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Libertinism   Listen
noun
Libertinism  n.  
1.
The state of a libertine or freedman. (R.)
2.
Licentious conduct; debauchery; lewdness.
3.
Licentiousness of principle or opinion. "That spirit of religion and seriousness vanished all at once, and a spirit of liberty and libertinism, of infidelity and profaneness, started up in the room of it."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Libertinism" Quotes from Famous Books



... pretended to culture, good breeding, and superior intelligence. "As in a shipwreck, the crew instinctively turn for counsel and direction to the officers, you will see that France will, notwithstanding all the libertinism of our age, place her confidence in the men who have been the tried and worthy servants of former governments. So far, then, from suffering on account of your gentle blood, Maurice, the time is not distant ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... of this war, and shortly after the death of Emineh, another dismal drama was enacted in the pacha's family, whose active wickedness nothing seemed to weary. The scandalous libertinism of both father and sons had corrupted all around as well as themselves. This demoralisation brought bitter fruits for all alike: the subjects endured a terrible tyranny; the masters sowed among themselves distrust, discord, and hatred. The father wounded his two sons by turns in their ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... his sonatas and symphonies and his various operas—all the qualities that are combined in "Don Giovanni," are the qualities of Mozart's own nature, always excepting the ruthlessness and the fanatic libertinism of his Don Juan. ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes

... depraved soul, as he called it. His hero is a sort of vulgarized Karl Moor; that is, an enemy of society who might have been its friend if things had not happened so and so. The successive steps of his descent from mild resentment to malignant fury, libertinism and crime, and the reaction of his own increasing depravity upon his own mind, are described in a manner which is fairly interesting from a literary point of view, whatever a modern expert criminologist might think of it. The crux of the ever difficult problem,—the ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... difference there is between "the first sprightly runnings" of an author's own mind, and his cold, vapid transfusion of the thoughts of another. From stanza 10th to the end is all added by the translator, and all spirited—though full of a bold defying libertinism, as unlike as possible to the effeminate lubricity of the poor sophist, upon whom, in a grave, treacherous note, the responsibility of the whole is laid. But by far the most interesting part of the volume is the last Epistle of the book, "From a Lover resigning ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... no reply. At the astounding revelation made by the dropping of that black veil, he had retreated in mingled shame and surprise. He had accosted his own mother in the language of libertinism, and he stood gazing upon her with looks of sorrow and regret. He had scarcely heard her speak, so absorbed was he in self-reproach. And now as ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... says his sister, "and exceedingly imperious;" but both she and his school-fellow Thistlethwaite, vindicated him from the charge of libertinism, which was brought against him by some who thought they could not sufficiently blacken his memory. On the contrary, his abstemiousness was uncommon; he seldom used animal food or strong liquors, his usual diet being a piece of bread and a tart, and some water. He fancied that the full of ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... the above I will add the following MEMORABLE RELATION. I heard a certain spirit, a youth, recently deceased, boasting of his libertinism, and eager to establish his reputation as a man of superior masculine powers; and in the insolence of his boasting he thus expressed himself; "What is more dismal than for a man to imprison his love, ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg

... Southern vices, together with the culture they had gone to seek. The contrast between the plain dealing of the North and the refined Machiavellism of the South, between Protestant earnestness in religion and Popish scepticism, between the homely virtues of England and the courtly libertinism of Venice or Florence, blunted the moral sense, while it stimulated the intellectual activity of the English travellers, and too often communicated a fatal shock to their principles. Inglese Italianato e un diavolo incarnato passed into a proverb: we ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... piety and dissipation, of momentary fervor and continuous irregularities. This religion connects Jesus Christ with the pomps of Satan. We there see sumptuous display, pride, ambition, intrigue, vengeance, envy, and libertinism all amalgamated with a religion whose maxims are austere. Pious casuists, interested for the great, approve this alliance, and give the lie to their own religion in order to derive advantage from circumstances and from the passions and vices of men. If these ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach

... an unfair advantage of this alleged necessity of fate to employ it in excuse for our vices and our libertinism. I have often heard it said by smart young persons, who wished to play the freethinker, that it is useless to preach virtue, to censure vice, to create hopes of reward and fears of punishment, since it may be said of the book ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... hands of man, and most arbitrarily and unjustly does he exercise his consequent power, making two moral codes: one for himself, with largest latitude—swearing, chewing, smoking, drinking, gambling, libertinism, all winked at—cash and brains giving him a free pass everywhere; another quite unlike this for woman—she must be immaculate. One hair's breadth deviation, even the touch of the hem of the garment of an accused sister, dooms her to the world's scorn. ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... "Celestina." Though it can never have been represented, it has left unmistakable traces of its influence on the national drama ever since. It was translated into various languages, and few works ever had a more brilliant success. The great fault of the Celestina is its shameless libertinism of thought and language; and its chief merits are its life- like exhibition of the most unworthy forms of human character, and its singularly pure, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... not content with dismissing from her service, or banishing her presence, such of her female attendants as were found offending against the laws of chastity, she was equitable enough to visit with marks of her displeasure the libertinism of the other sex; and in several instances she deferred the promotion of otherwise deserving young men till she saw them reform their manners in this respect. Europe had assuredly never beheld a court so decent, so learned, or so accomplished as hers; and it will not be ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... and Countries of that Kingdom, after the example of the worthy Ministery of the City of London, against the Errours of Independency, Anabaptism, Antinomianisin, Arminianism, Socinianism, Faminism, Libertinism, Sceptism, Erastianism, and other new and dangerous Doctrines spred and received amongst many in that Nation; As they are unto us matter of great praise and hearty thanksgiving unto GOD, so also an evidence of the stedfastness of many in England, and a token for ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland

... their district to allow their negroes a portion of their waste lands; by which they will not only add to their comforts, but increase the productions of the province, and that time will be usefully employed which would otherwise be devoted to libertinism. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... adherence to the great law of nature, that all opposites tend to attract and temper each other. Passion in Shakespeare generally displays libertinism, but involves morality; and if there are exceptions to this, they are, independently of their intrinsic value, all of them indicative of individual character, and, like the farewell admonitions of a parent, have an end beyond the parental relation. Thus the ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge

... sterile futility. An incurable frivolity will get possession of the high society, and come entirely to direct thought. Licentiousness of language will accompany wicked manners, and lend a seduction the more to vice. Libertinism becomes the fashion. Impiety a la mode, miserable vanities, will supplant a noble pride to achieve a reputation in letters: it will become necessary to raise a doubt, wherever truth has been admitted. Amidst the din of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... see the work of the Pere Garasse, La Doctrine curieuse des beaux esprits de ce temps ou pretendus tels, etc. (1623). Cp. also Brunetiere's illuminating study, "Jansenistes et Cartesiens" in Etudes critiques, 4me serie.] This libertinism had its philosophy, a sort of philosophy of nature, of which the most brilliant exponents were Rabelais and Moliere. The maxim, "Be true to nature," was evidently opposed sharply to the principles of the Christian religion, and it was associated with sceptical ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury

... appearance upon the stage of public life, imagine what an impression such a phenomenon must have made upon a people so lost in profligacy and sensuality of all sorts. What wonder that the unprincipled though gifted Demades, the very personification of the witty and reckless libertinism of the age, should deride and scoff at this strange man, living as nobody else lived, thinking as nobody else thought; a prophet, crying from his solitude of great troubles at hand; the apostle of the past; the preacher of an impossible restoration; ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... music, as a moral and political agent. We allude to a proclamation of the Emperor Ngaiti, who ascended the throne of the Celestial Empire in the year of the tenth ra 364. After complaining, that tender, artificial, and effeminate strains inspire libertinism, he proceeds, in severe terms, to order a reformation in these matters; the first step to which, is a prohibition of every sort of music but that which serves for war, and for the ceremony Tido. The Arabs also appear to have held similar opinions as to the power of music. They boast of Ishac, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... from the road where he is to pass. If, in spite of these precautions, he should by ill-luck cast his eyes on a woman, the princess may have his head chopped off, and commonly exercised, or used to exercise, the right. This sort of libertinism, sustained by power, often carries the princesses to the greatest excesses, and nothing is so much dreaded ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... the Deistic straggles of the seventeenth century, had to battle for existence against the Puritanic reaction which took its second rise from the worn-out licentious age of the last of the Stuarts, and that of the no less dangerous (though concealed) libertinism of the Dutch king. A religious rancor also arose which, but for the influence of a new power, would have re-enacted the tragedy of religious persecution. But this rancor became somewhat modified, from the fact that the various parties now were unlike the old schismatics, who ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts

... rector had completely mistaken my undisguisedly candid and sensitive character; my excitable feelings were made ridiculous, and thrown back upon themselves; and now, when I could freely advance upon the way to my object, this change showed itself in me. From severe suffering I did not rush into libertinism, but into an erroneous endeavor to appear other than I was. I ridiculed feeling, and fancied that I had quite thrown it aside; and yet I could be made wretched for a whole day, if I met with a sour countenance where I expected a friendly one. Every poem which ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen

... virtuous or vicious, high-minded or ignoble, who inquired with too keen a scrutiny into the foundations of morals, of religion, of social order. To examine with a curious or unfavourable eye the bases of established opinions, was to show a leaning to anarchy, to atheism, or to unbridled libertinism. Already we have seen how, three years after the publication of his Thoughts on the Present Discontents, and seventeen years before the composition of the Reflections, he denounced the philosophers with a fervour and a vehemence which he never afterwards surpassed. When a few of the clergy ...
— Burke • John Morley

... they did not intend people to read them first; spent his money freely and sometimes that of other people; was particularly tenacious of the ritual and of all decencies of the Church; detested a democrat as he did the devil; cracked his jokes daily about Mr. Jefferson, never failing to place his libertinism in strong relief against the approved morals of George III., of several passages in whose history it is charitable to suppose he was ignorant; prayed fervently on Sunday; decried all morals, institutions, ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips

... passions, though violent in the extreme, were concentrated, and hated division or spreading abroad. I could have left or lost the whole world with, or for, that which I loved; but, though my temperament was naturally burning, I could not share in the common-place libertinism of the place and time without disgust. And yet this very disgust, and my heart thrown back upon itself, threw me into excesses perhaps more fatal than those from which I shrunk, as fixing upon one (at a time) the passions which ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore

... this nomination was received with strange joy. Roderigo Borgia had the reputation of a dissolute man, it is true, but libertinism had mounted the throne with Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII, so that for the Romans there was nothing new in the singular situation of a pope with a mistress and five children. The great thing for the moment was that the power fell into strong hands; and it was more important ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... of the atheist ever furnished; and the precise, strait-laced Richardson has strengthened Vice, from the mouth of Lovelace, with entangling sophistries and abstruse pleas against her adversary Virtue, which Sedley, Villiers, and Rochester wanted depth of libertinism enough to ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... appropriate to the most interesting work in which they appear. From the whole, it is only too clear that the class of people referred to is profoundly immoral and corrupt, their very poverty only hindering them from indulging in an excess of libertinism. ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... constitution. She deceived her lover with perfect impunity, who would believe what she said even against the evidence of his own eyes. I could mention several instances of this, if they were not too indecent. It is, however, sufficient to say that she had one day to persuade him that he was the cause of a libertinism of which he was really the victim.—Memoires de Duclos, tome ii. It is well known that, after the Duke assumed the Regency, upon the death of the Regent, the Marchioness du Prie governed in his name; and that she was ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... disagreeable than otherwise. A pair of thick black eyebrows almost covered the eyes of him; his look had in it something ominous, presage of the fate he met with: a tawny skin, torn by small-pox, increased his ugliness. He affected the freethinker, and carried libertinism to excess; a great deal of ambition and headlong rashness accompanied this vice." A dangerous adviser here in the Berlin element, with lightnings going!"Such a favorite was not the man to bring back my Brother from his follies. This ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... however, imagine, that I was, during this state of abandoned libertinism, so fully convinced of the fitness of my own conduct, as to be free from uneasiness. I knew very well, that I might justly be deemed the pest of society, and that such proceedings must terminate in the destruction of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... generosity, the tenderness, the chivalrous delicacy, which ennoble appetites into passions, and impart to vice itself a portion of the majesty of virtue. The excesses of that age remind us of the humours of a gang of footpads, revelling with their favourite beauties at a flash- house. In the fashionable libertinism there is a hard, cold ferocity, an impudence, a lowness, a dirtiness, which can be paralleled only among the heroes and heroines of that filthy and heartless literature which encouraged it. One nobleman of great abilities wanders about as a Merry-Andrew. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... were cantillated to the hula ki'i express in some degree the peculiar libertinism of this hula, which differed from all others by many removes. They may be characterized as gossipy, sarcastic, ironical, scandal-mongering, dealing in satire, abuse, hitting right and left at social and personal ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson

... my taste; for my early passions, though violent in the extreme, were concentrated, and hated division or spreading abroad. I could have left or lost the whole world with or for that which I loved; but, though my temperament was naturally burning, I could not share in the common libertinism of the place and time without disgust; and yet this very disgust, and my heart thrown back upon itself, threw me into excesses perhaps more fatal than those from which I shrunk, as fixing upon one at a time the passions, ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt

... enthusiastic exclamation: "Oh, beautiful Venice!" The world has heard more of the natural beauties of Naples than of the artificial ones of Venice, but when Naples is made the scene of a drama of any kind it seems that its attractions for librettist and composer lie in the vulgarity and vice, libertinism and lust, the wickedness and wantonness, of a portion of its people rather than in the loveliness of character which such a place might ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... Then he mentioned another name, a statesman who pursued a policy of terrorism and oppression, enriched himself by barbarous cruelty exercised in colonial possessions, and was famous for the calculated libertinism of his private life. ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson

... novels and books of travel. Although her record in intelligence and morals is good, John Croker, who regularly reviewed her books, accuses her works of licentiousness, profligacy, irreverence, blasphemy, libertinism, disloyalty and atheism. There are twenty-six pages of this in one review only, and any paragraph would be worth the quoting for its ferocity. After this attack it was Macaulay who said he hated Croker ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks

... have a mistress was not to be in the swim. Words cannot express the infinite and general degradation. It is scarcely possible to exaggerate it. That teeming town at the mouth of the Klondike set a pace in libertinism that has ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... while, hitches up the fiery team of vengeance, and ploughs up the splendid libertinism, and ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage

... pleasure, and followed up the incongruous intimacies occasioned by it without reflection or foresight. The council-chamber was deserted; the crowds which attended on him as agents to his various projects were neglected. Festivity, and even libertinism, became the order of ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... guarantees. The work is before us, its own warranty. What is it to us whether Turner had coarse orgies with the trulls of Wapping? We can judge his art without knowing or thinking of the artist. And in the same way, what are the stories of Byron's libertinism to us? They may have biographical interest, but of critical interest hardly the least. If the name of the author of Manfred, Cain, Childe Harold, were already lost, as it may be in remote times, the work ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 3: Byron • John Morley

... papers in theaters and cafes. They were urged by workmen in their shops, by students in their closets. They became the inspiring spirit of science in encyclopedias and reviews, and formed the chorus in all the songs of revelry and libertinism. These sentiments spread from heart to heart, through Paris, through the provinces, till France rose like a demon in its wrath, and the very globe trembled beneath its gigantic and ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... time, and to her highness I appeal. The queen saw in me only a minstrel; on my art alone as a musician was her favor bestowed; and by expressing it with an ingenuous warmth which none other than an innocent heart would have dared to display, she has thus exposed herself to the animadversions of libertinism, and to the false representations of a terror-struck, because ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... lassitude. Boleslas, in the vigorous and supple maturity of his thirty-four years, realized one of those types of manly beauty so perfect that they resist the strongest tests. The excesses of emotion, as those of libertinism, seem only to invest the man with a new prestige; the fact is that the novelist's room, with its collection of books, photographs, engravings, paintings and moldings, invested that form, tortured by the bitter sufferings of passion, with a poesy to which Dorsenne could not ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... en grand seigneur, or without counting the cost, but because he knew what poverty meant, and a fellow-feeling made him kind. Even in Venice he set aside a fixed sum for charitable purposes. It was to his credit that neither libertinism nor disgrace nor remorse withered at its root this herb of grace. Cynical speeches with regard to friends and friendship, often quoted to his disadvantage, need not be taken too literally. Byron ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... alas, it closely neighbours the French; only a Channel, often dangerously smooth, to divide: but it is not perverted for long; and the English Funds are always constant and a tower. Would they be suffered to be so, if libertinism were ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Clinker is metamorphosed into Matthew Loyd; and claims the honour of being your carnal kinsman — in short, the rogue proves to be a crab of my own planting in the days of hot blood and unrestrained libertinism.' Clinker had by this time dropt upon one knee, by the side of Mrs Tabitha, who, eyeing him askance, and flirting her fan with marks of agitation, thought proper, after some conflict, to hold out her hand for him to kiss, saying, with a demure aspect, ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... of Christ in Man, and to dishonour and cry down the Church, the Scripture, and the present Ministry, and our worship and ordinances; and called men to hearken to Christ within them. But withal they conjoined a cursed doctrine of Libertinism, which brought them to all abominable filthiness of life. They taught, as the FAMILISTS, (see Vol. III. p. 152), that God regardeth not the actions of the outward man, but of the heart, and that to the pure all things are pure ... I have seen myself letters written from Abington, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... verse, created a dangerous interest in the man himself; and his empeiria (as Goethe calls it), his too exclusively worldly experience, identified him with his particular class in society, rendering him largely the responsible representative of a libertinism in habits and sentiments that was more pardonable in his time than in our own. His poetry belongs also in another sense to the world he lived in: it is incessantly occupied with current events and circumstance, with Spain, Italy, and Greece as he actually saw them, with comparisons ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... pressing danger was the defection of the lake tribes. "In spite of the king's edicts," pursues Denonville, "the coureurs de bois have carried a hundred barrels of brandy to Michillimackinac in a single year; and their libertinism and debauchery have gone to such an extremity that it is a wonder the Indians have not massacred them all to save themselves from their violence and recover their wives and daughters from them. This, Monseigneur, joined to our failure in the last war, has drawn upon us such contempt ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman

... theatrical masked balls I heard the debauchery of the Regency spoken of, and the time when a queen of France was disguised as a flower merchant. I found there flower merchants disguised as camp-followers. I expected to find libertinism there, but in fact I found none at all. It is only the scum of libertinism, some blows and drunken women lying in deathlike ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset

... are millions of less literate people who are still in the eighteenth century, have they not Moliere and Mozart, upon whose art no human hand can improve? You would laugh at me if at this time of day I dealt in duels and ghosts and "womanly" women. As to mere libertinism, you would be the first to remind me that the Festin de Pierre of Moliere is not a play for amorists, and that one bar of the voluptuous sentimentality of Gounod or Bizet would appear as a licentious stain on the score of Don Giovanni. Even the ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw

... was bound by the fiefs she brought him,—such a lady would be in no wise merciful, especially towards a girl-serf who happened also to be good-looking. Since, according to the custom of those days, she openly kept her gentleman and her page, she would not be sorry to sanction her own libertinism by that of ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... the literary men and women of light fame who gave to the society of the period the spirit and the tone of a constant orgy. Forming an attachment with an old acquaintance of Madame Du Barry, he knew this parvenue courtezan, whom libertinism had elevated nearly to the throne. Devoted to the Duc de Choiseul, the enemy of this mistress of the king, and retaining that remnant of virtue which amongst the French is called honour, he did not prostitute ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... product of the intellect fired by inspiration. In the progress from Peri to Wagner, however, despite many daring and dubious adventures in new territories, there has yet been an avoidance of material in itself ugly and repulsive. We have been asked to contemplate the libertinism of Don Juan, but at its worst it has served only as a foil to the virtue of his victims, which in the end emerged triumphant. We have seen exposed the monstrous double nature of Rigoletto, but only that the pathos of paternal love should thereby be thrown into brighter relief. We have seen convention ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... grossness of his comedies rivalled that of Wycherley himself. But it is the very extravagance of his coarseness which shows how alien it was to the real temper of the man. A keen French critic has contrasted the libertinism of England under the Restoration with the libertinism of France, and has ruthlessly pointed out how the gaiety, the grace, the naturalness of the one disappears in the forced, hard, brutal brilliancy of the other. The contrast is a just one. ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green

... illustrious for directness and integrity, he pursued the tortuous path of perfidious intrigue; in a community where the sanctities of domestic life were unusually revered, he bore the stigma of unscrupulous libertinism. With the blood of his gallant adversary and his country's idol on his hands, the penalties of debt and treason hanging over him, the fertility of an acute intellect wasted on vain expedients,—an outlaw, an adventurer, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... themselves in the highest strains of devotion: they inveighed bitterly against the vices and pretended luxury of the age: they were particularly vehement against the dissolute lives of the secular clergy, their rivals: every instance of libertinism in any individual of that order was represented as a general corruption: and where other topics of defamation were wanting, their marriage became a sure subject of invective, and their wives received the name of CONCUBINE, or other more opprobrious appellation. The secular ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... manners. The salon of Mme. de Lambert was the great antechamber to the Academy, election to which was generally gained through her. A new aristocracy was forming, a new society arose; from about 1720 to 1750, libertinism and atheism, licentiousness and intrigue, ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... vainglorious, selfish and malignant of his tribe. He, indeed, betrayed himself broadly, but surviving writers, who knew intimately his private life—such as St. Beuve—have disclosed more of his habitual libertinism. The Radical journals, and some of the Legitimists, turn to account the portraits left in these memoirs of Louis Philippe, Thiers, Guizot, and other statesmen of the Orleans monarchy. They are effusions of personal and political spite. Chateaubriand ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various

... lives. Madame Périer says expressly of her brother that he had been “preserved by the special protection of God from all youthful vices, and, what was still more remarkable in the case of a mind of such strength and pride, he had never yielded to any libertinism of thought, but had always limited his curiosity to natural inquiries.” He attributed, according to her statement, this religious sobriety of mind to the instructions and example of his father, who had a great respect for religion, and who had impressed upon him from his infancy the maxim, “that ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch

... your convents. What will become of your St Catharines, your St Theresas, your St Claras, and the whole bead-roll of your holy virgins and widows; who, if they are to be judged by this system of virtue, will be found to have been infamous creatures, that passed their whole lives in most abominable libertinism. ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague

... of Years last past, you might from the single People departed make some useful Inferences or Guesses how many there are left unmarried, and raise some useful Scheme for the Amendment of the Age in that particular. I have not Patience to proceed gravely on this abominable Libertinism; for I cannot but reflect, as I am writing to you, upon a certain lascivious Manner which all our young Gentlemen use in publick, and examine our Eyes with a Petulancy in their own, which is a downright Affront to Modesty. A disdainful Look on such an Occasion is return'd with a Countenance ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... fate, and mine too, depended on the eccentricities of a jury, the chartered libertinism of an ermined judge, the humour of the law, on a series of points without precedent concerning which no monograph had as yet been written; and, as a last desperate resource, on the letters of a sympathetic ...
— Much Darker Days • Andrew Lang (AKA A. Huge Longway)

