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Erstwhile   /ˈərstwˌaɪl/   Listen
Erstwhile

adverb
1.
At a previous time.  Synonyms: at one time, erst, formerly, once.  "Her erstwhile writing" , "She was a dancer once"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Erstwhile" Quotes from Famous Books



... they stand In tattered, rude array, A remnant of that gallant band, Who erstwhile held the sea-girt strand Of Morris' isle, with iron hand 'Gainst Yankees' ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... room itself was deliciously familiar to him; crimson-curtained, green carpeted, shining with heavy gilt picture frames and prismatic chandeliers. Often with posies and candies and theater-tickets he had strutted across that erstwhile magic threshold and fairly lolled in the big deep-upholstered chairs while waiting for the silk-rustling advent of the ladies. But now, with his suitcase clutched in his hand, no Armenian peddler of laces and ointments could have felt more ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... pointing to a white speck in a green field. "Better run up quiet or she'll dash off like a deer," and making some mysterious sign to Jack, the erstwhile pathfinders darted off ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis

... cattle that were left had all run wild or perished from neglect. Wild beasts roamed round the outskirts of the half-deserted towns. A dense low scrub of yatais and of palmettos invaded all the pasture-lands, and in the erstwhile cultivated fields rank weeds sprang up, and choked the crops which in the Jesuits' times had made the mission territories the most productive of the American possessions of the Spanish crown. The churches were unserved, and in the evening air no ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham

... far back on his head as it could possibly be pushed with any hope of its staying there at all. He had a glass in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and he was raking his rowels rhythmically up and down the erstwhile varnished bar in buzzing accompaniment, the while he ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower

... "fine writing" is the use of poetical words in prose. Enow, erstwhile, besprent, methinks, agone, and thine are examples of a large class of words which, though in perfectly good taste in poetry, are in extremely poor taste in prose. They are out of place; and so attract attention to themselves, ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... regime, Robert Owen, erstwhile a poor draper's apprentice, soon became one of the most successful manufacturers in England. At eighteen years of age we find him entering into the manufacture of the new cotton-spinning machines, with a borrowed capital of $500. ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo

... Viceroy of Peru, and thus became the highest official throughout the New World. No fairy story has ever produced a more startling study of career and contrast than that which had fallen to the lot of the erstwhile bare-footed Irish boy. ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel

... Scotty had gone swimming in an area where something was hidden. At least, that was a reasonable assumption, based on the events at St. Thomas. The fancy diving gear in the house, the attempt to warn them off, and the presence of Steve's erstwhile shadow on Clipper Cay could then be ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin

... of Netherland also asked for leave, but when King Gunther learned his wish, lovingly he bade him stay erstwhile. Were it not for the king's sister, this were never done. He was too rich to take reward, though he well deserved it and the king liked him well, as also did the kinsmen, who had seen what happed in battle through his strength. For the sake of one ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown

... "Now, my erstwhile Noble Benefactor, brighten up and look happy. I've got some red, white and blue news for you. I like you first rate, I'm strong for the grub and I guess I can stand for the country being stood on edge. ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory

... warning, or what would become of the half-cooked midday dinner? So we set out by ourselves, and as the boat shot out to the middle of the stream between the peach orchards, just giving a hint of their coming glory, and past the erstwhile naked grape-canes, not cut away and replaced by a vivid green, the rower made a studiedly casual remark, "Your friend Miss Dawn spoke to me again at last. I wonder why on earth she threw that dish of water on me; did she ever say that she had ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... have been seen the arcaded entrance to Doctors' Commons, an institution described by Sam Weller, and which, among other functions, formerly kept guard of all the wills probated in London. The building has since disappeared, and the erstwhile valuable documents removed ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun

... a change in the character and demeanour of citizens who erstwhile worked as honey carriers all day, and who during the hot, still nights did duty as animated ventilating fans to maintain a free circulation of air through the hive, had to be investigated. Soon it was revealed in the presence of two species of ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... road, and their cargo of red mineral bounding and thundering down the iron chute. And now all gone—all fallen away into this sunny silence and desertion: a family of squatters dining in the assayer's office, making their beds in the big sleeping room erstwhile so crowded, keeping their wine in the tunnel that ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... it would go until his ample ears stuck out like sails at half-mast. His feet were imbedded in the heavy mud on the margin of the water-hole, and his fine silk socks, which had showed at one time above the erstwhile neat tyings, were torn ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... but turned the corner of the street when into the now dissonant "hole in the wall", amid the scene of wreck and disaster, stepped a tall dark man, with a closely cropped beard, who spoke English with an accent and who regarded the erstwhile proprietor and the minions of the law with ill-concealed ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham

... Angry with herself Angela tried to put the hateful but insinuating thought away from her,—it was the first slight shadow on the fairness of her love-dream,—and it was like one of those sudden clouds crossing a bright sky which throws a chill and depression over the erstwhile smiling landscape. To doubt Florian seemed like doubting her own existence. She put the "Phillida" picture back in the portfolio and paced slowly to and fro in her studio, considering deeply. Love ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... met very occasionally during the last few years, and she had changed greatly—perhaps he had, too. Her terrible trials, her bodily sicknesses, and her mental derangements had made ineffaceable marks in the erstwhile beauteous girl, and Cammilla de' Medici was no longer possible as the wife of the renegade Cardinal. Marriage was out of the question for her; indeed, her very existence was at stake, and all that Ferdinando could do was to alleviate the sufferings of his innamorata, ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley

... imagined the Prince of Darkness in the guise of Mr. Button; Mrs. Button was in every way fit to be the latter's diabolical mate. Encouraged by sympathy and shrewd questions, he sketched in broad detail his short career, glorifying himself as the prize scholar and the erstwhile Grand Llama of Budge Street, and drawing a dismal picture of the factory. Barney Bill listened comprehendingly. Then, smoking a well-blackened clay, he began to utter maledictions on the suffocating life in towns and to extol his ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... was preposterously left, the aspirants for this social honour patiently bending their knees to the erstwhile despised Cousin Egbert, and the latter being visibly puffed up. By rather awkward stages they came again to a discussion of the ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... tales that float in Tehuantepec lay her end, and Bachelder has never taken time to contradict them. But as she floated almost within reach of his hand, she steadied at Paul's shout as under an accession of sudden strength, and looked at her erstwhile husband. Then, if never before, she knew—him, as well as his works! From him her glance flashed to the fair face at her shoulder. What power of divination possessed her? Or was it Bachelder's fancy? He swears to the chosen few, the ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... mother's sacred memory, the Bannister youths now thought of football, of the Championship, as insignificant, beside the goal of Thorwald, Jr. The blond Colossus, whom an hour ago all Bannister reviled and condemned for not playing the game, who was a campus outcast, was now a hero; thanks to the erstwhile heedless Hicks, whose intense earnestness in itself was a revelation to the amazed collegians, Thor stood before them in a different light, and the impulsive, whole-souled, generous youths were now ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice

... direction from Rookwood by an unfrequented carriage-road, which Luke had, from prudential reasons, avoided. All seemed consecrated to silence—to solitude—to the hush of nature; yet this quiet scene was the chosen retreat of lawless depredators, and had erstwhile been the theatre of feudal oppression. We have said that no habitation was visible; that no dwelling tenanted by man could be seen; but following the spur of the furthest mountain hill, some traces of a stone wall might be discovered; and upon ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... or two with a new dietary and some good advice. The latter in tabloid form being:—"Drop business for a time, go into it again slowly, and gradually creep into your job." All of which is wise, and commends itself greatly to my erstwhile mind, but is much like saying, "Jump off the Brooklyn bridge, "slowly." ... I am not resigned, of course. Because I cannot see the end. Definiteness is so imperative to some natures. However, I think that I have done all that an exacting Deity would demand, and cannot be ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... were already casting our dead out of the shattered trench, both in front and behind, and in many cases using them to stop the gaps in the parapet; so that they now received the bullets of their erstwhile comrades. ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson

... dollars, and with uncovered heads gazed through the gratings into the crypt where lies the dust of the great man. Then we saw the statue of John C. Breckinridge in the public square, and visited various old ebb-tide mansions where the "quarters" had fallen into decay, and the erstwhile inhabitants had moved to the long row of tenements down by the cotton-mill. My train whistled and we were half a mile from the station, but the General said we would get there in time—and we did. I bade ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... and by the beds of erstwhile lakes, the course of the river continued, and as the party proceeded they found it abundantly watered. From his intercourse with the native inhabitants, Mitchell was now convinced that the Lachlan or Kalare would soon join the Murrumbidgee, so that when on the 12th May he suddenly found ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... is over, and to earth go back— To earth and the eternal sun—the atoms Erstwhile combined in me for pain and joy. And of the mighty Talbot, whose renown But now filled all the world, nothing remains Except a handful of light dust. So ends The life of man—and all we bear away, As booty from the battle of existence, ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... the room again and after prodding the gay seat in the corner, lifted the cover and picked up a folded blanket, shaking out the erstwhile padded cushion. He hung the blanket over ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various

... subdue their church difficulties. They hold the captious in awe. By a sort of magnetic persuasion and lively sense of humor they soothe this one and that, win the regard of the outlying community, attach many new members to the organization, and build up, out of discordant and erstwhile discontented elements, a harmonious and active church. This is the man for these martial times! If there are born leaders in every other department of the world's work, men who quietly but firmly assert ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown

... quarrelling nor fighting, offenders to be dealt with by him personally. Nor did he have to deal with any. Hundreds of devoted followers saw to it that the evilly disposed were rolled in the snow and hustled off to bed. In the great world, where great captains of industry die, all wheels under their erstwhile management are stopped ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... mile from the village, Obergatz turned toward the south from the trail that led to the ford and hurrying onward the two put as great a distance as possible between them and the village before night fell. They knew from the habits of their erstwhile hosts that there was little danger of pursuit by night since the villagers held Numa, the lion, in too great respect to venture needlessly beyond their stockade during the hours that the king of beasts was ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... have a perfect right——" But his voice was drowned in a chorus of yells. Men in kepis shook their fists at him, shouting: "Traitor! no surrender! down with Badinguet!" His broad face, distraught with terror, still bore traces of its erstwhile look of smug effrontery. A girl in the crowd shrieked: "Throw him in the river!" and a hundred voices took up the cry. But just at that moment the crowd swayed back violently and Monsieur Bargemont darted into the ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France

... down his wood, and Alice could not help but notice the sorry appearance of the erstwhile faultlessly dressed gentleman who stood collarless and unshaven, the once delicately lined silk shirt filthy with trail dust, and the tailored suit wrinkled and misshapen as the clothing of a tramp. She noted, too, ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx

... Mrs. Jarvis, the sister of his erstwhile flame, Miss Jannette Hart, informs him of the marriage of another sister to Captain Hull of the navy, commander of the Constitution. In this letter, written on March 4, 1813, at Bloomingdale, New York City, ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse

... armed men, a miscellaneous crowd of cheering civilians, and an important group of Basuto chiefs who had been specially invited to witness the ceremonious annexation of the conquered territory and to hear proclaimed the Royal pleasure that the erstwhile "South African Republic" should henceforth be known by the new, yet older, title ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry

... transported hither. They are well-educated people, speaking English and French, and well-read and accomplished. But how little are those modern accomplishments when it comes to the elemental realities of life. A beautiful young countess is employed in a bakery to sell bread, and is lucky. An erstwhile lion and ex-general has a job in a laundry. Pride intervenes only to stop them begging. How few are the beggars! But you see the nicest of girls with pinched white faces trying to sell loukoum. Even hard ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham

... clothing, this spook would be his most effective accomplice, but such tortuous psychology has failed to satisfy the fishermen. To them we seem callous souls, to whom the spirit world is alien. This ghostly encroachment on our erstwhile quiet domain has had more than one inconvenient result. The Mission is very short of houses for its workmen, and was planning to rebuild and put in order a part of this now haunted domicile for one family. The man for whom it was ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding

... longs, to break free from his condition of tutelage; to bring to the general Government the aid of his counsels, feeble though such may seem, if we measure him by his present status; aid, which, erstwhile, was not despised, but was, rather, a mighty bulwark of the British crown; and pants for the occasion to assert, it may be on the honour-scroll of the nation's fame, his descent ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie

... last I have lived much in the erstwhile gay capital of France. It was gayest when the Duke de Morny flourished as King of the Bourse. He was reputed the Emperor's natural half-brother. The breakdown of the Mexican adventure, which was mostly his, contributed not a little ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... waters of Cote Blanche, erstwhile blown out to sea, were now slowly settling back again after the offshore storm. The Belle Helene had risen from her bed in the mud now and rode free. Our soundings showed us that it would be easy now to break out the anchor and reach the channel, just ahead. So, finding ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough

... Where erstwhile the Great Spirit's children dwelt Forever hushed is the papoose's wail, and stilled the squaw's low-crooning lilt. No longer shimmers starlight from eyes of savage maids Worshippers of the fire and sun, poor dwellers of the caves— ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann

... never stops to think o' th' hurt he does," continued the erstwhile king of Aranuka. "Sometimes I lay awake at nights an' wonder whatever became o' Pinky. I can see her yet, standin' in th' moonlight, as fine a figger o' a woman as ever lived. Savage or no savage, she was true an' beautiful, an' I was a mighty ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... a proverb upon the frontier that any man born on Texas soil would shoot, just as any horse born there would "buck." There is truth back of most proverbs, although to-day both horses and men of Texas are losing something of their erstwhile bronco character. That out of such conditions, out of this hardy and indomitable population, the great state could bring order and quiet so soon and so permanently over vast unsettled regions, is proof alike of the fundamental sternness and justness ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough

... before by the dead and gone surveyor, a copy of those field notes now guided them. This was no easy matter. The field notes described accurately the location, but in fifty years the character of a country may change. Great trees fall, new trees grow up, brush clothes an erstwhile bare hillside, fire denudes a slope, even the rocks and boulders shift their places under the coercion of frost or avalanche. The young men separated, shoulder deep in the high brakes and alders of a creek bottom, climbing ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... the room allotted to Benton had been unoccupied when he had gone out that forenoon. Between his quarters and these erstwhile vacant ones lay a room forming a sort of buffer space. Here a sideboard, a card-table, and desk made the "neutral zone," as Van called it, available for his guests as a territory either separating or ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck

... upper deck or along the rails of the lower deck, many passengers were gazing out at the varying pictures of the passing shores. Not so the young officer, erstwhile accosted as jailer of a woman, later hinted to be something else than jailer. With eyes cast down, he spent most of his time pacing up and down alone. Yet it was not an irresolute soul which reposed beneath the half-frigid exterior. ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough

... and a fluctuation of fortunes, till the little banker lost his queen as the result of an incautious move, and, after several woebegone contortions of his shoulders and hands, declined further contest. A sleek-headed piccolo rushed forward to remove the board, and the erstwhile combatants resumed the courteous dignity that they discarded in their ...
— When William Came • Saki

... to grow in proportion as Kerensky mounted the rungs of power. Out of respect, not always of a platonic nature, for the War Minister, many colonels and generals hastened to enrol in the party of the erstwhile terrorists. Old S. R.'s, with revolutionary traditions, regarded with some uneasiness the ever increasing number of "March S. R.'s" that is, such party members as had discovered within themselves a revolutionary populist soul only in March, after the Revolution had overthrown the ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky

... Happy was I this good hap to obtain; But drowsy slumbers flying to their cell, My sudden joy converted was to bale; My wonted sorrows still with me do dwell. I looked round about on hill and dale, But I could neither my fair Chloris view, Nor yet the satyr which erstwhile ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith

... when Mr. Battersby was at the Wardrobe using the King's time in gossip about the new book of drollery, the merry Stuart had found out Sam Butler's poem and had given it the help of his royal approval. Erstwhile, Samuel the courtier had thought the work of Samuel the poet silly, and had given warranty of his opinion by suffering loss of one shilling eightpence on his purchase of the book. A view not to be wondered at in one who sets down "Midsummer Night's Dream" as "insipid and ridiculous," ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... Brewster while John rode beside Jeb. The two latter riders had much to say to each other, for John had been Jeb's particular charge when the hired man first went to work at Pebbly Pit. Now John was a head taller than his erstwhile guardian, even if he ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... cried, "fight on as thou didst in thy youth-time. Erstwhile didst thou say that thou wouldst not let thy greatness sink so long as life lasteth. Defend thou thy life with all might. I will support ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... Tarzan caught a fleeting glimpse of a tawny hide worming its way through the matted jungle grasses in his wake—it was Numa, the lion. He, too, was stalking the black man. With the instant that Tarzan realized the native's danger his attitude toward his erstwhile prey altered completely—now he was a fellow man threatened by a ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... priceless benefit in a more perfect rendition of the Word of God. Why could not men come together now in that same generous spirit of love? But no, Rome would never yield her assumptions. But when the lad rose and followed his guides from the room, it was with a new-born conviction, and a revival of his erstwhile firm purpose to translate for himself, at the earliest opportunity, the Greek Testament, if, perchance, he might find thereby what his yearning soul so deeply ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... erstwhile of Amsterdam Avenue, and more recently of two honorary degrees, his own private hospital, two outer waiting rooms, three assistants, and four-figure operations, still diverted quite a runnel of his clientele to the impeccable pharmaceutics of ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... by the astonished United States marshals, and he had been given to understand that he would hear from Washington before long. Mr. Bacon (Kurt von Poppenblitz) and Mr. Bonaparte (Conrad Bloom) had also called him something, but he didn't mind. His erstwhile partners, with their four or five henchmen, were now well on their way to limbo, and Mr. Crow was regaling his hearers with the story. During the first recital (this being either the ninth or tenth), Alf Reesling had been obliged to prompt him—a circumstance ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon

... almost a man, he would rarely fail to meet the issue, for "at no time in life will a human being respond so heartily if treated by older and wise people as if he were an equal." The result will be not only renewed zest in the erstwhile hated task, but a new bond between parents and son that will help to hold him true ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux

... writers as being the sovereign attestation of the reality of the Light. 'I see'; that is the proof that light has touched my eyeballs. And when a man can contrast, as some of us can, our present vision with our erstwhile darkness, then the evidence, like that of the sturdy blind man in the Gospels, who had nothing to say in reply to the subtleties and Rabbinical traps and puzzles but only 'I was blind; now I see'—his experience ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... Cheviot bought, cut up, and opened by roads. A portion was sold, but most leased; and within a year of purchase a thriving yeomanry, numbering nearly nine hundred souls and owning 74,000 sheep, 1,500 cattle, and 500 horses, were at work in the erstwhile empty tract. Four prosperous years have since added to their numbers, and the rent they pay more than recoups the Treasury for the interest on its outlay in ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... scathless go and all by reason of this good, tall fellow. Howbeit, I do know this same fellow for fellow of none account, and no fit mate for thee, noble daughter, love or no. A fierce, brawling, tatterdemalion this, that erstwhile tramped in company with long-legged ribald—a froward jesting fellow. Wherefore this fellow, though fellow serviceable, no fellow is for thee and ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol

... per hour, has been left to attain as best he might, by the use of burners excellent of their kind, to the maximum effect of the standard Argand. Now, however, Mr. Grimston seeks to make the small consumer partake of the advantages erstwhile reserved for the wholesale user of large and costly Siemens and other lamps, and he even looks to this class of patrons with particular care. The example which we now illustrate, in Fig. 1, is a sectional presentment precisely half the actual size of a 5-foot burner, which it is intended to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various

... wake, Not long afterward, just as a white stone flung into deep water gradually vanishes from the eyes of the beholder, so it, too, vanished from my sight. Then the heavens became darker and darker, and I thought that the sun had suddenly withdrawn and night had surely returned, as it had erstwhile returned to the Greeks because of the crime of Atrcus. Next, flashes of lightning sped swiftly along the skies, and peals of crashing thunder appalled the earth and me likewise. And through all, the wound made in my breast by the bite of the serpent remained with me still, and ...
— La Fiammetta • Giovanni Boccaccio

... to do but obey, which Thomas quietly did, although somewhat in fear of what Santry might do when at liberty. When the cell door was unlocked, the old plainsman, in a towering rage at the injustice of his incarceration, seemed inclined to choke his erstwhile jailer. ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony

... is about done. The stock is running out, and the planet is filling up. The wives of her sons may carry on the breed, but her work is past. The erstwhile men of England are now the men of Australia, of Africa, of America. England has sent forth "the best she breeds" for so long, and has destroyed those that remained so fiercely, that little remains for her to do but to sit down ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London

... were on Sandy, and the erstwhile married man felt their contempt boring into his very soul. He was held silent, in spite of his anger against the broad-shouldered Toby, and was possessed of a feeling that somehow his second effort had been no more successful ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... Up went the erstwhile falling poise. "You're badly mistaken, madam. I'm a member of this order myself, and a finer lot of fellows it has never been my pleasure ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... a quivering, yellow finger at a wide crack in the rock. The little man threw himself at it with a howl. His erstwhile frozen companions felt their blood throb again. With great bounds they plunged after the little man. A minute of scrambling, falling, and pushing brought them to open air. They climbed the distance to ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... the Princess of Graustark, erstwhile Miss Guggenslocker, was being dragged through the most unhappy affairs that ever beset a sovereign. Within a month she was to sign away two-thirds of her domain, transforming multitudes of her beloved and loving people into subjects of the hated Axphain, or to ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... is that woman is entering more and more as an equal partner whose rights the modern law recognizes as the ancient law did not. She is no longer to be classed as exemplified by the famous words of Petruchio, when he claimed his wife, the erstwhile shrew, as his property in exactly the same sense as any domestic animal, linking the wife with the horse, the cow, the ass, as the chattels of the man. The law agreed to this attitude of the man, the Church supported it; woman, strangely enough, ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson

... face—anger of the quality that has its source in shame. In a second he was on his feet before her, towering to the full of his lean height. The words came from him in a hot stream, which for reckless passion by far outvied his erstwhile amatory address. ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini

... she exclaimed, "that you are the Dor-ul-Otho?" And now the erstwhile doubting eyes reflected naught ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... the interview Carthoris watched, catlike, for some indication that Vas Kor recognized in the battered panthan the erstwhile gorgeous Prince of Helium; but the sleepless nights, the long days of marching and fighting, the wounds and the dried blood had evidently sufficed to obliterate the last remnant of his likeness to his former self; and then Vas Kor had seen him but twice in all his life. Little ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... a poor, defenceless woman. We got to Stockton all right, and the uncle and his sons took the girl in charge, while I was left with my three friends, the O'Gormans, to do as I liked. What was more, I was robbed of all opportunities of communing with the "erstwhile companion of ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End

... intention of recovering their women and slaves, and avenging the death of their comrades. Some of the Africans who had been promised their freedom if they allied themselves with the Natchez Indians, fought against their erstwhile masters, others were loyal, and helped the French. The battle became an issue, as it were, between the slaves. Over one hundred of them were recovered from ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... wondered he had seen so little before. He grew slowly to feel almost for the first time the Veil that lay between him and the white world; he first noticed now the oppression that had not seemed oppression before, differences that erstwhile seemed natural, restraints and slights that in his boyhood days had gone unnoticed or been greeted with a laugh. He felt angry now when men did not call him "Mister," he clenched his hands at the "Jim Crow" cars, and chafed at the color-line that hemmed in him and his. A tinge ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois

... had a native fondness for animals, and he had already thought of buying a pony with his first few months' wages. But the vision of his erstwhile companion Overland, perhaps imprisoned and hopeless in the grip of the "bunch," annulled that desire. He would save every cent ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... thrice three times triple delights in three various ways, joys earned by three tricks and three tricksters, cunningly won by treachery, fraud and villainy, which in this little sealed missive have I but erstwhile brought ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke

... waiting silence, their rifles aimed straight at the advancing objects. These, still vague in the first real darkness of early night, moved steadily in a scattered group behind a leader that was undoubtedly Johnny of the erstwhile tinkling bell. He circled the campfire just without its radius of light, so that they could not tell whether an Indian lay along his back, and beaded straight for the water-hole. The others followed him, and not one came into the firelight—a detail which sharpened the suspicions of the men crouched ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower

... penetrating eyes glanced from Karl to Kurt; the girls caught hold of one another's hands and one could plainly read in their expressions that they considered it rash to be in such close proximity to a person who had erstwhile been dead. It was fortunate for them that the resuscitated colonel was so good, and that there was no doubt about his actual existence, which was proved by his voice and the smoke that he puffed into the air ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... thou art so changed—so full of sunshine and courage," cried Kate. "Erstwhile thou wert like a creature of moonlight and vapour; a breath seemed as though it would blow thee away. What has befallen to change thee so? What hast thou been doing all this ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... hung steady, high overhead, holding them in the dissolving area of his beam. Too high to ray them but also too high for their futile bullets. The Mercutians no longer underrated the fighting abilities of their erstwhile slaves. ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner

... beneath these lonely trees, nor had these flowers felt their life's great and only thrill in the touch of a baby's dimpled hand. But that golden door at last swung gently open. That hour of ecstasy and anguish brought us life's crown and joy, and the hills of time, erstwhile green and beautiful, were now radiant with a light ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles

... deflected and yellow from passing through window-panes that had known no touch of cleaning since they were placed there, fell faintly on the face, that Rouletabille ascertained he was face to face with Boris Mourazoff. It was indeed he, the erstwhile brilliant officer whose elegance and charm the reporter had admired as he saw him at beautiful Natacha's feet in the datcha at Eliaguine. Now, no more in uniform, he had thrown over his bowed shoulders a wretched coat, whose sleeves swayed listlessly at his ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux

... grief dissolve in the joyous light! But see, as if dispelled by the foolish prayer, The wonder fades! 'Tis dark, and lonely Under the heaven I stand as erstwhile. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... furthermore, quite possible that the mention of his erstwhile sobriquet had been ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... on the tomb of my hopes!—Ah! when I thought of it, I felt the hand of death heavy upon me. That woman mocked me, it was she who first pointed her finger at me, singling me out to the idle crowd which surrounded her; it was she, it was those lips erstwhile so many times pressed to mine, it was that body, that soul of my life, my flesh and my blood, it was from that source the injury came; yea, the last pang of all, the most cowardly and the most bitter, the pitiless laugh that sneers in ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset

... home: she was born in this isle; And he will return to his domicile, And pass his days Alone, and not as he dreamt erstwhile!" ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy

... the famous Norwegian violinist it was a Utopian dream with a speedy and rude awakening. After he had retired the Lagrange troupe came from downtown and completed the season with the help of the stockholders, and Maretzek, the erstwhile impresario and lessee, became the conductor. For four years, 1855, 1856, 1857, and 1858, the Academy saw Maretzek, Strakosch, and Ullmann alternately installed as impresarios, and then for a year there was no opera at the house, ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... something of its stalwart vigor; with the adaptation of the white man's costume and the incomplete assimilation of his hygiene, various weaknesses and disorders have been developed; and through imitation the erstwhile luxuriant hair is cropped, and the beard, made scanty through generations of extirpation, is commonly cultivated. Although the accultural condition of the Siouan survivors ranges from the essentially primitive ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee

... The illimitable cloudy roof, erstwhile compacted towards the western horizon, in an island form, began to break up on high and send its fragments over the surface. It seemed indestructible, for vainly did the winds stretch it, pull and toss it asunder, continually tearing away ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti

... words, accompanied by a black hand, the forefinger pointing to the passage leading to the cloisters: "Comite civil, Comite de surveillance, Comite de bienfaisance." A few yards further on, you came to the door of the erstwhile sacristy, over ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... wondered whether it would ever happen that the reactionary spirit induced by the world's sneers and his own physical wishes would make Phillotson more orthodoxly cruel to her than he had erstwhile been informally and ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... The song that erstwhile filled the place, Where high the throne of Christ was set, Grew faint, as on each pensive face Joy mixed with pain, and pity met;— Their song had told the debt they owed, And how the Christ ...
— Hymns from the East - Being Centos and Suggestions from the Office Books of the - Holy Eastern Church • John Brownlie

... all propagate that well-known pest the "Jersey skeeter." There can be no question of the truthfulness of all that has been said of him in song and story. This was fully attested by an erstwhile happy quintet of travelers. There was apparently nothing in the wide world to mar that happiness until the ominous growl of distant thunder gave warning of a rapidly oncoming storm. With its nearer approach it was decided to seek shelter, so upon ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... of his second week in London MacMaster had begun the notes for his study of Hugh Treffinger and his work. When his researches led him occasionally to visit the studios of Treffinger's friends and erstwhile disciples, he found their Treffinger manner fading as the ring of Treffinger's personality died out in them. One by one they were stealing back into the fold of national British art; the hand that had wound them up was still. MacMaster despaired of them and confined himself more and more exclusively ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather

... do an' less to be said. That cavalcade, erstwhile so gala an' buoyant, drags itself wearily homeward, the exhausted dogs in the r'ar walkin' stiff an' sore like their laigs is wood. For more'n a mile the complainin' howls of the hysterical yeller dog is ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various

... messengers, but come here at the earliest opportunity to the king." This urgent exhortation meeting with no response, some three weeks later the monarch wrote again, still with a show of friendship, but insisting on the immediate presence of the erstwhile favorite in Stockholm. So imperative an order Mehlen dared not disobey. Proceeding at once to Stockholm, he appeared before the king, and soon discovered that his worst suspicions were not far from true. The assurances of his monarch's favor had been ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson

... his hold on his erstwhile opponent and stood up. Bob followed suit. In amazement they looked at the man on the ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene

... followed almost immediately. It was pitiful to see the erstwhile Whittaker majority melt away. Alonzo Snow was triumphantly elected. But a ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln

... goes, who were constant companions, drifted into a dispute at the Grecian one evening over the accent of a Greek word. The argument was protracted and at length grew angry. As neither could convince the other by mere words, the resolve was taken to decide the matter by swords. So the erstwhile friends stepped out into the court, and, after a few passes, one of them was run through the body, and died ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley

... water-courses which formed the thoroughfares, but to meet the requirements of modern life, well-planned roads and streets have been constructed in all directions, crossing the old canals at many points and lined with well-built houses, for the most part of brick, in which the greater part of the erstwhile riparian population now resides. The centre of the city is the royal palace (see SIAM), situated in a bend of the river and enclosed by walls. At a radius of nearly a mile is another wall within which lies the closely-packed city proper, and beyond ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... by name Andronicus. His master, M. Livius Salinator, was quick to perceive his genius, and soon gave him his liberty, investing him according to custom with his own nomen of Livius, so that the freedman was afterward known as Livius Andronicus. The erstwhile slave, having established a school, commenced his literary career by translating the Odyssey into Latin Saturnian verse for the use of his pupils. This feat was followed by the translation of a Greek drama, which was enacted in B. C. 240, and formed the ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... little mislead—but nice people do not insist upon that fact. But beware of beating Germany, beware of humiliating Germany; then indeed trouble will come. Germany will begin to dislike us. She will plan a revenge. Turning aside from her erstwhile innocent career, she may even think of hate. What are our obligations to France, Italy, Serbia and Russia, what is the happiness of a few thousands of the Herero, a few millions of the Belgians—whose numbers moreover are constantly diminishing—when we might weigh them against the danger, ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells

... the Luxembourg, the erstwhile convents of the Visitation and the Sacre-Coeur, the cloister of the Oratorians, the Salpetriere, and the St. Lazare hospitals, and there was, of course, the Temple, and, lastly, the Conciergerie, to which those ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy

... little milliner of Riesener's bohemian set who had taken this way to bring herself to the attention of Louis XV. The ruse was successful; and after the acceptance of the desk, there was installed a new maitresse en titre, the notorious Madame Du Barry, erstwhile the pretty ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... venture to cross swords with Goliath, and he accepted David's offer to enter into combat in his place. David put on Saul's armor, and when it appeared that the armor of the powerfully-built king fitted the erstwhile slender youth, Saul recognized that David had been predestined for the serious task he was about to undertake, but at the same time David's miraculous transformation did not fail to arouse his jealousy. (35) David, for ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... of nearly two years effectually to repress any sexual desire in the husband, and this period is perhaps the chastest of his life. Desire seemed to be the one thing absent. The revulsion of feeling in his wife was remarkable. The erstwhile amorous fiancee, who could hardly wait until marriage to test her lover, became now the wife and mother who hardly wished to ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... of the day, Thomas Rutherford, erstwhile patriot, deriving his commission from the Provincial Congress, though having alienated himself, but signing himself colonel, also issues one in which he declares that this is "to command, enjoin, beseech, and require all His Majesty's ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... safe, even advisable, for the exile to return to America again, but where was the money to be found? He was penniless. Well, the money was found quite easily. Vanderlyn made a pile of all his best canvases, sold them, and handed over the proceeds to his friend and erstwhile benefactor. And so Burr came home ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin

... circled swift-winged above the city, making good or ill the deficiencies of the telegrams. One fact, however, had leaped to light, unassailably true. The Clayfords, stationed on the north of the line at Thiepval, had redeemed their name and added a new lustre to their erstwhile shining record. The devotion of the officers, the discipline of the men, had borne their fruits. At a most critical moment the Clayfords had been forced to change front against a flank attack, under a galling fire and in the very press of battle, and the long extended line had swung ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason

... in her wedding attire—for the ceremony uniting them in indissoluble bonds had only just been performed; old Greenford, the grandsire of the bride; and Master John Wolfe, of the Bible and Crown in Paul's Churchyard, bookseller, erstwhile Dick's indulgent master, and now his partner, Master Taverner having very prudently invested the contents of the silver coffer in the purchase of a share in his employers business, with the laudable determination of bestirring himself zealously ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... went back to Holyrood, an exultant army, calling itself, now with some good show of bearing it through, the "royal" army, carried into Edinburgh its confident step and sanguine hue. Victory was with the old line, the magnificent attempt! The erstwhile doubting throng began, stage by stage, to mount toward enthusiasm. It was the quicker done that Charles Edward, or his wisest advisers, put forth a series of judicious civic and public measures. And, now that Cope ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston

... through the valley bounded by what is still called Jabal 'Atakah, the Mountain of Deliverance, and its parallel range, Abu Durayj (of small steps). Here the waters were opened and the host passed over to the "Wells of Moses," erstwhile a popular picnic place on the Arabian side; but according to one local legend (for which see my Pilgrimage, i. 294-97) they crossed the sea north of Tur, the spot being still called "Birkat Far'aun"Pharoah's Pool. Such also is the modern legend amongst the Arabs, who ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... then it was, at a ridiculously low figure, that Josiah Childs got a long lease on a modern, Class A building on Broadway, with a buying option at a fixed price. It was the beginning of the end for Broadway, said the realty dealers, when a grocery was established in its erstwhile sacred midst. Later, when the crowd did come back, they said Josiah Childs was lucky. Also, they whispered among themselves that he had cleared at least fifty thousand ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London

... Solita. Howbeit, the nobles were ever urgent that the princess should set him free, pleading the worshipful deeds he had accomplished in her cause. But to none of them would she hearken, and the fair gentle ladies of the Court greatly applauded her for her persistence—and especially those who had erstwhile dropped their gauntlets that Rudel might bend and pick them up. And many pleasant jests they passed upon the Sieur Rudel, bidding him dance with them, since he was loth to fight. But he paid no heed ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason

... of faction he bore himself as one alienated from earth by the graces of his spirit; and he copiously promised deeds which should in the years to come be as a beauteous garment to his memory. The glaive of Justice should descend where erstwhile it had corruptly been stayed. Vice should surfer its meed of retribution, and Virtue come ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... experienced seaman and knew more than the rudiments of navigation. Under his direction the schooner returned to the little African port that he called home. There the three erstwhile prisoners left the ship to ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake

... wert clothed in robe of snow, A crimson veil around thy head, And now thou liest, charred and dead, Erstwhile with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 11, 1893 • Various

... under the cloud for an indefinite time. If it succeeds—I'll not regret. If it doesn't, maybe the Lord will square it up to my account, against the thoughtless neglect I showed Salome. Now, I'll go out and interview my old acquaintance of the Sierras. I wonder is his voice as mellifluous as erstwhile!" ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond

... much more commonplace broadcloth of the West. The bold, hawk-like features of Malik Umar Hyat Khan of Tiwana in the Punjab were as characteristic of the fighting Pathan from the North as were the Rajah of Mahmudabad's more delicate features of the Mahomedan aristocracy of the erstwhile kingdom of Oudh. The white swadeshi garments affected by Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, from the United Provinces—who opened the last meeting of the Indian National Congress at Lahore with a presidential address which lasted for two hours and a quarter, and wound up with an apology for its brevity ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... take too long to tell all the things Billy Buck did to that bull. He simply walked all over him and jabbed and raked and poked. Away went the bull, his erstwhile proudly erect tail slewed sideways, in token of struck colours—a sign of surrender disregarded by his enemy, who thought the giving of signals to cease fighting a prerogative of his office. Away went the old cows and the work-steers and the horses, in a thundering circuit of the corral, ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips

... on their lips, showed much the same type of courage. Only theirs was the courage of desperation. Ambarisha's was due to love. Yet the Moorish valour, readiness to die, conquered the gunners. They frantically waved their hats, ceased firing, and greeted their erstwhile enemies as comrades. And so the South African passive resisters in their thousands were ready to die rather than sell their honour for a little personal ease. This was Ahimsa in its active form. It never ...
— Third class in Indian railways • Mahatma Gandhi

... Grant as the erstwhile cook came puffing and blowing up to the spot where the four boys stood. ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay

... again, and as the sun begins to cast its long red rays across the tranquil Broad, with its reedy margin and water-lily nooks, the "Happy Return" glides alongside our little lawn. Joy! I am home again! The wanderer has returned, and the erstwhile Crusoe has once more, like Rob Roy Macgregor, "his ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling

... evident, had the lead in this film. In the process of changing from novel to scenario, the Young Wife had become a rather middle-aged wife, and the Flapper of seventeen had become the heroine. And Harrietta Fuller, erstwhile actress of youthful comedy parts for the stage, found herself moving about in black velvet and pearls and a large plumed fan as a background for the white ruffles and golden curls and sunny scenes in which Lydia ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber

... window the soldier and his companion observed the abrupt encounter at the entrance of the manor grounds and the dispersion of the lease-holders like leaves before the autumn gusts. Constance, who had breathlessly watched the flight of the erstwhile assailants, felt her doubts reawakened as the horsemen ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... the Atonement more effectually in all his life—by getting together of man and man, and man and God, through the spirit of self-sacrifice. He stands in the true apostolic succession, the succession of men like Saul of Tarsus, the erstwhile persecutor, who, under the inspiration of the love of Jesus, lived to say, "Who is weak and I am not weak? Who is offended and ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell

... shield. He displayed eagerness in the work, and grew somewhat unpopular with the other boys and girls by reason of his many rebukes for their harsh treatment of animals. But one morning his mother, on looking out of the window, observed to her horror that the erstwhile virtuous Clarence had the family cat by the tail, and was swinging it to and fro with every evidence of glee. In fact, it had been the wailing of the outraged beast that had caused the mother to ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous

... instant that these thoughts passed through my mind I had turned to make for the window, but my eyes alighting on the form of my erstwhile guardian threw all thoughts of flight to the four winds. He lay gasping upon the floor of the chamber, his great eyes fastened upon me in what seemed a pitiful appeal for protection. I could not withstand ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... that Warrington's vanity was touched. It always touches our vanity to be given something for which we have made no struggle whatever. It was something to be followed by curious newsboys, to be spoken to respectfully by Tom, Dick and Harry, who erstwhile hadn't known of his existence. Warrington was human, and he laughed at his vanity even as it ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath

... the picturesque West would be complete which did not depict in the foreground the fine, handsome figure of Nevada's erstwhile "Sentinel in Chief": former State Police Superintendent, Captain J. ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton

... But snow-blindness had incontinently attacked the men, and had rendered them utterly unable to profit by their good fortune. The doctor's clinic was long and busy that night. The following morning he was, however, amazed to see many of his erstwhile patients wending their way seawards, each with one eye treated on his prescription, but the other (for safety's sake) doctored after the long-accepted methods of the talent of the village—tansy poultices ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... Age of the League of Nations, 1919—1983," with the gold of democracy battling with the spreading red of socialism, for the black of autocracy had erstwhile vanished. ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings

... topsail with topgallant-sail over it on the spar which did duty for a main-mast; and a reefed mizen set upon the jib-boom, which had been rigged in, passed aft, and set on end, properly stayed, with its heel stepped down through the hole in the poop from which the mizen-mast had erstwhile sprung. ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood

... Avnoo," he ordered. "I got two guns—not a woid from youse!" His erstwhile amiable physiognomy, now gnarled into an unrecognizable mask of low villainy bespoke his desperate earnestness. The men obeyed. This was apparently a gangster, of gangsters—their fear of the dire vengeance of a rival ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... now rest on those dear Feet that erstwhile trod All the weary, painful journey leading Him from God to God; Took Him in His gentle grace wherever need and suffering thronged, Or one lonely soul was found who for the living ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings

... let Leonie and her aunt out, Ellen, the middle-aged maid, almost an heirloom in the family of Cuxson, bristling in starched cap and apron, let in the erstwhile plague of her life, but now as ever the light of ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest

... irritable, Warrington wended his way home. There was nothing surprising in the fact that he never inquired for mail. Who was there to write? Besides, he sought only the obscure hotels, where he was not likely to meet any of his erstwhile fellow passengers. The mockery and uselessness of his home-going became more and more apparent as the days slipped by. Often he longed to fly back to the jungles, to James, and leave matters as they were. ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath

... glass in the flickering lantern, and every now and then Jim could hear a pick striking against a stone or a heavy thud as of a spadeful of damp earth being beaten down. Out of the gig came the sack, and out of the sack speedily came the packman's erstwhile acquaintance, Jock. A gap in the hedge across the road conveniently accommodated Jock's unresisting body, over he went into the next field, and once again the mare started as Dandy Jim sprang into the gig with one bound and quickly struggled into the empty sack. He was only just in time. A parting ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang

... people upon the platform heard different things. Peter Dale and his little band of coadjutors were men enough to know that a new force had come amongst them. It is possible, even, that they, hardened as they were by time and circumstances, felt some thrill of that erstwhile enthusiasm which in their younger days had brought them out from the ranks of their fellows. To Aaron, listening with quivering attention to every sentence, it seemed like the consummation of all his dreams. Julia ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... to this extreme to recall it? A heat-flash of jealousy went over me. She had written to some other fellow; for there always is some other fellow, hang him!... And then a grand idea came into my erstwhile stupid head. Here she was, alone with me in a cab. It was the opportunity of a lifetime. I could force her ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various



Words linked to "Erstwhile" :   past



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