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Volunteer   Listen
verb
Volunteer  v. t.  (past & past part. volunteered; pres. part. volunteering)  To offer or bestow voluntarily, or without solicitation or compulsion; as, to volunteer one's services.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Volunteer" Quotes from Famous Books



... proverb (a fable constructed so as to give a ludicrous verification or contradiction to an old saying), was amusing. I thought I had some obscure recollection of a face amongst the female performers, and learned afterwards, that it was one of the maids of the inn; a lively brisk girl, and a volunteer, from her love of the drama. In this period of war between England and France, Calais has not the honour of a dramatic corps to herself, but occasionally participates in one belonging to ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney

... go back across America, as they say one may die of boredom in the Volunteer Fleet; it's all military discipline and red tape regulations, and they don't often touch at ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... was a volunteer officer in the Union army throughout the war of the Great Rebellion, and his service was in ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... extending the system to Scotland was suggested (sic), ministers were afraid to arm the people.' 'It is curious,' he continues, 'that for a reason almost identical Ireland has been excepted from the Volunteer organisation of a century later. It was not until 1793 that the Militia Acts ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... at 2 A.M. on the morning of the 27th. We reached the Lower Cascades early in the day, where, selecting a favorable place for the purpose, I disembarked my men and gun on the north bank of the river, so that I could send back the steamboat to bring up any volunteer assistance that in the mean time might have ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan

... be able to describe, or at least to mention, the favourite machine of the American aviators who flocked to France immediately upon the declaration of war, but the mortifying fact is that having no airplanes of our own, our gallant volunteer soldiers of the air had to be equipped throughout by the French with machines of their favourite types. After we entered the war we adopted a 'plane of American design to which was given the name ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

... I hold you a party to these crimes. You, YOU are the brutal old man who would flog virgins into prostitution. You approve the system; you volunteer your best varnish in its commendation; and this is an inseparable and legal part of it. Legal, I say,—legal, and not destructive of respectability. That is the point. In ordering such lashes, that ancient miscreant (for old he already was) neither ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... to treaty arrangements, and attended with much difficulty, especially for some time after the battle of Muddy Flat, in which an Anglo-American contingent of about three hundred marines and seamen, with a volunteer corps of less than a hundred residents, attacked the Imperial camp, and drove away from thirty to fifty thousand Chinese soldiers, the range of our shot and shell making the native artillery useless. Still, in the autumn of 1854 a journey of perhaps a week's duration was safely ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor

... we were collecting for a hospital ship to be the gift of Canadian women. The message was read out in church one afternoon, and volunteer collectors were asked for. So successful were these collectors all over Canada that in a few days word came to us that enough money had been raised, and that all moneys collected then could be given to the Belgian Relief Fund. The ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung

... quite uncivil of Little Ugly if she does not volunteer to arrange my share of the booty I am bringing, now that I have almost broken my neck, and quite my cane, to obtain it." This I said to myself, as I came into the house by the kitchen entrance, and proceeded to deposit my ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various

... for a few days before that the same policeman had arrested a man by flinging him halfway across the street into the mud. It was only a tramp. His witnesses, being poor people, dared not volunteer to give evidence on his behalf, and would not have been believed had they done so. He was sentenced to fourteen days: drunk and incapable, abusive moreover. A drunkard cannot legally be arrested unless he is also incapable or disorderly. It used ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds

... I asked Lancelot impatiently. Could we not make a sortie and destroy the boats that lay down there all undefended? But Lancelot shook his head. The way to the sea was doubtless covered by our enemies in the wood. We should only volunteer for targets if we attempted to stir outside our stockade. There was nothing for ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... you have got a mighty pretty piece o' country here, and good crops, too—which is a credit to you, seeing that the conscription has in and about drafted all the able-bodied mountaineers that wouldn't volunteer—damn 'em! But I swear by the right hand of Jehovah, I'll burn every cabin in the Cove an' every blade o' forage in the fields if you don't produce the man who guided Tol-hurst's cavalry out'n the trap I'd chased 'em into, or give me a true and satisfactory account of him." He raised ...
— The Raid Of The Guerilla - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... destiny of France to work out all sorts of problems in state and social policy. It may be said to volunteer experiments in government for the benefit of mankind. All kinds of forms it tries, one after the other: each, in turn, is supposed to be the right thing; and when found to be wrong, an effort, fair ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various

... hopes of future prosperity. Nor was he exclusively interested in England, though all his best hopes were ours. When he had been a lad at Oxford he had broken away from his studies in 1569 to help the Protestant princes as a gentleman volunteer in France, and he took part in the famous battle of Jarnac. He is supposed to have fought in France for six years. From early youth his mind was "bent on military glory," and always in opposition to Spain. His escape from the bloody Vespers of Saint Bartholomew ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... Neither the President nor the War Department could obtain specific knowledge of the officers in command except through associates and subordinates unless they trusted to newspapers and casual visitors to the army. The struggle was a desperate one and the volunteer army was composed of men who were citizens before they were soldiers and they remained citizens when they became soldiers. Garfield was of the citizen soldiery and to him and to the country the etiquette of the army and the etiquette of society were subordinate to the fortunes of ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell

... the "most ancient and honorable" of the organizations of the village is the volunteer fire company. The fire company makes an appeal to the spirit of adventure and heroism common to all red-blooded young men and furnishes something of Professor William James' "moral equivalent of war." Its drills, exhibits and competitions ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson

... bells were even not allowed to be struck. There we lay, like a log on the water, or, as Jenkins said, like a boa-constrictor ready to spring on its prey. Besides the regular look-outs, we had plenty of volunteer eyes peering into the darkness, in hopes of distinguishing an unsuspecting slaver. We of course kept the lead at the bottom, to mark the direction we were driving; but we did not move much, as the send of the sea on ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston

... intention of sobering up before he "took the bloody, hog-bellied cow-puncher apart, providin' the latter showed." This suited Mormon, who wanted fairly to whip a live opponent, not fight a staggering drunkard. But they could not find him. They had several volunteer assistants who proved ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... very near the other world, having entered as a volunteer in the Russian army that crossed the Balkan in 1828. I burned a mosque in defiance of the orders of Marshal Diebitch; the consequence was that I was tried by a court-martial, and condemned to be shot: but on putting in a petition, and stating that ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton

... them. This borrowing and refurbishing of shop-worn goods, as a matter of fact, is the invariable habit of traders in ideas, at all times and everywhere. It is not, however, that all the conceivable human notions have been thought out; it is simply, to be quite honest, that the sort of men who volunteer to think out new ones seldom, if ever, have wind enough for a full day's work. The most they can ever accomplish in the way of genuine originality is an occasional brilliant spurt, and half a dozen such spurts, particularly ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... "Fire!" rang out upon the night air, startling Dan Jordan and Teola Graves. The volunteer fire companies were gathering from all parts of the town, and Dan stepped on to the Rectory veranda as a hose-cart rolled by. In an instant he was ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... missionaries, cannot realize the change that has taken place. In 1830 Southey again wrote: "Thirty years hence another reproach may also be effaced, and England may have her Sisters of Charity." He had learned to know their value when serving as a volunteer in Wellington's army, and a year after the battle of Waterloo he had visited the Beguines at Ghent, and what he saw deeply impressed him. "We should have such women among us," he said. "It is a great loss to England that we have no Sisters of Charity. There is nothing Romish, ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft

... could not have a better opportunity. It was a heavy task, and all hands were set to work upon it, the steerage passengers—ay, and some of the gentlemen in the saloon also—so far identifying their own interests with that of the ship as to volunteer their services in the pulling and hauling part of the work, which enabled the skipper to send two strong gangs aloft. But it was all of no use—just then, at least. The fact was that the older suit of canvas was not nearly so unserviceable as Captain Spence chose ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood

... getting uproarious and impatient of volunteer effort to humble Darrell's challenge. It wanted the best, and at once. It began, with increasing ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White

... as though he expected her to volunteer some reply. But she merely eyed him with a ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... been helping the French for years past, We may thus make them useful to England at last. Castlereagh in our sieges might save some disgraces, Being used to the taking and keeping of places; And Volunteer Canning, still ready for joining, Might show off his talent for sly under-mining. Could the Household but spare us its glory and pride, Old Headfort at horn-works again might be tried, And as Chief Justice make a bold charge at his side: While Vansittart could victual the troops ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... a thrilling sound at any time, and especially to a company of boys newly enlisted in the great cause of humanity—of lending a hand to neighbors who might be in trouble. So after several more clear, resounding strokes had pealed forth, calling the volunteer department out to fight the fire demon, one scout started wildly for the double doors ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren

... The hubbub of my volunteer attendants brought the eyes of the company round to me. In a second it seemed every man was on his feet. I could only pray that Laputa would get to me before his friends had time to spear me. I remember I fixed ...
— Prester John • John Buchan

... the national debt at this time amounted to one hundred and fifty million dollars. Yet the Treasury paid this, together with the expenses of government, and reduced the debt seventy-one million dollars before the volunteer army had ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye

... combined education with observation in the field. The younger portion of the party consisted of several of his special pupils, and a few other Harvard students who joined the expedition from general interest. Beside these, there were several volunteer members, who were either naturalists or had been attracted to the undertaking by their love of nature and travel. Their object was the examination of the eastern and northern shores of Lake Superior from Sault Ste. Marie to Fort William, ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... unusual man, and was able to persuade him to go home with me. In a week he was a new man, clothed and in his right mind. He became librarian of a big church library, and our volunteer organist at all the ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine

... too much about poker. All his seniors in grade, except the West Pointers graduated in '65, had brevets for war service, and Nevins' sponsor was appealed to to rectify the omission in the lieutenant's case. Nevins had held a commission in a volunteer regiment in the defenses of Washington the last few months of the war, and that was found amply sufficient, when a prominent member of the committee on military affairs demanded it, to warrant the bestowal of a brevet for "gallant and meritorious services." Hence ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King

... to enlistments under the "act authorizing the President of the United States to accept and organize certain volunteer military ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 10. • James D. Richardson

... the pastor become well acquainted with them and at first merely suggest—in their class session or when he has them in his study or home—what other boys have done in clubs of their own. He need not volunteer to provide such a club, but merely indicate his willingness to help if they are interested and prepared to work for it. If the boys respond, as they undoubtedly will, then the pastor will need to find a few ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben

... was born at Rothbury, in Northumberland, educated at Cambridge, made minor canon at Carlisle, but resigned it in disgust, living in obscurity in that city several years, till the Rebellion of 1745, when he acted as a volunteer at the siege of the Castle, and behaved with great intrepidity. His publication of an "Essay on Satire," on the death of Pope, led to his acquaintance with Warburton, who helped him to the rectory of Horksley, near Colchester; but he quarrelled with his patron, as he afterwards quarrelled with ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... it wasn't wholly a joke. If we were really cooped up with an epidemic, I'd volunteer. What else would there ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... dangerous to the full success of his vengeance to allow her to be at large—to appear, perhaps, as a witness—to avow the manner in which the sense of Glaucus had been darkened, and thus win indulgence to the crime of which he was accused—how much more was she likely to volunteer her testimony when she herself had administered the draught, and, inspired by love, would be only anxious, at any expense of shame, to retrieve her error and preserve her beloved? Besides, how unworthy of the rank ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... so far from absenting herself from what, as in the case of well founded apprehension of a riot, must have been, to a woman, a post of some unpleasantness, she is remembered to have been one of the most punctual in attendance, and the most forward volunteer in actual duty, in that division. We understand that she is no longer a special constable, because she did not, on the last annual special session, held for that purpose at the New Bailey, present herself to be resworn. She was ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton

... floundering to the ground. There was a wild outbreak of anger below, and the mob swarmed in from all around, and there we were treed, and prisoners. Another man started up; the bridging bough was detected, and a volunteer started up the tree that furnished the bridge. The king ordered me to play Horatius and keep the bridge. For a while the enemy came thick and fast; but no matter, the head man of each procession always got a buffet that dislodged him as soon as he came in reach. The king's spirits ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... A new vision opened before me. I saw another capitol rise on the bank of the Cumberland, overshadowing the tomb of Polk and close by the Hermitage where reposes the sacred dust of Andrew Jackson. And I thought if I could only reach the exalted position of Governor of the old "Volunteer State" I would then have gained the sum of life's honors and happiness. But lo! another son of my father and mother was dreaming there under the same old sycamore. We had dreamed together in the same trundle-bed and often ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor

... Cape had improved in quality, but as they had been appreciated by the natives, there were few to be got. Burney, on the other hand, declares that nothing could be heard of the pigs and fowls that had been left. Omai was anxious to take a New Zealander away with him, and soon found one to volunteer. It was explained that he must make up his mind that he would not be able to return, and as he seemed satisfied he and a boy were taken. When they were seasick they deeply and loudly lamented leaving their home, but on recovery they soon became "as firmly attached to us as if they ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson

... long enough, I dream of a vast material power fitting me to wipe poverty from the world; I plan it out in splendid generalities, sometimes in minute detail. . . . Of men, we naturally dream; but vaguely, in a curious and confused way. . . . Once, when I was fourteen, I saw a volunteer regiment passing; and it halted for a while in front of our house; and a brilliant being on a black horse turned lazily in his saddle and glanced up at our window. . . . Captain Selwyn, it is quite useless for you to imagine what fairy scenes, what wondrous ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... Braddock, hearing of the young Virginian's past experience, offered him a place on his staff with the rank of colonel where he would be subject only to the orders of the general, and could serve as a volunteer. He therefore accepted at once, and threw himself into his new duties with hearty good-will. Every step now was full of instruction. At Annapolis he met the governors of the other colonies, and was interested and attracted by this association with distinguished public ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge

... And they deserved homage, those fine, upstanding men, many of them hardly more than boys, marching along with a fine, full swing. There is something magnificent, a contagion of enthusiasm, in the sight of a great volunteer army. The North and the South knew the thrill during our own great war. Conscription may form a great and admirable machine, but it differs from the trained army of volunteers as a body differs from a soul. But it costs a country heavy in griefs, does ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... News, whom he had met by chance in Washington Square, had informed him of Smith's new position and of the renaissance of Peaceful Moments, and he had hurried to the office to present himself as an unskilled but willing volunteer to the cause. Inspection of the current number of the paper had convinced him that the Peaceful Moments atmosphere, if it could not ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse

... throughout the United States presents an insurmountable obstacle to an efficient arrangement by the classification heretofore proposed, and I invite your attention to the plan which will be submitted by the Secretary of War, for the organization of volunteer corps and the instruction of militia officers, as more simple and practicable, if not equally advantageous, as a general arrangement of the whole militia of the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson

... by their writers, you could not have laughed without a feeling of tears, or felt the tears without smiling. Many a chap's epistle was scrawled, many a one even rhymed, in a rifle-pit with the enemy's shells bursting over. Many a one was feebly dictated to some blessed, unskilled volunteer nurse in a barn or smoke-house or in some cannon-shattered church. From the like of that who with a woman's heart could withhold reply? Yes, Anna and Hilary were ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... and went to service, the supervision continued until the age of 18 was reached. For nearly 14 years, from 1872 to 1886, the Boarding-out Society pursued its modest labours as auxiliary to the Destitute Board. Our volunteer visitors reported in duplicate—one copy for the official board, and one for the unofficial committee. When the method was inaugurated, Mr. T. S. Reed. Chairman of the Board, was completely won over. ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence

... exasperated, and resolved that the Indians should feel the weight of their vengeance. Colonel Bowman, in accordance with a custom of the times, issued a call, inviting all the Kentuckians who were willing to volunteer under his leadership for the chastisement of the Indians, to rendezvous at Harrodsburg. Three hundred determined men soon assembled. The expedition moved in the month of July, and commenced the ascent of the Little Miami undiscovered. ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott

... may hereafter take high rank as a cartoonist. Mr. Charles Keene, a selection from whose sketches has recently been issued under the title of "Our People," is unrivalled in certain bourgeois, military, and provincial types. No one can draw a volunteer, a monthly nurse, a Scotchman, an "ancient mariner" of the watering-place species, with such absolutely humorous verisimilitude. Personages, too, in whose eyes—to use Mr. Swiveller's euphemism—"the sun has shone too strongly," find in Mr. Keene ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang

... special privilege which the God had obtained, in true Satyric style, by making the Three Fates drunk and cajoling them. This was that, when his appointed time for death came, he might escape if he could find some volunteer to die for him. His father and mother, from whom the service might have been expected, refused to perform it. His wife, Alcestis, though no blood relation, handsomely undertook it and died. But it so happened that Admetus had ...
— Alcestis • Euripides

... scarcely left his side since the boy took the flag; he would permit no one else to wait upon him at table, and his eyes followed him as he moved among the gay crowd, with a glance of the utmost pride and affection. The old volunteer seemed to feel that the heart of a soldier beat beneath the little dandy ruffled shirt and gold-laced jacket of the young Colonel. Suddenly, the boy snatches up again the regimental colors; the ...
— Red, White, Blue Socks. Part Second - Being the Second Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow

... rowan-bush to aid concealment, succeed in bringing the sports-man within two hundred yards of his unconscious game, it is a good day's performance. How, the dun deer's hide once perforated, the "tail" of game-keepers, beaters and volunteer hangers-on is gathered up, the comforting toothfu' of usquebaugh absorbed by the toilers of the brae, the victim "gralloched" and suspended across the inevitable gray Highland pony that makes such a capital "first light" for the foreground, and the line of triumphant march taken up for hunting-box, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... trouble Captain Cornelius Clas "went about sowing heretical tares amidst the true corn of the Gospel;" amongst other damnable doctrines and subtleties, this nautical and volunteer theologian persuaded the blacks, whom he knew to be desirous of greater liberty in such matters, that baptism is the only sacrament necessary to salvation, because it takes away original sin, as the blood of the Saviour actual sin. He furthermore (impudently) disowned the real presence ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... younger Boers in the Cape Colony and Natal had shown a singular ardour in joining the several volunteer corps. They were equipped with uniforms and best weapons, were drilled into efficiency, received pay, and all went on well until the oath of allegiance was to be tendered. This they refused, preferring to resign and to provide arms from other sources—Mauser rifles ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas

... were unfounded; but to this proceeding Mr. Hastings objected, on the ground that the Begums themselves had not called for such interference in their favor, and that it was inconsistent with the "Majesty of Justice" to condescend to volunteer her services. The pompous and Jesuitical style in which this singular doctrine [Footnote: "If nothing (says Mr. Mill) remained to stain the reputation of Mr. Hastings but the principles avowed in this singular pleading, his character, among the friends of justice, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... old monks, stripping a modern professor; on another, there was sad devastation carried into the ranks of modern dramatic writers. Beaumont and Fletcher, side by side, raged round the field like Castor and Pollux, and sturdy Ben Jonson enacted more wonders than when a volunteer with the army in Flanders. As to the dapper little compiler of farragos mentioned some time since, he had arrayed himself in as many patches and colors as harlequin, and there was as fierce a contention of claimants about him, as about the dead body of Patroclus. I was grieved to see many men, to ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... well worth while, and I took my regulation "Webley"—a relic of my old Volunteer captaincy. Then, by way of the underground railway, I gained the neighbourhood of Mile End, and interested myself about its back streets till the time approached to look for ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison

... sympathizes with them, and will help them; and as to the French—why, Boney, though an emperor, is still a democrat to his heart's core, and, I have no doubt, would give a warm reception to a fighting volunteer." ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... shelter, is yet a matter of some doubt. But one great presumption against it, founded on its desperate imprudence, as attacking the people in their primary comforts, is considerably weakened by the enormous servility of the Romans in the case just stated: they who could volunteer congratulations to a son for butchering his mother, (no matter on what pretended suspicions,) might reasonably be supposed incapable of any resistance which required courage even in a case of self-defence, or of just revenge. The direct reasons, however, for implicating ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... arrived. I took down my long magazine Lee Enfield and my cartridge (I am not a Volunteer for nothing) and crept ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various

... arms. These were times when a man who shouldered his musket did not know but he bared his bosom to receive a death-wound from the enemy ere he laid it aside; and in these times these people were found as ready and as willing to volunteer in your service as any other. They were not compelled to go; they were not drafted. No; your pride had placed them beyond your compulsory power. But there was no necessity for its exercise; they were ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... The Three Palaces.—Published originally on a similar occasion to the last story, in "A Volunteer Haversack," an extensive repertory of miscellaneous contributions in prose and verse, printed and sold at Edinburgh for a ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... to find a dozen men you can trust to volunteer to row the boats to put them on board. And you must be sure to take the boat in which they are to the lugger we ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty

... privately have so much regret in a certain event—which seems to be reckoned possible, and to depend on one gentleman of the seven—that, to secure my own conscience in the matter, a few plainer words seem needful. To whatever I have said of you already, therefore, I now volunteer to add, that I think you not only the one man in Britain capable of bringing Metaphysical Philosophy, in the ultimate, German or European, and highest actual form of it, distinctly home to the understanding ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle

... depose to Mr. Pickwick's midnight invasion. Mr. Pickwick himself might have been called and put on the rack, this incident not concerning his breach of promise. And supposing that the ubiquitous Jingle had heard of this business and had gone to the solicitor's office to volunteer evidence, and most useful evidence it would have been—to wit that Mr. Pickwick had been caught in the garden of a young ladies' school and had alarmed the house by his attempts to gain admission in the small hours! Jingle of course, could not be permitted to testify to this, but ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald

... Brigade, formerly the 1st London Volunteer Rifle Corps (City of London Rifle Volunteer Brigade), and now, officially, the 5th (City of London) Battalion, The London Regiment, London Rifle Brigade, familiarly known to its members and the public generally by the sub-title ...
— Short History of the London Rifle Brigade • Unknown

... suggestions of Montague in determining his decision. His failure as a Parliamentary orator subsequently seems to prove that the pulpit was not his vocation. After all, his Saturday papers in the Spectator are as fine as any sermons of that age, and he perhaps did more good serving as a volunteer than had he been a regular soldier in the army ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... education of the girl of that period hardly deserved the name. The national ear for music, like the national eye for painting and sculpture, has made marvelous progress in fifty years. The singing school has gone to the wall along with the volunteer choir and the notion that every boy and girl can and ought to sing. Once in several whiles you find a "music-mad family," of which every member plays upon some instrument and studies music with expensive professors. Or one child displays ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... qualifications of past experience, which were not exactly understood by any one. He was so experienced and so business-like, however, that he came very near being rude—failing to remember, as he did, that the individuals he was trying to instruct were volunteer ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser

... Are you going to ask any of our own folks to volunteer, Milton?" In times of great stress and sorrow his townspeople called the Colonel by his ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller

... work was entirely in the hands of the club women, who bought the apparatus, organized the games, employed the trained supervisors, and supplied from their own membership the volunteer workers, without whom the enterprise would have been a failure from the start. The Board of Education co-operated to the extent of lending schoolyards. Finally the Board of Education decided to vote an annual ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr

... building for a kitchen and dining room; but we discovered that by digging out a large amount of earth from under the building we could make a partially lighted basement room that could be used for a kitchen and dining room. Again I called on the students to volunteer for work, this time to assist in digging out the basement. This they did, and in a few weeks we had a place to cook and eat in, although it was very rough and uncomfortable. Any one seeing the place now would never believe that it was once used ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington

... commander-in-chief only possessed superior power. He was numbered among her citizens, his name was added to the list of Grecian heroes. His judgment, activity, and consummate bravery, justified their choice. The Earl of Windsor became a volunteer under his friend. ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... the turning point in the popular estimate of Walt Whitman. No doubt, too, his experiences during this time of stress and storm influenced the rest of his career as a man and as a writer. His service as a volunteer nurse in camp and in hospital gave him a sympathetic insight and a patriotic outlook tempered with gentleness which are reflected in his poetry of this period, published under the title Drum-Taps. His well-known song of sorrow, O Captain, My Captain, is a threnody poignant with genuine feeling. ...
— Walt Whitman Yesterday and Today • Henry Eduard Legler

... longing to be heard, were little heeded in the first great shock of war. Indeed, in such a storm, what shelter could a poet find? An ardent Carolinian, devoted to his native State with an allegiance as to his country, he left his books and study, and threw himself into the struggle, a volunteer in the army. In the first years of the war he was in and near Charleston, and wrote those memorable poems and martial lyrics: "Carolina", "A Cry to Arms", "Charleston", "Ripley", "Ethnogenesis", and "The Cotton Boll", which deeply stirred the heart of his State, and, indeed, of the whole South. ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod

... posters with their hectic urgings to the manhood of England to volunteer no longer blanketed the hoardings and the walls of private buildings. Conscription had come. Every able-bodied man must now serve at the command of the government. England seemed to have greater dignity. The war was wholly master ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... the drilling machinery, the engine and the airship crates began. It was a task that Colonel Howell soon assigned to his young assistants, who had under their direction a few paid laborers and many more volunteer laborers who were more curious than useful. When Colonel Howell turned over this task to Norman and Roy, he returned to the outfitting stores and devoted himself anew to the ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler

... source of injury to the character of the Bible than that just mentioned is the injudicious and impertinent labors of many who volunteer in its defence. "Oh, save me from my friends!" might the Prophets and Apostles, each and all, too often exclaim of their supporters.—It is said that all men are insane upon some point: so are classes and communities. The popular monomania ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... party, upon whom he came by surprise, but received, it seems, so warm a fire, that the ragmuffins ran away. They were, however, rallied on discovering that two companies of our militia gave away; and left Hutchings and Dr. Reid with a volunteer company, who maintained their ground bravely till they were overcome by numbers, and took shelter in a swamp. The slaves were sent in pursuit of them; and one of Col. Hutching's, with another, found him. On their approach, he discharged his pistol at his slave, but missed ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson

... while they hold a drawn sword in the other. There is no security to be found in any corner of the State; and no projects, formed for the future of its people. To be sure, certain parties prate and jabber about the Volunteer Service and national defenses; but what have they to defend? If their frontier were bristling to-morrow with forts and bayonets, all they could hope to accomplish would be the shutting out of American liberty and national prosperity from the people. This must ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh

... encouraged him to eat. If these children had been the sons and daughters of princes, they could not have been ministered to with a more gracious devotion to their wants and comfort than was shown by their volunteer attendants. ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur

... forgot everything else just then in this new excitement. Stanhope had a volunteer fire department, like most small towns in that section of the country. Stanhope was proud of its fire laddies, who had, on numerous previous occasions, proved their skill at fighting the flames. Already loud shouts could be heard in various quarters, as men ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren

... the slave of Haj Beshir came to declare that the slaves which he brought here yesterday were not his booty, but belonged to another person, a volunteer. There is no getting at the truth in these countries. The theatre of the late razzia is westwards from Zinder about two days. Korgum is one day from Tesaoua. Konchai is a neighbouring country, about four hours from Korgum. The Sarkee attacked four villages of Korgum, but got ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson

... militia interests of the populous county of Chester. When the war-fever swept down his beautiful valley, and the drum called the young men from villages and farms, this ancient yeoman and miller—for he was both—took a musket at the sprightly age of sixty-five, and joined a Volunteer company. Neither ridicule nor entreaty could bend his purpose; but the Secretary of War, hearing of the case, conferred a brigade quartermastership upon him. He threw off the infirmities of age, stepped as proudly as any youngster, and became, emphatically, the ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... but they had, after leaving St. Andrews, travelled in companionship on the Continent for two or three years before taking service, Munro entering that of France, while Hepburn joined Sir Andrew Gray as a volunteer when he led a band to succour the Prince Palatine at the commencement ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty

... The Spectator, but also at recruiting for the Regular Army, which I regarded as my special duty, for I happened that year to be Sheriff of my county. In addition I was at the head of a curious little corps called the Surrey Guides and further was a member of the Executive Committee for the Volunteer Training Corps—a body whose activities alone would be well ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... predecessor,' and new subordinate officers were installed into their several stations; after which ceremony a sumptuous repast, served in the well-known style of Messrs. JENNINGS AND WILLARD, was discussed with universal gout. For the toasts regular and volunteer, and speeches voluntary and involuntary, we must refer the reader to the daily journals 'of that period;' while we simply add, that from soup to Paaes eggs, schnaaps, and pipes, every thing passed off with unwonted hilarity and spirit. May we live to see fifty kindred gatherings of ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various

... execution his eyes have done amidst the Dutch girls than of the work his deadly rifle has wrought in the ranks of the Dutch mea Yet, if you want to know if Driscoll can shoot, just go to Burmah, where for ten years he held the position of captain in the Upper Burmah Volunteer Rifles. That was where I heard of him first, as the most deadly rifle and revolver shot in ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales

... should be done with it? And for one, I would take it and give it to the loyal man—loyal from the heart,—at the South, enough at least to make him as well as he was before; and I would take the rest of it and distribute it among the volunteer soldiers who have gone forth in the service of their country; and so far as I know them, if we should settle South Carolina with them, in the course of a few years, I should be quite willing to receive her back into the Union. ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... flowed into Grand Lake, although they unquestionably knew that such was the case. Their silence about this important particular was probably due to the fact, that while the Labrador people are friendly to strangers, they are somewhat shy and rarely volunteer information, contenting themselves, for the most part, with simple answers to direct questions. Furthermore, they are seldom able to adopt a point of view different from their own, and thus are unable to realise the amount of guidance a stranger in their country needs. In ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace

... indispensably that an unusual proportion of the force employed there should be cavalry or mounted infantry. In order, therefore, that the commanding officer might be enabled to act with effect, I had authorized him to call on the governors of Orleans and Mississippi for a corps of five hundred volunteer cavalry. The temporary arrangement he has proposed may perhaps render this unnecessary; but I inform you with great pleasure of the promptitude with which the inhabitants of those Territories have tendered their services in defense of their country. It has done honor to themselves, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Thomas Jefferson • Thomas Jefferson

... business; he came back to the scenes of his early life, and began to take an important part in the municipal affairs of Wattleborough. He was then a remarkably robust man, fond of out-of-door exercise; he made it one of his chief efforts to encourage the local Volunteer movement, the cricket and football clubs, public sports of every kind, showing no sympathy whatever with those persons who wished to establish free libraries, lectures, and the like. At his own expense he built for the Volunteers a handsome drill-shed; he founded a public gymnasium; and finally ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing

... "He did volunteer; but they wouldn't accept him—something the matter with his heart, I believe. Anyway, they wouldn't take him. Of course, Charter was much downcast. But he at once came to me and said he would take hold of our concern. He's going to do it in connection ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield

... gathered together the servants were hurriedly preparing a supper such as lonely Malpura had never known. And Noreen's pretty drawing-room was crowded with men in riding costume or in uniform—for most of the planters belonged to a Volunteer Light Horse Corps, and some of them, expecting a fight, had put on khaki when they got Daleham's summons. Their rifles, revolvers, and cartridge belts were piled on the verandah. Chunerbutty, feeling that his presence among ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly

... answered, expressing my gratitude with my eyes, "and no more need be said about it. I cannot rob you, dearest Lucy, because you are so ready to submit to be robbed. Leave me here a few days, and Mr. Meekly will come to volunteer a plan of setting ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... for pay and as a profession is one thing; to offer your freedom and your life, to endure discomforts and actual hardships, to risk health in a fever-stricken foreign country, and to sacrifice settled ambition for mere patriotism, is another. It is the latter which the Volunteer Naval Reserve of the United States has done, and every American citizen with a drop of honest blood in his veins will surely give the organization the praise ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday

... to Congress on the battle of Bull Run, General Winfield Scott gave the opinion that it was lost through the lack of capable officers for the volunteer regiments; and it is generally true that men who like to play soldier in time of peace are not the best material to make real soldiers out of. This would not apply however to Captain George L. Prescott of Concord, who commanded the embattled farmers in that ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns

... in reply to the contemptuous query of "What earthly use could she be?" reiterated the fact of her having received a certificate of competency from the hospital, and adding, that as five of the sisterhood were shortly to be taken out to Scutari, it would be easy for her to accompany them as a volunteer. Then, evading further discussion by leaving the room, she calmly left the idea ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston

... ranks," said he, "I fought for nearly the half of that portion of life allotted to man; certainly for that portion of my course, in which the desires, the vigour, and the applicability of all the best parts of human nature have their fullest play. I came to it a volunteer—I fought side by side with its foremost—I shared the 'winter of their discontent,' as willingly as the summer of their prosperity. I took the buffets of ill fortune, and they were many, with as cheerful a countenance ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various

... method of communicating this reply by expressive signs; and, taking the arrows—which appeared to be poisoned—from the snakeskin, he placed some gunpowder and balls in the significant wrapper. He then inquired who among his trusty warrior's would volunteer to take the packet to the dwelling of Cundincus,[*] the Chief of the Narragansetts. Several offered their services; and, among those, none was so eager to be employed as Rodolph Maitland. He felt an earnest desire to see and ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb

... gallop across with Clarence to pass the rest of the day. There was no lack of kind people at the main house and in the cottages to take an interest in the delicate boy and his sweet, motherly sister; so Clover had an abundance of volunteer matrons, and plenty of pleasant ways in which to spend those occasional days on which the High ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge

... Blinks, that young tobacconist, Who tried with all a patriot's fiery zeal To join the Army, but was sent away For varicose and too protuberant veins; And being foiled of all his high intent Now minds the shop and is a Volunteer, Drilling on Sundays with the rest of them; He too, amid his hoards of cigarettes, Is void of matches as he's full of veins. So here's a good match in a naughty world, And what to do with it I do not know, Save that somehow, when ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various

... Committee, while recommending State committees to keep up their organizations, regarded it inexpedient to name a ticket. They reaffirmed the Indianapolis platform of 1896, and again recorded their antagonism to the Bryan Democracy. Certain volunteer delegates who met in September found themselves unable to tolerate either the commercialism which they said actuated the Philippine war, or "demagogic appeals to factional and class passions." They nominated Senator Caffery, of Louisiana, ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews

... entry gives the minimum age at which an individual may volunteer for military service or ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.



Words linked to "Volunteer" :   war machine, military volunteer, inform, worker, armed forces, offer, draftee, armed services, unpaid, voluntary, military personnel, vigilante, move, vigilance man, work, American, military man



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