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Quest   Listen
noun
Quest  n.  
1.
The act of seeking, or looking after anything; attempt to find or obtain; search; pursuit; as, to rove in quest of game, of a lost child, of property, etc. "Upon an hard adventure yet in quest." "Cease your quest of love." "There ended was his quest, there ceased his care."
2.
Request; desire; solicitation. "Gad not abroad at every quest and call Of an untrained hope or passion."
3.
Those who make search or inquiry, taken collectively. "The senate hath sent about three several quests to search you out."
4.
Inquest; jury of inquest. "What lawful quest have given their verdict?"






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Quest" Quotes from Famous Books



... eyes fall upon my music paper, and at the same time your eyes turn to the crucifix. Ours is the same adventure, though a different breeze fills the sails, though the prows are set to a different horizon. God is our quest—you seek him in dogma, I ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... tone its energy down. I have read somewhere that an acute observer among the early explorers—Cook? or Tasman?—accepted this majestic swell as trustworthy circumstantial evidence that no important land lay to the southward, and so did not waste time on a useless quest in that direction, but changed his course and went ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... off and throwing an affable nod towards Godolphus who, having attracted no attention by flinging himself on the grass with a lolling tongue and every appearance of fatigue, was now filling up the time in quest of a flea. "No breed, but he has points. Where ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... of heavy glass at the side. This had been the bottom of their ship when they left. And he found in the heavens the object of their quest. Clear-cut and golden was half the circle; the rest glowed faintly in the airless void. He tried to realize the bewildering fact—the moon, this great globe that he saw, was rushing, as were they, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various

... the scout, "but it was not for me. Somehow I seem destined to find the way for others rather than to be able to enjoy much of quiet and rest myself. It was on the first day of May, 1769, that I left my family in quest of the country of Kantuckee. Five men travelled with me, all of us relying upon the reports of John Finley, one of our number, who had been trading with the Indians there. He averred that he had ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson

... English and foreign. They left her stimulated but unsatisfied. There were not enough good ones to keep her going. She worked through the Elizabethan dramatists and all the Vicar's Tudor Classics, and came on Jowett's Translations of the Platonic Dialogues by the way, and was lured on the quest of Ultimate Reality, and found that there was nothing like Thought to keep you from thinking. She took to metaphysics as you take to dram-drinking. She must have strong, heavy stuff that drugged her brain. And when she found that she could trust her intellect she ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair

... the ladies gone to the drawing room, when Florimel's maid, who knew Malcolm, came in quest of him. Lady Lossie desired ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... of those explosives of life come in my dying father's eyes, and here I stood at his command out on the ocean in quest of a woman's ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess

... keep in stock, and to send out when rejected literature pours forth like a waterfall from the dusky caverns of a publishing house in a large way of business. It was all over, then—I had failed! From that hour I would turn chess player, and soften my brain in a quest for silver cups or champion amateur stakes. I could play chess better than I could write fiction, I was sure. Still, after some days of dead despair, I sent the MS. once more on its travels—this time to Smith and Elder's, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... against the trunk and the other girls leaning against her and each other, and listened to the little I was able to tell them about Coronado and his search for the Seven Golden Cities. At school we were taught that he had not got so far north as Nebraska, but had given up his quest and turned back somewhere in Kansas. But Charley Harling and I had a strong belief that he had been along this very river. A farmer in the county north of ours, when he was breaking sod, had turned up a metal stirrup of fine workmanship, and a sword with a Spanish inscription on the ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather

... flotilla. Morgan prohibited every man from going alone to any distance; and even required that they should not make excursions in troops amounting to less than a hundred men. Famine, however, compelled the freebooters to infringe this prohibition. Six of them went out to some distance in quest of food; the event justified the foresight of their chieftain. They were attacked by a large body of Spaniards, and could not without very great difficulty regain the village: they had also the mortification to see one ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... the Government from a generous citizen of New York and placed under the command of an officer of the Navy to proceed to the Arctic Seas in quest of the British commander Sir John Franklin and his companions, in compliance with the act of Congress approved in May last, had when last heard from penetrated into a high northern latitude; but the success of this noble and humane enterprise ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Millard Fillmore • Millard Fillmore

... with exultation. He had succeeded in his quest, and once more Herbert was in his hands, or would be ...
— Helping Himself • Horatio Alger

... our just pretences armed, Fell with us from on high. From them I go This uncouth errand sole, and one for all Myself expose, with lonely steps to tread Th' unfounded Deep, and through the void immense To search, with wandering quest, a place foretold Should be—and, by concurring signs, ere now Created vast and round—a place of bliss In the purlieus of Heaven; and therein placed A race of upstart creatures, to supply Perhaps our vacant room, though more removed, Lest Heaven, surcharged ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... as to Governo, where, its quest Ended at last, it falls into me Po. But far it has not sought before a plain It finds and floods, out-creeping wide and slow To be the steaming summer's offense and bane. Here passing by, the fierce, unfriendly ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... the quest on which he had started and had keen satisfaction in the thought of what he ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson

... moon was at the full, I found the place; Out and out, across the seas of shining space, On a quest that could not fail, I unfurled my memory's sail And cast anchor in the Bay of ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... gratification. He found that it curtained a sort of steep natural stairway which was enclosed between narrow walls, and at once the ambition to be a discoverer seized him. Becky responded to his call, and they made a smoke-mark for future guidance, and started upon their quest. They wound this way and that, far down into the secret depths of the cave, made another mark, and branched off in search of novelties to tell the upper world about. In one place they found a spacious cavern, from whose ceiling depended a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... these was a sturdy middle-aged man—whose long white "pinner" was somewhat finer and cleaner than the wraps of the others, and whose jacket underneath had a presentable marketing aspect—the master-dairyman, of whom she was in quest, his double character as a working milker and butter maker here during six days, and on the seventh as a man in shining broad-cloth in his family pew at church, being so marked as to have inspired ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... at my classes or in quest of my new lodging; and though the hour of our customary walk hung miserably on my hands, I cannot say but I was happy on the whole to find my way cleared, the girl again in proper keeping, the father satisfied, or at least acquiescent, and myself free ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... plausible, and cunningly conceived; though not satisfactory to some. Only the unsuspicious are beguiled by it. However, it holds good for the time; and, so regarded, the searchers resume their quest. ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... which he had fought, simply because he had adopted the policy and principles which the conquering power had thrust into the fundamental law, and endeavored to carry them out in good faith. Like the fugitive from slavery in the olden time, he had started toward the North Pole on the quest for liberty. ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... a man? His idle thought has run all to seed, and grown false and the giver of falsities; the inner light of his mind is gone out; all his light is mere putridity and phosphorescence henceforth. Whosoever is in quest of ruin, let him with assurance follow that man; he or no one is on the right ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle

... had so long suffered in this quest, Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ So many times among "The Band"—to wit, The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed 40 Their steps—that just to fail as they, seemed best, And all the doubt was ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning

... wider than I knew Now that your face is gone! While you were here no destiny seemed boundless. So I am lost and find no clue To any dusk or dawn! Life has become a quest ...
— Many Gods • Cale Young Rice

... Her quest had taken Janice nearly two miles away from her quarters, and in returning with this wealth she was compelled to pass the length of the encampment. This brought her presently to a large tent, from which issued the sobs of a child, intermixed with complaints in French of cold and ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... Robin decided he would accept the theory that she had come about the van der Spyck letter. How like Mary, after all, he mused, self-willed, fearless, independent, to rush off to Holland on her own on a quest like this! Where would her investigations lead her? To the offices of Elias van der Spyck & Co., to be sure! Robin threw his napkin down on the table, thrust back his chair, and went off to the hotel porter to locate the ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine

... The quest became one of dread. They almost feared to find the little group. The wind had ceased to blow, but the air was cold. Gray ribbons of cloud were stretched across the sky. Desolation was everywhere—in the heavens, ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels

... they ceased to be a true picture of life, they continued in esteem as a school of manners and deportment for the fantastic gallantry of a court. Yet through them all their Christian origin shines. Their very themes bear witness to the teaching of Christian asceticism and Christian idealism. The quest of a lady never seen; the temptations that present themselves to a wandering knight under the disguise of beauty and ease;—these, and many other familiar romantic plots borrow their inspiration from ...
— Romance - Two Lectures • Walter Raleigh

... nowhere in positive terms conferred upon Congress to make laws to carry the stipulations of treaties into effect. It has been supposed to result from the duty of the national government to fulfil all the obligations of treaties." Ibid. 619. Story was here in quest of arguments to prove that Congress had power to enact a fugitive slave law, which he based on its power "to carry into effect rights expressly given and duties expressly enjoined" by the Constitution. Ibid. 618-619. But the treaty-making ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... Rushbrook to be with him was, that he might have an opportunity of communicating his secret through the village, which he did by calling at every cottage, and informing the women who were left at home, that Joey Rushbrook had disappeared last night, with his father's gun, and that he was about to go in quest of him. Some nodded and smiled, others shook their heads, some were not at all surprised at it, others thought that things could not ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat

... St. James was, as he had been for some weeks, all life, and fire, and excitement; and his eye was even now wandering round the room in quest of some consummate spirit whom he might ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli

... rise above this wild world's waves Like floating water-lily, towards heaven's light Opening its virgin snows, with golden eye Mirroring the golden sun; to be her champion, And war with fiends for her; that were a 'quest'; That were true chivalry; to bring my Judge This jewel for His crown; this noble soul, Worth thousand prudish clods of barren clay, Who mope for heaven because earth's grapes are sour— Her, full ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley

... of the boy chums' adventures on the schooner "Eager Quest," hunting for pearls among the Bahama Islands. Their hairbreadth escapes from the treacherous quicksands and dangerous waterspouts, and their rescue from the wicked wreckers are ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... had brought him good news. If only his death could save the colony, it had been indeed a welcome message. Not that he did not love life, but he was one of those souls to whom an ambition, a cause, a quest, is dearer than life. And because of its very weakness, its dependence upon him, the colony had come to be like a child he ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson

... very foundation of his existence. On the fifth day his cheeks suddenly appear hollow and sunken, his body attenuated, his color an ashy pale, and his eye wild, glassy, cannibalish. The different parts of the system now war with each other. The stomach calls upon the legs to go with it in quest of food: the legs, from very weakness, refuse. The sixth day brings with it increased suffering, although the pangs of hunger are lost in an overpowering languor and sickness. The head becomes giddy; the ghosts of well-remembered ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various

... Siang, in neither case opening his eyes widely when the hour for selecting arrived. Yet in what an unseemly manner is his respectful piety and courteous loyalty rewarded! To-day, before this person went forth on his usual quest, there came those bearing written papers by which they claimed, on the authority of Ping Siang, the whole of this person's flock, as a punishment and fine for his not contributing without warning to the ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah

... settlement, whence many Labradormen put out at this season for the northerly fishing. And while, sheltered from the rising wind, the kind men-folk of our harbor talked with my uncle and me on Eli Flack's stage, there came into the tickle from Topmast Harbor, in quest of water, a punt and a man, being bound, I think, for Jimmie Tick's Cove. 'Twas by him reported that a maid of gentle breeding had come alone in a punt to Topmast in the night. And her hair? says I. She had hair, and a wonderful sight of it, says he. And big, blue eyes? says I. She had ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan

... capricious girl. An anarchist at heart—as so many great artists are—Keats hated, with a furious hatred, any bastard claims and privileges that insolently intruded themselves between the godlike senses of Man and the divine madness of their quest. Society? the Public? Moral Opinion? Intellectual Fashion? The manners and customs of the Upper Classes? What were all these but vain impertinences, interrupting his desperate Pursuit? "Every gentleman" he cried "is my ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys

... bed you would have noticed it." Madame stretches out her feet and moves them about; she seems to be in quest of something. "I am not in such a hurry to go to sleep as you ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... lighted us. It could scarce be called a housewarming; for there was, of course, no fire, and with the two open doors and the open window gaping on the night, like breaches in a fortress, it began to grow rapidly chill. Talk ceased; nobody moved but the unhappy Chuchu, still in quest of sofa-cushions, who tumbled complainingly among the trunks. It required a certain happiness of disposition to look forward hopefully, from so dismal a beginning, across the brief hours of night, to the warm shining of ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... easy. Linda's devotion was touching. She perceived—though she hardly liked admitting it—that her husband missed the society of "that" Mr. Williams, in whom she, for one, never could see anything particularly striking, and who was now travelling abroad on a quest it would be indelicate to particularize, and one that in her opinion should have been taken up by a far older man, the father of a grown-up family. She strove to replace Williams as an intelligent companion in the Library and even in ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... me up in her delicate hand; and when I had told her my reason for coming out into the wide world, she promised me that perhaps on that very evening I should have one of the two treasures of which I was still in quest. She told me that Phantasus, the genius of imagination, was her very good friend, that he was beautiful as the god of love, and that he rested many an hour under the leafy boughs of the tree, which then rustled more strongly than ever over the pair of them. He called her his ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... on his hands and he did not desire to be at the cottage before the hour he had named. It was a hot midsummer day, and there seemed to be hardly a ripple on the waves. The tide was full in, and he sat for a while looking down upon the blue waters. What an ass had he made himself, coming thither in quest of adventures! He began to see now the meaning of such idleness of purpose as that to which he had looked for pleasure and excitement. Even the ocean itself and the very rocks had lost their charm for him. It was all one blaze of blue light, the sky ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope

... whole truth to the two old ladies; they gathered from her subdued manner that she had not been successful in her quest. ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... one of his ingenious and elegant essays, relates a story, in his own knowledge, of a gentleman's life being saved, who fell beneath the ice, by his dog's going in quest of assistance, and almost forcibly dragging ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... his quest for buried treasure. That which in the flush of youthful enthusiasm and roseate prospects of life and love had seized him as a passion was now a settled habit. And fortunately so, for it kept him from going mad. He had ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller

... the tower and made it quiver; No mortal hand that rope did pull— A dumb storm made it swing and shiver. It seemed to heave my throbbing breast, That heavenly storm with torrent blended: With wavering step, yet hopeful quest, Into the church my ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald

... as Kistayimoowin had no children of his own, this bright, active girl was always with him and his wife as they, Indianlike, moved from one hunting ground to another in quest of different kinds of game. As she was so quick and observant, her uncle had taught her many things about the habits and instincts of the different animals and the best method known for their ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young

... is to relax, and the artificial and elaborate stanza of Spenser costs us too much trouble, even in the reading, to accomplish this end. To effect this, the sense should come to us, instead of our going far and wide in quest of the sense. In our conception also, the heroic line of ten syllables, though favourable to the most dignified order of poetry, appears to limp when forced into the service of sonneteers: and poems ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney

... the moment they were out of the house, and Malcolm, satisfied of his well being for a couple of hours at least—he had been music starved so long, went also out, in quest of a little solitude. ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... further than this evidence was not for the observer, however curious he might be, unless, perchance, he was a member of "the Order." Clambering up the long nights of stairs that lead to the hall, on a Thursday evening, the party in quest of discovery would be not a little surprised at the class of men he would notice upon the march upward; he would involuntarily button up his pockets and keep as far distant from his fellow travelers as possible, for a more God-forsaken looking class of vagabonds ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer

... with a sudden gasp of dismay, as she bethought her that the child was indeed heiress to both realms after the young King of Scots. "But has there been no quest after her? Do they ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... him, it might have passed; for James Hound, the senior officer, was in the practice, when Robin was in that state, of reading the proclamations himself.—On this occasion, however, James happened to be absent on some hue and cry quest, and another of the officers (I forget which) was appointed to perform for him. Robin, accustomed to James, no sooner heard the other man begin to read, than he began to curse and swear at him as an incapable nincompoop—an ...
— The Provost • John Galt

... once a like pleasure in raking over an Indian shell-heap with Wyman. The quiet, amused amazement of the native who plied the spade for us was an odd contrast to Wyman's mood of deep interest and serious occupation. He had a boy's pleasure in the quest, and again displayed for me the most ready learning as to everything involved in the search. Bits of bones were named as I would name the letters of the alphabet: bone needles, fragments of pottery and odds and ends of nameless use went with a laugh or some ingenious comment ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various

... Gregory than I rode after to give her assistance. So long was the chase that when the greyhounds pulled down the knobbler, we were out of hearing of your bugles; and having rewarded and coupled the dogs, I gave them to be led by the jester, and we wandered in quest of our company, whom, it would seem, the sport had led in a different direction. At length, passing through the thicket where you found us, I was surprised by a cross-bow bolt whizzing past mine head. I drew my sword and rushed into the thicket, but was ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... believe you had better go on foot." With a polite bow and a smile he bade us adieu and was off, leaving us quite non-plussed. But the swift ride had driven refreshment and resolution into us. After some spirited passages with a few astounded sentries, we found ourselves in the city of our quest. ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams

... course he could not give Harry a part when be came of age. On the whole, therefore, Harry's plan of becoming a mechanic seemed not so bad a one after all. So permission was accorded, and our hero, with his little bundle of clothes, left the paternal roof, and went out in quest of employment. ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... in the quest was already far other than a merely professional one. The blood in my veins tingled at the thought of such a woman as Miss Lindon being in the power of such a monster. I may assuredly claim that throughout the whole business I was urged forward by no thought of fee or of reward. To have had a share ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... of a Colonel, as he calls himself, your Grace cannot even lay him on a quest which is to do you service, but you must do him such indignity at the same time, as he will not fail to remember, and be sure to fly at your throat should he ever have an opportunity ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... but that you still lived; so we set out to find you, dead or alive. After visiting many islands of the Nonestic Ocean we at last thought of Pingaree, from where come the precious pearls; and now our faithful quest has been rewarded." ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum

... are still looking through the reed huts in search of food, arms, anything portable. If during their quest they happen upon a terrified fugitive hoping for concealment, their delight knows no bounds, for have they not the enjoyment of privily spearing such, away ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... thirst in a stream of pure water. A Wolf, in quest of adventures, happened by, drawn ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... things I wanted much to see when I first traveled South was the famed live-oak, the majesty and the mournfulness of which had been long sung into me. Perhaps I expected too much, as I did of the palmetto, another part of my quest, but surely there was disappointment when I was led, on the banks of the Manatee River in Florida, to see a famous live-oak. It was tall and grand, but its adornment of long, trailing gray Spanish moss, which was to have attached the sadness to it, seemed merely to make it unkempt and uncomfortable. ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland

... tears in his eyes, "some assassins, who had formed the project of murdering the King, have inflicted several wounds on a garde-du-corps, who overheard them in a dark corridor; he is carried to the hospital; and as he has described the colour of these men's coats, the Police are in quest of them in all directions, and some people, dressed in clothes of that colour, are already arrested." I saw Madame with M. de Gontaut, and I hastened home. She found her door besieged by a multitude of people, and was alarmed: ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... utters a prayer for vengeance upon these Chandlers, and he parts from them. A time of destitution and of pitiful struggle with dire necessity, sleepless grief, and the maddening impulse of vengeance now comes upon him, so that he is wasted almost to death. He will not, however, abandon his quest for the secret of his art. He may die of hunger and wretchedness; he will not yield. At the last moment of his trial and his misery—alone—at night—in the alternate lurid blaze and murky gloom of his firing-house—success ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter

... of 1801, Laidlaw formed the acquaintance of Sir Walter Scott. In quest of materials for the third volume of the "Border Minstrelsy," Scott made an excursion into the vales of Ettrick and Yarrow; he was directed to Blackhouse by Leyden, who had been informed of young Laidlaw's zeal for the ancient ballad. The visit was an eventful one: Scott found ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... time the duke of Buckingham was under disgrace, for things of another nature, and being disengaged from any particular attachment in town, he and lord Rochester resolved, like Don Quixote of old, to set out in quest of adventures; and they met with some that will appear entertaining to our readers, which we shall give upon the authority of the author of Rochester's Life, prefixed to his works. Among many other adventures the ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber

... out in taking dreams for realities, and in pursuing its splendid visions. The essential element in the Celt's poetic life is the adventure—that is to say, the pursuit of the unknown, an endless quest after an object ever flying from desire. It was of this that St. Brandan dreamed, that Peredur sought with his mystic chivalry, that Knight Owen asked of his subterranean journeyings. This race desires the infinite, it thirsts for it, and pursues ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... belief in the great establishment whose behest he obeys—one of the last refuges in which mediaeval humility is to be found. As a part of the same habit of mind, Mr. Stanley shows a fine, literal, unquestioning championship of the object of his quest, Dr. Livingstone; but he seems to admire the doctor, after all, rather as an ornamental possession of the New York Herald. The great traveler's good-nature to Mr. Bennett, as a voluntary correspondent and coadjutor by brevet with the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various

... once more upon his feet, starting out upon his quest with renewed energy. He had scarcely taken a dozen steps, however, when he came face to face with Lady Hunterleys and Mr. Draconmeyer. Quite oblivious of the fact that they seemed inclined to avoid him, he greeted them both ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... weary quest through those twelve prisons of Paris. From the Temple to the Conciergerie, from Palais Cond to the Luxembourg, he spent hours in the ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... the general cry. "And, sir," begged one old man, "you'll hush up the 'crowner's 'quest—you and this gentleman here. You won't put us in jail, for taking to the ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... time-honored tree we continued on our sylvan research, in quest of another oak, of more ancient date and less flourishing condition. A ride of two or three miles, the latter part across open wastes, once clothed with forest, now bare and cheerless, brought us to the tree in question. It ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving

... Their quest was soon explained to the officer in charge, and two men were detailed to accompany them to the old mansion up on the Jerome ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield

... the doings of Dick, Tom, and Sam at dear old Putnam Hall, with many larks and sports; then out upon the broad Atlantic in a daring chase which came pretty close to ending in sad disaster; next into the interior of Africa on a quest of grave importance; and lastly out into the mountainous regions of the wild West, to locate a mining claim belonging to ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield

... hear [Str. 3. What slays with terror mine eyesight and seals mine ear? O fountains of streams everlasting, are all ye not shrunk up and withered for fear? Lo, night is arisen on the noon, and her hounds are in quest by day, [Ant. 3. And the world is fulfilled of the noise of them crying for their prey, And the sun's self stricken in heaven, and cast out of his course as a blind man astray. From east to west of the south sea-line [Str. 4. Glitters the lightning ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... shut your soul to hate. Stick to the chase until you get the trophy. Search for the Holy Grail until true love's untiring ministry the cup in your unselfish hand sparkles and flashes in the crimson and sapphire glory of your quest. Burst from your chrysalis of doubt and the Supreme wings of the Spirit shall sweep you forward to triumph. There is no gloom in God's universe except what we make ourselves. The skies sparkle with possibilities, calling you into their glowing fields of power and service. Get passion ...
— Supreme Personality • Delmer Eugene Croft

... so all the startled nations rose up to oppose it, this innovation of all that had been in the preceding centuries; but guided by that star, led on by the resolute courage, the steadfast integrity of Washington, our fathers went on and on in pursuit of this doctrine, in quest of this precious boon, on through blood and toil, on when the struggle seemed like the very madness of despair, on and on when hope seemed to have fled, but patriotism remained; on over trembling dynasties and crumbling ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... with our love? Is it a thing of the tent or of the sky? Does it range over mighty spaces seeking benedictions for a multitude? Or does it dwell in selfish seclusion, imprisoned in merely selfish quest? How is it with our prayers? How big are they? Will a tent contain them, or do they move with the scope and greatness of the heavens? Do they just contain our own families, or is China in them, and India, and "the uttermost parts of the earth"? "Look now towards the heavens!" ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett

... lawyer. Cromarty, originally a Lowland settlement, had had from the Reformation down till the latter quarter of the last century no Gaelic place of worship. On the breaking up of the feudal system, however, the Highlanders began to drop into the place in quest of employment; and George Ross, affected by their uncared-for religious condition, built for them, at his own expense, a chapel, and had influence enough to get an endowment for its minister from the Government. Government retained the patronage in its own hands; and as the Highlanders consisted ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... divine purpose of their souls until the world and its allurements, like a false pageant on a false stage, give way beneath them, and they fall helpless and alone. It is commonly only after repeated awful experiences, when worn out and exhausted by years of fruitless quest for peace and happiness and contentment, that men wake up to the simple fact that the treasures which they seek are not in the world, ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan

... a pilgrim swallow, and I roam Beyond strange seas, of other lands in quest, Leaving the well-known lakes and hills of home, And that dear roof where late I hung my nest; All things beloved and love's eternal woes I fly, an exile from my native shore: I cross the cliffs and woods, but with me goes The care I thought to abandon evermore. ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells

... is all, I have a servant who knows people in that part of the country, and who knows how to go about things: if you like, he shall go in quest of her." ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... young creature, a stranger like myself in a foreign land, who must be ill, since she had come in quest of health, and was doubtless sad, since she avoided the bustle and even the sight of company; but I felt no desire to see her spite of the admiration her grace and beauty had excited on those around me. My worn-out heart was wearied with wretched and short-lived attachments, ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine

... young Countess awoke next morning, and reviewed in her mind the chief event of the preceding day, remembering the reluctance of Father Ambrose to undertake the quest she had outlined without the consent of his overlord the Archbishop, a feeling of compunction swept over her. She berated her own selfishness, resolving to send her petition to her guardian, the Archbishop, and abide by ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... of Eurydice. But only a dubious reference to one adventure in the journey is quoted by Plutarch. Whatever the exact truth about the Orphic poems may be (the reader may pursue the hard and fruitless quest in Lobeck's 'Aglaophamus' {14}), it seems certain that the period between Pisistratus and Pericles, like the Alexandrian time, was a great age for literary forgeries. But of all these frauds the greatest (according ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang

... of truth can scarcely be overestimated, and the mind that earnestly seeks it becomes noble in its noble quest. If this can be said of truth in the abstract, and in its humbler manifestations, how omnipotent truth becomes in its grandest culmination and embodied in a being capable of inspiring our profoundest fear and deepest love. One may accept of religious forms and philosophies, and be little ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... but a confused view of the markings which they display; still a period of rotation of from ten to twelve hours appears to be accepted for them. On the other hand the constant blaze of sunlight in the neighbourhood of Mercury and Venus equally hampers astronomers in this quest. The older telescopic observers considered that the rotation periods of these two planets were about the same as that of the earth; but of recent years the opinion has been gaining ground that they ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage

... chance, to be formed between us. The position, therefore, was hopeless for Lupin. Fortunately, it ceased to be so if I resumed my identity as the Louis Valmeras that I had been from a child. It was then that I conceived the idea, as you refused to relinquish your quest and had found the Chateau de l'Aiguille, of profiting ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc

... scrutiny of human life and destiny is ever renewing in the human heart. No answer may have been found in them, but every spiritual mind must have so far met in the author of the ‘Pensées’ a kindred spirit which, if it has seen no farther than others, has yet entered keenly upon the great quest, and traversed with a singular boldness the great lines of higher speculation that “slope ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch

... Ayscough's Catal., Sloane MSS. BOSWELL.—Horace Walpole describes Birch as 'a worthy, good-natured soul, full of industry and activity, and running about like a young setting-dog in quest of anything, new or old, and with no parts, taste, or judgment.' Walpole's Letters, vii. 326. See post, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... impatient tread on the steep garret stairs that led to Mrs. Todd's chief place of storage. She went and came as if she had already started on her expedition with utmost haste and kept returning for something that was forgotten. When I appeared in quest of my breakfast, she would be absent-minded and sparing of speech, as if I had displeased her, and she was now, by main force of principle, holding herself back from ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett

... how great was our astonishment at the arrival of the Indian alone, on the 3d ultimo, and bringing news of James' escape from Mackinack. We felt a good deal alarmed for his safety on the way, and an Indian was sent down the river in quest of him; but we were relieved of our fears by the arrival of James himself on the following day, very much exhausted. I immediately sent to Dechaume to ask how he did, and learnt that his fatigue, &c., had not in the least abated his natural ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... the Enterprise, stating that some Archduke Ferdinand or other had been assassinated at a place bearing the weird name of Sarajevo, but Susan tarried not over uninteresting, immaterial stuff like that; she was in quest of something really vital. Oh, here it was—"Jottings from Glen St. Mary." Susan settled down keenly, reading each one over aloud to extract all ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... ever inconstant, and may be tired of dealing me favours, I would first ask as a boon a sight of your fair daughter and leave to hearken to her voice. After that I will delay no longer, but proceed on my quest.' ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various

... seasoned varlet, that he delights in mischief for the sake of it: no bribe could seduce him to betray his trust, were there but wickedness in it!—'Tis well, however, he was out of my way when the cursed news was imparted to me!—Gone, the villain! in quest of her: not to return, nor to see my face [so it seems he declared] till he has heard some tidings of her; and all the out-of-place varlets of his numerous acquaintance are summoned and employed in ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... affair had terminated, the Goths, being uncertain what next to do, went in quest of Frigeridus, with the resolution to destroy him wherever they could find him, as a formidable obstacle to their success; and having rested for a while to refresh themselves with sleep and better food than usual, they then pursued him like so many wild beasts, having ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... over sharp rocks and through miniature canyons, they gained at last the object of their quest. The distance had been further than ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin

... stomach from his competitor. O So. My dear sir, it is not the things' intrinsic value that we look at. They are the symbols of victory, labels of the winners; it is the fame attaching to them that is worth any price to their holders; that is why the man whose quest of honour leads through toil is content to take his kicks. No toil, no honour; he who covets that must start with enduring hardship; when he has done that, he may begin to look for the pleasure and profit his labours are ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata

... broken-lipp'd Sphynx in Egypt, silent all those century- baffling tombs, Ended for aye the epics of Asia's, Europe's helmeted warriors, ended the primitive call of the muses, Calliope's call forever closed, Clio, Melpomene, Thalia dead, Ended the stately rhythmus of Una and Oriana, ended the quest of the holy Graal, Jerusalem a handful of ashes blown by the wind, extinct, The Crusaders' streams of shadowy midnight troops sped with the sunrise, Amadis, Tancred, utterly gone, Charlemagne, Roland, Oliver gone, Palmerin, ogre, departed, vanish'd the turrets that Usk from its waters ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... bedrooms; but how was he to ascertain, without the tedious process of knocking and inquiring at each door, which was the one assigned to Mr. Peters? It was too late to go back and ask the butler for further guidance; already he was on his way to the cellar in quest of the ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... affairs, but as responsible to our supreme authority for your safety. No correspondence should pass from your household unscrutinised; and if there be such correspondence, I must ask you to place in my hand, for the purpose of our quest, not any message, but some of the slips on which messages have been written. This may probably furnish precisely that tangible means of relation with some one acquainted with the conspiracy for which we ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... Zeus the Watcher of Friend and Friend, Zeus who Prevaileth, in after quest For One Beloved by Many Men On Paris sent the Atreidae twain; Yea, sent him dances before the end For his bridal cheer, Wrestlings heavy and limbs forespent For Greek and Trojan, the knee earth-bent, The bloody dust and the broken spear. He knoweth, ...
— Agamemnon • Aeschylus

... and tipped Miller, Jimmy set about the quest at once, and determined to take the bull by the horns. He would go to Grandison Square in the first place, see Colonel Faversham, and ascertain beyond a doubt that the coast was clear. Colonel Faversham, too, ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb

... appearances outside are few and far between. During three years of assiduous observation, in the privacy of my study, I have not once seen her explore the domain of the wire cage by day. Not until a late hour at night does she venture forth in quest of victuals; and it is hardly feasible to follow her on ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... a supper sitting there," commented Patch, setting off himself in quest of a more ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... exhibit the highest type of social response in the recognition of impersonal evil, in the quest of knowledge, or in free discussion. Almost two centuries of dogma-worship, with its contemplation of selected facts, has made it now impossible to secure from one thoroughly socialized in the spirit of the place the exact truth upon any matter. It seems to be ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson

... again, swallowed up in the jostling throng. The theatre was in an uproar: all was noise and bustle and movement. And the wide lobby, when at length he reached it, was no better; it looked scarcely more promising to his quest than the traditional haystack to the searcher ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... general a notion of the work as can be conveyed by a few extracts. To those among our readers who may be in quest of such a book, we can decidedly recommend it as one that is certain to be useful. It is by far the best of the kind that we have ever happened to meet with; and we think that if it were universally studied and consulted, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various

... and the street lamps were lit, I continued my search, my taxi-driver having entered into the spirit of my quest, and from time to time suggesting other and more obscure hotels of which ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux

... the right steps to take and, thanking Miss Randall with a curious humility, went out again on his quest. ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks

... brows with the gems they plucked from hers. And when conquered Nature had laid her hoards at their feet, their restless longings would not be satisfied. Brave young spirits, with the dew of their youth fresh upon them, set out in quest of a land beyond their ken. Over the mountains, across the seas, through the forests, there came to the ear of the dreaming girl the measured tramp of marching men, the softer footfalls of loving women, the pattering ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... thee by my side; Give o'er thy doomsday quest." "Have done, have done!" the Pilgrim cried: "The light wanes in the west. The road is long, but I shall not tire; I will lay my bones, God send, By the beautiful City of Heart's Desire, ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor

... her as she endeavored by the failing moonlight to make out the path the marquis must have taken; an obstinate quest without reward, for the dead silence about her was sufficient proof of the withdrawal of the Chouans and their leader. This effort of passion collapsed with the hope that inspired it. Finding herself alone, after nightfall, in a hostile country, she began ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac

... accompany you, the truths intended to be inculcated will receive further confirmation from facts and arguments hitherto unnoticed. If the road over which you will still have to pass should in some places appear to you tedious or irksome, you will recollect that you are in quest of information on a subject the most momentous which can engage the attention of a free people, that the field through which you have to travel is in itself spacious, and that the difficulties of the ...
— The Federalist Papers

... natives of the country—perhaps the most miserable beings on the face of the earth, as they are certainly the lowest in the scale of intellect of all the savage tribes that wander on its surface—used to come occasionally about our farm, in quest of a morsel of food. Amongst these were frequently women with infants on their backs. If my master was out of the way when any of these poor creatures came about the house, his wife, who was a good sort of woman, used to relieve them; and so did we, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various

... sometimes embarrassing luxury. Nevertheless, when September brought budding spikes of horns and a strange new restlessness to the stalwart youngster, and the first full moon of October lured him one night away from the farm on a quest which he could but blindly follow, Jabe ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... a hopeless quest, With hell and hatred in his breast, A stranger, who his love confessed To ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various

... up suddenly from his seat in the rough shelter made with pine-boughs, where they had been now for some days, while they tried the banks of a tiny creek, one of many which they had followed to their sources in their daring quest. "This is no time for idle talk; which is it to be? Shall we retreat at once, and try to get back to the main river, where we may find help, and perhaps save our ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn

... houses, once used by lime-burners, with a great barge wrecked upon the beach. At the small, characterless Indiana village of Leavenworth (658 miles), I sought a traveling photographer, of whom I had been told at Brandenburg. My quest was for a dark-room where I might recharge my exhausted kodak; but the man of plates had packed up his tent and moved on—I would no doubt find him in Alton, Ind., ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites

... bodies drawn, Are mingled and confounded. Then, far spent, Our eyes will close to undisturbed rest. For that desired thing I leave you now. To pinnacle this day's accomplishment, By telling Grootver that a bootless quest Is his, and that his schemes have ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell

... of a life-time is herein humbly dedicated with supreme reverence to the great sages of India, who, for the first time in history, formulated the true principles of freedom and devoted themselves to the holy quest of truth and the final assessment and discovery of the ultimate spiritual essence of man through their concrete lives, critical ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... the globe. Mosquitoes swarm not merely in the swampy forests of the Orinoco or the Irrawaddy, but in the Tundras of Siberia, en the storm-beaten rocks of the Loffodens, and are even encountered by voyagers in quest of the North Pole. The common house fly was probably at one time peculiar to the Eastern Continent, but it followed the footsteps of the Pilgrim Fathers, and is now as great a nuisance in the United Slates and the Dominion as in any part ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various

... tumult ceased; the earth became stable. With other ruined and curious men he climbed over the heaps of desolation in quest of what once was his home, and the depository of his property. His servant was nowhere to be seen: Thompson felt that he must certainly have been killed. After many days' quest, and many uncertainties, he ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... his way. There is no country in which policies have been so haphazard and unstable, or ways of administration so crude and so empirical, as in the United States. "Go forth, my son," said Oxenstiern, "go forth and see with how little wisdom the world is governed"; and on such a quest, it is doubtful if any civilised country has offered a more promising field for consideration than did the United States from, say, the close of the Civil War to less than a decade ago. All thinking Americans recognise ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... to assume that at the outset the main motive of this industrial invasion was the quest of commercial profit. Subconsciously political objects may have been vaguely present to the minds of these pioneers, as indeed they have ever been to the various categories of German emigrants in every land, European and other. But in the first instance the creation ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... himself strong enough to move; so he rose and opening the trap-door, crept out fearfully; and God protected him, so that he went on in the darkness and hid himself in the vestibule till the morning, when he saw the cursed old woman sally forth in quest of other prey. So he went out after her, without her knowledge, and made for his own house, where he dressed his wounds and tended himself till he was whole. Meanwhile he kept a watch upon the old woman and saw her accost one man after another and carry them to the house. However, he said ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous

... began one of the strangest quests ever undertaken, even in this transitional period of matrimony as an institution—a quest so strange that it would seem impossible if it had not actually happened. Jim and Charity hunted a preacher ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... work was not actually completed until 1846. There are numerous references in Borrow's letters of this period to the book on which he was then engaged, and he invariably refers to it as his Life. On 21st January 1843 he writes to John Murray, Junr.: "I meditate shortly a return to Barbary in quest of the Witch Hamlet, and my adventures in the land of wonders will serve capitally to fill the thin volume of My Life, a Drama, By G. B." Again and again Borrow refers to My Life. Hasfeldt and Ford also wrote of it as the ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... absorbed into some adjoining dignitary of the Church, and Pierston was left to pursue his quest alone. A young friend of his—the Lady Mabella Buttermead, who appeared in a cloud of muslin and was going on to a ball—had been brought against him by the tide. A warm-hearted, emotional girl was Lady Mabella, who laughed at the humorousness of being alive. She ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy



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