"Capricious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... understand it. Teresina also arose before my imagination curvetting on her proud steed with the lute in her hands, like Art herself disguised in romance. Without thinking of it consciously, I wrote several songs of a high and serious nature. Lauretta, it is true, played with her notes like a capricious fairy queen. There was nothing upon which she ventured in which she had not success. But never did a roulade cross Teresina's lips; nothing more than a simple interpolated note, at most a mordent; but her long-sustained tones gleamed like meteors through the darkness of night, ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... the centre of the earth, the shoot rises above away from it. Numerous other "tropic" movements are caused by contact, by electricity, by moisture and by invisible radiations. These effects appear so extremely diverse and capricious that some of the leading physiologists were forced to come to the conclusion that there was no law guiding such movement, but that the plant decides for itself what should be the effect of external conditions ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... he gives too much time to his Tennis, Neglectful of dear L. S. D., If he chatters of WHISTLER and Venice, If he cares about Five o'clock Tea; If he's not sometimes rude or capricious (All swells who have money are so), Such signs are extremely suspicious; My ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 8, 1893 • Various
... characteristic remark—"There may be something fanciful ... in this reasoning, which I therefore abandon to the reader's mercy; only begging him to observe, that we have no mode of estimating the exertions of a quality so capricious as a poetic imagination."[472] Early in his career he gave this rather over-amiable explanation of the fact that he had never undertaken to review poetry: "I am sensible there is a greater difference of tastes in that department than in any other, and that there ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... independence? I answer generally, That independence being a single, simple line, contained within ourselves, and reconciliation a matter exceedingly perplexed and complicated, and in which a treacherous, capricious court is to interfere, gives the answer without a doubt.... Instead of gazing at each other with suspicious or doubtful curiosity, let each of us hold out to his neighbor the hearty hand of friendship, and unite in drawing a line, which, like ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... Henry VIII., a capricious tyrant, and of the imprudent and unfortunate Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth was born at Greenwich, on the banks of the Thames, September 7, 1533. Her infancy was unfortunate through the unhappy fate of her mother, but she was nevertheless educated with ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... would not only be utterly unavailing, but would, with certainty, involve them in speedy and retrieveless ruin. They could not unite with the Jacobins in their reckless onset upon every thing which time had rendered venerable, and substitute for decency, and law, and order, the capricious volitions of an insolent, ignorant, and degraded mob. The only hope that remained for them was to struggle to continue firm in the position which they had already assumed. It was the only hope for France. The ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... beech-trees begin there are those curious parasites which are the only plants they tolerate, the Listera Nidus-avis, birds'-nest orchis, the Monotropa Hypopitys, or yellow birds'-nest, the beautiful lily-like Epipactis Grandiflora; while helleborine and the curious and capricious tooth-wort, Spiraea Filipendula or drop-wort, Gentiana Amarella, and other distinctive ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... transcendental geometry, and also to obey physical laws of startling intricacy. These lovely forms of almighty nature wear the grandeur of mystery, of floral beauty, and of science (immanent science) not always fathomable.[6] They are anything but capricious. Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like them; and yet, simply because the sad hand of mortality is upon them, because they are dedicated to death, because on genial days they will have passed into the oblivion of graves before the morning sun has ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... does not act only in the sexual sphere, but on the whole mental life. In aesthetics and in art it has an immense and irresistible influence, which gives rise to all the capricious exaltations of fashion. The average artist is more or less the slave of the aesthetic suggestions which are in fashion, but the average members of the public are absolutely dominated by them. Originating in a correct idea of certain effects of light, the most absurd exaggerations ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... Minerva's helmet, fierce and bold, Or all of emblem gay that dress'd Capricious goddesses of old? "Thee higher honours yet await:- Haste, then, thy triumphs quick prepare, Thy trophies spread in haughty state, Sweep o'ei the earth, and ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... been too idealistic: he wished to protect the Church as a sort of earthly paradise, of which the rules might seem to him as paternal as those of heaven, but might well seem to the king as capricious as those of Fairyland.' The tremendously suggestive thing of the whole story of Becket is that Henry II submitted to being thrashed at Becket's tomb. It was like 'Cecil Rhodes submitting to be horsewhipped ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... years before had said that the penniless young Englishman, Lord Ripon, wished to make a rich marriage, and that the capricious Miss Windsor, after having broken, cracked or temporarily discouraged a sufficient number of hearts, was at last ready to accept a lord and perhaps a master. But in the middle of the season the British Legation was recalled, and Geoffrey, after a few words of farewell, ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... sentiment in all religions in which a belief in spirits finds a place. A man can never be sure that, in spite of all his precautions, he has not incurred the displeasure of such exacting and capricious masters. Some condition of the bargain which is being perpetually driven with protectors who give nothing for nothing, may have been unwittingly omitted. "The spirits and their worshippers are equally ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... of weather. It came without warning; and there was no hint of apology to the skipper of the First Venture. When the schooner was still to the s'uth'ard of the dangerous Chunks, but approaching them, she was beating laboriously into a violent and capricious head wind. Bill o' Burnt Bay, giving heed to Sir Archibald's injunction, kept her well off the group of barren islands. They were mere rocks, scattered widely. Some of them showed their forbidding heads to passing craft; others were submerged, ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... him; lodging beggars, sometimes in his very bed, continually breaking his night's rest for prayer, and devotional exercise of undue length; "weeping one moment, then smiling in joy the next;" meandering about, capricious, melodious, weak, at the will of devout whim mainly! However, that does not concern us. [Many LIVES of the Saint. See, in particular, Libellus de Dictis Quatuor Ancillarum, &c.—(that is, Report of the ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... answered. "I won't tell you. But I have a reason. I'm not capricious. I don't take violent dislikes to people for nothing. Let it alone. We can talk very pleasantly about other things. Since you are good enough to like me, it might be amusing to tell me why. If you have any good reason, you know, you won't stop liking me just because I don't like ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... Red King was not only grievous, it was arbitrary, capricious, cruel, and without semblance of law. The austerity of the Conqueror had been conspicuous; equally conspicuous was the debauchery of his son. The Conqueror had been faithful and conscientious in seeing that vacancies in the Church were filled up quickly and wisely. The Red King preferred ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... minute anthers showing like a group of pale stars on its little firmament, is enough to arrest and hold the dullest eye. Then, ... there are individual hepaticas, or individual families among them, that are sweet scented. The gift seems as capricious as the gift of genius in families. You cannot tell which the fragrant ones are till you try them. Sometimes it is the large white ones, sometimes the large purple ones, sometimes the small pink ones. The odor is faint, and recalls that of the sweet violets. A correspondent, ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... citizen of New Orleans, and possessed a domestic establishment of great extent and elegance, with a body of servants in the condition of slaves, to whom he was an indulgent master. The description of this splendid mansion, with its lounging and wasteful attendants, its indolent, pretty, and capricious lady-mistress, and the account of Ophelia, a shrewd New-England cousin, who managed the household affairs, must be considered the best, or at least the most amusing portion of the work. The authoress also dwells with fondness on the character ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 - Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852 • Various
... should inundate the country in an hour. These wonders of science and art must therefore have contributed somewhat to rid our people of the impression of being at every turn beset by occult powers, under the name perhaps of witchcraft, and to expel the notions of a vague and capricious agency interfering and sporting with events throughout the system around them. Their rationality thus obtained an improvement, which may be set against the injury undoubtedly done them through that diminished exercise ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... Decorations, tattoos, songs, for the conspicuously brave and efficient, death or some lesser penalty for the cowardly, the traitorous, the insubordinate, figure largely in primitive life. These honors are capricious, uncertain, and transitory; but they are undoubtedly more stimulating to the savage, who lives in the moment, than they are in the more complex existence of the modern man. And while in general the savage is more callous to punishments, he has to fear much severer ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... flows in a channel nearly 1,400 miles long to accomplish, as the crow flies, the distance of 700 miles. In more than one place the current forms a loop ten, twenty and even thirty miles around, rather than to cut through a neck perhaps not half a mile in width. It is one of the most capricious of rivers, for its channel rarely lies in the same place during two successive seasons. The river manifests a strong inclination to move east; and were La Salle to repeat his memorable voyage, he would touch in scarcely half a score of places the course he formerly traveled; ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various
... so capricious, Sir," said she, "that after telling you but yesterday I could not be of your party, I shall tell you ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... surprise us. It was not man who implanted in himself the taste for what is infinite and the love of what is immortal: those lofty instincts are not the offspring of his capricious will; their steadfast foundation is fixed in human nature, and they exist in spite of his efforts. He may cross and distort them—destroy them he cannot. The soul has wants which must be satisfied; and whatever pains be taken to divert it from itself, it soon grows weary, ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... that we necessarily hear music by going to concerts and festivals and operas, exposing our bodily ear to showers and floods of sound, unless we happen to be in the right humour, unless we dispose, at the moment, of that rare and capricious thing—the inner ear. ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... relationship to the party injured. Thus, juries were often discarded in criminal causes also, and we think their disuse was no great sacrifice. Such a system can derive its utility, in this country, only from an enlightened public sentiment: if that sentiment be capricious and oppressive, as it too often is, juries are quite as likely to partake its vices as legal officers: if the sentiment be just and healthy, no judicial officer dare be guilty of oppression. So that our fathers lost nothing in seldom resorting to this "palladium of our liberties," and, without ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... logic is a foundling and compromise a darling, writes: "A weak government throws power to something which usurps the name of public opinion, and public opinion as expressed by the ventriloquists of the newspapers is at once more capricious and more vociferous than it ever was." This, strange to say, is exactly the opinion of the German autocrats, who maintain that no democracy can be a strong military power. It remains for England, and perhaps later America, to ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... been the case at Athens) was resorted to by a crowd of adventurers from different parts, who spoke very corruptly; which shews the necessity of reforming our language, and reducing it to a certain standard, which shall not be liable to vary like the capricious laws of custom. Though we were then very young, we can easily remember T. Flaminius, who was joint-consul with Q. Metellus: he was supposed to speak his native language with correctness, but was a man of no Literature. ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... with a sublime capacity for friendship; and closer still, perhaps, clings little Hannibal, a boy about whose parentage nothing is known until the end of the story. Hannibal is charmed into tolerance of the Judge's picturesque vices, while Miss Betty, lovely and capricious, is charmed into placing all her affairs, both material and sentimental, in the hands of ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... for it, you know. But of course this gay gink of a Sandy had to come buttin' in. Too bad the Honorable Bertie had partook so free. He'd have looked the part all right when it come to rescuin' beauty in distress. But Fortune bein' a lady and naturally capricious, she hands the stunt ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... lovers? The instances that justify this procedure may be very rare, yet surely it is better to follow nature's holiest law, than to drag out a lingering life of martyrdom, as thousands have done, to gratify what the world knew to be but a whim of an ambitious father, or a capricious mother. When conscience approves the step, let it be firmly taken. If the blessing of God can be invoked upon it, ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... is the deepest part of the wild dingle. How uneven the ground is! Surely these excavations, now so thoroughly clothed with vegetation, must originally have been huge gravel pits; there is no other way of accounting for the labyrinth, for they do dig gravel in such capricious meanders; but the quantity seems incredible. Well! there is no end of guessing! We are getting amongst the springs, and must turn back. Round this corner, where on ledges like fairy terraces the orchises and arums grow, and we emerge suddenly on a new side of the dell, ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... prisons, and subsequent trial at the Assizes. What the ultimate punishment might be was a minor, though still ponderable consideration, since, where naval officers or agents were concerned, the law was singularly capricious. [Footnote: As in Lacie's case, 25 Elizabeth, where a mortal wound having been inflicted at sea, whereof the party died on land, the prisoner was acquitted because neither the Admiralty nor a jury could inquire of it.] At sea, on the other hand, the conditions which ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... this is how it happened. Lady Petherwin was very capricious; when she was not foolishly kind she was unjustly harsh. A great many are like it, never thinking what a good thing it would be, instead of going on tacking from side to side between favour and cruelty, to keep to a mean line of common justice. ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... the peculiar situation of Japan and the anomalous form of its Government, the action of that empire in performing treaty stipulations is inconstant and capricious. Nevertheless, good progress has been effected by the Western powers, moving with enlightened concert. Our own pecuniary claims have been allowed or put in course of settlement, and the inland sea has been reopened to commerce. There is reason also to believe that these ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... seriously threatened, the first thing we expect to hear is that a regular practitioner is by the patient's bed, and the Homoeopathic counsellor overruled or discarded. Again, how many of the ardent and capricious persons who embraced Homoeopathy have run the whole round of pretentious novelties;—have been boarded at water-cure establishments, closeted with uterine and other specialists, and finally wandered ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... consequence of the dominion of his passions, was uncertain and capricious. He was easily engaged, and easily disgusted; but he is accused of retaining his hatred more tenaciously than his benevolence. He was compassionate both by nature and principle, and always ready to perform offices of humanity; ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... tough doctrines with all their mental and spiritual energies. But in their dream life they obeyed the invitations of their fancies, whatever they might be, and howsoever the fancies might change. Aleck's fancies were not very capricious, and not frequent, but Sally's scattered a good deal. Aleck, in her dream life, went over to the Episcopal camp, on account of its large official titles; next she became High-church on account of the candles and shows; and next she naturally changed to Rome, where ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... to declare, that without the filial affection of her granddaughter she could hardly have supported her afflictions. The infirmities of age must sometimes render those advanced in years petulant and capricious: Elizabeth never murmured when her endeavours to please failed of success; much less did she irritate her grandmother by contradiction; she patiently submitted to these trials of her temper, and when evening came, and Madame de Joinville retired to rest, Elizabeth thought herself ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley
... and uncivilized nations have uniformly adored, under various names, a God of which themselves were the model: revengeful, blood-thirsty, groveling and capricious. The idol of a savage is a demon that delights in carnage. The steam of slaughter, the dissonance of groans, the flames of a desolated land, are the offerings which he deems acceptable, and his ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... use, for the third time, of a different silk; she now produces silk of a dark hue, varying from russet to black. The spinnerets distribute the material with a wide longitudinal swing, from pole to pole; and the hind-legs apply it in capricious ribbons. When this is done, the work is finished. The Spider moves away with slow strides, without giving a glance at the bag. The rest does not interest her: time and the sun will see ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... other place to go to. Tho' certainly nothing could to any reasonable Being, have appeared more satisfactory, than so gratefull a reply to her invitation, yet I know not how it was, but she was certainly capricious enough to be displeased with our behaviour and in a few weeks after, either to revenge our Conduct, or releive her own solitude, married a young and illiterate Fortune-hunter. This imprudent step (tho' we were sensible that it would probably deprive us of that fortune ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... her ailment was one of those mysteries which still remained insoluble, although, in the most liberal manner, she delighted to afford her friends all the information in her power. Never was a votary endowed with a faith at once so lively and so capricious. Each year she believed in some new remedy, and announced herself on the eve of some miraculous cure. But the saint was scarcely canonised before his claims to beatitude were impugned. One year ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... of an office which can deal with property amounting to more than half a million sterling, in such an arbitrary manner, necessarily generates a spirit of wanton and capricious despotism, except where the mind is very well regulated and the heart severely disciplined by Christian duty. Of this I feel bound to give the following illustration, which I would not do if the fact had not been made public, and if I had not the best evidence that it is undeniable. ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... trout; and as the minister had to attend a meeting of the Presbytery of Skye on the following Wednesday, we sailed next morning for Glenelg, whence he purposed taking the steamer for Portree. Winds were light and baffling, and the currents, like capricious friends, neutralized at one time the assistance which they lent us at another. It was dark night ere we had passed Isle Ornsay, and morning broke as we cast anchor in the Bay of Glenelg. At ten o'clock the steamer heaved-to ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... when at length the hour for making her toilet arrived, her jaded cousin was literally made to perform all the offices of a waiting-maid. Three times was the tired little girl sent down to the village in quest of something which the capricious Eugenia must have, and which, when brought, was not "the thing at all," and must be exchanged. Up the stairs and down the stairs she went, bringing pins to Alice and powder to Eugenia, enacting, in short, the part ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... inly,—"The treasure I have so long yearned for is found at last: we have met, and through the waste of years, we will work together, and never part again"? Why, at that moment of bliss, did I not rather feel a foretaste of the coming woe? Oh, blind and capricious Fate, that gives us a presentiment at one while and withholds it at an other! Knowledge, and Prudence, and calculating Foresight, what are ye?—warnings unto others, not ourselves. Reason is a lamp which sheddeth ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... unfortunate in the representation. It is needless, at the distance of more than a century, to investigate the grounds of the dislike of an audience, who, perhaps, could at the very time have given no good reason for their capricious condemnation of a play, not worse than many others which they received with applause. The author, in the dedication, hints at the "lameness of the action;" but, as the poet and performers are nearly equally involved in ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... task the ruthless fates decree, Take a few precepts from the gods and me! "Be not too eager in the arduous chase; Who pants for triumph seldom wins the race: Venture not all, but wisely hoard thy worth, And let thy labours one by one go forth: Some happier scrap capricious wits may find On a fair day, and be profusely kind; Which, buried in the rubbish of a throng, Had pleased as little as a new-year's song, Or lover's verse, that cloy'd with nauseous sweet, Or birth-day ...
— Inebriety and the Candidate • George Crabbe
... perchance, in mood capricious Stripped and scorned and turned away Those who tasted for a day Pleasure sweet and food delicious; Nor might any say them nay— Lest his head the forfeit pay ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... which remains the same as it was under primitive forest conditions, much more complex trains of behavior are required than are provided by man's native equipment. To satisfy the hunger of the contemporary citizens of New York or London requires the transformation of capricious instinctive responses into systematic and controlled processes of habit and thought. The elaborate systems of agriculture, transportation, and exchange which are necessary in the satisfaction of the simplest wants of men in civilization could never be initiated or carried on if ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... some account of the Lambs' visit to Winterslow, but the passage belongs probably to the year following. In his essay "On the Conversation of Authors" he likens Lamb in the country to "the most capricious poet Ovid among the Goths." "The country people thought him an oddity, and did not understand his jokes. It would be strange if they had, for he did not make any, while he stayed. But when he crossed the country to Oxford, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... a complete coquette, capricious and fantastical. As Mr Alworth was the prettiest man at the place and known to have a good fortune, she soon singled him out as a conquest worthy of her and successfully played off all her arts. By appearing ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... had no doubt enjoyed the nips she had inflicted on so tempting a victim, was as determined as before to take her own capricious way. ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... least Claverhouse sinned in good company. The letters of even such men as the Lord Advocate, Sir George Mackenzie, and the Dalrymples,—letters written in circumstances more favourable to composition than the despatches of a soldier are ever likely to be—are every whit as capricious and startling in their variations from the received standard of orthography. If it is impossible quite to agree with his staunch eulogist, Drummond of Bahaldy, that Claverhouse was "much master in the epistolary way of writing," at least his letters are plain and ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... delicate fibres within me as this home scene? These familiar flowers, these well-remembered bird-notes, this sky, with its fitful brightness, these furrowed and grassy fields, each with a sort of personality given to it by the capricious hedgerows,—such things as these are the mother-tongue of our imagination, the language that is laden with all the subtle, inextricable associations the fleeting hours of our childhood left behind them. Our delight in the sunshine on the deep-bladed grass to-day might be ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... their gladdest songs, black as I am. And the serious trees seem to love me, even as I love them. It is a savage, lonely, but not unhappy life I lead—far better for a man like me than servitude here, or degradation at the north. I have one faithful human friend at least. Cudjo, cunning and capricious as he seems, is ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... to the newly-created vineyards, some consisting of French grafts on American stock, others American plants; but vines are capricious, and one vineyard looked sickly enough, although free from parasites. The climate did not suit it, that ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... because distinct from legal ones, are independent of law; but to say the least of it, that is an ambiguous and misleading way of describing the facts. The relations of God and man are not lawless, they are not capricious, incalculable, incapable of moral meaning; they are personal, but determined by something of universal import; in other words, they are not merely personal but ethical. That is ethical which is at once personal and universal. Perhaps the simplest way to make this evident ...
— The Atonement and the Modern Mind • James Denney
... The dull eyes of his spirit flashed with the sudden rejuvenation of his heavy body. "I never really believed you had ceased to care....you were capricious like all women...a little spoilt. I knew that if I had patience...Only a loving wife would do ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... the Temple buildings are named after eminent men, and the choice of names has been to some extent capricious or accidental. Among lawyers thus commemorated, no one will dispute the claims of Edmund Plowden, already mentioned. Hare Court preserves the memory not of Sir Nicholas Hare, Master of the Rolls in Mary's reign (died 1557), but ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... reversions to the past—to her old suspicious of him when he was a youthful protege of her husband and a presumed suitor of her adopted daughter Susy. High natures are more apt to forgive wrong done to themselves than any abstract injustice. And her capricious tyranny over her dependents and servants, or an unreasoning enmity to a neighbor or friend, outraged his finer sense more than her own misconception of himself. Nor did he dream that this was a thing most women seldom understand, or, ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... looking upon the extreme tragic limit of pathos, but this present spectacle tightened more painfully the heart. It was more shameful: a more excruciating accusation against the order of the universe. To think of George in his pride, strong, capricious, and dominant, while gazing at this victim of malady ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... of eccentricity to defend or of perversity to extol him. His faults are accepted as the necessary complement to his merits. It is still possible to discuss his place in art, and the adulation of his admirers is perhaps no less capricious than the disparagement of his detractors; but one thing can never be doubtful, and that is that he had genius. To my mind the most interesting thing in art is the personality of the artist; and if that is singular, I ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... day, by vicious winds, which the little sloop could not carry, by great, black seas, which she could not ride.... One day, being ill at ease, we went to the Watchman, that we might descry the first favourable sign. In the open, the wind was still to the north of east—but wildly capricious: blowing hither and thither; falling, too, to a sigh, rising, all at once, to a roaring gust, which tore at the whisps of grass and fairly sucked the breath from one's body. Overhead, the sky was low ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... too! But there, it's a stiff wind that has no turning, so cheer up! They did, as soon as that deluge got done with and they were headed for Mexico, one thousand of 'em. Soldiers mus'n't repine, you know. For them, Fate arrays herself in April's capricious sunshine." ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... and no palaeo-Georgian gentleman's library will be complete without it. Literate people in those days were comparatively few; but, bating that, one may say that sermons were as much in request as novels are to-day. I wonder, will mankind continue to be capricious? It is a very solemn thought indeed that no more than a hundred-and-fifty years hence the novelists of our time, with all their moral and political and sociological outlook and influence, will perhaps shine as indistinctly ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... more, he was tortured by doubts, he positively shed tears of indecision once or twice (he wept not infrequently). In the evenings, that is to say in the arbour, his countenance involuntarily began to express something capricious and ironical, something coquettish and at the same time condescending. This is apt to happen as it were by accident, and the more gentlemanly the man the more noticeable it is. Goodness only knows what one is to think about it, but it's most likely that nothing ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the woman of mystery—let us once more change the scene. Now pass we to the pirate's domain at Istria, a region over which, at the period of our narrative, the control of Venice was feeble, exceedingly capricious, and subject to frequent vicissitudes. At this particular time, it was maintained by the fiercest band of pirates that ever swept the Mediterranean with their ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... in his life experienced the passion of jealousy, the green-eyed monster, so called from only being experienced by green-horns. Already the prominent state he represented seemed to retire to the background. He did not doubt that the Vraibleusians were the most capricious as well as the most commercial nation in the world. His reign was evidently over. The new island would send forth a Prince still more popular. His allowance of pink shells would be gradually reduced, and finally withdrawn. His doubts, also, as to the success of ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... liberty soon brings the people collectively and individually to an excessive servitude. For, as I said, this extreme liberty easily introduces the reign of tyranny, the severest of all unjust slaveries. In fact, from the midst of this unbridled and capricious populace, they elect some one as a leader in opposition to their afflicted and expelled nobles: some new chief, forsooth, audacious and impure, often insolently persecuting those who have deserved well of the State, and ready to gratify the populace at his neighbor's expense as well as his own. ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... orchard at this time, and a table and chairs were kept under a big oak tree for this purpose. In and out among the legs of these chairs and the table the Wolfhound pups played boisterously hour by hour, till fatigue overtook them, with capricious suddenness, and they would fall asleep in the midst of some absurd antic and in any odd ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... expected that this arrangement would have satisfied the nobles of Armenia, and have given that unhappy country a prolonged period of repose. But the personal character of Artaxerxes was, unfortunately, bad; the Armenian nobles were, perhaps, capricious; and after a trial of six years it was resolved that the rule of the Arsacid monarch could not be endured, and that Varahran should be requested to make Armenia a province of his empire, and to place it under the government of a Persian satrap. The movement ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... the very constitution of our nature; but they do not possess the importance that is assigned to them, and their limits are soon reached. They are unequal in their distribution; they are partial and capricious in their action; and they are disturbed and counterbalanced by the opposite impulse of selfishness, which is just as much a part of our nature, and which is just as generally distributed. It must be a very one-sided view of the case that will lead us to deny this; and by such eclectic methods of ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... distinguish resemblance or difference beyond its field of vision. The result is that he counts among the lines mended by Shakspere those that differ from those in the "Contention" only by a particle or a conjunction. By this "capricious arithmetic," only six lines in the scenes with Jack Cade in the "Second Part of Henry VI." are credited to Shakspere, and we are asked to believe that the man who was to fix the price of bread at "seven half-penny loaves ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... question. How the thieves got the information is a mystery; their organization must have been admirable. But Scotland Yard was a match for them. I sent officers to Dover and Calais to deal with the case, and the men were arrested on landing at Calais. But they were taken empty-handed. A capricious order of the railway company's marine superintendent at Dover had changed the steamer that night an hour before the time of sailing; and while upon the thieves was found a key for the treasure chest of the advertised boat, they had none ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... flattering, promises nothing but Pleasures; yet its Consequences are often sad and fatal. It is not enough to be in love, to be happy; since Fortune, who is capricious, and takes delight to trouble the Repose of the most elevated and virtuous, has very little respect for passionate and tender Hearts, when she ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... this side requires more thought, more learning, and more ingenuity than we need think to find in a whole tribe of finger-counters and figure-casters; but the outcome of these good gifts, if strained or perverted to capricious use, may prove no less barren of profit than the labours of a pedant on the letter of the text. It is a tempting exercise of intelligence for a dexterous and keen-witted scholar to apply his solid learning and his vivid fancy to the detection ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... surface of the surrounding country, would be of little service to those living away from its immediate line, and there is small chance to live along the line. In addition the floods in the Grand Canyon are enormous and capricious. Sometimes heavy torrents from cloudbursts plunge down the sides of the canyon and these would require to be considered as well as those of the river itself. To be absolutely safe from the latter the line ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... supposed that the abstract, naked, and incommunicable conception possesses an innate sagacity to clothe itself with a verbal garb, at best of capricious and transient fashion? ...
— On the Nature of Thought - or, The act of thinking and its connexion with a perspicuous sentence • John Haslam
... courting all over again, glad of the opportunity and thankful for the familiar associations that would naturally appeal to both. The room was very little changed. The wear is less in the country, and then Dame Fashion, our capricious queen, is not so absolute there. When he last saw it, 'twas in the early morning. He remembered so well what took him there. The night before they had one of their heated discussions about selling the negroes, selling the old place, and moving north. ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... he rail at fate capricious, And curse you duly, Yet now he deems your wiles delicious,— You perfect, truly! Pyrrha, your love's a treacherous ocean; He'll soon fall in there! Then shall I gloat on his commotion, ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... vivacious, witty, a dashing and fascinating figure in dress and conversation, gracious and imperious by turns. She easily singled out and secured the admiration of such of the Springfield beaux as most pleased her somewhat capricious fancy. She was a sister of Mrs. Ninian W. Edwards, whose husband was one of the "Long Nine." This circumstance made Lincoln a frequent visitor at the Edwards house; and, being thus much thrown in her company, he found himself, almost before he knew it, entangled in ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... time Odin presented himself before the capricious damsel, he was disguised as a dashing warrior, for, thought he, a young soldier might perchance touch the maiden's heart; but when he again attempted to kiss her, she pushed him back so suddenly that he stumbled and fell upon ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... the purity of the Tuscan tongue. The consequence is that the Italian and English literatures are eminent for very different excellences. All that is forcible in the dramatic presentation of life and character and action, all that is audacious in imagination and capricious in fancy, whatever strength style can gain from the sallies of original and untrammelled eloquence, whatever beauty is derived from spontaneity and native grace, belong in abundant richness to the English. On the other hand, the Italian poets present us ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... disease is not due to accident or to the arbitrary rulings of a capricious Providence, nor is it always "error of mortal mind." From the Nature Cure philosophy and its practical applications we have learned that, barring accidents and conditions or surroundings unfavorable to human life, it is ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... eyes with Berlin wool. As I rocked, from association probably, I thought again of Eve,—who never seems at all like a grandmother to me, nor even like "the mother of all living," but like a sweet, capricious, tender, naughty girl. Like Eve, I had only to stretch forth my hand (with the fifty-dollar note in it) and grasp "as much beauty as could live" within that space. Yet, as fifty dollars would buy not only this, but that, and also the other, it presently became the representative of tens of fifties, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... unimpeded light and air of the watch- chamber above the great bells, some coil of perplexity, of unassimilable thought or fact, fell away from him. He saw the distant paths, and seemed to hear the breeze piping suddenly upon them under the cloudless sky, on its unseen, capricious way through those vast reaches of atmosphere. At this height, the low ring of blue hills was visible, with suggestions of that south-west country of peach-blossom and wine which had sometimes decoyed his thoughts towards the ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... Hydrothorax'. Inspiration short. Cough dry, sometimes with expectoration; frequent or capricious; always absence of complete respiratory murmur in the inferior portion of the chest. Sometimes the gurgling noise during inspiration and expiration. Strong respiratory murmur in the superior portion. In dogs these symptoms sometimes have ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... by Judkins in the Scotia on his passage out to New York. The Russia is a magnificent ship, and has dashed along bravely. We had made more than thirteen hundred and odd miles at noon to-day. The wind, after being a little capricious, rather threatens at the present time to turn against us, but our run is already eighty miles ahead of the Russia's last run in this direction—a very fast one. . . . To all whom it may concern, report the Russia in ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... discovered how the nervousness, the bashfulness, the mauvaise honte, which made him so shy and retiring in private, stood him in wonderful stead on the stage. The nervous man became the fretful and capricious tyrant of mock tragedy; the bashful man warmed at the foot-lights with passion and power. The manner which in society was a drawback and a defect became in the pursuit of his art a charm and an excellence. What new parts may be created for Robson, and how he will acquit ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... intellectual mode of stimulation that human research has succeeded in discovering.[6] But the material basis of this stimulation unhappily we draw from the soil of one sole nation—and that nation (are we ever allowed to forget?) capricious and silly beyond all that human experience could else have suggested as possible. In these circumstances, it was not to be supposed that we should neglect any opening that offered for making ourselves ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... Marker of the guild, who flatters himself he can easily win the prize on the morrow, and would fain make Pogner promise that the victor should receive the maiden's hand without her consent being asked. He fears lest the capricious fair one may yet refuse to marry him, and decides to make sure of her by singing a serenade under her window that very night. But when he sees the handsome young candidate step forward and receive the support of Pogner, (who has already made his acquaintance, ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... on the island was not without its vicissitudes and dangers, and one of the latter I shall ever remember—one mingled, as it was, with antics of Neptune, that capricious god of the ocean, and resignation to what seemed to promise my end with all sublime things. The stock of oil brought for lubricating cars and machinery having been exhausted, I started a beautiful morning in a canoe with three ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... box the ears of a brilliant aid, send killing missiles of slang at a dandy of a regiment de famille, and refuse point-blank a Russian grand duke; but to "mes enfants," as she was given to calling the rough tigers and grisly veterans of the Army of Africa, Cigarette was never capricious; however mischievously she would rally, or contemptuously would rate ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... let the people into her chamber; the king was asleep; and two officers of the town-guard watched for some hours at his pillow. The yoke of Richelieu and the omnipotence of Mazarin were less hard for royalty to bear than the capricious and jealous ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... nouns with capitals, is borne out by no less an authority than the new Grimm's Deutsches Woerterbuch, which prints all words in "lower case" type except proper names. Nothing can be more unsightly than the constant breaking up of the harmony of a line by the capricious use of capitals. ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... Love is a plant of most capricious and surprising growth. It may take years to root and blossom. It may spring up in a day, yet strike its roots right through the heart and hold it as firmly as the growth of the years. And, once the heart ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... these processes struck Carthew as unsound; and he was at times altogether thrown out by the capricious startings of the prophet's mind. These plunges seemed to be gone into for exercise and by the way, like the curvets of a willing horse. Gradually the thing took shape; the glittering if baseless edifice arose; and the hare still ran on the mountains, but the soup ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... a sabbath of witches, and spun about the pitiful shelter and went rioting past, leaping and somersaulting from rock to rock, tossing handfuls of dry, dust-like snow into the air; folly-stricken, insensate, an enormous, mad monster gambolling there in some hideous dance of death, capricious, headstrong, pitiless as ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... Beckford prescribe, still sunshine is not a thing to quarrel with under any circumstances—certainly not for a gentleman to quarrel with who wants his place seen to advantage on the occasion of a meet of hounds. Everything at Hanby House was in apple-pie order. All the stray leaves that the capricious wintry winds still kept raising from unknown quarters, and whisking about the trim lawns, were hunted and caught, while a heavy roller passed over the Kensington gravel, pressing out the hoof and wheelmarks of the previous ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... be one of the most admirable traits in the mighty parliamentarian to whom it was written. 'It seems to me,' says Stephen, 'that this part of your speech establishes nothing more than the fact that your opponents are capricious in the distribution of their sympathy, which is, after all, a reproach and nothing more. Now, reproach is not only not your strength, but it is the very thing in the disuse of which your strength consists; and indulging as I do the hope that you will one day occupy one ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... her shoulders when I asked if she was well, and anticipated all further questions by running from the room. She was always capricious in her ways and never more so than at that moment. Would to God that it had been different! Would to God that she had shown herself to be a suffering woman! Then I might have reached her heart and this ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... serfs kindly, and make their lives happy, but a capricious or tyrannical master has the power of rendering every person on his ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... arrangements. The car was to be waiting till the sick friend was brought over, and then they would start at once—after breakfast—no, perhaps sooner. It was to be ready for them to start at any time; for the invalid was capricious; and it was uncertain when they would ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... the religion against which Lucretius made his attack was not the soaring idealism of Plato, nor the inspiring and consolatory faith of Christianity, but an outworn mythology in which this world was ruled by capricious and unworthy despots, and the next world was gloomy with terrors and almost unlighted by hopes. Such had become the popular mythology in its later day, and as contrasted with this the view and temper of Lucretius are rational and manly. His message went far beyond a negation; he announced one of ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... at that time, a great favorite in the house. All the old people cared for me especially, and I was kept often in the parlor, and, when I was cold, the children were allowed to sit upon me, but never to abuse me. But this is a capricious, changing, cheating, vain world, and foot stoves are not thought much of nowadays. The churches are warmed all over, so that foot stoves are not needed, and so I never go to church; indeed, in my broken-down state of health, it would hardly be safe for me to do so. I am ...
— Who Spoke Next • Eliza Lee Follen
... stopped, took off her glasses and polished them on the hem of her gingham apron. I sat holding my breath; but, all regardless of my suspense, she dropped the thread of the story and followed memory in one of her capricious backward flights. ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... York you enter upon the Highlands, as a series of mountains which then flank the river on both sides, are called. The beauty of this scenery can only be conceived when it is seen. One might fancy that these capricious masses, with all their countless varieties of light and shade, were thrown together to show how passing lovely rocks and woods, and water could be. Sometimes a lofty peak shoots suddenly up into the heavens, showing in bold relief against the sky; and then a deep ravine sinks in ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... manner of its progress on the surface of the stream, this counterfeit presentment must strictly imitate the small ephemeridae which are hatching in the bed and floating down the surface of the stream. As the trout do not rise until the natural fly appears, and as the hatches of fly are capricious, there are often weary hours of waiting when the angler must be perforce inactive. His exercise comes in full measure when the hour of action does arrive, and he will find some motion even in the eventless ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... Roland comes! and, as I thought—see! towards Ulrica's residence! to sigh and moan under his true-love's window!—Now for it. I'll just step in, and give further orders for pursuing this sham nephew, Christopher; and then, if I don't match old baron Ravensburg, and his capricious ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... intimacy, without any assignable cause, and his enmities once fixed were immovable. There was indeed a kind of venom in his antipathies, nor would he suffer his ears to be assailed or his heart to relent in favour of those against whom he entertained animosities, however capricious and unfounded. In one pursuit only was he consistent: one object only did he woo with an inflexible attachment; and that object was ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper
... too ambitious, do you, Miss Kingston?" asked Barbara, anxiously. Barbara knew Jean well and the prospect of managing the play with her capricious, selfish temperament to be catered to at every turn ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... naturalised in France. But I have wandered far from my story, which is simply a sketch of the surface of the place. Seen obliquely, from either side, in combination with its bridge and gallery, the structure is singular and fantastic, a striking example of a wilful and capricious conception. Unfortunately all caprices are not so graceful and successful, and I grudge the honour of this one to the false and blood-polluted Catherine. (To be exact, I believe the arches of the bridge were laid by the elderly Diana. It was Catherine, ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... regrets are so piteous that I have come to offer you the choice of goodness or beauty. If you wish to be pretty you shall have your way, but you will also be vain, capricious, and frivolous. If you remain as you are now, you shall be wise ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... and wrote it inside my mind, completing a passage I had been working at for two years, upon joy. But it was easy for me to be happy, since I was on a horse and warm and well fed; yet even for me such days are capricious. I have known but few in my life. They are each of them distinct and clear, so rare are they, and (what is more) so different are they in their very quality ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... which, in these latter times, men have been accustomed to regard as somewhat less, after all, than an adequate embodiment of the rights of conscience, has been virtually repealed in a populous and very extensive district of the British empire, through a capricious exercise of power on the part of a single man. Why, it has been asked, in a matter which lies between God and conscience, and between God and the conscience only, should a third party be permitted to interfere so far as ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... to encamp on the Syrian territory: the princes of Hira were permitted to form a city about forty miles to the southward of the ruins of Babylon. Their service in the field was speedy and vigorous; but their friendship was venal, their faith inconstant, their enmity capricious: it was an easier task to excite than to disarm these roving barbarians; and, in the familiar intercourse of war, they learned to see, and to despise, the splendid weakness both of Rome and of Persia. From Mecca to the Euphrates, the Arabian tribes ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... whose character might be comprised in a few words; and as he will make some figure in the ensuing pages, I shall here describe him. He possessed a genteel fortune, and had a liberal education; dissipated, thoughtless, and capricious, he paid little regard to the moral duties, and less to religious ones: eager in the pursuit of pleasure, he minded not the miseries he inflicted on others, provided his own wishes, however extravagant, were gratified. Self, darling self, was the idol he worshipped, ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson |
