"Stalking-horse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... saw him, I fancy Robert was pretty old already: he had certainly begun to use his years as a stalking-horse. Latterly he was beyond all the impudencies of logic, considering a reference to the parish register worth all the reasons in the world. "I am old and well stricken in years," he was wont to say; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said Christian, Even a babe in religion may answer ten thousand such questions. For if it be unlawful to follow Christ for loaves, (as it is in the sixth of John), how much more abominable is it to make of him and religion a stalking-horse to get and enjoy the world! Nor do we find any other than heathens, hypocrites, devils, and witches, that ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... and guard-houses kept in the Indians, they also had the effect of keeping the Spaniards out. When men who looked upon the Indians as without reason, and captured them for slaves when it was possible, began to talk of liberty, it looks as if the 'sacred name of liberty' was used but as a stalking-horse — as greasy Testaments are used to swear upon in police-courts, when the witness, with his tongue in his cheek, raises his eyes to heaven, and then with fervency imprints a kiss upon ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... insect, of what clime I can't determine, That lifts its paws most parson-like, and thence, By simple savages—through sheer pretense— Is reckoned quite a saint among the vermin. But where's the reverence, or where the nous, To ride on one's religion through the lobby, Whether as stalking-horse or hobby, To show its pious ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... drift of the family intentions, in this letter. Gerald wanted her to be attached to the household at Shortlands, he was using Winifred as his stalking-horse. The father thought only of his child, he saw a rock of salvation in Gudrun. And Gudrun admired him for his perspicacity. The child, moreover, was really exceptional. Gudrun was quite content. She was quite willing, given a studio, to spend her days at Shortlands. She disliked the ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... mere book-merchant, a mercenary purveyor of learning and invention, of religion and philosophy, of instruction, or even of amusements, for the sole consideration of value received, as one would use a stalking-horse for getting near a stag? this, too, when ten to one some cormorant on the tree of knowledge, some staid-looking publisher in decent mourning, is complacently pocketing the profits, and modestly charging you with ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper |
