As Maclaine was a coward and no thief, so also he was a snob and no gentleman. His boasted elegance was not more respectable than his art. Fine clothes are the embellishment of a true adventurer; they hang ill on the sloping shoulders of a poltroon.英文原著 · 《A Book of Scoundrels》
"Think you I do not know, woman's bully and poltroon, that you plot to sell yourself, because your day has come, and no woman will bid for such an outcast, saving one that you may threaten. Rise, vermin--rise, lest I kill thee!"英文原著 · 《A Lady of Quality》
A mischievous boy can throw a lighted match into a powder magazine, and then it becomes every patriot's business to see that it isn't put out. I hate war. It accomplishes nothing, and leaves everything in a greater muddle than it was before. But if the idea ever catches fire, I shall have to do all I can to fan the conflagration. Unless I am prepared to be branded as a poltroon. Every professional soldier is supposed to welcome war. Most of us do: it's our opportunity. There's some excuse for us.英文原著 · 《All Roads Lead to Calvary》
"I am a mother! I am a mother! and since no one else will look out for my son, I will look out for him myself!" roared the improvised lioness. "In the name of the Virgin, niece, don't let your passion get the best of you! Remember that you are committing a sin. Let us say the Lord's Prayer and an Ave Maria, and you will see that this will pass away."
As he said this the Penitentiary trembled, and the perspiration stood on his forehead. Poor dove in the talons of the vulture! The furious woman completed his discomfiture with these words:
"You are good for nothing; you are a poltroon!英文原著 · 《Dona Perecta》
I know what I say when I repeat that the insurgents of the South sneer at all overtures looking to their interests. They scorn the alliance with the Copperheads; they tell me to my face that they respect Grant, McPherson, and our brave associates who fight manfully and well for a principle, but despise the Copperheads and sneaks at the North, who profess friendship for the South and opposition to the war, as mere covers for their knavery and poltroonery.英文原著 · 《Memoirs of General William T. Sherman-1》
You can't tell me anything about that. There's my hand. Are you going to take it? My heart is there in the palm of it, in the pulse in every finger- end of it. If you don't take it, I warn you I'll sit right down here in this chair and die. I want you to understand I am a man, sir, a gentleman. I am a friend, a comrade. I am no poltroon of the flesh.英文原著 · 《Michael, Brother of Jerry》