... all public festivities, Henry removed the Court to Fontainebleau; and Marguerite, whose unblushing libertinism was a byword in Paris, seized the moment to erect an almshouse and convent upon a portion of the grounds of her hotel. It was stated that the ex-Queen during her residence at Usson, where, as we have already seen, her career was one of the most degrading profligacy, had made a vow that ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... widespread applicability, quite logically moved toward genuine middle-class tragedy. Thus Hill's Fatal Extravagance is concerned with the "vice" of gambling; while Charles Johnson's Caelia, or The Perjur'd Lover (1732) attacks fashionable libertinism of the day, telling the story which Richardson was later to retell in seven ponderous volumes. In Caelia the religious rationalization of the tragic action is subdued, Johnson apparently preferring ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore

... Directorate, luxury and libertinism reigned almost as absolutely as during the monarchy. Barras was supreme. He had his mistress, or maitresse-en-titre, in the beautiful Mme. Tallien, the queen of beauty of the salon of la mode. Ease and ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... he thought that she was about to be importuned to marry one for whom he might himself feel very deep and sincere regard, on account of some high and noble qualities of the heart, but whose wild and reckless libertinism could but make her miserable for ever, the pain that he experienced caused him to turn very pale. The next moment the blood rushed up again into his cheek, seeing Lord Sherbrooke glance his eyes rapidly ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... in olden times generally considered an inflammatory herb, and hence to eat "conger and fennel" was to eat two high and hot things together, which was an act of libertinism. Thus in "2 Henry IV." (Act ii. sc. 4), Falstaff says of Poins, "He eats conger and fennel." Rosemary formerly had the reputation of strengthening the memory, and on this account was regarded as a symbol of remembrance. Thus, according to an ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

... mori and its hateful emblems should be deliberately effaced. 'The thought of death,' said Vauvenargues, 'leads us astray, because it makes us forget to live.' He did not understand living in the sense which the dissolute attach to it. The libertinism of his regiment called no severe rebuke from him, but his meditative temper drew him away from it even in his youth. It is not impossible that if his days had not been cut short, he might have impressed Parisian society with ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 2 of 3) - Essay 1: Vauvenargues • John Morley

... pious compliance. Although writing to a person whom I have never seen, yet the pleasure and profit I have derived in perusing your successful apologies in favour of the pure Gospel of Christ against the invasions of modern libertinism, remind me that I am not writing to an entire stranger; and your able and affectionate appeal to the late General Conference in behalf of Canada—of which my brothers gave a most interesting account—emboldens me to speak to you "as a man speaketh with his friend." Rev. Dr. Fisk's ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... life and conduct of this nobleman; of other women against whom he had plotted, and whom he had overcome; of the conversation which he, Harry himself, had had with Lord Mohun, wherein the lord made a boast of his libertinism, and frequently avowed that he held all women to be fair game (as his lordship styled this pretty sport), and that they were all, without exception, to be won. And the return Harry had for his entreaties and remonstrances was a fit of anger on Lady Castlewood's part, who would not ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... and the like sophistical reasonings, that he endeavored to palliate his ingratitude and cruelty towards the hapless victim of his lawless desires; for hardened as he was in his libertinism, and unjust as were his sentiments with regard to women, he could not avoid feeling a pang of conscious remorse at the recollection of Theodora. He had systematically won the confidence of an unsuspecting girl, and when ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... multiplication at all, for it is already too powerful and progressive. It is the public interest to check all propagation but that of good citizens, and to protect all women from enforced maternity, whether enforced under legal powers or by the arts of seduction and libertinism. ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, May 1887 - Volume 1, Number 4 • Various

... secretly be it understood, toward the tropical regions of love. These two natures of woman, so opposed to each other, have at the bottom of their hearts, the one that faint desire for virtue, the other that faint desire for libertinism which Jean-Jacques Rousseau was the first to have the courage to diagnose. In one, it is a last reflexion of the ray divine that is not extinct; in the other, it is the last remains ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac

... had a fear. But he well knew how extreme would be the danger, should the rustic gather together the people of Ellisland, with the story of his fraud, and the cruel consequences to the beauty of Charlemont, by which the deception had been followed. But the simple youth, ignorant of the language of libertinism, had never once suspected the fatal lapse from virtue of which Margaret Cooper had been guilty. He was too unfamiliar with the annals and practices of such criminals, to gather this fact from the equivocal words, and half-spoken sentences, ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... this great statesman and magistrate was malignantly scrutinised; and tales were told about his libertinism which went on growing till they became too absurd for the credulity even of party spirit. At last, long after he had been condemned to flannel and chicken broth, a wretched courtesan, who had probably never seen him except in the stage box at the theatre, when she was following her vocation ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the generative energy was of the most simple and artless character... the homage of man to the Supreme Power, the Author of Life.... Afterwards the cult became depraved. Religion became a pretext for libertinism." Poets wrote facetious and salacious epigrams and affixed them to the statues of the god—even the greatest writers lending their pens to the "sport"—and eventually some nonentity collected these scattered verses and made them into a book. Everybody knows ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... that triumph, and the ignoble stain that smirched the ideal of a restored monarchy which he had formed. We have seen how, one by one, his cherished aims had been defeated, and how a King, the slave of selfish libertinism, and a Court, the scene of gross debauchery and undisguised corruption, had tempted him to despair of England. We have seen how high he bore himself amidst the degraded crew, and how boldly he attacked the scandals of the ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... for him, and that they were all dependent on his good and gracious pleasure. Such lessons daily repeated, necessarily destroyed the wise instructions of Massillon. When grown up, Louis XV saw the libertinism of cardinal Dubois and the orgies of the regency: madame de Maillis' shameless conduct was before his eyes and Richelieu's also. Louis XV could not conduct himself differently from his ministers and his family. His timid character ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... Cara could not hope to escape a royal marriage, her father looked toward Galavia. There at least the strain was clean ... untouched by degeneracy and untainted with libertinism. Karyl is as decent a chap as yourself. He loves her, and though he knows she accepts him only from compulsion, he believes he can eventually win her love as well as her mere acquiescence. It's all as final as the laws of the ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck

... obscenities, with which all Aristophanes's comedies abound, have no excuse; they only denote to what a pitch the libertinism of the spectators, and the depravity of the poet, had proceeded. Had he even impregnated them with the utmost wit, which however is not the case, the privilege of laughing himself, or of making others laugh, would have been too dearly purchased at the expense of ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... the 4th of April 1366. Blanche, his mother, survived the birth of Bolinbroke probably not more than three years. Whether this lady found in John of Gaunt a faithful and loving husband, or whether his libertinism caused her to pass her short life in disappointment and sorrow, no authentic document enables us to pronounce. It is, however, impossible to close our eyes against the painful fact, that Catherine Swynford, who ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... home, while adultery and libertinism produce unrest, distrust and misery. It must be remembered that a married man can practice the most absolute continence and enjoy a far better state of health than the licentious man. The comforts of companionship develop purity and give rest to ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... of religion burlesqued, and all its offices performed with the utmost buffoonery. It is only by tracing them to the Roman Saturnalia that we can at all account for these grotesque sports—that extraordinary mixture of libertinism and profaneness, so long continued ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... among others, appear from the influence and example of your lady: but that, if ever you will be good for any thing, it will be quickly seen. And, O Cousin, what a vast, vast journey have you to take from the dreary land of libertinism, through the bright province of reformation, into the serene kingdom of happiness!—You had need to lose no time. You have many a weary step to tread, before you can overtake those travellers who set out ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson



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