour, was like to be deprived of his bread at the same time.—Ha, ha, ha! it reminds one of Don Quixote, who took his neighbour, Samson Carrasco, for a knight-errant." ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... in Deronda that his imagination was much occupied with two women, to neither of whom would he have held it possible that he should ever make love. Hans Meyrick had laughed at him for having something of the knight-errant in his disposition; and he would have found his proof if he had known what was just now going on in Deronda's mind ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot |
