"Perverseness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... answered briefly, "appallingly evil, and yet mingled with the sheer wickedness of it was also a certain perverseness—the perversity of ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... and the vicious would have it so that they might play with fire, yea, even put in their hand, and not be scorched or burnt. 'Tis a miracle they want, a miracle at every turn, a suspension of the laws of nature to save them from the effects of their voluntary perverseness. Too lazy to employ the means at their command, they thrust the whole burden on the Maker. God helps those who help themselves. A supernatural state does not dispense us from the obligation of practising natural virtue. You can build a supernatural life only on the foundations ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... poets in an age at most? Our chilling climate hardly bears A sprig of bays in fifty years; While every fool his claim alleges, As if it grew in common hedges. What reason can there be assign'd For this perverseness in the mind? Brutes find out where their talents lie: A bear will not attempt to fly; A founder'd horse will oft debate, Before he tries a five-barr'd gate; A dog by instinct turns aside, Who sees the ditch too deep and wide. But man we find the only creature ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... comp. chaps. lvi.-lix., especially chap. lix. 2: "Your iniquities separate between you and your God, and your sins hide His face from you that He doth not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity, your lips speak lies, and your tongue meditates perverseness. Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood, their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity, wasting and destruction are in their paths. The way of peace they know not, and there is no right in their paths; they pervert their paths; whosoever goeth therein doth ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... or attractive; and though mere novelty has sometimes been found sufficient to give them a temporary currency, we should have had no fear of their prevailing to any dangerous extent, if they had been graced with no more seductive accompaniments. It was precisely because the perverseness and bad taste of this new school was combined with a great deal of genius and of laudable feeling, that we were afraid of their spreading and gaining ground among us, and that we entered into the discussion with a degree ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... brothers, of a piece In vice, perverseness, folly, and caprice, Would lunch off nightingales: well, what's their mark? Shall it be chalk or ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... of an estimable man removes a control which was felt and was very salutary," wrote Hamilton to a foreign correspondent. "At home, everything is in the main well; except as to the perverseness and capriciousness of one and the spirit and faction of many. The leading friends of the government are in ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... safety of governors may be preserved, and the obedience due to them maintained secure from attempts to which they are liable (by the treachery, levity, perverseness, timorousness, ambition, all such lusts and ill humours of men), it is expedient that men should be tied with the ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... that the cholera is disseminated by inanimate objects." The words in italics are as in the Parliamentary papers on Cholera, pp. 8 and 9. Here is something to help to guide people in forming opinions, and to help governments on quarantine questions; but owing to a portion of the "perverseness" which Dr. Macmichael in anger talks about, Dr. Albers still speculates upon cholera being contagious, and the College, it would seem, take up his speculations and sink his very important facts. Sir William Creighton's Report gives ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... was not of the same unbending steel; he allowed himself to be tempted, colored, and molded by outside influences. He would protest against Christophe's exaggerations and fly off into exaggeration in the opposite direction. Almost every day this perverseness of mind would make him take up the cudgels for his adversaries against his friends. Christophe would lose his temper. He would cry out upon Olivier's sophistry and his indulgence of hateful things and people. Olivier would smile: he knew the utter absence of illusion that lay behind his indulgence: ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... Dagoucin, "I pray you put that thought out of your head. The more precious the drug, the less should it be exposed to the air, because of the perverseness of those who trust only to outward signs. These are not different in the case of honourable and faithful affection than in any other case, so they must none the less be hidden when the love is virtuous than when it is the opposite, if one would avoid the evil ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... her. But she fought down the kindly feeling. "I am glad of it," said she, out of perverseness. She added after a while, "Edouard, you are ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... perspiring and swearing with exertion as he tried to get all his belongings into an absurdly inadequate trunk. The room was in great confusion. It looked as though Marcus was about to move. He stood in front of his trunk, his precious silk hat in its hat-box in his hand. He was raging at the perverseness of a pair of boots that refused to fit in his trunk, no matter how ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... but I will not any farther describe their stupid idolatry. The sum of the whole is, that both the Hindoos and Mahometans ground all their opinions on tradition, not on reason, and are content to perish with their fore-fathers, out of preposterous zeal and fond perverseness, never rightly considering the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... me, imagining that Thou, O Lord God, the Truth, wert a vast and bright body, and I a fragment of that body? Perverseness too great! But such was I. Nor do I blush, O my God, to confess to Thee Thy mercies towards me, and to call upon Thee, who blushed not then to profess to men my blasphemies, and to bark against Thee. What profited me then my nimble wit ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... art the best power of their understandings. At the same time it must be observed—that, as this Class comprehends the only judgements which are trustworthy, so does it include the most erroneous and perverse. For to be mistaught is worse than to be untaught; and no perverseness equals that which is supported by system, no errors are so difficult to root out as those which the understanding has pledged its credit to uphold. In this Class are contained censors, who, if they be pleased with what is good, are pleased with it only by ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... your shades, 25 Even as a sleep, between the heart of man And outward troubles, between man himself, Not seldom, and his own uneasy heart: Oh! that I had a music and a voice Harmonious as your own, that I might tell 30 What ye have done for me. The morning shines, Nor heedeth Man's perverseness; Spring returns,— I saw the Spring return, and could rejoice, In common with the children of her love, Piping on boughs, or sporting on fresh fields, 35 Or boldly seeking pleasure nearer heaven On wings that navigate cerulean skies. So neither were complacency, nor peace, Nor tender ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? Behold, I have received commandment to bless: And he hath blessed, and I cannot reverse it. He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, Neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel: The LORD his God is with him, And the shout of a king is among them. God bringeth them forth out of Egypt; He hath as it were the strength of the wild-ox. Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, Neither is there any divination against Israel: Now shall it be said of ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... nothing for himself in private, but returned safe to Rome, while those that ventured out with him were seen laden with pillage, and driving their prey before them. This sight filled those that had stayed at home with regret for their perverseness, with envy at their fortunate fellow-citizens, and with feelings of dislike to Marcius, and hostility to his growing reputation and power, which might probably be used ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... fair, as you have married him for better, for worse, that you should divide my nonsense and importunity between you. Je laisse courir ma plume, which would be abominable and indiscreet, if I was not writing to one who is used to hear me say a thousand things which he attributes to passion and perverseness, and is not for that the less my friend. Then I like, when my mind and heart are full, and I cannot open the budget before him, to evaporate upon paper, which provokes no tart reply. I wish that we were agreed upon every point of consideration in the Grand Affair(237) which ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... is conduct and obedience. Our aim should be to combine the merits of both ideas, and be "evenly and happily balanced between them." Enlarging on this text, he traces the working of the two principles, which ought not to be rivals but have been made such by the perverseness of men, philosophy and history; and then, turning to our own day and its doings, he says that Puritanism, which originally was a reaction of the conscience and moral sense against the indifference and lax conduct ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... revenge; and his own power, to avoid indignities, not to return them. His hopes are so strong that they can insult over the greatest discouragements; and his apprehensions so deep that, when he hath once fastened, he sooner leaveth his life than his hold. Neither time nor perverseness can make him cast off his charitable endeavours and despair of prevailing; but in spite of all crosses and all denials, he redoubleth his beneficial offers of love. He trieth the sea after many shipwrecks, and beats still at that door which ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... charter-party, the master displayed the greatest ignorance and the most tiresome perverseness, throwing obstacles in the way of every clause that was inserted. It was however at length finally settled and signed by the governor on the part of the crown, and by Detmer Smith, the master, on the part of his ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... do not know whether it is perverseness of state, or old associations, but an excellent and very handsome modern house, which Mr. Howard has lately built at Corby, does not, in my mind, assimilate so well with the scenery as the old irregular monastic hall, with its weather-beaten and antique ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... looked on the while I ran; A scornful triumph lit his eyes. With that perverseness born in man, I nerved myself, and won ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... to that at the present day, according to a more rational observer of the seventeenth century, that it is regarded as a part of religion to ascribe great wonders to the devil; and those are taxed with infidelity and perverseness who hesitate to believe what thousands relate concerning his power. Whoever does not do so is accounted an atheist because he cannot persuade himself that there are two Gods, the one good and the other evil[3]—an assertion which is no mere hyperbole or exaggeration ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... disappointment was bitter. "The progress of this business throughout," he wrote to Jefferson, "has been to me the most worrying and vexatious that I ever encountered; and the more so, as the causes lay in the unsteadiness, the follies, the perverseness, and the defections among our friends, more than in the strength, or dexterity, ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... first Struggled as thine. But look intently thither, An disentangle with thy lab'ring view, What underneath those stones approacheth: now, E'en now, mayst thou discern the pangs of each." Christians and proud! O poor and wretched ones! That feeble in the mind's eye, lean your trust Upon unstaid perverseness! Know ye not That we are worms, yet made at last to form The winged insect, imp'd with angel plumes That to heaven's justice unobstructed soars? Why buoy ye up aloft your unfleg'd souls? Abortive then and shapeless ye remain, Like the untimely embryon ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... unable to get out of it because of the rain,—"I was happy when tea came. Such I take it is the state of those who live in the country. Meals are wished for from the cravings of vacuity of mind, as well as from the desire of eating." And such is the perverseness of human nature that Boswell's wisdom delights me even more than Johnson's, though I love them both ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... again been offered, the ungodly prophet declared: "Behold, I have received commandment to bless: and He hath blessed; and I cannot reverse it. He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath He seen perverseness in Israel: the Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a King is among them." "Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel: according to this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought!"(928) ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... first engaged in the study of physick, he inquired, as he says, of Dr. Sydenham, what authors he should read, and was directed by Sydenham to Don Quixote; "which," said he, "is a very good book; I read it still." The perverseness of mankind makes it often mischievous in men of eminence to give way to merriment; the idle and the illiterate will long shelter ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... perverseness of nature, the less water one has the thirstier one becomes. When it is on tap one doesn't think of it. But down to the last ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... a noble controversy upon this subject, in which he insisted upon the unprecedented merit of the lady. Nevertheless I got the better of him; for he was struck absolutely dumb, when (waving her present perverseness, which yet was a sufficient answer to all his pleas) I asserted, and offered to prove it, by a thousand instances impromptu, that love was not governed by merit, nor could be under the dominion of prudence, or any other reasoning power: ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... notion may be formed of the general character and complexion of the court. It is, as Lord Macartney has justly observed, "a singular mixture of ostentatious hospitality and inbred suspicion, ceremonious civility and real rudeness, shadowy complaisance and substantial perverseness; and this prevails through all the departments connected with the Court, although somewhat modified by the personal disposition of those at their head; but as to that genuine politeness, which distinguishes our manners, ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... revolt from his doctrines, than to attract them to reason;—he will not disturb the repose of society—he will not raise the people to insurrection against the sovereign authority; on the contrary, he will feel that the miserable blindness of the great, and the wretched perverseness, the fatal obstinacy of so many conductors of the people, are the necessary consequence of that flattery that is administered to them in their infancy—that feeds their hopes with allusive falsehoods—of ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... from Blackwell strange accounts of Philip's obdurate perverseness, vile associates, and unredeemable character, was roused from his usual timidity by the ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in the very sight of Keshava. Yuyudhana, having achieved this feat, began to strike down others there present. Hrishikesa ran to prevent him from doing further mischief. At that time, however, O monarch, the Bhojas and Andhakas, impelled by the perverseness of the hour that had come upon them, all became as one man and surrounded the son of Sini. Janardana of mighty energy, knowing the character of the hour, stood unmoved without giving way to anger ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... have a proud heart, Madam. I cannot but hope for some instances of previous and preferable favour from the lady I am ambitious to call mine; and that her choice of me should not appear, not flagrantly appear, directed by the perverseness of her selfish persecutors, who are my ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... these voyages was seventy-four in 1,000; the corpses were shot out into the waters; and who shall say that they were the most unfortunate? At Scutari, the landing-stage, constructed with all the perverseness of Oriental ingenuity, could only be approached with great difficulty, and, in rough weather, not at all. When it was reached, what remained of the men in the ships had first to be disembarked, and then conveyed up a steep slope of a quarter of a mile to the ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... they have done more: they have declared, that they shall treat all as enemies who do not concur with them in disaffection and perverseness; and that they will trade with none that shall ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... factions in republics have been, and are, full as capable as monarchs of the most cruel oppression and injustice. It is but too true, that the love, and even the very idea, of genuine liberty is extremely rare. It is but too true that there are many whose whole scheme of freedom is made up of pride, perverseness, and insolence. They feel themselves in a state of thraldom, they imagine that their souls are cooped and cabined in, unless they have some man or some body of men dependent on their mercy. This desire of having some ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... dissipations, with those of the Count d'Artois, and others of her clique, had been a sensible item in the exhaustion of the treasury, which called into action the reforming hand of the nation; and her opposition to it, her inflexible perverseness, and dauntless spirit, led herself to the Guillotine, drew the King on with her, and plunged the world into crimes and calamities which will for ever stain the pages of modern history. I have ever believed, that ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... little persuasion. Perverseness, one of the forms or issues of self-pity, made him strive against his desire, and caused him to adopt a tone of acerbity in excess of what he felt; but already he had made up his mind to see Amy. Even ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... that the beautiful Tatokah had many lovers; but the heart of the maiden was touched by none of the noble youths who sought her. She bade them all depart as they came; she rejected them all. With the perverseness which is often seen among women, she had placed her affections upon a youth who had distinguished himself by no valiant deeds in war, nor by industry or dexterity in the chase. His name had never reached the surrounding nations. His own nation knew him not, unless as a weak and imbecile ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... one of those periods when, in accordance with a common expression, "everything goes wrong," and the world develops a sudden perverseness that distracts and irritates ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... "Always meet petulance with gentleness, and perverseness with kindness. A gentle hand can lead even an elephant by a hair. Reply to thine enemy with gentleness. Opposition to peace is sin." The Buddhist says, "If a man foolishly does me wrong I will return him the protection of my ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... had ever offended them, and I can say with truth such has been the effect on my own nerves of the plaintive murmurs of the neela-cobeya, that sometimes, when irritated, and not without reason, by the perverseness of some of my native followers, the feeling has almost instantly subsided into placidity on suddenly hearing the loving tones ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... always thought it unreasonable in parents to desire to chuse for their children on this occasion; since to force affection is an impossible attempt; nay, so much doth love abhor force, that I know not whether, through an unfortunate but uncurable perverseness in our natures, it may not be even impatient ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... most minute and indifferent circumstances: this faction, under the name of Puritan, became very turbulent, during the whole reign of Queen Elizabeth; and were always discouraged by that wise queen, as well as by her two successors. However, their numbers, as well as their insolence and perverseness, so far increased, that soon after the death of King James the First, many instances of their petulancy and scurrility, are to be seen in their pamphlets, written for some years after; which was a trade they began ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... is the "the covering of the saints; the long white robes of His righteousness" covering both their persons and performances; so that the nakedness of neither doth appear in the eyes of His Father; "He hath beheld no iniquity in Jacob, neither hath seen perverseness in Israel." Why? Not because there was no "iniquity in Jacob, nor perverseness in Israel," for there was hardly any thing else; but because their iniquity and perverseness were hid from His eyes, being covered ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... their followers to impose wilfully on himself, and knowingly refuse truth offered by plain reason. Interest, though it does a great deal in the case, yet cannot be thought to work whole societies of men to so universal a perverseness, as that every one of them to a man should knowingly maintain falsehood: some at least must be allowed to do what all pretend to, i.e. to pursue truth sincerely; and therefore there must be something that blinds ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... occasions. The flexible will be reformed by gentle discipline, and the refractory must be subdued by harsher methods. The degrees of scholastick, as of military punishment, no stated rules can ascertain. It must be enforced till it overpowers temptation; till stubbornness becomes flexible, and perverseness regular. Custom and reason have, indeed, set some bounds to scholastick penalties. The schoolmaster inflicts no capital punishments; nor enforces his edicts by either death or mutilation. The civil law has wisely determined, that a master who strikes at a scholar's eye shall be considered as ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... stir him sufficiently for the moment to cause him to venture to suggest that in future it might be as well for her to consult him before she answered for him in any matter. Angelica replied with an intelligent nod and smile. She was altogether charming in these days in spite of her perverseness, and Mr. Kilroy, while groaning inwardly at her irritating tricks, was also touched and flattered by the anxiety she displayed for his comfort ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... author possessed both genius and a powerful intellect, they felt very positive,—but yet were not quite certain that he might not be in the right, and they themselves in the wrong; an unquiet state of mind, which seeks alleviation by quarrelling with the occasion of it, and by wondering at the perverseness of the man, who had written a long and argumentative essay ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... be wrong. There is clearly a delightful element of excitement in the process of being naughty, of daring and of braving the wrath to come, with which they are so familiar and for which they care nothing at all. But the perverseness of which we are now speaking has a different origin. It arises only when children are reproved, appealed to, and expostulated with too often and too constantly. Negativism is a symptom which is common enough in certain mental ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... you would in vain exhibit a curious piece of limning to the blind, or endeavour to bribe, as scripture saith, a sow by the offer of a precious stone. The fault is not, in such case, in the accuracy of your sacred reasoning, but in the obtuseness and perverseness of the barbarians to whom ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... with whom her most just and greatest business lies. See him plead before his judges; observe by what reasons he rouses his courage to the hazards of war; with what arguments he fortifies his patience against calumny, tyranny, death, and the perverseness of his wife: you will find nothing in all this borrowed from arts and sciences: the simplest may there discover their own means and strength; 'tis not possible more to retire or to creep more low. He has done human nature a great kindness ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... the twelve calendar months would elapse without the young lady's having fulfilled the terms prescribed by the will. Mr. Gresham, one morning, took his fair ward apart, and began to talk to her seriously upon the subject. He told her that he thought it impossible she should act from mere perverseness or caprice, especially as, from her childhood upwards, he had never seen in her any symptoms of an obstinate or capricious disposition; therefore he was well convinced that she had some good reason for refusing so many offers seemingly unexceptionable: he was grieved ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... profession is robbery, where the middling ranks tan hides, and where a wretched poor spin wool and weave coarse mantles." "But I am from Mecca," said the boy. "Then," replied Hyjauje, "thou comest from a mine of perverseness, stupidity, ignorance, and slothfulness; for from among its people God raised up his prophet, whom they disbelieved, rejected, and forced away to a strange nation, who loved, venerated, and assisted him in spite of the men of Mecca. But whence comest thou, youth? ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... of the upright shall guide them; but the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... also presents this morning of seeing the amount of obstinacy and perverseness that manages to find lodgement within the unsightly curves and angles of a runaway camel. A riding-camel, led by its owner, scares at the bicycle, and, breaking away, leads him a lively chase through a belt ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... people bring on themselves by their own folly and perverseness; and some sorts people work on others by their own wicked self-will. God does not cause that, though He will overrule it to ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... perverseness of fate that he should find in Bertha Villefort even more than he had once seen in Bertha Trent, and there had been a time when he had seen a great deal in Bertha Trent. In the Trent household he had been a great ...
— "Le Monsieur De La Petite Dame" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... presence and providence. It sets forth with divine clearness and power, on the one side, God's faithfulness in the fulfilment of the promises and threatenings contained in the Mosaic law; and on the other, the perverseness and rebellion of the people, and their perpetual relapses into idolatry, with the mighty conflict thus inaugurated between the pure monotheism of the theocracy, and the polytheism and image-worship of the surrounding heathen nations—a conflict which lasted through many ages, which enlisted on both ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... that her husband wished to talk about Marcia, and must be helped to do so by a little perverseness. "I don't know but what most of folks would say 't she'd made out pretty well. I guess ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... analyst of the soul, Edgar Allan Poe, found among the springs of human nature the quality of perverseness, the disposition to do wrong because it is wrong; in reality, however, Poe's Imp of the Perverse is active far beyond the boundaries of the human soul; his disturbances pervade the whole world, and nowhere are they more noticeable than in ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... tendency, Doctor,—this unaccountable perverseness. My dear Sir, I am afraid your school is in the right about human nature. Oh, those words of the Psalmist, 'shapen in iniquity,' and the rest! What are we to do with them,—we who teach that the soul of a child is ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the difficulties that have occurred in carrying into execution the levee en masse, I neglected to inform you that the prime mover of all these machinations is your omnipotent Mr. Pitt—it is he who has fomented the perverseness of the towns, and alarmed the timidity of the villages—he has persuaded some that it is not pleasant to leave their shops and families, and insinuated into the minds of others that death or wounds are not very desirable—he has, in fine, so effectually achieved his purpose, that ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... Did you think I liked the cruel things, with their dead birds and their hideous colors? O Basil, dearest! You are incorrigible. Can't you learn that magenta is the vilest of all the hues that the perverseness of man has invented in defiance of nature? Now, my love, just promise me one thing," she said pathetically. "We're going to do a little shopping in Montreal, you know; and perhaps you'll be wanting to surprise me with ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... full of faults, she ought to learn betimes even to suffer injustice, and to bear the insults of a husband without complaint; it is not for his sake, but her own, that she should be of a mild disposition. The perverseness and ill-nature of the women only serve to aggravate their own misfortunes, and the misconduct of their husbands; they might plainly perceive that such are not the arms by which they gain ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... in despair, after a fruitless search of two days, Lorry was willing to submit. With the perverseness common to half-defeated fighters, Anguish at once protested, forgetting that he had sought to dissuade his friend the ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... being nearly exhausted by the tiresome running base with which our Noah's ark accompanied the driver's abuse of his clumsy grey mares. Grand chameau, sacre vache, and canaille, where the most genteel and decent terms with which he favoured them, and his perverseness was in proportion. For this precious commodity, selected I should conceive from the most consummate ragamuffins on the road, we were indebted to Mons. Picon, a master voiturier at Paris, who imposed on us both as to the number of horses, ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... thing in particular; I have therefore the comfortable assurance that He will direct my paths concerning this part of my service, as to whether I shall be occupied in it or not. Further: "The integrity of the upright shall preserve them; but the perverseness of fools shall destroy them." Prov. xi. 3. By the grace of God I am upright in this business. My honest purpose is to get glory to God. Therefore. I expect to be guided aright. Further, "Commit thy works unto the Lord and thy thoughts shall be established." Prov. xvi. ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... their numerous perverse and strange defects, to return the orthodox civilities, when they come across any strangers. But should they not return the proper civilities, they should, by no manner of means, be suffered to behave with such perverseness. It's the way that grown-up people doat on them that makes them what they are. And as they can, first and foremost, boast of bewitching good looks and they comport themselves, secondly, towards visitors ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... miraculous constraint upon the human will, and compel his creature to choose whatever is best with invariable determination and promptitude? If a parent were to caution his child against a danger, into which he afterward plunged himself by his inadvertence or perverseness, would the child be justified in censuring the parent, because, in addition to advice, he did not employ bonds and cords? Adam might have been created immutable by a necessity of nature. True—but Adam would then have been another being, and not a man. ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... agreed with his shared his good fortune. He took Tickell with him to Ireland. He procured for Budgell a lucrative place in the same kingdom. Ambrose Philips was provided for in England. Steele had injured himself so much by his eccentricity and perverseness that he obtained but a very small part of what he thought his due. He was, however, knighted; he had a place in the household; and he subsequently received other marks of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... them; instead of which, we had not one armed man upon deck, nor a single necessary for using the carriage guns; all which rested with him, such articles being in his care and custody as master, for his owners: notwithstanding this, the violence and perverseness of his temper was such as to dispose him (probably because he was advised against it) to create a disagreement between those people who were all armed, and our people who ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... which her perverseness, her resentment, and a repugnance founded on instincts of delicacy, had made her prefer to a journey to Italy, Jacqueline, having nothing better to do, took it into her head to write to her friend Fred. The young man received three ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... and perverseness on this head were known to them all,—but as yet her greater folly and worse perverseness, her vitiated taste and dreadful partiality for the Portuguese adventurer, were known but to the two old men and to poor Arthur himself. ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... and she knew too well, for what purpose. The son, too, drank with his father, and got so much the start of him in brutality, that even he cowered before him, thus realizing that "He that soweth the wind shall reap the whirlwind." But those years passed on; the children grew up in their perverseness, a family that feared neither God ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... be heard no more until a half hour past his suppertime, but I had made a mistake. Today he was in a talkative mood, and knowing that work was impossible, I devoted the next half hour to listening to a dissertation on the general perverseness of human nature, and to an elaborate description of my friend Pitkin's scheme for endowing a rival institution with a hundred million, and making things so cheap and attractive that our university would ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... so mischievous and ill-natured! What will poor Miss Rose say! To be sure, there is nothing boys won't do; their equals for perverseness don't walk the earth. Though I ought not to speak against them, while there's Master William and Master Edward to contradict me. They are boys, to be sure; but as for that Geoffrey!' And here she shook her head in silence, as if Geoffrey's delinquencies were beyond ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... over, Wilson and his friends advanced to the doorway; when the former, assuming a severe expression, pronounced our perverseness infatuation in the extreme. Nor was there any hope left: our last chance for pardon was gone. Even were we to become contrite and crave permission to return to duty, it would ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... plan of redemption, it is supposed, was designed to rescue him from a deplorable, desperate condition, in which his perverseness had placed him; but, if the doctrine we are considering be true, the redemption, so called, is nothing but a part of a chain of predetermined events. He was, and is, at no time, in any other condition than was devised and decreed by Jehovah as most conducive ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... supposed to have a working relationship to the concrete conditions of the situation. What happens in the course of action neither confirms, refutes, nor alters it. Such an end can only be insisted upon. The failure that results from its lack of adaptation is attributed simply to the perverseness of conditions, not to the fact that the end is not reasonable under the circumstances. The value of a legitimate aim, on the contrary, lies in the fact that we can use it to change conditions. It is a method for dealing with conditions so as to effect ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... dog, now seated on a knoll looking somewhat foolishly for the rabbit which had given him the slip, and her commands to the cattle alike fell on unheeding ears. She was in no joyous mood at best, and the perverseness of things aggravated her beyond endurance. Her callings to the cattle became more and more tearful, and presently ended in ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... is a pity for prophets and poets to meddle with realities, instead of devoting themselves to futurity and poetry. George is happy in the intellectual wealth of Paris life, and quite perplexed at the perverseness and follies of the political cliques. He promises to write about the acquaintance of Lamenais and George Sand. I am well, but fully use the right of a convalescent, and hardly ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... carrying out her mission with the most definite perverseness. She could not but acknowledge the justice of his reproof, realise the sorry part she must play in his eyes, the inexcusable folly of the whole proceeding, and yet she was strung to a very lively indignation by the tone he had assumed, and suddenly ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... the four-twenty train came in, had taken on almost the sacredness of a religious rite. "Looks as if she wasn't in any dreadful hurry to see me," Joel mused. It occurred to him that it would be a fitting return for Persis' perverseness for him to retire to his room and refuse to leave except at her humble and reiterated entreaty. It is unfortunate that so often the course of conduct consistent with one's dignity involves a painful sacrifice. As train-time drew near, Joel ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... met Spicer, D. Vines, Ruddiard, and a company more of my old acquaintance, and went into a place to drink some ale, and there we staid playing the fool till late, and so I home. At home met with ill news that my hopes of getting some money for the Charles were spoiled through Mr. Waith's perverseness, which did so vex me that I could not sleep at night. But I wrote a letter to him to send to-morrow morning for him to take my money for me, and so with good words I thought to coy with ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... that if one asked the slightest favour of another, it was ill-naturedly refused, and from thence arose tumults and quarrels. That gaiety and cheerfulness, which had used to accompany all their sports and pastimes, were now changed to a gloomy perverseness; and instead of those tender expressions of love and friendship, which had constantly dwelt in all their conversations, nothing was now heard but perpetual jarrings and wranglings. If one proposed a walk in the garden, another would give some reason why she wished to remain ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... praiseworthy; for from her proceed good inclinations, opinions, actions, and the whole of right reason; though virtue may be defined in a few words to be right reason itself. The opposite to this is viciousness (for so I choose to translate what the Greeks call [Greek: kakia], rather than by perverseness; for perverseness is the name of a particular vice; but viciousness includes all), from whence arise those perturbations which, as I just now said, are turbid and violent motions of the mind, repugnant to reason, and enemies in a high degree to ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... which the fortunes of New France had reached so low an ebb that nothing but the most loyal administration might now save her. Even then a strong honest man might possibly have weathered the storm already lowering over this New World dominion; but, with pitiable perverseness, every trait in Bigot's character helped it on to ruin. In private life vain, selfish, heartless, extravagant to the point of folly; in public life mercenary and venal beyond shame—such were the characteristics of the man whom Louis's favourite ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... by my arts, to make him my slave, and then to deny him the pleasure for which he pants, until he gives me a large sum of money; this being done, I can either surrender myself to him, or still refuse to afford him the gratification he seeks, as suits my whim. When he becomes wearied of my perverseness and extortion, I will dismiss him, and seek another victim. Those with whom I shall thus have to deal, will be what the world calls respectable men—husbands, fathers—perhaps professedly pious men and clergymen—who would make any sacrifice sooner ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... scene and season of rejoicing, we might have thought that none but a Whig of the very oldest school of all, could have entertained any feelings but those of generous sympathy and unrepining satisfaction. But limits cannot easily be put to human perverseness. The party whose policy had caused the evils from which we and they have been delivered, felt nothing but intense hatred to him who had been most prominent in that deliverance; and, heedless of the good that he had done, they fastened on what seemed to their malignant and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... modest a young fellow to suppose that this happy change in all his circumstances arose from his own generous and manly disposition; he chose, from some perverseness, to attribute his good fortune to the sole agency and benevolence of little George Osborne, to whom henceforth he vowed such a love and affection as is only felt by children, an affection as we read of ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... excellencies and his defects, is a love of singularity. He has no notion of going with a multitude to do either good or evil. An exploded opinion, or an unpopular person, has an irresistible charm for him. The same perverseness may be traced in his diction. His style would never have been elegant; but it might at least have been manly and perspicuous; and nothing but the most elaborate care could possibly have made it so bad as it is. It is distinguished by harsh phrases, strange collocations, occasional ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... thee all, when I see thee: and thou shalt then judge of my difficulties, and of her perverseness. And thou wilt rejoice with me at my conquest over such a watchful ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... Ireland, according to the best view that with human infirmity we could form, has been the work—I will almost say the sacred work—of this Parliament. Having put our hands to the plough, let us not turn back. Let not what we think the fault or perverseness of those whom we are attempting to assist have the slightest effect in turning us, even by a hair's-breadth, from the path on which we have entered. As we begun so let us persevere, even to the end, and with firm and resolute hand let us efface from ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... Leaving aside the question whether or not Plato was a Christian, it may be pointed out that whereas Chesterton condemns Tolstoyanism whenever he recognizes it, he here proclaims Tolstoy's doctrine. On the whole, however, the mild perverseness of the chapter on The Paradoxes of Christianity leaves its major implications safe. It does not matter greatly whether we prefer to regard Christianity as a centre of gravity, or a point of balance. We need only pause to note ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... female snares, And strait conjunction with this sex. For either He never shall find out fit mate, but such As some misfortune brings him, or mistake; Or whom he wishes most shall seldom gain, Through her perverseness, but shall see her gained By a far worse, or, if she love, withheld By parents; or his happiest choice too late Shall meet, already linked and wedlock-bound To a fell adversary, his hate or shame; Which infinite calamity shall cause To human life, ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... ring after this, but Annie was very distant in her manner toward me; her actions showed as plainly as if she had spoken, that she considered me in the light of an unreasonable guardian, who wished to deprive her of all enjoyment. Her giddiness and perverseness caused me much trouble, and I greatly feared she would become reckless after my departure. She was my favorite sister, however, and no matter how she might treat me, I could never lose my ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... sobs of perverseness are mighty well suited!—You may go up to your chamber. I shall ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... "Some contempts," says Blackstone, "may arise in the face of the court, as by rude and contumelious behaviour, by obstinacy, perverseness or prevarication, by breach of the peace, or any wilful disturbance whatever"; in other words, direct insult to or interference with a sitting court is treated as contempt of the court. It is immaterial whether the offender is juror, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... persons who might have been supposed to have spoken with certainty on the subject. It had been said that he wanted to tax the lands of the country people, that the House would only consent to tax wine, and that for such perverseness he had dissolved the Assembly. Inhabitants of St. Denis! the Governor General never had the most distant idea of taxing the people at all. The assertion was directly false. When the House offered to pay the civil list, he could not move without the King's instructions. But in despair of producing ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and prayer to our beneficent Father, who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... the more reason for them to make a regulation in this matter, because they are the only people of those parts that neither allow of polygamy nor of divorces, except in the case of adultery or insufferable perverseness, for in these cases the Senate dissolves the marriage and grants the injured person leave to marry again; but the guilty are made infamous and are never allowed the privilege of a second marriage. None are suffered to put away their wives against their wills, from ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... avoid the use of slang phrases and vulgar expressions, to write a clear sentence; but how few seek for the not less imperative rules which are prescribed by politeness and good sense! Of those who should know them, no small proportion habitually, from thoughtlessness or perverseness, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... a fool," said Diana, with somewhat unreasonable perverseness. "Or, if I was not a ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... Resolved to mortify your pride, I'll here expose your weaker side. Your spirits kindle to a flame, Moved by the lightest touch of blame; And when a friend in kindness tries To show you where your error lies, Conviction does but more incense; Perverseness is your whole defence; Truth, judgment, wit, give place to spite, Regardless both of wrong and right; Your virtues all suspended wait, Till time has open'd reason's gate; And, what is worse, your passion bends Its force against your nearest ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... having quack drugs which contain laudanum administered to them. 'In Potchefstroom as at Irene,' says Dr. Kendal Franks, 'the death-rate is attributable not so much to the severity of the epidemic as to the ignorance, perverseness, and dirty habits of the parents themselves.' But whatever the immediate cause the death of these numerous children lies heavy, not upon the conscience, but upon the heart of our nation. It is some mitigation to know ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and with the perverseness of her nature lost interest in the secret as soon as she found out what it was, and didn't seem to care whether Eeny-Meeny was burned at the stake or not. And when Katherine went farther and invited her to be her special helper in everything, ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... but make the experiment, Robert. If she has a fancy for you—and, on my conscience, I believe she has or had—she will forgive much. But, my lad, you are laughing. Is it at me? You had better grin at your own perverseness. I see, however, you laugh at the wrong side of your mouth. You have as sour a look at this moment as ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... wit, the wounded authority of a father; and Mr. Solmes's continued entreaties (little as you have deserved regard from him) that you may be freed from a confinement to which he is desirous to attribute your perverseness to him [averseness I should have said, but let it go], he being unable to account otherwise for so strong a one, supposing you told truth to your mother, when you asserted that your heart was free; and which Mr. Solmes is willing to ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... high-mindedness of antiquity showed itself in a disregard of small things; the high-mindedness of the present day shows itself in wild license. The stern dignity of antiquity showed itself in grave reserve; the stern dignity of the present day shows itself in quarrelsome perverseness. The stupidity of antiquity showed itself in straightforwardness; the stupidity of the present day ...
— The Chinese Classics—Volume 1: Confucian Analects • James Legge
... is at the bottom of the suffering and the division. There is rebellion and perverseness mingled with the helplessness and ignorance and sorrow. No man ever understands or can speak to the religious life unless he has the consciousness of this inner moral cleft. No man will ever be able to preach with ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... think of her being my son's mistress!" But to any other than his mother, George's taste in women had long ceased to cause surprise. The ugly and gross appealed to a taste which such beauty and refinement as his young wife possessed left untouched. He had markedly demonstrated this perverseness of fancy already by showering his favours on the Baroness von Kielmansegg—who was reputed to be his natural sister, by the way—a lady so ugly that, as a child, Horace Walpole ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... fond of paradox Perverseness holds us thrall, So what each jester loves the best He mocks the most of all; But as the jest and laugh go round, Each in his neighbor's eyes Reads, while he flouts his heart's desire, The knowledge ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... Belford to Lovelace.— Defends the lady from the perverseness he (Lovelace) imputes to her on parting with some of her apparel. Poor Belton's miserable state both of body and mind. Observations on the friendship of libertines. Admires the noble simplicity, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... nor prudent to argue against the abolishing of Christianity, at a juncture when all parties seem so unanimously determined upon the point, as we cannot but allow from their actions, their discourses, and their writings. However, I know not how, whether from the affectation of singularity, or the perverseness of human nature, but so it unhappily falls out, that I cannot be entirely of this opinion. Nay, though I were sure an order were issued for my immediate prosecution by the Attorney-General, I should still confess, ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... a remedy for this perverseness, but not in others—only in himself; least of all in simple increase of wealth and worldly "respectability." We hope we have now heard enough about the efficacy of wealth for poetry and to make poets happy. Nay, have we not seen another instance of it in these very days? Byron, a man of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... inexperienced to be aware of all the dangers of the stage, had been pleased at the notion that one, at least, of his name would add celebrity to his art. The girl's perverseness displeased him. However, he said nothing,—he never scolded in words, but he took up the faithful barbiton. Oh, faithful barbiton, how horribly thou didst scold! It screeched, it gabbled, it moaned, it growled. And Viola's eyes filled with tears, for she understood ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... unsuccessful—forego your labours; but I would call upon all who have at heart the everlasting welfare of the souls of men, to exert themselves, that the rising generation may not likewise grow up into that state of perverseness—that they may not in future years prove themselves to be a generation, which, "like the adder, turneth a deaf ear to the charmer, charm he ever so wisely." I am satisfied, from the experience I have had, that an amount of good is attainable from early and judicious culture, which far, very ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... don't believe it is duty you are saving, as much as indulging in perverseness by not donning one of your most fetching gowns," ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... so good, so chaste, and the style to be so elegant, and yet so fervent, that the Sergeant broke his pipe in three, and fell in love with her on the spot. Now this has led me out of my way; as things are always doing, partly through their own perverseness, partly through my kind desire to give fair turn to all of them, and to all the people who do them. If any one expects of me a strict and well-drilled story, standing "at attention" all the time, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... House they were all horrified—not moved with grief, this time, but shocked. It seemed such a repulsive and indelicate step to take. Which it was. And which, in her curious perverseness, Alvina must have intended it to be. Mrs. Houghton assumed a remote air of silence, as if she did not hear any more, did not belong. She lapsed far away. She was really very weak. Miss Pinnegar said: "Well really, if she wants to do it, why, she might ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... have in him some freak of perverseness which made it hard for him to answer the simplest question. It was almost by force that Caius got from him the explanation that the village was only used during certain fishing seasons, and abandoned during the winter—unless, indeed, its houses were broken into by shipwrecked sailors, whose lives ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... asked her father to invite Lorry to dinner that evening. Through a sort of youthful perverseness not unmixed with bucolic pride, Lorry declined the invitation. He would be busy making ready for another trip in the hills. He had already planned his own evening meal. He appreciated the invitation, but they ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... hardships during several years, but at length God was pleased to deliver them in a miraculous manner by the hand of Moses, who would soon have conducted them into the promised land, had not their disobedience and perverseness brought upon them the punishment of a forty years' wandering in the wilderness. During this time, God commanded Moses to deliver his laws to the people of Israel. Aaron the brother of Moses was made High Priest, and to him was committed the ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley
... long lapse of years, I cannot think of that night without a feeling of shame. Here were 700 men, mostly veterans, of one of Her Majesty's regiments, doomed to inaction through the blundering and stupid perverseness of an old sepoy Brigadier. The same unhappy events as those I have narrated occurred at the outbreak of the Mutiny in three other stations ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... own account, cannot you wish to on mine and hers? Nobody except our household knows that you have left home. Then why should you, by a piece of perverseness, bring down my gray hairs with ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... to the divine praises he adds: "Even while working with their hands they can easily sing hymns to God." Thirdly, with regard to reading, he goes on to say: "Those who say they are occupied in reading, do they not find there what the Apostle commanded? What sort of perverseness is this, to wish to read but not to obey what one reads?" Fourthly, he adds in reference to preaching [*Cap. xviii]: "If one has to speak, and is so busy that he cannot spare time for manual work, can all in the monastery do this? And since all cannot do this, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... and had with difficulty eluded the vengeance of the court, Sir Patrick Hume, of Polwarth, in Berwickshire. Great doubt has been thrown on his integrity, but without sufficient reason. It must, however, be admitted that he injured his cause by perverseness as much as he could have done by treachery. He was a man incapable alike of leading and of following, conceited, captious, and wrongheaded, an endless talker, a sluggard in action against the enemy and active ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... with utter consternation and dismay at the perverseness of the two young people, who might have been engaged any time these two years with the full approbation of their families, and now chose the very moment