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Quest   Listen
verb
Quest  v. i.  To go on a quest; to make a search; to go in pursuit; to beg. (R.) "If his questing had been unsuccessful, he appeased the rage of hunger with some scraps of broken meat."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Quest" Quotes from Famous Books



... repose, Secured from pursuit of foes, And wanting nothing but a song, 165 And a well-tun'd theorbo hung Upon a bough, to ease the pain His tugg'd ears suffer'd, with a strain, They both drew up, to march in quest Of his great leader and ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... were very beautiful, these western women; handsome, too, the men with whom they talked and flirted. Always they had that air, however, of absolute complacency, as though they felt nothing of the quest which lay like a thread of torture amongst the nerves of Prince Shan's being. There was no more distinguished figure among the men there than he himself, and yet the sense of alienation grew in his heart as he watched. There were many familiar faces, many to whom he could have spoken, no ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... running in and begun to turn out the waste-paper-basket, with an eagerness which was very significant. He gave me a suspicious look: 'There was a letter there,' he said. I pretended not to understand. He did not insist, but his agitation did not escape me; and I continued my quest in this direction. A month later, I discovered, among the ashes in the drawing-room fireplace, the torn half of an English invoice. I gathered that a Stourbridge glass-blower, of the name of John Howard, had supplied ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc

... drank heroically, then, having had his way pointed out to him, set forth on the quest. He passed through the length of the town, crossed the little river Nivelle, where he paused for a moment on the bridge, to gaze at the panorama of mountains, all but to the summit clad in soft verdure, and presently turned into an inland road, ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing

... and because we cannot name or proclaim Him completely. See now under what mode and by what knowledge God will be present to our intention. For to have God for our aim is to see spiritually. To this quest belong also affection and love, for to know God and be without love aids and advances us not a whit, and has no savour. This is why a man, in all his actions, must bend lovingly towards God, whom he seeks and loves above ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge

... with redoubled interest. It had been interesting, the very idea of going into the mountains in quest of an abducted child, but the thought of going after a boy who would one day be a king! That was ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson

... explosion followed, proportionate in energy and destructive power to the quantity of pent-up self-love that served as a charge. Once the mine is fired, in the confusion and disorder that follow, vengeance stalks forth in quest of the ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... away the side of it to secure a stronger light. Again he went to the powder store, and now Venner and Tomlin were at his back, peering over his shoulder or under his arms in curiosity as to his quest. ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle

... above all things, to tell no one that you are in my service, but to keep this as a secret between us two. Pictures you must buy for me; that is all you have to do, master. But sometimes you must allow me to dictate to you—where to journey in quest of my pictures. For example, now: You have been in Italy, prosecuting your studies there, and have opportunely brought home to me, thence, a Venus, because I desired you to make a few purchases for me. You have seen how delighted I was with the beautiful picture, but, ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... him some victuals directly, but that he must first help her off with the pot—a request with which he readily complied. He was then told to take a bucket and go to the well for water, and was actually engaged in drawing it when found by an aide whom Washington had despatched in quest of him. The cook was in despair when she heard her assistant addressed by the title of "General." The mug fell from her hands, and dropping on her knees, she began crying for pardon, when Lee, who was ever ready ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford

... reached the vast size of 63,000 lines. The religious signification of the Grail is supposed to have been attached to it early in the thirteenth century by Robert de Boron; and, perhaps a little later, in the French prose "Quest of the Holy Grail," Galahad takes the place of Perceval as the hero of the story. The later history of the various versions of the legend is highly intricate, and in many points uncertain. It was from a form of it embodied ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed

... wimple were there, shrilly bargaining for provision for their households, squires and grooms in quest of hay for their masters' stables, purveyors seeking food for the garrison, lay brethren and sisters for their convents, and withal, the usual margin of begging friars, wandering gleemen, jugglers and pedlars, though in no great numbers, as this was only ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... on for quieter surroundings and to find a doctor. This was a hopeless quest. Every house that bore a sign was tried, and at each one the answer was the same: the doctor was out; went right after the quake to be back no one knew when. Some were at the Mechanics' Pavilion, where the injured had been gathered, and which had to be vacated later in the day; others at ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... themselves against the headlight and frequently their bodies are later picked up from the engine platform beneath. Birds seem rarely to lose their sense of direction, and they pursue their way for hundreds of miles across the trackless ocean. Terns, Gulls, and Murres are known to go many miles in quest of food for their young and return through dense fogs with unerring ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson

... quest, I've Still the hideously suggestive Trot that hammers out the unrelenting text, And I hear it hard behind me In what place soe'er I find me:— "'Sure to catch you sooner ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... power after midsummer is past suggests man's growing weakness after the meridian of life has been left behind. Winter is death, and man longs to escape it. Gilgamesh's wanderings are used as illustration of this longing, and accordingly the search for life becomes also the quest for immortality. Can the precious boon of eternal life be achieved? Popular fancy created the figure of a favorite of the gods who had escaped a destructive deluge in which all mankind had perished. [119] Gilgamesh hears of this favorite and determines ...
— An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic • Anonymous

