"Inconstancy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... finding her lost Lysander asleep so near her, was looking at him and wondering at his strange inconstancy. Lysander presently opening his eyes, and seeing his dear Hermia, recovered his reason which the fairy charm had before clouded, and with his reason his love for Hermia; and they began to talk over the adventures of the night, doubting if these things had really happened, or if ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... I change in my convictions from day to day, without reproaching myself with inconstancy. What I believed with all my heart to be sacred yesterday I find a barrier to-day; and push it aside and ...
— Between Friends • Robert W. Chambers
... have joined together the details of so delicate a scrutiny by a thread of fiction. The outward body of it matters little. The essential point is to remember that such things were not caused, as they try to persuade us, by human fickleness, by the inconstancy of our fallen nature, by the chance persuasions of desire. There was needed the deadly pressure of an age of iron, of cruel needs: it was needful that Hell itself should seem a shelter, an asylum, by contrast ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... inconstancy is such As you, too, shall adore,— I could not love thee, dear, so much, Lov'd ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... made clear in a brief statement. But this central fact may be insisted upon: in the North, there were two political groups that were the poles around which various other groups revolved and combined, only to fly asunder and recombine, with all the maddening inconstancy of a kaleidoscope. The two irreconcilable elements were the "war party" made up of determined men resolved to see things through, and the "copperheads"* who for one reason or another united in a faithful struggle ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... excommunicate From all the joys of love, shalt see The full reward, and glorious fate Which my strong faith shall purchase me, Then curse thine own inconstancy. ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... absence from the laboratory he joined the Oriental Society, and delivered a paper on the Hieroglyphic and Demotic inscriptions of El Kab, thus giving a crowning example both of the versatility and of the inconstancy of ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the sympathy of an audience in the wrong direction, and turn it from the man you make happy to the man you leave unhappy. I would on no account allow the artist to appear, attended by that picture, more than once. All the most sudden inconstancy of Clarence I would soften down. Margaret must act much better than any actress I have ever seen, if all her lines fall in pleasant places; therefore, I think ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... to be wrought, or, putting it the other way, how Marcian was to be helped, she saw as yet only in glimpses of ruthless purpose. Of Bessas she did not think as of a man easy to subdue or to cajole; his soldierly rudeness, the common gossip of his inconstancy in love, and his well-known avarice, were not things likely to touch her imagination, nor had she ever desired to number him in the circle of her admirers. That it might be in her power to do what Marcian besought, she was very willing to persuade herself, but the undertaking ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... assembled at a Play, wherein the Heroine, as the Phrase is, is so just a Picture of the Vanity of the Sex in tormenting their Admirers. The Lady who pines for the Man whom she treats with so much Impertinence and Inconstancy, is drawn with much Art and Humour. Her Resolutions to be extremely civil, but her Vanity arising just at the Instant that she resolved to express her self kindly, are described as by one who had studied the Sex. But when ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... That inconstancy has not always escaped with impunity may be gathered from the following painful story, one which, if it had not been fully attested, would seem to belong to the domain of fiction rather than truth: ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... their liberties in the moment when the nation was intoxicated and dazzled with their genius, their prowess, and success; but a sudden revulsion of popular feeling, and an explosion of popular indignation, would overturn the one, and ostracism expel the other. Thus while inconstancy, and turbulence, and faction seem to have been inseparable from the democratic spirit, the Athenians were certainly constant in their love of liberty, faithful in their affection for their country,[33] and invariable in their sympathy ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... surnamed the Apostate, rebelled against Constantius, his cousin-german, in the spring, in 360, and by his death, in November, 361, obtained the empire. He was one of the most infamous dissemblers that ever lived. Craft, levity, inconstancy, falsehood, want of judgment, and an excessive vanity, discovered themselves in all his actions, and appear in his writings, namely, his epistles, his satire called Misopogon, and his lives of the Caesars. He wrote ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... furnish an exemplification of it. Their taste for physical gratifications must be regarded as the original source of that secret inquietude which the actions of the Americans betray, and of that inconstancy of which they afford fresh examples every day. He who has set his heart exclusively upon the pursuit of worldly welfare is always in a hurry, for he has but a limited time at his disposal to reach it, to grasp it, and to enjoy it. ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... Edward caught himself wondering whether the root of an affection, whose life is years long, is ever removed from the heart, unless the heart is removed with it. He began seriously to doubt, not his constancy to Wanda, but his inconstancy to Helene. Suddenly she opened her eyes and caught his glance. He withdrew it at once, and in the embarrassment of the moment made some inane remark upon the beauty of the day. Helene rose with deliberation, put one white hand to the well-brushed ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... the glass. In measure as the wearing away progresses, the preceding effects are reproduced; and, as these are produced in an imperceptible and continuous manner, there is perceived no jumping nor inconstancy in the light of the arc. Under such conditions, then, the regulation of the arc is effected under the very influence of the effect produced; and not under that of an action of a different nature (electro-magnetism), as happens in other regulators. It is certain ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various
... the Emperor, and held other court offices. He appears to have been well-known to his literary contemporaries in England. He wrote poems in Latin, Greek, and English, and was one of the first Scotsmen to write in the last. His chief poem is Diophantus and Charidora; Inconstancy Upbraided is perhaps the best of his short poems. He is credited with a little poem, Old Long Syne, which probably suggested Burns's ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... Tartara tendit; "extending up, by its branches, so far towards Heaven, as, by its roots, it does down towards Tartarus;" it was not so delicious at first, as now it is bitter and harsh: a cankered soul macerated with cares and discontents, taedium vitae, impatience, agony, inconstancy, irresolution, precipitate them unto unspeakable miseries. They cannot endure company, light, or life itself, some unfit for action, and the like. Their bodies are lean and dried up, withered, ugly; their looks harsh, very dull, and their souls tormented, as they are more or less entangled, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... can't live upon love deserves to die in a ditch. Here then, I give you my promise, in spite of duty, any temptation of wealth, your inconstancy, or ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... and green, And right anon thus said he to his queen. "My wife," quoth he, "there may no wight say nay, — Experience so proves it every day, — The treason which that woman doth to man. Ten hundred thousand stories tell I can Notable of your untruth and brittleness * *inconstancy O Solomon, richest of all richess, Full fill'd of sapience and worldly glory, Full worthy be thy wordes of memory To every wight that wit and reason can. * *knows Thus praised he yet the bounte* of man: *goodness 'Among a thousand ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... night, fair coquette of the skies, Thou, who with fickle, sweet inconstancy Receives the smile from the admiring sun, And straight transmits it to the sordid earth,— How many cycles of the silent past Hast thou beheld the rise and fall of man, His proud ascendency and swift decline; His zenith and his pitiful ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... easily denied, wretch. However, I know you would not injure me with a husband so odious and tyrannical that I stood excused in advance for inconstancy when I stooped to wed country manners and stubborn ignorance. Indeed, mon ami, if you will but take pains to recover, I will never breathe a word about the duel; but if—if—" a sob indicated the tragic possibility ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... Fringe-Makers, Lace-Men, Tire-Women, and a number of other Trades, which would be useless in a simple State of Nature, draw their Subsistence; tho' it is seldom seen that such as these are extremely rich, because their original Fault of being founded upon Vanity, keeps them poor by the light Inconstancy of its Nature. The Variableness of Fashion turns the Stream of Business which flows from it now into one Channel, and anon into another; so that different Sets of People sink or flourish in their turns ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... practice of making "maxims," axiomata, encouraged the enlivenment of conversation by the introduction of topsy-turvy statements, such as "Constancy is merely inconstancy arrested," in the manner of ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... certain climatic influences has invested it in story with the power of not only warding off evil influences, rendering its wearer constant and assuring success in love, but still more of revealing by a certain pallor of coloring, coming danger or the existence of inconstancy in its wearer. It is also said that in case of a fall the turquoise takes all injury upon itself; the stone being fractured and the owner being uninjured. Add to this the item that the stone must be a gift, not a purchase, to possess these ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... power of preventing bad laws includes that of preventing good ones, and may be used to the one purpose as well as to the other. But this objection will have but little weight with those who can properly estimate the mischiefs of that inconstancy and mutability in the laws which form the greatest blemish in the character and genius ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... place, I think myself oblidg'd to vindicat myself from the imputation of inconstancy for acting in this voyage against the English Intrest, and in the yeare 1683 against the French Intrest, for which, if I could not give a very good account, I might justly lye under the sentenc of capritiousness ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... the horse; who was fatter than you would quite believe, if I gave you his measure, and so old that his birthday was lost in the mists of antiquity. Boxer, feeling that his attentions were due to the family in general, and must be impartially distributed, dashed in and out with bewildering inconstancy; now, describing a circle of short barks round the horse, where he was being rubbed down at the stable-door; now feigning to make savage rushes at his mistress, and facetiously bringing himself to sudden stops; now, eliciting a shriek from Tilly Slowboy, ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... at another; when young than when old—when hungry than when our appetite is satisfied—in the night than in the day—when peevish than when cheerful. Thus, varying every hour, by a thousand other circumstances, which keep us in a state of perpetual inconstancy and instability." Every day may be seen children, who, to a certain age—display a great deal of ingenuity, a strong aptitude for the sciences, who finish by falling into stupidity. Others may be observed, ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... some particular and extraordinary circumstances. They would not have recourse to the black stones, upon small or common occasions, and when they had established their faith by this tremendous sanction, inconstancy and treachery ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... that meant—nothing. It was a case of my subconscious mind pointing out that the available present was more desirable than the unavailable not-present. At first I resented my apparent inconstancy in forming an esper projection of Marian Harrison when I was trying to project my blank telepathic inadequacy to Catherine. But as the weeks faded into the past, the shock and the frustration began to pale and I found Marian's projective image less and less ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... trick to conceal your inconstancy during his absence; but it is the nature of the sex ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low
... in despair at this inconstancy, "when will you learn to be a little more steady-minded? Here I have come expressly to plead your cause, and get you off; but before I have a chance, you change your mind again, and now nothing can persuade ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... about him which it was quite impossible to describe. As to the curate, he was all very well; but certainly, after all, there was no denying that—that—in short, the curate wasn't a novelty, and the other clergyman was. The inconstancy of public opinion is proverbial: the congregation migrated one by one. The curate coughed till he was black in the face—it was in vain. He respired with difficulty—it was equally ineffectual in awakening sympathy. Seats are once ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... matter of fact, we were richer. The captain had the usual sailor's provision of quack medicines, with which, in the usual sailor fashion, he would daily drug himself, displaying an extreme inconstancy, and flitting from Kennedy's Red Discovery to Kennedy's White, and from Hood's Sarsaparilla to Mother Seigel's Syrup. And there were, besides, some mildewed and half-empty bottles, the labels obliterated, over which ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... asked him to give her name to Isabel, there was still the world. Though Jenny might understand, the world would think he had forgotten Jenny. The minority of faithful hearts would grow sadder by his seeming apostasy, and the cynic would strengthen his pessimism by one more illustration of human inconstancy. The world might hear that he was loving Isabel in some Aegean isle, and still deem him faithful; for grief is allowed mistresses, but with a wife it is ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... In the Evening I visited Madam Winthrop, who Treated me Courteously, but not in Clean Linen as somtimes. She said, she did not know whether I would come again, or no. I ask'd her how she could so impute inconstancy to me. (I had not visited her since Wednesday night being unable to get over the Indisposition received by the Treatment received that night, and I must in it seem'd to sound like a made piece of Formality.) Gave her this day's Gazett. Heard ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... now as much you hate him: O the unheard-of Inconstancy of Women! All that they have is feign'd; their Teeth, their Hair, their Blushes, and their Smiles; nay their very Conscience (if any such they have) is feign'd; all counterfeit and false: Let them wash, patch and ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris
... the British tar would scarcely be the "soaring soul" that he is were it not for the influence—not always a beneficial influence, by the way, of the softer sex. And here, a word for him with special respect to what people are pleased to call his inconstancy. With all his vagaries, and from the very nature of his calling he has many, I think there are few other professions which would bear weighing in the balance with his and not be found as wanting in this quality. True, none is so easily swayed, so easily led; but ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... Fletcher. In the scene (v. 1) where the French ambassador pleads for Barnavelt we recognise Massinger's accustomed temperance and dignity. To the graver writer, too, we must set down Leydenberg's solemn and pathetic soliloquy (iii. 6), when by a voluntary death he is seeking to make amends for his inconstancy and escape from the ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... the subject of the consultation. The suspicion, however, if there had ever been any, quickly vanished. The symptoms entirely changed twelve hours later, and the next day the sick man felt pains quite the opposite of those which had previously distressed him. This very inconstancy of the distemper served to puzzle the doctor's conclusions. Sauvresy, in these latter days, had scarcely suffered at all, he said, and had slept well at night; but he had, at times, strange and often distressing sensations. He was evidently failing hourly; he was dying—everyone perceived ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... runs: 'Kathon est idem quod malum. Inde dicitur kathodemon, i.e. spiritus malignus seu dyabolus, et venit a kathon, i.e. malum, et demon, sciens, quasi mala sciens.' You will notice also the inconstancy of h, and the indifference to orthography which allows the same word to appear as katademon in the text and kathodemon ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... position he could see little more than her dark eyes, which occasionally seemed to meet his frank curiosity in an amused sort of way, but he was chiefly struck by the pretty foreign sound of her musical voice, which was unlike anything he had ever heard before, and—alas for the inconstancy of youth—much finer than Mrs. Peyton's. Presently his farmer companion, casting a patronizing glance on Clarence's pea-jacket and brass buttons, ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... nature, that queer fraternity that causes stones and trees and salt water and clouds to play upon our emotions. Why are we made serious and solemn and sublime by mountain heights, grave and contemplative by an abundance of overhanging trees, reduced to inconstancy and monkey capers by the ripples on a sandy beach? Did the protoplasm—but enough. The chemists are looking into the matter, and before long they will have all life in the table of ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... inquiring into the truth. They thus went on day after day, muttering, complaining, and consulting together; and though the admiral was not fully aware of the extent of their cabals, he was not entirely without apprehensions of their inconstancy in the present trying situation, and of their evil intentions toward him. He therefore exerted himself to the utmost to quiet their apprehensions and to suppress their evil design, sometimes using fair words, and at other times fully resolved to expose his life rather than ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... inner precincts, to disappear and to slip into the bed room of the himegimi. Here she stepped into a closet, pulled to the screen, and crouched down behind the heaped up quilts. For the companionship of her wandering lord she did not have long to wait; nor for proof of his inconstancy. Iki came into the room, holding by the hand and drawing after him one of palace ladies in waiting, Takeo by name. The girl was by no means unwilling. Her blushes and confusion added to the great beauty which made her the favoured attendant on the himegimi. Iki pressed her close and openly. The ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... what hieratic dignity, with what sacramental intentness he endows it; the eloquence of the greatest critics has here found a darling subject. But let us look a moment at certain of his symbols in the Arena at Padua, at the "Inconstancy," the "Injustice," the "Avarice," for instance. "What are the significant traits," he seems to have asked himself, "in the appearance and action of a person under the exclusive domination of one of these ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson
... tribunal (never too indulgent to a long and unsuccessful opposition) would now scrutinize our conduct with unusual severity,—that the very vicissitudes and shiftings of ministerial measures, instead of convicting their authors of inconstancy and want of system, would be taken as an occasion of charging us with a predetermined discontent which nothing could satisfy, whilst we accused every measure of vigor as cruel and every proposal of lenity as weak and irresolute. The public, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... ascertained upwards, downwards, or horizontally. Seven females always dwell there, with faces downwards, possessed of effulgence, and endued with the cause of generations. They take up all the different tastes from all creatures, even as inconstancy sucks up truth. In that itself dwell, and from that emerge, the seven Rishis who are crowned with ascetic success, with those seven having Vasishtha for their foremost. Glory, effulgence, greatness, enlightenment, victory, perfection, and energy, these seven always ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the Commercial Bank, which occurred about that time, but no one who knew Sir Alexander Galt would waste time in seeking to account for his actions, which often could only be accounted for by his constitutional inconstancy. In saying this I do not for a moment wish to ascribe any sordid or unworthy motive to Galt, who was a man of large and generous mind and of high honour. He was, however, never a party man. He could not be brought to understand the necessity for deferring sometimes to his leader. That spirit ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... ever cause you to repent confidence in me, sweet Alida, may disgrace in my profession, and the distrust of the whole sex, be my punishment! But, have I not reason to complain of this inconstancy, on your part? Ought I to expect so severe a reprimand—severe, because cold and ironical—for an offence, venial as the wish to ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... have taken possession of everyone. The Archbishop was celebrating high mass in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine. Scarcely was it ended and the prelate gone when Masaniello, with a crucifix in his hand, mounted the pulpit. His speech was a mixture of truth and madness; he complained of the inconstancy of the people, enumerated his services, described the oppressions that would fall upon them if they deserted him; he confessed his sins, and admonished the others to do the same before the Holy Virgin, that they might obtain the mercy of God, and as he raised the crucifix to bless ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... they do, amazingly fast," he returned, with a sigh and a far-away look. "But what you say applies to all men. If you ever marry you must run the risk of inconstancy in the man you accept. I am at least old enough and experienced enough to value a good woman when I have found one, especially when she does not make her goodness a bore. And you—you have inspired me with something different ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... ever used art in his management of Vivian's mind, he might have been suspected of using it in favour of Miss Sidney at this instant; for this prophecy of Vivian's inconstancy was the most likely means to prevent its accomplishment. Frequently, in the course of their tour, when Vivian was in any situation where his constancy was tempted, he recollected Russell's prediction, and was proud to remind him how much he had been mistaken. In short, the destined time for ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... believe Janet is pitying me a little, because of the minister's inconstancy," she said to herself. "Why am I laughing at it, Rosie? You ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... which the extremes of elegance and cruelty were blended, in which the most glaring scepticism and intense superstitions were everywhere evident; an age which was religious as well as debauched and whose women were both good and evil, innocent and intriguing. Everything was fluctuating; there was inconstancy even in the things most affected: pleasure, pomp, display. The natural outcome of this undefined restlessness was dissatisfaction; and when dissatisfaction brought in its train the inevitable reaction against falseness ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... dresses becoming to her rank and age; is modest without prudery, religious without an alloy of superstition; can hear the one sex praised without envy, and converse with the other without permitting the torch of inconstancy to kindle the unhallowed fire in her breast; considers her husband as the most accomplished of mortals, and thinks all the sons of Adam besides unworthy of a transient glance from the corner ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... produces rarefaction of the air; and rarefaction of the air produces cold. So zeal makes revolutions; and revolutions make men zealous for nothing. The politicians of whom we speak, whatever may be their natural capacity or courage, are almost always characterised by a peculiar levity, a peculiar inconstancy, an easy, apathetic way of looking at the most solemn questions, a willingness to leave the direction of their course to fortune and popular opinion, a notion that one public cause is nearly as good as another, and a firm conviction that it is much better to be the hireling of the worst cause than ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... a mind that its actions are extremely inconstant, and at the same time to say that it is of relatively unchangeable nature, apparently implies a contradiction. When, however, the inconstancy is understood as referring to the manifestations which follow one another from minute to minute, and the unchangeableness to the average manifestations, extending over long periods, the apparent contradiction disappears; and it becomes comprehensible that the two ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... labor in different employments vary with the constancy and inconstancy of employment. Employment is much more constant in some trades than in others. Many trades can be carried on only in particular states of weather, and seasons of the year; and if the workmen who are ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... political correspondence. No public character probably could pass unscathed through the fiery ordeal to which he has thus subjected himself. Cicero, it must be avowed, is convicted from his own mouth of vanity, inconstancy, sordidness, jealousy, malice, selfishness, and timidity. But on the other hand no character, public or private, could thus bare its workings to our view without laying a stronger claim to our sympathy, and extorting from us more kindly consideration ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... significant that the Andalusians have thus chosen Don Juan Tenorio, for he is an abstract, with the lines somewhat subdued by the advance of civilisation, of the national character. For them his vices, his treachery, his heartlessness, have nothing repellent; nor does his inconstancy rob him of feminine sympathy. He is, indeed, a far greater favourite with the ladies than John Bull. The Englishman they respect, they know he will make a good husband and a model father; but he is too ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... to bear now. But I weakly permitted myself to be forced, with this secret on my conscience, into a marriage with the Duke of Hereward. And now I dare not tell him the truth! And now my first husband has come back and hates me for my inconstancy, and my second husband knows nothing about it! Now to whom do I rightly belong! To whom do I owe duty? To Waldemar? To the duke? Who knows? Not I! One thing only is clear to me, that I must not live with either of them as a wife, henceforth! Heaven forgive those who forced me ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... the most astonishing and incredible stories about his intrepidity and hardihood. He was, besides, the favorite of the ladies, who called him the best-looking and most amiable man in the whole monarchy; and, with amiable indulgence, attributed his many adventures and acts of inconstancy, his wild and dissipated life, his extravagance and numerous debts, to the genius of the prince. He was, indeed, an extraordinary man, one of those on whose brow Providence has imprinted the stamp of genius,—not to their own good, but to their misfortune, and who either miserably perish ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... simplicity of which I greatly admire. A man who is in love is like a man who has got the tooth-ache, he feels most acute pain while nobody pities him. In that situation am I at present: but well do I know that I will not be long so. So much for inconstancy. As this is my first epistle to you, it cannot in decency be a long one. Pray write to me soon. Your letters, I prophecy, will entertain me not a little; and will besides be extremely serviceable in many important respects. They will supply me with oil ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... shadow cast by the earth. Consequently, the spirits in those three lowest Heavens are represented as less perfect than those in the higher spheres, because in the moral sense the shadow of earth fell upon their lives making them imperfect through inconstancy, vain ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... he formed to gain possession of his person. Several times Haida fled from Toolun to Chinese territory, where he hoped to enjoy greater safety, until at last the Chinese became tired of giving him shelter and protecting one who could not support his own pretensions. Then, with strange inconstancy, they delivered him over into the hands of Noorhachu, who straightway killed him, thus carrying out the first portion of his vow to ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... it be A dashing damsel, gay and pert, A pattern of inconstancy; Or selfish, mercenary ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... broached the subject that had brought him to me. He informed me that my mistress had not only two lovers at a time, but three; that is to say, she had treated my rival as badly as she had treated me; the poor boy, having discovered her inconstancy, made a great ado and all Paris knew it. At first I did not catch the meaning of Desgenais's words, as I was not listening attentively; but when he had repeated his story three times in detail I was so stupefied ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... departure, so, bidding our friends good-bye, we arrived at his place on the very same day. Lycas had so arranged matters that, on the journey, he sat beside me, while Tryphaena was next to Giton, the reason for this being his knowledge of the woman's notorious inconstancy; nor was he deceived, for she immediately fell in love with the boy, and I easily perceived it. In addition, Lycas took the trouble of calling my attention to the situation, and laid stress upon the truth of what we saw. On this account, I received his advances more graciously, at which ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... one of his finest compositions. The poet's own career so far had been one of continuous and rather swift advancement. But there was, if not in his own outward fortune, then in the fortunes of other notables of his day, enough to remind him of the inconstancy of worldly honor and glory. Only a few months before the publication of his hymns, Leonora Christine Ulfeldt, the once beautiful, admired and talented daughter of Christian IV, had been released from twenty-two ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... Man is brave and generous, but of an Humour so uneasy and inconstant, that the victory over his Heart is as soon lost as won; a Slave that can add little to the Triumph of the Conqueror: but inconstancy's the Sin of all Mankind, therefore I'm resolv'd that nothing but Gold ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... time there lived a young king whose name was Souci, and he had been brought up, ever since he was a baby, by the fairy Inconstancy. Now the fairy Girouette had a kind heart, but she was a very trying person to live with, for she never knew her own mind for two minutes together, and as she was the sole ruler at Court till the prince grew up everything was always at sixes and sevens. At first she determined to follow ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... work which Gibbon published in his father's lifetime. His account of the latter's death (November 10, 1770) is feelingly written, and shows the affectionate side of his own nature to advantage. He acknowledges his father's failings, his weakness and inconstancy, but insists that they were compensated by the virtues of the head and heart, and the warmest sentiments of honour and humanity. "His graceful person, polite address, gentle manners, and unaffected cheerfulness recommended him to the favour of every company." ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... here the motives for this change, because we believe it is very difficult to lift the veil which covers the mysteries of the political inconstancy of the Cabinet of St. James's; and leaving the solution of this enigma to time, that great OEdipus of history, we will here make only this remark, that English diplomacy has allowed a favourable opportunity to escape for taking the ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... Sonora Indians say that departed souls dwell among the caves and rocks of the cliffs, and that the echoes often heard there are their voices. Ruskin suggests that the cause of the Greeks surrounding the lower world residence of Persephone with poplar groves was that "the frailness, fragility, and inconstancy of the leafage of the poplar tree resembled the fancied ghost people." We can very easily imagine how, in the breeze at the entrance to some ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... demand this of me? Marry without love! Alas, alas! The prince will charge me with inconstancy and treachery to him, and I must bear that ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... idle to assume a reminiscence of a passage of Montaigne on the chameleon[55] as it would be to derive Hamlet's phrase "A king of shreds and patches" from Florio's rendering in the essay[56] OF THE INCONSTANCY ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... intended to deceive you. I did love you, and felt at the time all that I professed. Had you loved me less, I had been more constant. But why, let me ask, have you sought me here, to upbraid me for my inconstancy? What good can it do to you or to me? You call me a wretch: and I acknowledge myself to be one, a vile, ungrateful wretch. Call me a thief, if you will, if the word does not blister your tongue to utter it. I confess it all. Now leave me to ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... time when the engagement was first announced between Jeffrey and the young heiress. This and his previous attentions to Cora had made much talk, both in Washington and elsewhere, and there were not lacking those who had openly twitted him for his seeming inconstancy. This had been over the cups of course, and Jeffrey had borne it well enough from his so-called friends and intimates. But when, on a certain evening in the parlor of one of the large hotels in Atlantic City, ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... commotion are seldom enjoyed Gain to change an ill condition for one that is uncertain Gave them new and more plausible names for their excuse Gentleman would play the fool to make a show of defence Gently to bear the inconstancy of a lover Gewgaw to hang in a cabinet or at the end of the tongue Give but the rind of my attention Give me time to recover my strength and health Give the ladies a cruel contempt of our natural furniture Give these young wenches the things they long for Give us ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne
... interesting scenes of the neighbourhood, which, often celebrated by the poets, were especially calculated to foment his own rapidly developing fancy. He fell in love, was accepted, and ultimately cast off—incidents which afforded him opportunities of celebrating the charms, and deploring the inconstancy of the fair. He composed a poem, of fifteen hundred lines, entitled "Mahomet, or the Hegira," and performed the extraordinary mental effort of retaining the whole on his memory, at the period being unable ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... return for light labor. Nevertheless, the conflict with the river itself and with the desert,—which, on the banks of the Euphrates, as on those of the Nile and the Indus, is ever threatening to invade the cultivated lands,—the necessity of irrigation, the inconstancy of the seasons, keep forethought alive, and give birth to the useful arts and to the sciences of observation. The abundance of resources, the absence of every obstacle, of all separation between the different parts of these ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... last stanza shows very pleasingly the faithfulness of father and children, in contrast to the inconstancy of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... and pray for him. Even when he heard within the year that she was about to make a brilliant marriage with a titled Frenchman whom she had met at Newport, he persisted in thinking of her as the victim, not of her own inconstancy, but of parental sternness. He sometimes saw her pretty face quite distinctly before his eyes, as he looked out across the swiftly spinning wheel, into the smoke-hung barroom,—the pretty face with the tearful eyes and the quivering lip of shallow feeling, the ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... that be known in Europe. I come not to this Realm without their resolution; and for my assurance I have the handwritings of many; and therefore if I should move the same question again, what else should I do but either show my own ignorance and forgetfulness, or else inconstancy?" {241c} He therefore said that his opponents might themselves "write and complain upon him," and so learn "the plain minds" of the learned—but nobody took the trouble. Knox's defence was worded with the skill of a notary. He said that he had "heard ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... attended faithfully to the affairs intrusted to him by Abderahman. The death of his old friend and colleague, Yusuf, however, and the subsequent disasters of his family, filled him with despondency. Fearing the inconstancy of fortune, and the dangers incident to public employ, he entreated the king to be permitted to retire to his house in Seguenza, and indulge a privacy and repose suited to his advanced age. His prayer was granted. The veteran laid ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... Tudor? Yet, strange as it may seem, I was really and wholly in love with Jane; in fact, I loved no one but Jane, and my feeling of intense admiration for Mary was but a part of man's composite inconstancy. ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... Built, Gilbert and Gottfried told this tale for lovers and none other, and, by my pen, they beg you for your prayers. They greet those who are cast down, and those in heart, those troubled and those filled with desire. May all herein find strength against inconstancy and despite and loss and pain and all ...
— The Romance Of Tristan And Iseult • M. Joseph Bedier
... night, about a lady of the place, between her various lovers, occasioned a midnight discharge of pistols, but nobody wounded. Great scandal, however—planted by her lover—to be thrashed by her husband, for inconstancy to her regular Servente, who is coming home post about it, and she herself retired in confusion into the country, although it is the acme of the opera season. All the women furious against her (she herself having been censorious) for being found ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... lovable woman whom he had ever known. But when she played this role of a feminine providence, who was apparently free from the ordinary weaknesses of her sex, when she carefully repressed every emotion of jealousy at the sight of his inconstancy, she was not free from a selfish motive. She still hoped that some day he would grow weary of pursuing the blue will-o'-the-wisps of fleeting sham loves; he would at last long to escape from the marsh into which for ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... an hour the enemy, by their marches and countermarches, discovered great fickleness and inconstancy of mind,—sometimes advancing, sometimes returning to their former posts; till at length they quitted the town and retreated by the way they came. In the meantime, a party of our men (one hundred and fifty), took the back way through the Great Fields into the East Quarter, and had placed themselves ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... the parts about the City of Constantinople or Asia Minor, be as subject to Earth-quakes now, as they have been formerly? And whether the Eastern Winds do not Plague the said City with Mists, and cause that inconstancy of Weather, it is said to ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... quarrel with Heaven. If the feeble charms which my countenance displays have exposed me to the misfortune of my lover abandoning me, Heaven could not better soften such a blow than by making use of you to captivate that heart. I ought not to blush for an inconstancy which indicates the difference between your attractions and mine. If this change makes me sigh, it is from foreseeing that it will be fatal to your love; amidst the sorrow caused by friendship, I am angry for your sake that my few attractions have failed to retain a heart whose devotion ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere
... Burke with a belief in their sincere but secret sympathy with the royalist cause. The three men also agreed in suspecting Leopold, though Burke tried to prove that his treachery was not premeditated, but sprang from "some complexional inconstancy." Pitt and Grenville, knowing the doggedness with which the Emperor pushed towards his goal, amidst many a shift and turn, ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... Edinburgh. The Cuif held forth upon the great event every night when he came over to hold the tails of Meg's cows. Jock Forrest still went out, saying nothing, whenever the Cuif came in, which the Cuif took to be a good sign. Only Ebie Fairrish, struck to the heart by the inconstancy of Jess, removed at the November term back again to the "laigh end" of the parish, and there plunged madly into flirtations with several of his old sweethearts. He is reported to have found in numbers the anodyne for the unfaithfulness ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... but it seems force was liberty, and much good may it do the French with being delivered from every thing but violence!—which I believe they will soon taste pro and con.! You may make me smile by desiring me to continue my affection. Have I so much time left for inconstancy? For threescore years and ten I have not been very fickle in my friendship: in all these years I never found such a pair as you and your sister. Should I meet with a superior pair,-but they must not be deficient in any one of the qualities which I find in you two,-why, Perhaps, I may change; ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... the Fair" is a defence of inconstancy, or of the right of experiment in love; and is addressed by a husband to his wife, whose supposed and very natural comments the monologue reflects. The speaker's implied name of Don Juan sufficiently tells us what we are meant ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... social chains in order that the Lelias and Sylvias may go in quest of their ideal without being stopped by morality and the laws, those importune customs lines which religion and the institutions have opposed to individual whim and inconstancy. ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... one of Shakspeare's plays harder to characterize. The name and the remembrances connected with it, prepare us for the representation of attachment no less faithful than fervent on the side of the youth, and of sudden and shameless inconstancy on the part of the lady. And this is, indeed, as the gold thread on which the scenes are strung, though often kept out of sight and out of mind by gems of greater value than itself. But as Shakspeare calls forth nothing from the mausoleum of history, ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... was something in the temper of these celebrated men which secured them against the proverbial inconstancy both of the Court and of individuals.... No Parliament attacked their influence. No mob coupled their names with any odious grievance.... They were, one and all, Protestants. But ... none of them chose to run the smallest personal risk during the reign of Mary. No men observed more accurately ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... harshness, and having called forth from him some short and extremely bitter verses beginning "Oui, femme," and another called "Adieu!" in which there prevails a tone of quiet but deep feeling. This is a sad story: he apparently united the volatility and vagrancy of fancy, the inconstancy of light shallow natures, with the ardor and intensity of passion and the capacity for suffering which belong to strong and steadfast ones. There was a childlike quality in his disposition, which showed itself in a sort of simplicity ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... from your legislative assemblies, it has bred up a class of candidates for the suffrage, who, in their every act, disgrace your Institutions and your people's choice. It has rendered you so fickle, and so given to change, that your inconstancy has passed into a proverb; for you no sooner set up an idol firmly, than you are sure to pull it down and dash it into fragments: and this, because directly you reward a benefactor, or a public-servant, you distrust him, merely because he IS rewarded; and immediately apply yourselves to ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... undoubtedly endanger the salvation of others, either because he would corrupt the faithful whom he met, or because his escape from punishment would lead others to believe they could deny the faith with impunity. The inconstancy of the relapsed is, therefore, a sufficient reason why the Church, although she receives him to penance for his soul's salvation, refuses to free him from ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... The inconstancy of baby Maggot's nature was presently exhibited in his becoming tired of the sun, and the restlessness of his disposition displayed itself in his frantic efforts to get out of bed. Being boxed in with a board, this was not an easy ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... a dauntless fidelity. How chagrined the weavers of these tributes would have been to observe the fickle nature of the beast in question! For weeks he had hardly deigned me a glance. It had been a relief, to be sure, but what a sickening disclosure of the cur's trifling inconstancy. Even now, though he sniffed hungrily at the open door, he paid me not the least attention—me whom he had ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... own. Popularity, never a stable possession in any country, is infinitely less so in France, where the vivacity of perception of the people leads them to discover grave faults where only slight errors exist, and where a natural inconstancy, love of change, and a reckless impatience under aught that offends them, prompt them to hurl down from the pedestal the idol of yesterday to replace it ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... the vice peculiar to republics; and it seems to be forgotten that for one instance of popular inconstancy, we have a hundred examples of the fall of courtly favourites. Besides, a people have often repented—a monarch seldom or never. Leaving apart many familiar proofs of this fact, a short story may show the difference between even ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... and set to music by the other—brothers doloroso, sent into this rough world unprepared for its buffets, passing away in manhood's morning. Yet all heard the song of the skylark. Giorgione died broken-hearted, through his ladylove's inconstancy. He was exactly the same age as Titian, and while he lived surpassed that giant far, as the giant himself admitted. He died aged thirty-three, the age at which a full dozen of the greatest men of the world ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... bunch on the Romsey Road. An old woman described having tried the augury, having laid the plants in pairs on Midsummer Eve, naming them after pairs of sweethearts. Those that twisted away from each other showed inconstancy! ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... pellicle? This, he will agree, lies far below the point, in primary organism, where specific identity, or the law of heredity, asserts its full recognition. All below this developmental point is inconstancy of specific forms, with no line of ancestry ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... And now we've told you all our loves, And likewise all our fears, In hopes this declaration moves Some pity from your tears; Let's hear of no inconstancy, We have too much of that at sea. With ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... be easy to prove in a thousand ways that, despite the danger of inconstancy resulting from his great sensibility, imagination, and intellect, no one, more than Lord Byron, steadily and firmly adhered through life in his actions to the principles which constitute the man of honor. Chances, caprices, inequalities ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... senator from the Roman people. [50] As he passed through the city, in his road to victory, he received their oath of allegiance, lodged in the Lateran palace, and smoothed in a short visit the harsh features of his despotic character. Yet even Charles was exposed to the inconstancy of the people, who saluted with the same acclamations the passage of his rival, the unfortunate Conradin; and a powerful avenger, who reigned in the Capitol, alarmed the fears and jealousy of the popes. The absolute term of his life was superseded by a renewal every third ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... first felt the glory of the morning, the altar at which we first knelt in prayer, the rustic nook where we listened for the one step to which our boyish hearts beat sweetest time; have no power to trammel our migratory proclivities, or to check our local inconstancy. The sentiments with which such objects are indissolubly connected, are but tendrils clinging round the parent nest, and the wings of the new-fledged bird, bursting them asunder, it soars out into the world to contend and ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... less than four years, and only two or three minutes before Vera Alexandrina's husband was due to arrive he himself stood at the cottage door with folded arms, asking himself if he should or should not enter and reproach Vera Alexandrina for her inconstancy. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 7, 1914 • Various
... those who would not venture to go were sullen and melancholy, and the woman were crying and imploring the Great Spirit to protect their warriors as if they were going to certain destruction: yet such is the wavering inconstancy of these savages, that captain Lewis's party had not gone far when they were joined by ten or twelve more warriors, and before reaching the creek which they had passed on the morning of the 13th, all the men of the nation and a number of women had overtaken ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... in a tremor of fear. I pulled from my bosom a little book like the one Leperello exhibits in the opera of "Don Giovanni." There, I said, was a record of my flirtation and inconstancy. I waited long for the decision, but ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... this inconstancy is such As you too shalt adore; I could not love thee, Dear, so much, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... endure them, he thought, to all eternity, if he had her to himself, safe and sure; but the confidence to which he rose every now and then that she would one day be his, just as often failed him, rudely shaken by some new symptom of what almost seemed like cherished inconstancy. If after all she should forsake him! It was impossible, but she might. If even that should come, he was too much of a man to imagine anything but a stern encounter of the inevitable, and he knew he would survive it; but he knew also that life could never ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... till Panurgus, the eighteenth king from the Conquest, was more by their favor than his right advanced to the crown. This King, through his natural subtlety, reflecting at once upon the greatness of their power, and the inconstancy of their favor, began to find another flaw in this kind of government, which is also noted by Machiavel namely, that a throne supported by a nobility is not so hard to be ascended as kept warm. Wherefore his secret jealousy, lest the dissension of the nobility, as it brought him in might throw ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... century there lived in Hungary one Francis David, a man learned in the arts and languages, but his inconstancy and fickleness of mind led him into diverse errors, and brought about his destruction. He left the Church, and first embraced Calvinism; then he fled into the camp of the Semi-Judaising party, publishing a book De Christo ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... of the agreement amongst the opponents of Government. "I now doubt," he observes, "very much of the possibility of arranging Mr. Fox's and Lord North's friends in such a manner as to make their system carry the appearance of permanency." The inconstancy of the reports in circulation reflected faithfully the uncertainty that hung over the action of all parties; and in that uncertainty lay the principal, perhaps the only, ground of hope that was left to ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... rather question-begging, but he was so thrilled by the implicit revelation that she could not even imagine feminine inconstancy, that he forebore to draw her attention to ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill |
