"Desertion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his people fly from the Egyptian yoke, if they desired. He, Hosea, scorned flight. Bondage had sorely oppressed them, but the highest in the land had received him as an equal and held him worthy of the loftiest honor. To repay them with treachery and desertion was foreign to his nature and, drawing a long breath, he sprang to his feet with the conviction that he had chosen aright. A fair woman and the weak yearning of a loving heart should not make him a recreant to grave duties and the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the coping of the wall, swung himself to the top, and dropped down on the other side. Roland followed with the rapidity of one who is not achieving a feat for the first time. They were both on the other side, where the desertion and desolation were more visible by night than by day. The grass was growing knee high in the paths; the espaliers were tangled with vines so thick that the grapes could not ripen in the shadow of the leaves. The wall had given way in several places, ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... white trash" of the South are falling out of their ranks by sickness, desertion, and every available means; but there is a large class of vindictive Southerners who will fight to the last. The squabbles in Richmond, the howls in Charleston, and the disintegration elsewhere, are all good omens for us; we must not relax one iota, but, on ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... with Coleridge, in 1796. He attempted on several occasions to give it up, but his struggles were overcome by counter influences. "Tobacco," he says, "stood in its own light." At last, in 1805, he was able to conquer and abandon it—for a time. His success, like desertion from a friend, caused some remorse and a great deal of regret. In writing to Coleridge about his house, which was "smoky," he inquires, "Have you cured it? It is hard to cure anything of smoking." Apart from the mere pleasure of smoking, the narcotic ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... breath with weddings; but as a matter of fact, divorce is commoner in Germany than in England, and more easily obtained. Imprisonment for felony is sufficient reason, and unfaithfulness without cruelty, insanity that has lasted three years, desertion, ill treatment or any attempt on the other's life. You hear divorce spoken of lightly by people whose counterparts in England would be shocked by it; people, I mean, of blameless sequestered lives and rigid moral views. ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... the case up to 1840. His rejoinder was felt with that bitterness which none can realise who have not known the tyranny of irresistible despotism. Happily for mankind there is no power above the steady and determined operations of truth and right. The cruel desertion of the people in the hour of their distress—the scornful defiance of their complaints, has involved the cabinet of England in difficulties for which nothing but great sacrifices will fully obviate. No people in this hemisphere will entirely trust a British minister until the history of Van Diemen's ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... kind, and even brotherly, affection. This secession, the common effect of the new cares, hopes, interests, and wishes, which young men feel on entering the world, Byron regarded as something analogous to desertion; and the notion tainted his mind, and irritated that hereditary sullenness of humour, which constituted an ingredient so remarkable in the composition of his more ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... nothing more sadly impressive than the aspect of winter in a mountainous region. The jagged crests of the precipices, the deep, dark ravines, the woods sparkling with boar-frost like diamonds, all form a picture of desertion, desolation, and unspeakable melancholy. The silence is so profound that you hear a dead leaf rustling on the snow, or the needle of the fir dropping to the ground. Such a silence is oppressive as the tomb; it urges on the mind the ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... your desertion or neglect Could break my heart, as women's hearts do break. If my wan days had nothing to expect From your love's splendor, all joy would forsake The chambers of my soul. Yes, this is true. And yet, and yet—one thing ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... beautiful, it was a pity he was so wicked." I doubt if there is a single literate person in the world to-day who would apply the word "wicked" to Shelley. It is said that Browning, who had begun as so ardent a worshipper, never felt the same regard for Shelley after reading the full story of his desertion of Harriet Westbrook and her suicide. But Browning did not know the full story. No one of us knows the full story. On the face of it, it looks a peculiarly atrocious thing to desert a wife at a time when she is about to become ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... soul beyond recovery in this world, up from the lowest depths of his being there came the indestructible thing. It was the thing that never dies, the love that defies injury, shame, crime, deceit, and desertion, and lives pityingly on, knowing all, enduring all, desiring no touch, no communion, yet prevailing—the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... dinner was in progress, she lay upon her pillow, her head almost bursting with pain, and her heart aching so sadly as she tried to pray that no harm had befallen her husband. She never dreamed of his desertion, even when about noon of the next day a telegram came from Father Cameron, bidding her hasten to the city. Wilford was sick or dead, probably the latter, was the feeling uppermost in her mind, as she was borne rapidly to New York, where Mr. Cameron met her, his face confirming her fears, but not ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... was quietly hopeless. The three or four hundred sequins I had with me did not prevent me from thinking that I was not in very great security on the island; I could not remain long, I would soon be found out, and, being guilty of desertion, I should be treated accordingly. I did not know what to do, and that is always an unpleasant predicament. It would be absurd for me to return to Corfu of my own accord; my flight would then be useless, and I should be thought a fool, for my return would be a proof of cowardice or stupidity; ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Through a want of pride, through love or pity, they resign themselves to an act of which their reason does not approve and they wake up unhappy, sometimes for ever.... It is difficult, for the woman who resists appears to the man a sort of monster, abominable and detestable. Ah, there must be no desertion before possession! Because we have given him our lips, we must make him a present of our lives! Because we have consented to certain pleasures, we must, so that he may enjoy a greater, sacrifice our future ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... speaks thus encouragingly of his present campaign, he had soon much to make him anxious, and to rouse all the energies of his mind. Among other sources of solicitude was the growing evil of desertion. Many of his soldiers grew tired of the war, and, dishonourably leaving his camp, stole back to their native country. Of the prevalence of this mischief we have too clear proof in the following writ, a copy of which was despatched to all the ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... "if you could be convinced that what I have told you was true, and that you would be irretrievably injuring your husband and his interests, by persisting in that desertion of him which your purpose, would you not consent to reconsider your determination, settled ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... good; he no husband; he go away to his house—England.' Thus she described in a few simple words the tragedy of her life with tears in her eyes; her training for vice; her sale; her hopes of marriage; her desertion; the outcome, her consignment to a Government-licensed brothel. She was but one of the tens of thousands at Hong Kong. We asked, 'How would a girl have to do in order to live in this house?' They said, 'She must be registered at the Lock. ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... indignant. What had they to be grateful for? A constitution to which he had not kept true an instant; the institution of the National Guard, which he had begun to neutralize; benedictions, followed by such actions as the desertion of the poor volunteers in the war for Italian independence? Still, the people were not quite alienated from Pius. They felt sure that his heart was, in substance, good and kindly, though the habits of the priest ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... th' Hills an' left their boss all alone," replied Frenchy, well knowing that such desertion would not, in the minds of the Bar-20 men, add any merits to the case ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... when Philip turned and left them to their fate may well be imagined. Hopeless and helpless, there was nothing but surrender before them now; and to make the best terms possible was the only thing that remained for them. The day following Philip's dastardly desertion, the signal that the city was ready to treat was hung out, and brave Sir Walter Manny, whose own history and exploits during the campaigns in Brittany and Gascony would alone fill a volume either of history or romance, was sent to confer on this matter with the governor of the city, ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... counsels or even insists on wrong-doing, and the bad example of parents or relatives, exercise a still more sinister influence on children than desertion. The criminal family Cornu, finding one of their children, a little girl, strongly averse to their evil ways, forced her to carry the head of one of their victims in her pinafore for a couple of miles, after which she became one of the ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... straits the fears of the timid aggravate the dangers that imperil the brave. For cowards the road of desertion to the enemy should be left open; they will carry over to them nothing but their fears. The poltroon, like the scabbard, is an incumbrance when ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... bed-rolls?" Casey asked, when he turned toward her again. She pointed to the tent, and Casey went and dragged forth the packed belongings of the two. It was perfectly plain that they had deliberately planned their desertion, for everything was ready ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... house nestling at the foot of the mountain there were no signs of desertion. It was crowded to overflowing, and within its walls, during those next succeeding days, what combats were waged, between hope and fear, joy and despair, life ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... Patience, who, as he sat before her there in his buff coat and belt, laying down the law in pious language, was almost persuaded to believe that their present comfort and prosperity (such as it was) was owing to the faith which he said had led to his desertion of his family, though she had always thought it mere impatience of home work fired by revenge for his ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the woodsman's black scowl and grinned, recalling his desertion and precipitate disappearance into ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... possible, be brought south, and that only Hindu troops shall be led against the Russians. Orders have been given that the treacherous Maharajah of Chanidigot, whose troops in the battle of Lahore gave the signal for desertion, shall be shot. The Viceroy is of opinion that the Russian army will have to halt before Delhi in order to collect the reinforcements which, though in smaller numbers, are still coming up through Afghanistan. He does not doubt that the English army, whose numbers ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... was the substance of Esther's mind for three months after William's departure; and in the afternoons, about three o'clock, when her work paused, Esther's thoughts would congregate and settle on the great misfortune of her life—William's desertion. ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... mad with me about ... the other night?" He did not quite know how to express the quality of his desertion. ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... says William Howitt, "now belongs to the Atwood family; and a Miss Atwood resides there occasionally. But the whole place bears the impress of desertion and neglect. The house has a dull look; the same heavy spirit broods over the lawns and glades: And it is only when you survey it from a distance, as when approaching Hales-Owen from Hagley, that the whole presents ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... dower, the privilege of cutting wood enough for one fire." This bill failed, and the widow, by law, was not allowed to keep herself warm with fuel from her own wood-lot. In 1863 a bill providing that "a wife may be allowed to be a witness and proceed against her husband for desertion," was reported inexpedient, and a bill was passed to prevent women from forming copartnerships in business. In 1865, Gov. John A. Andrew, seeing the magnitude of the approaching woman question, in his annual message to the legislature, made ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... among scenes as bright and stately as the lists of King Arthur's Court, until the princess, choosing her human lover, throws about his neck the garland that declares her choice. Happy years follow, and the birth of children. Then the scene changes to exile and desertion. Through it all moves the heroine, sharing her one garment with her unworthy lord, "thin and pale and travel-stained, with hair covered in dust," yet never faltering until her husband, sane and repentant, is restored to ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... before replying, and then said with energy, 'That would be just desertion!—he would tell ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... when there were but seven or eight miles of the road in operation. On a late occasion, five hundred government troops were sent to California by this route, and were placed at the point of their destination in a little more than thirty-five days, without any serious desertion or accident of any kind. A similar operation by the way of Cape Horn would have occupied six months at least. The store-ship Lexington, which sailed from New-York for San Francisco, during the last year, arrived at the latter place on the last day of February, ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... once on his elevation in the utmost rudeness and rigor, but the humility changed to the most offensive haughtiness. Almost his first act was a public rebuke in his chapel to all the bishops present for their desertion of their dioceses. He called them perjured traitors. The Bishop of Pampeluna boldly repelled the charge; he was at Rome, he said, on the affairs of his see. In the full consistory Urban preached on the text, "I am the Good Shepherd," and inveighed in a manner not to be mistaken ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... get up and move out, exchanging loud good-nights. The long room slowly assumed an aspect of desertion ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... her sitting-room grate. The besmirched little face, like a sodden little pudding, had been covered with grimy hands, and the thin little chest had heaved under the scanty cotton blouse and the stress of the tale of betrayal and desertion. ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... him for his kindness; and when they reached the shore the kind-hearted man called one of his boatmen and ordered him to show Miss Wilmot the way to Mrs. Williams' residence. As Kate approached the house she noticed the air of desertion about it, and her heart sank for fear her brother might be dead. Running hastily up the steps, she rang the bell, which was answered by a female domestic, who was too old and too infirm to attend the funeral. Kate accosted her by saying, ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... life is irrevocably wedded. No, keep still, Padre Lluc I think ever as you think now, lest the faith that seems a fortress should prove a prison, the mother a step-dame,—lest the high, chivalrous spirit, incapable of a safe desertion, should immolate truth or itself on the altar ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... father heaped courtesies and solicitous care. On one occasion, when the two young men were hunting they were separated by chance. When Charles returned alone to the palace, the duke was full of reproaches at his son's careless desertion of the guest in his charge. Again the court was organised into search parties and there was no rest until the dauphin was discovered some leagues from Brussels[7]. Here, also, it is an easy presumption that the Count of Charolais was a trifle sulky ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... straight into the ruin. So we went with it, and found the entrance to the place. Last year the cattle had used it for a shelter, but not this, and there were no signs that any man had followed them into it. And then I knew what the place was, and wondered at its desertion little, for it was a Roman villa. Any Saxon knows that the old heathen gods those hard folk worshipped still hang about the walls where their images used to hold sway, not now in the fair shapes they feigned for them, but as the ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... dismissed. Newton would again have appealed, but on reflection thought it advisable to await the arrival of the captain. Beds and blankets were not supplied that evening: the boats were hoisted up, sentries on the gangways supplied with ball-cartridges to prevent desertion, and permission granted to the impressed men to "prick for the softest plank," which they could find ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... of historians; but it is at least significant that among all contemporary writers who have made mention of the Black Death—as it has been agreed to call it—the Black Death in the reign of Edward III.—there is little mention of any panic, few ugly tales of desertion of the dying, no flagrant instances of miserable creatures crying that the wells were poisoned. On the contrary, we have proof that as a rule men died at their posts during all that trying time, that those ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... to the grave, whence, in the mean time, her former companions, having seen and conversed with the angel outside and the angel inside, had departed to find their friends. Peter and John, having, the one entered, the other looked into the tomb, and seen only the folded garments of desertion, returned home, but Mary lingered weeping by the place which was not now even the grave of the beloved, so utterly had not only he but the signs of him vanished. As she wept, she stooped down into the sepulchre. There ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... is my father. This should be compared with the account of Gamuret's wooing and desertion of the Moorish queen, Belakane, in Book I. of the Parzival; also with the meeting of the unknown brothers in Book XV. of the same poem. It is perhaps worth noticing as indicative of the source of ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... condition, with death before their faces, mark what Kate did; and please to remember it for her benefit, when she does any other little thing that angers you. The crew lowered the long-boat. Vainly the captain protested against this disloyal desertion of a king's ship, which might yet perhaps be run on shore, so as to save the stores. All the crew, to a man, deserted the captain. You may say that literally; for the single exception was not a man, being our bold-hearted Kate. She was the only sailor that refused to leave ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... to Calhoun's speech on the Independent Treasury bill, Clay used the strongest language, charging him with desertion, and making his whole life the subject of one of those powerful invectives so characteristic with him. Calhoun answered; Clay replied on the ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... lewdness, because I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged; thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more, till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee." Which passages seem to imply a total desertion of them, and retraction of all gracious influence. And when it speaks of letting them be under the gospel, and the ordinary means of salvation, for the most direful purpose: as that, "This child (Jesus) was set for the fall, as well as for the rising, of many in Israel"; as that, "Behold, ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... precipitately to my lodgings, hastily packed my belongings, and set out for Matheron Station by the same train I had so fondly believed would convey Lona and me to our nuptial altar. Words cannot describe the suffering I endured upon that journey. For the first time since my terrible desertion I had an opportunity to think, and I did think, if the pulse of an overwhelming pain, perpetually recurring like the beat of a loaded wheel, can be called thought. Although there is no insanity in our ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... call it desertion, if seizing the flag of duty that floats over us here, I forsook the camp only long enough to scout on a dangerous outpost, to fight single-handed a desperate battle! If I fell, the folds of our banner would shroud me; if I conquered, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... wired the post at Fort Clowdry, and had received the post adjutant's answer that a guard would be sent to bring Private Hinkey back for trial on the charge of desertion. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... do not, however, exhaust the demonstrated vices of individualism. Individualism encourages desertion and treason. Individualism permits base private people to abscond with the national resources and squeeze a profit out of national suffering. In the early stages of the war some bright minds conceived ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... But with the dead weight of Mr. Madison's silence, if not indifference, the struggle was unequal and the bank fell. The course of Mr. Madison can hardly be excused. Political history records few examples of a more cruel desertion of a cabinet minister by his chief. Mr. Gallatin felt it deeply and tendered his resignation. The administration was going to pieces by sheer incapacity. The leaders took alarm and the cabinet was reconstructed, Monroe being called to the Department of State. But the enemies of Mr. Gallatin ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... movement. By 1848 Bronterre O'Brien had retired from the Chartist ranks, Feargus O'Connor was M.P. for Nottingham—to be led away from the House of Commons hopelessly insane, to die in 1855—and Ernest Jones could only say when the Chartist Convention broke up in hopeless disagreement, "amid the desertion of friends, and the invasion of enemies, the fusee has been trampled out, and elements of our energy are scattered to ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... stumbled in the darkness. I was too thoroughly trained in the stern and careful school of the frontier not to be cautious at such a time, for I knew that silence and seeming desolation were no proof of savage desertion; nor did I believe that Indian strategy would leave the north of the Fort wholly unguarded. Any rock, any black ravine, any clump of trees or bushes, might well be the lurking-place of hostiles, who would only too gladly wreak ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... a higher level, and though tolerably fertile, is deficient in verdure, the olive being almost the only tree met with. Lambesc, like Orgon, which it much exceeds in size, has an air of faded gentility and desertion, and its fine public fountains tell a tale of better days. In this town the states of Provence were convened annually in the reign of Louis XIV.; and it possessed also many of the privileges of a capital in ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... to her nephew. On the strength of that letter Eugene was invited to a ball at the mansion of the viscomtesse in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. The viscomtesse became interested in him, especially as she was suffering from the desertion of the Marquis d'Ajuda-Pinto, a Portuguese nobleman who had been long her lover, and stood sponsor for him in society. At the Faubourg, Eugene met the Duchesse de Langeais, from whom he learned ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... indeed, they seemed to be of the mind of an old Catholic woman, who told me that same day there was no difference between the two sects, save that "wrong was more wrong for the Catholic," who had more light and guidance; but this of a man's desertion ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... nearer: the message, she thought, would be one of affectionate penitence to her father, and her heart began to open. Nothing could wipe out the long years of desertion; but the culprit, looking back on those years with the sense of irremediable wrong committed, would call forth pity. Now, at the last, there would be understanding and forgiveness. Dino would pour out some natural filial feeling; he would ask questions about his father's ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... court stood a large house, much dilapidated, but bearing the trace of former grandeur in pilasters and fretwork in the style of the Renaissance, and a defaced coat of arms, surmounted with a ducal coronet, over the doorway. The house had the aspect of desertion: many of the windows were broken; others were jealously closed with mouldering shutters. The door stood ajar; Lebeau pushed it open, and the action set in movement a bell within a porter's lodge. The house, then, was not uninhabited; it retained ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the midshipman appointed to the captain's gig, and remained on board of the admiral's ship during the whole of the time that the court was sitting. Two seamen, one an Englishman, and the other a Frenchman, were tried for desertion from one of our frigates. They had left their ship about three months, when the frigate captured a French privateer, and found them on board as part of her crew. For the Englishman, of course, there was no defence; he merited the punishment of death, to which he was ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... Kennebec River, in two hundred batteaux, and notwithstanding "all the natural impediments, the ascent of the rapid streams, interrupted by frequent portages, through thick woods and swamps, in spite of accidents, the desertion of one-third of their number, difficulties and privations so great as on one occasion to compel them to kill their dogs for sustenance;" after thirty-two days of the perils of this wilderness march they came in sight of the first settlement ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway
... Desertion.—Frederick, in surveying one evening some of the advanced posts of his camp, discovered a soldier endeavouring to pass the sentinel. His majesty stopped him, and insisted on knowing where he was going. "To tell you the truth," answered the soldier, "your majesty has ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... in the Prayer-book, in conversation and correspondence with religious friends, in the sermons of celebrated preachers. He formed a scheme of retiring from the world into some kind of religious retreat, and spending the rest of his life in prayers and meditation. Rejecting this as a cowardly desertion of the post of duty, he had thoughts of setting up a school for children, and becoming himself a teacher in it. This plan, too, he laid aside, as savoring of enthusiasm. Meanwhile, this amiable and honest gentleman, ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... R-r-r-r-ead it! as a certain Captain whom you know observes." The great artist was not for that time procurable, having engagements away from London, and Mr. Dudley Costello was substituted; Stanfield taking off the edge of his desertion as an actor by doing valuable work ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... is great that the Admiralty should attach any blame to me for the desertion of these men from the Advice brig, which is the next point in your letter, Sir Joseph. These men were lent, among others, to the brig, by order of Admiral Graeme. From her it was that they absented themselves, and I reported it to the Admiralty. I had been so particular as to send with the ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... another victory. They were alarmed at the weakness of a President who would indeed resist the urgent remonstrances of statesmen against his policy, but could not resist the prayer of an old woman for the pardon of a soldier who was sentenced to be shot for desertion. Such men, mostly sincere and ardent patriots, not only wished, but earnestly set to work, to prevent Lincoln's renomination. Not a few of them actually believed, in 1863, that, if the national convention of the Union party were held then, Lincoln would not be supported ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... first took the hand my father extended; and in touching rebuke of the Captain's stately bow, she held out to him the hand left disengaged, with a look which brought Roland at once to her side. It was a desertion of his colors to which nothing, short of Ney's shameful conduct at Napoleon's return from Elba, affords a parallel in history. Then, without waiting for introduction, and before a word indeed was said, Lady Ellinor came to my mother ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to meet them. Four Frenchmen, still alive, were picked up from the pile of corpses. Three of these were instantly burned, while the fourth was reserved for continuous torture a day or so later. The faithless Hurons gained nothing by their desertion, for they were put to death, with the exception of five who eluded their captors, and took an account of this remarkable episode to the French at Montreal. The Iroquois were obviously amazed at the courage of a few Frenchmen, and decided to give up, for the present, their project of ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... referred manifest obscenities, which bid defiance to the restraints of modesty, and fill and infest the house with flagitious practices of lewdness, giving birth to adulterous immodesty, and rendering the whole mind abandoned. To these things may be added malicious desertion, which involves adultery, and causes a wife to commit whoredom, and thereby to be divorced, Matt. v. 32. These three causes, being legitimate causes of divorce,—the first and third before a public ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... which may be observed in these words: that a man ought not for the sake of the greater friend to forget the service received from the lesser; but if one must follow the one and leave the other, the greater is to be followed, with honest lamentation for desertion of the other, whereby he gives occasion to the one whom he follows to bestow more love on him. Then there where it says, "Of my eyes," has no other meaning except that bitter was the hour when the first demonstration of this Lady entered into the eyes of my intellect, ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... Italian history before I have justified myself to my benefactors? How dare I read Washington's campaigns when I have not answered the letters of my own correspondents? Is not that a just objection to much of our reading? It is a pusillanimous desertion of our work to gaze after our neighbors. It is peeping. Byron says of ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... think you forget a little, Mr. Trojan, in your anxiety for your son's welfare, my daughter's side of the question. She naturally treasures what represents to her the happiest months of her existence. You must remember that your son's conduct—shall I call it desertion?—was a terrible blow. She loved him, Mr. Trojan, with all her heart. Is it not right that he should ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... one minute his impulse was to take her in his arms and forget the ingratitude and desertion and deceit, like the father in the parable whose heart went out to the poor prodigal while he was yet a long way off; but the next moment the cold, bitter, resentful feelings quenched the gentler impulse, and he drew away his arm from her detaining hold, and passed ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... deprived me of you, of children, country, fortune; from you I should hope it will have taken nothing but myself. Certainly on your side I have experienced nothing but what was honourable and gratifying: on mine you have grief for my fall and fear for your own, regret, mourning, desertion. I not wish to see you? The truth is rather that I was unwilling to be seen by you. For you would not have seen your brother—not the brother you had left, not the brother you knew, not him to whom you had with mutual tears bidden farewell as be followed you on your departure for your province: ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... pandemonium, by his desertion of her for a vain ideal, our hero has plunged his wife, the woman of the Past, whom he had sworn to make happy. And it is to be observed that she was not necessarily his inferior, but, in the world of heart, superior to himself. A true and pure character, feeling its inferiority and anxious to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... bears his misfortune," wrote Sir Gilbert Blane, "with equanimity; conscious, as he says, that he has done his duty.... He attributes his misfortune, not to the inferiority of his force, but to the base desertion of his officers in the other ships, to whom he made the signal to rally, and even hailed them to abide by him, but ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... rush of the trains must bring before them every hour of the day and night; they will feel more drawn to pray, for those whom the chances of life carry away to Paris, or bring back to the country, outcasts from the city. But the postulants—the novices? In the hours of desertion, of doubt as to their vocation, which must come over them, is it not appalling to think of the constantly revived memories of home, of friends, of all that they have left to shut themselves up for ever ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... recruits are there for the express purpose of being bought by the other side; that they are most active in order to seem valuable, and thus raise the price of their allegiance when they are ready to sell. Reformers seeing them drop away one by one, talk of desertion from the ranks of reform, and of the power of money over well-meaning men, who are too weak to withstand temptation; but in reality the men are not deserters because they have never actually been enrolled in the ranks. The money they take is neither a bribe nor the price of their ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... to me!" said Hilary consequentially. She had not forgiven Madge Newcome for her desertion an hour earlier, and shook hands with ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... trios, the trail of the missing steers was picked up, and by ten o'clock every hoof was in hand or accounted for. I came in with the last contingent and found the camp in an uproar over the supposed desertion of one of the hands. Yankee Bill, a sixteen-year-old boy, and another man were left in charge of the herd when the rest of us struck out to hunt the missing cattle. An hour after sunrise the boy was seen to ride deliberately away from his charge, without ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... the outcome. He had fought, and fought hard, but it was only the surface mind of him that struggled. Only the surface mind of him hated, and had ambitions, dreamed revenge. Underneath that surface mind was a sore that ate like a cancer, and that sore was his desertion by Lily Cardew. For once in his life he suffered, who ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of affairs, thought Captain Hubbard, who looked troubled rather than vexed. He did not care so much for the desertion of young Randolph and his friends (although the unexpected withdrawal of twelve men from his command was no small matter), but he did care for the spirit that prompted their action. It was a rule or ruin policy he did not like to see manifested at that juncture. ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... grants to enter on desertion of the Indians.—3. Provided, always, That it shall and may be lawful for any person or persons that have formerly obtained any grant or grants, under the Lord's proprietors, for any tract or parcels of lands within the aforesaid boundaries, upon the said ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... prevent her from falling immediately into vice, but he at the same time feared, that with the strong influence Ussher had over her, he might easily persuade her to leave her home, partly by promising at some early time to marry her, and partly by threatening her with desertion. He thought that if she were at present domiciled at Mrs. McKeon's, Ussher might then be brought to hear reason, and be made to understand that if he was not contented to propose for and marry Feemy, in a proper decent manner, he must ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... and told on him, but if I'd taken time to think I don't believe I'd have done it. You see, I've seen such a little bit of loving in me life. You easily can be understanding that at the Home it was every day the old story of neglect and desertion. Always people that didn't even care enough for their children to keep them, so you see, sir, I had to like him for trying so hard to make her know how he loved her. Of course, they're only birds, but if they are caring for each other like that, ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... form. It then, as now, provided for only six months residence before filing suit. This was in line with its other liberal legislation and with legislation in other Western States. This divorce statute included, and still includes, seven causes of action: impotency, adultery, desertion for one year, conviction of a felony, gross drunkenness, cruelty and failure of the husband for a period of one year to provide the common necessities ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... with his buccaneering band on a long march of six hundred miles through a barren and unpeopled country towards his "possessions" in the interior. The Mexicans did not need any forces to defeat him. Fatigue and famine did the work for them, desertion decimated the band of invaders, and the hopeless march up the peninsula ended at San Diego, where he and his men surrendered to the United States authorities. Walker was tried at San Francisco in 1854 for violation of the neutrality laws, but ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... her, that he could not do. It did not matter much as the State in any case would go for Buchanan. He hesitated, and had better have been plain with her. She knew that he had been long in doubt, but did not as yet suspect how complete was his desertion of opinions she held to as she did to her religious creed. He found relief in his decision, and too in freedom of talk with Rivers, who looked upon slavery as simply wicked and had no charity for the section so little ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... overwork." She was not required to rise before 5 A.M., and she was generally in bed by twelve. Our house is not large, though rather lofty, and there are only fifteen in family. Of course I shall not pay her any wages, and shall retain her boxes; but how can I really punish her for her shameful desertion?—CONSIDERATE. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 21, 1891 • Various
... by their dastardly desertion of the fort of the Mississi, at which they were stationed, nearly disconcerted all the arrangements. Great numbers of the inhabitants had already gone on ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... restless "come-outer" who quits the conflict in despair of succeeding, and, "without tarrying for any," sets up his little model of good order outside. Such defection seemed to them not only of the nature of a military desertion and a weakening of the right side, but also an implied assertion of superior righteousness which provoked invidious comparison and mutual irritation of feeling. The comparison must not be pressed ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... dead man tumbled in a heap in the railroad yard, as he had hoped to find. Silence, the silence of desertion, brooded over the masthead arcs. Painfully the Mexican searched, at the verge of the river, in the black shadows cast by the crowding material cars. Finally he crossed over to the straggling street of the camp, walking now and leading the spent mustang. Silence here, too, broken only by the sputtering ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... energetic defense of the settlers at that point against the Indians, Henderson says: "Your spirited conduct gives me much pleasure.... Keep your men in heart if possible, NOW IS OUR TIME, THE INDIANS MUST NOT DRIVE US." The gloom which had been occasioned by the almost complete desertion of the stations at Harrodsburg, the Boiling Spring, and the Transylvania Fort or Boonesborough was dispelled with the return of Boone, accompanied by some thirty persons, on September 8th, and of Richard Callaway with a considerable ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... prevented by the Entente Powers from returning to their fatherland, and would not be punished for their loyal and neutral feeling and action." [15] This because the Entente press was angrily denouncing the step as a "disgraceful desertion" and asking "with what ignominious penalty their War Lord has visited so signal and so heinous an act of mutiny, perjury, and treason on the part of his soldiers" [16]—the soldiers who went to Germany precisely in order to avoid committing an act of mutiny, perjury, and treason. Truly, in ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... knight soon tired and grew cold toward her. At length she was left alone, scorned and sorrowful, a prey to misery, while her betrayer rode off in search of other loves and gaieties, spreading abroad as he went the story of his conquest and his desertion. ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... should fall from heaven. The fact of their absence was a matter of source. He pondered over the situation a good deal. The thing to do, he thought, if he went to Mollenhauer or Simpson, or both (he had never met either of them, but in view of Butler's desertion they were his only recourse), was to say that, although he could not at present return the five hundred thousand dollars, if no action were taken against him now, which would prevent his resuming his business on a normal scale a little later, he would pledge his word that every ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... knew that his wife, after his desertion, devoted herself to good works, so no doubt he went to the church and asked about her. The old verger who saw us married is still alive, so I suppose he told Krant that Amy was my wife, and that I was the Bishop of Beorminster. But, however he learned the truth, he found his way ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... The desertion of the liberal cause by Wordsworth, Southey, and others, is the germinal idea of this poem. But Browning always strenuously insisted that the resemblance went no further; that The Lost Leader ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... the waggons, as the train rolls over a neighbouring hill. I hear the cracking whips and the deep-toned "wo-ha" of the teamsters; I see the traders mount and gallop after; and I turn upon my couch with a feeling of loneliness and desertion. ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... inoperative. Bounty, defined by some sentimentalist as a "bribe to Neptune," for a while made a stronger appeal; but, ranging as it did from five to almost any number of pounds under one hundred per head, it proved a bribe indeed, and by putting an irresistible premium on desertion threatened to decimate the very ships it was intended to man. In 1795 what was commonly known as the Quota Scheme superseded it. This was a plan of Pitt's devising, under which each county contributed to the fleet according to its population, the quota varying from one thousand ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... better discipline was obtained than before, but even he could effect no permanent improvement. When the test of war came the militia was found to be of no practical use. The companies could not be assembled quickly enough to repel a sudden invasion, and when a considerable body was gotten together desertion was so common that the force immediately melted away. In the French and Indian War Governor Dinwiddie soon learned that no dependence whatever could be placed in the old organization and turned his attention to recruiting and arming new companies. The Virginia troops that were driven from ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... course means Maud here. I congratulate you, dear," she said, turning to the girl, who looked happy and flushed. "Your father has made up to us both for his cruelty and desertion." ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... decline in the Union strength of the Perth district. A great many miners had quietly seceded; one of the periodical waves of suspicion as to funds and management to which all trade unions are liable had swept over the neighbourhood; and wholesale desertion from the Union standard seemed likely. In hot haste the Central Committee sent down Burrows as organising agent. The good fight he had made against Tressady at the Market Malford election had given him prestige; and he had both presence and speaking ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... spiritual. The good old dame never stirred from his bedside, where she sat knitting from morning till night, while his daughter busied herself about him with the fondest care. Nor did they lack assistance from abroad. Whatever may be said of the desertion of friends in distress, they had no complaint of the kind to make. Not an old wife of the neighborhood but abandoned her work to crowd to the mansion of Wolfert Webber, to inquire after his health and the particulars of his story. ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... news of an interesting nature. The French and Spanish troops, destined to reinforce the Duc de Crillon's army at Minorca, are not yet embarked, and he cannot act with effect until he receives reinforcements. It is said the desertion from the place is considerable. The South Carolina frigate, armed for that State in Holland, has put into Corunna, and I am concerned to find by letters from Messrs Searle and Trumbull, passengers on board, that Commodore Gillon's conduct ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... London has become distasteful to me; it seems like a huge mirror reflecting all the horrors, the shams, the vices of the poor scarred world. To retire to Hatton in the companionship of Yvonne would be delightful, but would also be desertion. No idle chance brought us together to-day, Don; it was that Kismet to which the Arab ascribes every act of life. I was hesitating on a brink; you pushed me over; and at this very hour I am falling into the arms ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... the inspection of Aristomenes, who at that time was suffering from a wound. The slave overheard—escaped—reached the Spartan camp—apprized his master Emperamus (who, in the absence of the kings, headed the troops) of the desertion of the guard:—an assault was agreed on: despite the darkness of the night, despite the violence of the rain, the Spartans marched on:—scaled the fortifications:—were within the walls. The fulfilment of dark prophecies had already portended the fate of the besieged; ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... make that out—regular? Have you any proof he wasn't a deserter? He'll have to be charged with desertion and tried by court martial, I'm afraid. Possibly a mere formality, but it'll have to be done, you know, before he can be given a clear discharge. If he can't be proved guilty of ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... eyes he was an almost innocent man—the victim of an infamous conspiracy, in which she who, was his nearest and dearest had treacherously joined. After flattering him with false hopes, she had deserted him at the eleventh hour, and in a manner even more atrocious than the desertion itself. He knew, of course, that it was mainly owing to her evidence, to which he had looked for his preservation, that his ruin had been so complete and overwhelming; but what he hated her worst for was for that smile ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... for him was dead. His desertion of her must have finished the dissolution of their marriage. It had been cowardly—he should have faced her and declared what he was going to do and ...
— Second Sight • Basil Eugene Wells
... and could estimate the probability of their success. The golden bribe, which was in turn dandled before the eyes of all, had been always reserved for the most powerful, our friend. His secession and the consequent desertion of his relatives destroy the party for ever; while, at the same time, that party have not even the consolation of a good conscience to uphold them in their adversity; but feel that in case of their clamour, or of any attempt to stir up the people by their hollow patriotism, it is in the power ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... book, all hands, even the captain, will take off their hats and stand at attention. Then the war articles will be read to you. You will learn that there are twenty-seven or more offences for which you are liable to be shot—such as sleeping on post, desertion, disobedience, wilful waste of Government property, and so forth; you will be told that divine service is recommended whenever possible—in short, you are told that you must be good, and that if you are not there will be the deuce to pay. Then the captain will turn to 'Scully' and say, ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... words of repudiation which seal the whole after-character of his life, apparently escape from him unconsciously and by surprise. But it is the traitor-heart that speaks them. They could never even by surprise have escaped the lips, had not the baseness of their denial and desertion been already in the ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... from the parent-country, and abandoned to whatever destiny their conquerors chose to reserve for them; and if each of the race wore the sadness and strangeness of that fate in his countenance it would not be wonderful. Perhaps it is wonderful that none of them shows anything of the kind. In their desertion they have multiplied and prospered; they may have a national grief, but they hide it well; and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... name, which she would not even permit thee to inquire, is Happiness. Thou saidst the truth to her, that she is capricious for she imposeth conditions that man cannot fulfill, and delinquency is punished by desertion. She cometh only when unsought, and will not be questioned. One manifestation of curiosity, one sign of doubt, one expression of misgiving, and she is away! How long didst thou have her at any ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... a time, probably 557 B.C., was born Shaka, of the Muni clan, at Kapilavastu, one hundred miles northeast of Benares. We pass over the details[7] of the life of him called Prince, Lord, Lion of the Tribe of Shaka, and Saviour; of his desertion of wife and child, called the first Great Renunciation; of his struggles to obtain peace; of his enlightenment or Buddhahood; of his second or Greater Renunciation; of merit on account of austerities; and give the story told in a mountain of books in various tongues, but condensed in a ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... of him I heard him muttering, not to his dog as was his custom, but to himself. In fact, the dog was not to be seen, and this desertion on the part of his constant companion seemed to add to his disturbance and affect him beyond all reason. I could distinguish these words amongst the many he ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... of deliberate desertion or prolonged absence. If either husband or wife absent himself or herself from home and do not return within a year after, the other party having inserted in the official newspapers of the country an advertisement calling on him or ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... muttered. "I'll never show my face there again, even if they call it desertion, unless I can get to the Ghoorkha Colonel and tell him to ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... gloomy cypress-trees heavy with gray moss, the abandoned cotton-gins and disused negro quarters. As I did so a feeling of homesickness and depression came upon me, and my disgraceful failure at the Point, the loss of my grandfather, and my desertion of Beatrice, for so it began to seem to me, filled ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... Accordingly, under presence of seeking food, and such simples as might be efficacious in his malady, they deserted him and hastened forward upon the trail. They succeeded in overtaking the party of which they were in quest, but concealed their faithless desertion of Scott; alleging that he ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... under the joint presidency of Alexis Mazanoff and Nicholas Roburoff, who was exerting his great and well-proved administrative abilities to the utmost in order to atone for the fault which had led to the desertion of the Lucifer, and to amply justify the intercession of Natasha which had made it possible for him to be present at the last triumph of the Federation and the accomplishment of the long and patient work of the Brotherhood. There was an immense amount of work to be got ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... and Courtney, or any two of them, and to be the council referred to in our general orders, to determine all matters and things that may arise or be necessary for the general good daring the whole voyage. In case of the death, sickness, or desertion of any of the above officers in either ship, the rest who are of the council of that ship shall convene on board their own ship, and chose another fit person ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... radicalism, his kindly, convivial, gregarious life? He, again, did his work in a rapture of solitary creation, and seemed to have no taste for discussing his ideas or methods. Then, too, Dickens's later desertion of his work in favour of public readings and money-making is curious to note. He was like Shakespeare in this, that the passion of his later life seemed to be to realise an ideal of bourgeois prosperity. Dickens seems to have regarded ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... In the town the desertion of the 7th has had a very serious effect. The muttered cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" are open shouts now. General Marchand is at his wits' ends. He has ordered the closing of every city gate, and still the soldiers in batches of tens and twenties ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... pastures, which are literally covered with wild cattle, the produce of six cows and a bull which escaped from the colony about forty years ago. They were discovered by a runaway convict, who returned to the settlement and reported his discovery, for which they pardoned him his crime of desertion. After leaving the cow pastures, due north is the town of Windsor, the most productive place in the colony for grain of every description, which is brought to be shipped on the River Hawksborough, in small crafts for that purpose. Windsor is sixty miles from Sydney, and the river ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to India; of a Shipwreck on board the Lady Castlereagh; and a Description of New South Wales • W. B. Cramp |