... relation; mysterious affinities they used to be called, divinations of private congruity. Nick had an unexpressed conviction that if, according to his defeated desire, he had embarked with Mrs. Dallow in this particular quest of a great prize, disaster would have overtaken them on the deep waters. Even with the limited risk indeed disaster had come; but it was of a different kind and it had the advantage for him that now she couldn't reproach and denounce him as the cause of it—couldn't do so ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... hut where he was known, and decided a very knotty question so wisely and justly that they asked him to tarry with them for a while. He answered them in a dreamy way, for his mind was thinking of the Star and his fruitless quest, forgetting that even thus it had brought good fortune, since it had ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True

... errand or pursuit that takes us abroad upon the hills, or by the painted woods and along the amber-colored streams at such a time is enough." Here was a September day if not a bright one, and here were the painted woods, and somehow I felt half aggrieved that he did not immediately propose going in quest of wild honey. Instead he only replied: "I don't know whether there are bee-trees around here now or not. I used to find a good deal of wild honey over at a place that I spoke of casually as Mount Hymettus, and was much surprised later to find they had so put it down on the maps of this region. ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus

... his dear comrade whom he esteemed above all that were his age-fellows, because he was like-minded with himself; and bade him drive them to the hollow ships. Then did the hero mount his own chariot and take the shining reins and forthwith drive his strong-hooved horses in quest of Tydeides, eagerly. Now Tydeides had made onslaught with pitiless weapon on Kypris [Aphrodite], knowing how she was a coward goddess and none of those that have mastery in battle of the warriors. ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... doubtless, they had to be supplied with money and other necessaries before the father could venture to leave home; so that it was not till the 1st of May, 1769, that the party were able to set out, as Boone, in his autobiography, expresses it, "in quest of the country ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley

... effort on the other side; Mrs. Enderby showed no dislike for her daughter, yet unmistakably shunned her. If she chanced to enter the sitting-room whilst Maud was there, she would, if possible, retreat unobserved; or else she would feign to have come in quest of something, and at once go away with it. Maud could not fail to observe this, and its recurrence struck a chill to her heart. She had not the courage to speak to her mother; a deadweight of trouble, a restless spirit of apprehension, ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing

... as the town had surrendered, Lord Cornwallis, with 2500 men, and five field pieces, marched from St. Thomas' to Nelson's ferry. Thence he detached Tarleton, with 700 infantry and cavalry, in quest of Gen. Caswell and Col. Buford, who had been approaching to the relief of Charleston, with about 700 militia, and between 3 and 400 continentals. At Camden, Caswell, with the militia, quitted Buford, who then commanded ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James

... forest of Ardenne, in France, reaching from the Rhine to the city of Tournay, in the low countries; Indutiom[)a]rus conceals in it the infirm and aged, G. v. 3; Caesar crosses it in quest of ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar

... found by touch. Still, I remembered in a general way how the sides were situated, and I hoped that by groping my way along them I should at last come to the opening of the Roman tunnel. Moving very slowly, and continually striking against the rocks, I set out on this desperate quest. ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle

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

... speak to them, but dogging them privately home, called upon her sister the next day and was mighty well received. The couple now took every opportunity (notwithstanding the allowance of the book-keeper) to enable Alice to stroll out with her together, and wandered about nightly in quest of adventures, till it began to grow towards ten o'clock, and the fear of a visit from her keeper drove Alice ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... in a pantomime. Others of them, though burned and shattered, lay peacefully at full length. No impress of torture could any longer rob them of the rest on which they had entered so suddenly. I saw that each one of them had come to the end of his quest and had found the thing for which he had been searching. The Frenchman had his equality now. The German had doubtless by this time, found his God "a mighty fortress." The Belgian had won a neutrality which nothing ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason

... do not find an axe somewhere hereabouts I'll steal one from a farm if I have to spend two days and a night on the quest." ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... something, her scarlet confusion deepening. A rather grim vision of the war years swept across her mind—of the ceaseless quest in papers and journals, and wherever people talked, for "funny things" to tell Bob; and of how, when fact and rumour gave out, she used to sit by her attic window at night, deliberately inventing merry jests. It had closely resembled a job of hard work at the ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... cloddish, heavy-limbed gray which he had ridden in his quest for the superhorse at the ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand

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

... least, till he went on with it farther, and stated it thus:—"If this is the river Nile, why should not we build some more canoes, and go down this stream, rather than expose ourselves to any more deserts and scorching sands in quest of the sea, which when we are come to, we shall be as much at a loss how to get home ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe

... coast. I confess I begin to be fearful that he has worried his mind up to that pitch, that he cannot bear the idea of showing himself again to the world, until he shall have struck some blow, and that it is this hope that is now making him run about, half-frantic, in quest of adventures. That such unparalleled perseverance and true valor should thus evaporate in air is ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... toil so eagerly? Why did the alchemists so untiringly pursue their quest? I think it is not unfair to say: the chemist experiments in order that he "may liken his imaginings to the facts which he observes"; the alchemist toiled that he might liken the facts which he observed to his imaginings. The difference ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir

... "cups"; whose appeals for pannikins were persistently flouted by the military utensil-keeper-in-chief. The "tape" of the Service could not tie up mendacity! The lives of honest martyrs were thus spent in an eternal borrowing quest, and the petty larceny of pannikins was a common and popular crime. Many a heated, yet amusing, quarrel, many a storm in a porringer relieved ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... point. The keen-eyed Frenchman gave no further instructions to his baffled subordinates, but crossing the room to the sofa stood staring at it fixedly. Then, grasping the back with his capable-looking hand, instead of beginning at once a quest which his gendarmes had abandoned, he searched the face of the ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson

... (asmanye yet lyvinge canne testyfye,) sayed yf yo{ur} grace be not offended, Ihoope to be protected by yo{u}, whereuppon the kinge bydd hym goo his waye and feare not. All whiche not withstandinge, [Sidenote: The promise broken through the power of Wolsey.] my father was called in quest{i}one by the Bysshoppes and heaved at by cardinall Wolseye his olde enymye, for manye causes, but mostly for that my father had furthered Skelton to publishe his Collen Cloute againste the Cardinall, [Sidenote: The most ...
— Animaduersions uppon the annotacions and corrections of some imperfections of impressiones of Chaucer's workes - 1865 edition • Francis Thynne

... greatest sermons Savonarola declared that he had always striven after truth with all his might, and maintained a constant war against falsehood. "The more trouble"—they are his own words—"I bestowed upon my quest, the greater became my longing, so that for it I was prepared to abandon life itself. When I was but a boy, I had such thoughts; and from that time, the desire and longing after this good has gone on increasing to the ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer

... contingents went from the university, and still Garth pursued the quest of learning. His mother openly rebuked the mothers of the boys who had gone. "Let the man on the street go! Look at the unemployed men on our streets!" she said; "why aren't they made to go—and leave ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung

... set forth in your histories, and the tales you tell about both Greeks and Barbarians, whether they be true, or whether they be false, men dispute not little but a great deal. Wherefore I, being concerned to know the verity, did set forth to make search in every manner, and came in my quest even unto the ends of the earth. For there is an island of the Cimmerians beyond the Straits of Heracles, some three days' voyage to a ship that hath a fair following wind in her sails; and there it is said that men know many things from of old: thither, then, I came in my inquiry. Now, ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang

... whatever, to learn all he could concerning the business of these military-appearing strangers; also to impress on that official the fact that he had sought to dissuade them from starting on their mad quest. ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... "An agreeable quest," remarked Mr. Wilkins, "May I assist in the search? Allow me—" he added, opening ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim

... dancing was at least peculiar. With a sanitary view of the matter, she meant to make it exercise, and fearful was the skipping that ensued. She chassed on tiptoe, and balanced with an indescribable hopping twirl, that made one think of a chickadee pursuing its quest of food on new-ploughed ground; and some late-awakened feminine instinct of dress, restrained, too, by due economy, indued her with the oddest decorations that woman ever devised. The French lessons went on more smoothly. If Monsieur Leclerc's Parisian ear was tortured by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various

... he proceeded to turn over the sketches, drawings, and rough drafts that he kept in a large old closet; but, soon becoming disgusted with this vain quest, and feeling depressed by the lassitude of his spirits, he tossed away his cigarette, whistled a popular street-song, bent down and picked up a heavy dumb-bell that lay under a chair. Having raised with the other hand ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant

... it was to Joan, to old Nathan it was the saddest Christmas Day of his life. He was seeking some trace or tidings of the baby's mother; and his weary feet, made heavy by his heavy heart, trod many a mile that short wintry day in quest of her. It could be no one else but Rhoda who had laid the child in the manger. She had never been heard of since Aunt Priscilla had answered her first and only letter, asking forgiveness, by a bitter, stern, and terrible command that she must never show ...
— The Christmas Child • Hesba Stretton

... The quest for the farm became so absorbing that the wild flowers were forgotten. The oftener they took the wrong road and had to start over, the keener they became ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... of which Mr. Birkbeck came in quest was, as he supposed, of inferior quality. But though he found it unfit for his purpose, he had been repaid his trouble by the pleasure of his ride, through a fine portion of country. In leaving Chillicothe, to proceed towards Cincinnati, he and his party ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley

... a pension, and save me the trouble of going about every day in quest of food, not to speak of innumerable other privileges that will be granted me. Further, I am not to stay here all day. I have asked a kinsman of mine, to whom I have communicated the secret of holding ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten

... sought around, It was not to be found, She searched each nook and dell, The haunts she loved so well, All anxious with desire; The wind blew ope his vest, When, lo! the toy in quest, She found within the breast Of Cupid, the false crier, Ring-a-ding, a-ding-a-ding, ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat

... that we've gone in for it, why not have a searchlight? It would be tremendously useful. But the searchlight needs so much electricity that when it runs it will put all the other lights out of commission. Again we travel the weary road in the quest after more power for storage battery and dynamo. And then, when it is finally solved, some one asks, "What if the engine breaks down?" And we collapse. There are the sidelights, the binnacle light, and the anchor light. Our very lives depend upon them. So we have to fit the boat ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London

... pleased me well, for though I had no fear of going to that lonely place so long as I had made myself certain that I should meet Gunnhild, now that it seemed not quite so sure but that I should find myself alone there, the thought of the quest was not quite so pleasant ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler

... Knowles of Colchester, Connecticut, in 1827, patented a plane stock of cast iron which in many respects was a prototype of later Centennial models (fig. 58).[17] It is evident, even in its earliest manifestation, that the quest for improvement of the bench plane did not alter its sound design. In 1857, M.B. Tidey (fig. 59) listed several of the ...
— Woodworking Tools 1600-1900 • Peter C. Welsh

... price. Seek ever if there be a face More beautiful than mine; and should ye find A face more fair, come tell it straight to me. If ye obey my will I'll make ye all Inspectresses within the royal home." Then forth the women went upon the quest. And first among their friends they went with words Of mystery and hints of wondrous things They had for sale. And so these servants bore The story to their masters, "The dyangs Have something wonderful to sell." And soon The daughters of the houses rich began ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors

... the treasure proved a long one, and Sid Merrick and Tad Sobber did all in their power to keep the wealth from falling into the hands of the Rovers and their friends. But the Rovers won out in the quest and sailed away with the treasure on board the steam yacht. The vessel of their enemies followed them, but a hurricane came up and the other ship was lost with ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer

... who's always in quest of his Prey, May find fools here to feed upon every Day; And the sage Politician, in Coffee-Grounds known, May point out the Fate of each ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... a little while later, when her accommodating neighbor was not using his horse, she borrowed it again and rode forth on her quest. It had been raining, the mud road was muddy, and clouds still hung in the sky; but the country through which she passed was a rich, fresh green, and the fruit-orchards were in bloom. From solitary farm-houses big dogs and little dogs issued forth to bark at the sound of her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various

... there is but little outflow. The villages about this lake, containing about twenty-four or twenty-six thousand men, were pacified by the captain Juan de Sauzedo. From here the latter crossed with sixty men to the opposite coast of this island, in quest of some mines which the natives had told him were very rich and abounding in gold. The galley was left in the lake above mentioned. These mines are on the opposite coast of this island, which is the northeastern, and the natives call them the mines of Paracali. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair

... win literary success, and by the terrible scenes of shipwreck and death that often distracted him. He died in 1875, having been received into the Romish Church a few hours before his death; and the remains were laid in Plymouth Cemetery. On his tombstone is a line from his own beautiful poem, "The Quest of ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon

... I pushed the quest that was uppermost in my mind, but without finding any trace of ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... inducing him to give me a fair pretext for killing him. So I ran on, wondering if my pursuer had ringed hair; if it were possible that, in this remote place and by this chance meeting, I might find the object of my quest; and conscious of that fierce, playful delight that always came over me when I was hunting the enemies of my race. For, of course, I was now hunting the fellow behind me, although the poor devil ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman

... another place, when I look for, and do not find, what I had trusted to my memory. In such a case we cannot reach, and are, in a manner, strangers remote from ourselves. Nor do we come at us but when we find what we are in quest of. But where is it we look for but within us? Or what is it we look for but ourselves? . . . So unfathomable a difficulty astonishes us!" I distinctly remember I have known what I do not know at present. I remember my very oblivion. ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon

... was softly sobbing; Aunt Catharine, wearing her garden-hat and strongest boots; Nurse Perry, Mary the cook; and Green the gardener, armed with a stout staff and the stable lantern. It was the search-party in the act of setting out to explore the recesses of Copsley Wood in quest of the ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur

... or four miles in quest of honey, but it is a great advantage to move the hive near the good pasturage, as has been the custom from the earliest times in the Old World. Some enterprising person, taking a hint perhaps from the ancient Egyptians, who had floating apiaries on the Nile, has tried the ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... venturing into a tiger's den in quest of a lamb. All's clear, however; and, could I but pop on little Alice, how we would bill and coo. She comes! lie ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Rip van - Winkle • Charles Burke

... to have evolved at least a tentative programme. It started with a visit to the public library, where he carefully went over the ground already gone over by the police. Finding nothing, he concluded that Miss Gilbert had not found what she wanted at the library and had continued the quest, even as he was ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve

... them the country of marvels, of mysterious crimes, of luxurious gardens and splendid skies, where love was more passionate and life more picturesque, and hate more bloody and treachery more black, than in our Northern climes. Italy was a spacious grove of wizardry, which mighty poets, on the quest of fanciful adventure, trod with fascinated senses and quickened pulses. But the strong brain which converted what they heard and read and saw of that charmed land into the stuff of golden romance or ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... missionary craft off Shingle Point, and Mikklesen's ship The Duchess of Bedford, abandoning her ambitious search for a dream-continent in Beaufort Sea to deposit her tapped-camphor-wood bones on the edge of the ocean of her quest. ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... proceeded in quest of the unfortunate fugitive; and the monarch having conducted his royal bride to the pavilion, cast off his jacket of black velvet, and arrayed himself in one of cloth of gold, with edgings of purple and of sable fur. His favourite steed, caparisoned to carry two, and with its panoply embroidered ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various

... prosecution of an investigation into the true nature and character of the mysterious object we know as the Grail it will be well to ask ourselves whether any light may be thrown upon the subject by examining more closely the details of the Quest in its varying forms; i.e., what was the precise character of the task undertaken by, or imposed upon, the Grail hero, whether that hero were Gawain, Perceval, or Galahad, and what the results to be expected from a successful achievement of the task. We shall find ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston

... volumes, eight of which were romances of chivalry, wherein valiant knights did all kinds of impossibilities at the behest of fair damsels, rescued enchanted princesses, slew two-headed giants, or wandered for months over land and sea in quest of the Holy Grail, which few of them were sufficiently good even to see, and none to bring back to Arthur's Court. But Mr Benden found that the adventures of Sir Isumbras, or the woes of the Lady Blanchefleur, ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt

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

... he was busy all morning under Jane's garrulous command, getting in bunches of holly and other evergreens from the hedgerows. His last journey had been to one of the farms on the Upper Hanyards in quest of mistletoe, which grew abundantly there in an ancient orchard. On getting back he had held a sprig over Jane's head for a certain familiar and laudable purpose, and had been rewarded with a smack that sounded like the dropping ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... million miracles of thought. My fingers carelessly unclung The lettered pages, and among Them wandered witless, nor divined The wealth in which, poor fools, they mined. The soul that should have led their quest Was dreaming in the level west, Where a tall tower, stark and still, Uplifted on a distant hill, Stood lone and passionless to claim ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... realization that he had discovered not Asia, but a new world, would have been his bitterest disappointment. He was seeking merely another route to the spices and treasures of the East; and he bore with him a royal letter of introduction to the great Khan of Cathay (China). In his quest he failed, even though he returned in 1493, in 1498, and finally in 1502 and explored successively the Caribbean Sea, the coast of Venezuela, and Central America in a vain search for the island "Cipangu" and the realms of the "Great ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... young gentleman of this modish ambition just broke lose from business is to cut a figure (as they call it)in a side box at the play, from whence their next step is to the Green Room behind the scenes, sometimes their non ultra. Hither at last, then, in this hopeful quest of his fortune, came this gentleman-errant, not doubting but the fickle dame, while he was thus qualified to receive her, might be tempted to fall into his lap. And though possibly the charms of our theatrical nymphs might have their share in drawing him thither, yet in my ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... manner of doing so, were on the whole stronger than her shadowy suspicions. And yet these latter had just sufficient strength to check the impulse of generosity which prompted her to confess everything to him. She did not tell him why she had started on the quest which had come to such an ignominious conclusion. She offered him ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... The woman's husband had been active with the mob, and had not returned home until nearly dawn. He was gone now to find out what the general result had been. While we were still talking he came back from his quest. His report was revolting enough. Eighteen persons hanged or butchered, and two yeomen and thirteen ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... and greatnes: millions of false eies Are stucke vpon thee: volumes of report Run with these false, and most contrarious Quest Vpon thy doings: thousand escapes of wit Make thee the father of their idle dreame, And racke thee in ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... dark when Kilmeny came home from her quest With her bridge dabbled red where her skipper had died; But she moved like a bride with a rose at her breast, And Well done Kilmeny! the ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes

... that he was fond of preaching sermons, and so am I, though I never heard it maintained that either of us loved to hear them. He sought health in his youth in the Isle of Wight, and I have sought it in both hemispheres; but whereas he found and kept it, I am still on the quest. He was a great lover of Shakespeare, whom he read aloud, I have been told, with taste; well, I love my Shakespeare also and am persuaded I can read him well, though I own I never have been told so. He made embroidery, designing his own patterns; and in that kind of work I never ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... night, Sir, I lay wakeful and tossing in my bed, alternately fuming and rejecting plans for the attainment of that golden goal—the recovery of Mme. de Nole's pet dog. And the whole of the next day I spent in vain quest. I visited every haunt of ill-fame known to me within the city. I walked about with a pistol in my belt, a hunk of bread and cheese in my pocket, and slowly growing despair ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... favourable breeze having sprung up, they steered for the northward. Their notable scheme for destroying the English frigate having failed, the fleet separated, some taking shelter among the neighbouring islands, others standing out to sea in quest of prey; but the greater number returning to their accustomed haunts in the neighbourhood of Canton, localities most frequented by ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

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

... to the barracks. With helmet on head and sword by his side he set off at once on the quest. He gave Kaeppchen the regulations to carry over to the orderly-room of the division, ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... Smith, John Gregory, James Hermit, seamen. It has been a fixed principle with Congress, to establish the rate of ransom of American captives in the Barbary States at as low a point as possible, that it may not be the interest of those States to go in quest of our citizens in preference to those of other countries. Had it not been for the danger it would have brought on the residue of our seamen, by exciting the cupidity of those rovers against them, our citizens now in Algiers would have been long ago redeemed, without regard to price. The ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... Despising spells and demons' force, Holds converse with the unburied corse; Or when, Dame Ganore's grace to move, (Alas, that lawless was their love!) He sought proud Tarquin in his den, 265 And freed full sixty knights; or when, A sinful man, and unconfess'd, He took the Sangreal's holy quest, And, slumbering, saw the vision high, He might not view with ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott

... electric torch, which the Chief carried, and a large sketch-book which I regretted taking almost as soon as we started, we set out on our quest of Dantesque scenery. At first our road ran along the quays by the river side. A camouflaged Admiralty oiler was loading fuel oil by means of three pipes that looked like the tentacles of an octopus clutching ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell

... own, Face burned pale olive by our Southern sun, A mind long used to musings grave apart. Gold, noble name or fame I ne'er regret, Albeit all are lacking; but the glow Of spring-like beauty, but the overflow Of simple, youthful joy. And yet—and yet— A proud voice whispers: Vain may be his quest, What fruit soe'er he pluck, what laurels green, Through all the world, for just this prize unseen I in my deep heart harbor quite unguessed: I alone know what full hands I should bring Were I to lay my wealth before ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... overlooked in her first search. She began to be thoroughly alarmed now, and thoroughly confused. With twitching hands and nervous shaking of the head, she hurried through the vacant rooms, growing more and more aimless in her quest. She climbed on a tall bureau and looked in a tiny medicine cupboard; then under the benches and behind the charts in the parlour; even under the kitchen sink, among the pots and pans, and in the stove, where she poked tremulously among the ashes. Her newfound wit seemed temporarily ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... next morning Aristide started on his quest, without informing the good Bocardon of his intentions. He would go straight to Avignon, as the more likely place. Inquiries at the various hotels would soon enable him to hunt down his quarry; and then—he did not quite know what would happen then—but ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke

... Their quest, however, was unsuccessful, for ere they reached the spot the evil spirit had taken the tree away and on the walls of the cave it had made strange carvings which even to this ...
— Philippine Folk Tales • Mabel Cook Cole

... When you've driven far enough to satisfy yourself you're going the wrong direction, you may easily overtake us on your return. Then, if we've discovered nothing on this road, we'll try the other." Arthur ran back at once to the house and in a few minutes had started on his quest. The motor car was powerful enough to plow through the ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne

... these specialties, let us not forget the great generality, which is our chief quest here: How prospered the inner man of Teufelsdrockh, under so much outward shifting! Does Legion still lurk in him, though repressed; or has he exorcised that Devil's Brood? We can answer that the symptoms continue promising. Experience ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

... of horse-chestnut, dank valleys of walnut-trees and hawthorn, which summer made dark at noon; bare, wind-swept mountainous regions whence one could reconnoitre afar; all sorts of wild and fearsome places for savages and wild beasts to hide and small boys to roam quite safely in quest of ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al

... Our quest took us to a rather dilapidated old house on the outskirts of the little Long Island town. The house stood alone, not far from the tracks of a trolley that ran at infrequent intervals. Even a hasty reconnoitering showed that to ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... Never was treasure-quest so successful! The otters, recognizing him as the favorite of Tamanoues, retired to a distance and gazed upon ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... top of that forbidden hill. In their rambles they had passed the closed gate on more than one occasion. The words, "No Trespass," still met the eye. Some day he would suggest an adventure: the descent to the cave in quest of treasure! The two of them! Rope ladder and all! It ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon

... that, in his quest for food, Here, not far off, he trails yon furrowed path. For, so 'tis told, this mode the sufferer hath Of sustenance, oh hardness! bringing low Wild creatures with wing'd arrows from his bow; Nor findeth ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles

... heard he would devote himself to it. Well, if he has enough desire in him for that speech, he owes it to himself that he sound his own depths for the discoveries he may make. It is doubtful if this quest would really lead him to write music, God forbid; it might however induce him to develop a latent appreciation until it became in him both a ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks

... to ride in mail A weary quest for the Holy Grail; Wield Saxon steel 'gainst Saracen sword Around the sepulcher of our Lord; See Cross and Crescent and mailed hand All plashed with blood in that sacred land, Than doubt that heaven e'er ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... began to rise, taking a fine sweep about the shoulder of Bear Mountain, and then making its way over obstacles of a pronounced nature, through a very poor and peaked "virgin forest." The wood-cutter had hacked his way right and left, combining a quest for firewood with his efforts in the service of the road-builder, scorning to remove stumps and roots, delighting in sharp corners and meaningless digressions. The horses struggled gallantly on, sometimes marching like a sculptor's creation, elevated on a huge pedestal of rock above the ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller

... the sacred shadow of the Nuns' protection. Then, assured of your safety and that your education would not be neglected, I devoted myself completely to my profession. From city to city I wandered in quest of fame and money, both so essential to the accomplishment of my scheme; a scheme that goaded me sleeping and waking, leaving no ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... was an authority on the feeding of babies. By this time the rest of the section were awake and were crowding around us, asking numerous questions, and admiring our newly found friend. Sailor Bill took this opportunity to tell of his adventures while in quest of ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... given the poem by the first stanza? What quest is to be begun, l. 10? What caused the "Scholar" to join himself to the gipsies? What were his original intentions? Why, then, did he continue with them till his death? Why would he avoid others than members of the gipsy crew? Why his pensive air? To what truth does the author suddenly awake? How ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold

... agricultural Nigritians who lived in towns and cities scattered and unorganized in the agricultural zone, and who were easy victims of the mounted bands of desert Berbers, Tuaregs and Arabs who descended into the region in quest of booty and captives. Robert Adams, an American sailor who was wrecked on the West Coast of Africa in 1810, said of the raiding parties sent out from Timbuktu, "These armed parties were all on foot ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... my father's death I had occasion to search the country round for some lost oxen. After a long and useless quest it occurred to me that I had better go to the place where the oxen were bred by a Kaffir chief, whose name I forget, but whose kraal was about fifty miles from our station. There I journeyed, and found the oxen safe at home. The chief entertained ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard

... of commerce with foreign nations, and I was elected to that duty. I accordingly left Annapolis on the 11th, took with me my eldest daughter; then at Philadelphia (the two others being too young for the voyage), and proceeded to Boston, in quest of a passage. While passing through the different states, I made a point of informing myself of the state of the commerce of each, went on to New Hampshire with the same view, and returned to Boston. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... and moralities like these, are others which embody the sweet and playful, though still thoughtful and slightly saturnine action of Hawthorne's mind,—like "The Seven Vagabonds," "Snow-Flakes," "The Lily's Quest," "Mr. Higgenbotham's Catastrophe," "Little Annie's Ramble," "Sights from a Steeple," "Sunday at Home," and "A Rill ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various

... passage surged the noisy realities of Fleet Street. There were men there in quest of news; men who would have given much for such a story as this in which I was becoming entangled. Yet a story more tantalizingly incomplete could not well ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer

... wall of Great Flat Top Mountain, a short chain, in reality a continuation of Tug Ridge. On the right rose ridge after ridge of the Alleghanies, punctuated by Peter's Mountain, where New River burst through the wall in its quest for the Ohio. A wild land, and yet birds, bees and deer were here, and the soil was ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter

... Mr. MacGentle, are you again the tall and graceful youth, full of romance and fire, who roamed abroad in quest of adventures with your trusty friend Thor Helwyse, the yellow-bearded Scandinavian? Do you fancy this fresh, unwrinkled face a mate to your own? and is it but the vision of a restless night,—this long-drawn life of dull routine and gradual disappointment and decay? Open those dim eyes of yours, ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... very comprehensible about his exertions in the morning, and his inability to drink any more, Paullus arose, delighted to effect his escape on terms so easy, and left the triclinium immediately in quest ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... fear has not escaped our notice," replied Hur, "and it is in order to guard against this peril that Moses has set forth on a dangerous quest." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... much, so much, we are denied! So much we must do without! So much we must see go to others! So much we must never even hope for! Oh, pioneers, great you are and great you must be, to endure what you have endured! You must be strong in your hours of secret questioning and you must be strong in your quest for consolation. If nothing else, you must at least be strong. And these western men of ours should all be strong men, should all be great men, because they must have been the children of great mothers. ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... Ah, barren quest, Foredoomed to fail ere half begun! Though left behind, my England pressed In hot pursuit of me, her son; London was brought again to view By hordes of maidens out for pillage, When from the train I stepped into A flag day in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various

... Lazarus; He was still more sorry for Dives. "Blessed are ye poor.... Woe unto you that are rich." This two-fold note sounds through all Christ's teaching. And the reason is not far to seek. As Jesus looked on life, He saw how the passionate quest for gold was starving all the higher ideals of life. Men were concentrating their souls on pence till they could think of nothing else. For mammon's sake they were turning away from the kingdom of heaven. The spirit of covetousness was breaking the peace of households, ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson

... from Marakinoff. If he had eliminated the episode of car and Moon Pool, he had good reason, I had no doubt; and I would be as cautious. And deep within me something cautioned me to say nothing of my quest; to stifle all thought of Throckmartin—something that warned, peremptorily, finally, as though it were a message from ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt

... orders. In less than a few minutes the sand was heaped under Miss Roberts's head and shoulders, while Louise constantly wetted her forehead and lips with water. Gwen, with a few assistants, had gone in quest of splints. She had spied some hazel bushes farther up the gorge, which she thought might suffice for her purpose. Up the steep bed of the stream the girls climbed, splashing recklessly in and out of the water, to save time ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil

... Office:—'Fra esse d'eterna lode lo fa degno il tribunal dell'inquisizione, che dal zelo di lui e prima in autorita di consigliero e poscia in podesta di principe riconosce il presente suo vigor nell'Italia, e dal quale riconosce l'Italia la sua conservata integrita della fede: e per quest' opera salutare egli rimane ora tanto piu benemerito ed onorabile quantao piu allora ne fu mal rimerilato ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... gentlemen, but is the beginning of death. Anyway, man has always been afraid of this mathematical certainty, and I am afraid of it now. Granted that man does nothing but seek that mathematical certainty, he traverses oceans, sacrifices his life in the quest, but to succeed, really to find it, dreads, I assure you. He feels that when he has found it there will be nothing for him to look for. When workmen have finished their work they do at least receive ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky

... MacDonald, the government map maker. He was gray and grizzled, with a great, free laugh and a clean heart. Two days he remained with Pierrot. He told Nepeese of his daughters at home, of their mother, whom he worshiped more than anything else on earth—and before he went on in his quest of the last timber line of Banksian pine, he took pictures of the Willow as he had first seen her on her birthday: her hair piled in glossy coils, her red dress, the high-heeled shoes. He carried the negatives on with him, promising Pierrot that he would get a picture back in some way. Thus fate ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood

... against the imperial yellow of Foh-Kyung's robe. Her face colored like a pale spring blossom, looked strangely ethereal above her brocade jacket. Her heart still beat thickly, half with fear and half with the secret rapture of their quest and ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... and I saw the flash of a sabre, as I stammered a reply. Led to a cabin close at hand, my pass was examined by candle-light, and I learned that the nearest camp of the Reserves was only a mile farther on, and the regiment of which I was in quest about two miles distant. After another half hour, I reached Ord's brigade, whose tents were pitched in a fine grove of oaks; the men talking, singing, and shouting, around open air fires; and a battery of brass Napoleons unlimbered in front, pointing significantly ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... the solitude which awaited the old man under his own roof. He ran swiftly over their argument in his mind, and questioned himself whether he had used him with unfailing tenderness, whether he had let him think that he regarded him as at all reprobate and culpable. He gave up the quest as he rejoined his wife with a long, unconscious sigh that made her ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells

... bordered with willows, and aspens, were scattered a few cows, sheep, and herds of pigs. Fields, sown with thin buckwheat and rye, stretched away to a background of half-cultivated hills, offering no remarkable prospect. The pencil of an artist in quest of the picturesque would have found nothing to reproduce in ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne

... wagon was driven, and the first care of Harry was to water the animals, as they had not been allowed to quench their thirst on the way. They waited an hour or more for the appearance of the Professor and John. George went out on a quest back over the trail which they had just made, and almost reached the stream before he caught sight of them lurking through the ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay

... who in quest of riches roam, Reflect that ashes ye must become; And the wealth ye win will brightly shine When burried are ye and all your line; For your many chests of much loved gold You'll nothing obtain ...
— A Bibliography of the writings in Prose and Verse of George Henry Borrow • Thomas J. Wise

... yellow hen had been freed from the restraints of the coop, and by day had led her brood in adventurous quest of grasshoppers, and at sunset had conducted them to the waiting nest in the rear of the woodshed. But at the present moment, a peculiar scene was being enacted. At the open door of the woodshed, a sleepy brood huddled ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith

... their little culverts, the ditches and dry water-ways. Embarking again and crossing over, they worked their way up the stream in this manner, while the moon, serene and detached in a cloudless sky, did what she could, though so far off, to help them in their quest; till her hour came and she sank earthwards reluctantly, and left them, and mystery once more held field ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame

... Orpheus, while sporting in the fields, with other Nymphs, is bitten by a serpent, which causes her death. After having mourned for her, Orpheus resolves to go down to the Infernal Regions in quest of her. Pluto and the Fates consent to her return, on condition that Orpheus shall not look on her till he is out of their dominions. His curiosity prevailing, he neglects this injunction, on which she is immediately snatched away from him, beyond ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... various feelings, arrived at Havre four days after their departure from Paris. It was about five o'clock in the afternoon, and no intelligence had yet been received of Madame. They were soon engaged in quest of apartments; but the greatest confusion immediately ensued among the masters, and violent quarrels among their attendants. In the midst of this disorder, the Comte de Guiche fancied he recognized Manicamp. It was, indeed, Manicamp himself; but as Malicorne had taken ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... carried it on, now recurred to him again; but this time he had an accompanying sense of its utter falsity. He had been wrong in his thought, he told himself, because to view life in that large way from an apparently outside point of view was in reality to lose all sight of the meaning under quest. It was the point of view which was unsuitable, not the meaning which was absent! The error was the same fatal one of detachment. If man projected a critical mind, a mere isolated bit of himself, to which adhered nothing of his essential nature, into a boundless ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill

... military or other exercises, entertain, enliven, and do honor to their prince's court; but far above all these is the knight-errant, who, through deserts and solitudes, through cross-ways, through woods, and over mountains, goes in quest of perilous adventures, which he undertakes and accomplishes only to obtain a glorious ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra



Words linked to "Quest" :   pass, chase, apply, quester, ask, invite, invoke, hold, tap, bay, take out, trail, ask out, appeal, reserve, petition, pursuit, seeking, excuse, ask round, demand, wild-goose chase, solicit, communicate, beg off, hunt, request, tag, pursuance, call for, desire, lay claim, quest for, ask over



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