when every one ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mine. By some happy perverseness (occasioned perhaps by my disgust at the notion of being received with a pair of tongs) I took it into my pleasant head that all the European notions about contagion were thoroughly unfounded; that the plague might be providential or “epidemic” (as they phrase it), but was ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... besmeared with blood, stretching forth his hand and calling upon him, but that he rejected the call, and pushed back his hand as he held it toward him. At break of day the legions, posted on the wings, whether from perverseness or fear, deserted their post and took sudden possession of a field beyond the bogs; neither did Arminius fall straight upon them, though they lay open to assault; but when the baggage was set fast in the mire and ditches, the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... hopeless and expensive of all wars, should now meanly flatter them with the name of a free people, and make a merit of his crime, under the disguise of their essential rights and permanent interests, is something which disgraces even the character of perverseness. Is he afraid they will send him to Hanover, or what does he fear? Why is the sycophant thus added to the hypocrite, and the man who pretends to govern, sunk into ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... But—such is the perverseness of human nature—in spite of a series of apparent rebuffs, interrupted now and then by fits of violent attachment, Arnfinn had early selected this dimpled and yellow-haired young girl, with her piquant little nose, for his favorite ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... snares, And strait conjunction with this sex: For either He never shall find out fit mate, but such As some misfortune brings him, or mistake; Or, whom he wishes most, shall seldom gain Through her perverseness; but shall see her gain'd By a far worse; or if she love, withheld By parents; or his happiest choice too late Shall meet already link'd, and wedlock-bound To a fell adversary, his hate or shame; Which infinite ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... these ends; it is repeatedly declared therein, that the reason of God's dispensations towards them was, "that all the earth might know that the Eternal is God, and that there is no other but Him." According to its history, when God threatened to destroy the Israelites for their perverseness in the wilderness, and offers Moses, interceding for them, to raise, up his seed to fulfil the purposes for which he designed the posterity of Abraham; he tells Moses that his purpose should not be frustrated through the perverseness of the chosen instruments; ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... uncle was kindness itself. He taught me to ride and to drive, supplied me with books, took the greatest interest in me; but the restrictions of every well-ordered home which would have been nothing to a properly trained girl were unendurable to me. I resisted from sheer perverseness and dislike of control. I do not mean to say that I was always ill-tempered; I was lively and merry enough, and your uncle used to tease me, and jest with me, which I enjoyed very much, ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... unreasonable expectations. Their meek, demure heaviness and complacency, even at their sports, made her positively dislike them, all but one scapegrace boy, in favour with no one, and whom she liked more from perverseness and compassion than from any merits of his own. Lady Acton's good offices gave the widow a tangible cause, such as was an absolute satisfaction, for her antipathy, and shook the implicit trust in Mrs. Prendergast's ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Leviatt. The question had caught him off his guard or he would have evaded it. He had told the lie out of pure perverseness. ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Thy creature, John Gib, who by the perverseness of his heart has come to the edge of grievous sin. Take the cloud from his spirit, arrange his disordered wits, and lead him to a wiser life. Keep him in mind of his own land, and of her who prays for him. Guide him over hills and rivers to an enlarged country, and make his arm strong ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... but perverseness still held Bud. He smiled and said he did not know anybody anywhere, any more. He said that if Bobbie Burns had asked him "Should auld acquaintance be forgot," he'd have told him yes, and he'd have made it good ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... course of study, Kepler was sadly interrupted, not only by periodical returns of his former complaints, but by family quarrels of the most serious import. These dissensions, arising greatly from the perverseness of his mother, drove his father to a foreign land, where he soon died; and his mother having quarrelled with all her relations, the affairs of the family were involved in inextricable disorder. Notwithstanding these calamities, Kepler took his degree of Bachelor on the 15th September 1588, and ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... at her perverseness. "That's not the way I remember it. I'm sure, from the time ye were quite a wee one, ye have always tried to please me.—We all come short sometimes; the thing is, what we are ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... is known to all of you. Surely we may say, if discrepancy between place held and place merited constitute perverseness of lot for a man, no lot could be more perverse than Burns's. Among those secondhand acting-figures, mimes for most part, of the Eighteenth Century, once more a giant Original man; one of those men who reach down to the perennial Deeps, who take rank with the Heroic among men: ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... regularly perused the first, were punished by switching him on the nose, turning the double desk round—in which case it presented him with a mirror, that frightened him dreadfully—or even, in case of perverseness, leaving him to himself, without giving him the substantial honey-cake, which always rewarded a well-said lesson. In a short time the parties began to understand one another, and as Titus had prudently taken care to be known to his pupil ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... Finding Andrew's perverseness again rising to a point which threatened to occasion me inconvenience, I was under the necessity of explaining to him, that he might return if he thought proper, but that in that case I would not pay him ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Learning look, And see their priesthood piling book on book; Yea, books of infidels, we're told, and plays, Put out by heathens in the wink'd-on days; The very letters are of crooked kind, And show the strange perverseness of their mind. Have I this Learning? When the Lord would speak; Think ye he needs the Latin or the Greek? And lo! with all their learning, when they rise To preach, in view the ready sermon lies; Some low-prized stuff they purchased ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... of Brienz, we came to the far-famed valley of Meyringen, which had been much cried up to us; but, whether from the usual perverseness of human nature, or from being spoiled by the luxury of cascades, valleys, and Alps we had previously seen, we were disappointed in it, though, to do it ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... conceive anyone being unable to play at battledore, and thought Kate's failures and dislike pure perverseness. Once Kate by accident knocked her shuttlecock through the window, and hoped she had got rid of it; but she was treated as if she had done it out of naughtiness, and a new instrument of torture, as she called ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... disapprobation? To send with so little ceremony a message so contemptuous and so peremptory!—but perhaps it is better, for had he, too, like Mrs Delvile, joined kindness with rejection, I might still more keenly have felt the perverseness of my destiny." ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... to attend her, according to promise, in spite of Sir Rowland's order!" thundered Lord Strathern, with all the perverseness of ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen |
