"Whim" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Catch the rib-shaking laugh, or from his eye Dash silently the tear of sympathy. Happy old man!—with feelings such as these The seasons all can charm, and trifles please; And hence a sudden thought, a new-born whim, Would shake his cup of pleasure to the brim, Turn scoffs and doubts and obstacles aside, And instant action follow like ...
— May Day With The Muses • Robert Bloomfield
... was pledged for the time to tell him nothing, and she told him nothing. The princess looked curiously at her, for Liana exactly resembled the princess's younger sister, the philanthropic Idoine, who devoted herself to the idyllic happiness of her peasantry in the Arcadian village that it was her whim to rule. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... since you don't like the other word—doesn't do anything for the people!" one of the professors objected. "It leaves all the social services to the whim of the ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... one idea—that Gloria was being selfish, that she was always being selfish and would continue to be unless here and now he asserted himself as her master. This was the occasion of all occasions, since for a whim she had deprived him of a pleasure. His determination solidified, approached momentarily a dull and ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... seems, comparatively speaking, to have just begun. Its oscillations are self adjusted, and science prophesies for humanity an illimitable career on this earthly theatre. The swift melting of the elements and restoration of chaos is a mere heathen whim or a poetic figment. It ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... anything about her education. I didn't know she had one," said Jarvis, "but this whim of hers, in marrying me, is very trying to ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... pose. You believe in it no more than any one else. Aren't you tired of that sort of game? Of playing with us all as if we were so many children? Well, if you're not, I am. I tell you, Ydo, I've had enough of it. You threw me over yesterday, for no reason under the sun. Just caprice, whim—you can't whistle me back and throw me over to-morrow. This question's going to be decided here and now for ever. Will you marry ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... make of you," she said, as I turned. "Will you do it for me—setting it down just as a whim, if you like, and ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... whose sway Is potent over land and sea. The heavens above us own me; nay, The shades below acknowledge me. I know not fear, I have my will, Whate'er my whim or fancy be; For me there's no impossible, I order, bind, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... receive six golden florins for his work. They are profile heads carved in relief upon triangular pieces of marble, which fill two congested architectural corners. They look like the result of a whim, and at first sight one would think they were ordered late in the history of the door to supplement or replace something unsatisfactory. But this is not the case. Half corbel and half decoration, they are curious things: ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... yourself to the Villa Romani when you please—your enjoyment of the lady's surprise and rapture will be the more keen for having been slightly delayed. Trusting you will not refuse to gratify an old man's whim, ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... such a gentleman as the world hadn't seen—minus money. So he determined to launch me. He said I should lead the life of such a gentleman as the world had not yet seen—on that simple condition, which appeared to me childish, a senile whim; ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... name as if disbelieving her own ears. There was never any knowing what whim Thyra might take, but ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... may choose to inflict. They suffer all that can be inflicted by wanton caprice, by grasping avarice, by brutal lust, by malignant spite, and by insane anger. Their happiness is the sport of every whim, and the prey of every passion that may, occasionally, or habitually, infest the master's bosom. If we could calculate the amount of wo endured by ill-treated slaves, it would overwhelm every compassionate heart—it would move even the obdurate to sympathy. There is also a vast ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... recommended by the bourgeoisie, are really his road to happiness? No one. He knows that he has something to-day, and that it does not depend upon himself whether he shall have something to-morrow. He knows that every breeze that blows, every whim of his employer, every bad turn of trade may hurl him back into the fierce whirlpool from which he has temporarily saved himself, and in which it is hard and often impossible to keep his head above water. He knows that, though he may have the ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... you think you don't," I said, brushing aside such an absurdity with a wave of my hand. "Nonsense! After four years, you can not tell me that you have suddenly discovered that you never cared for me. I can not give you up for some absurd whim." ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... how slight an influence will sometimes thwart an important measure in passage at the legislature. A mere whisper of some whim, a little prejudice against another, perhaps may put it all aside. How little attention is given to merit! This is true even of Hon. Senators. To one of these I spoke about his vote within ten minutes after he had given it, and he replied,—"I don't know, I am sure, how I ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... were sonorous and melancholy. Occasionally they were fantastic and cheerful. Clearly they reflected the thoughts which possessed him, but whether the music aided those thoughts, or whether the playing was simply the result of a whim or fancy was more than I could determine. I might have rebelled against these exasperating solos had it not been that he usually terminated them by playing in quick succession a whole series of my favourite airs ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... critics agreed that he had written a most unusual book; but then, the critics did not really count—they had no way of making their verdict effective. What determined success or failure was the department-store public. It would take a whim for a certain novel; and when a novel had once begun to sell, it would be advertised and pushed to the front, and everything else would give way before it, quite regardless of what the critic's had said. A book-review appeared only once, but an advertisement ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... those anxious days and nights at the intake, when the safety of the success of the whole King's Basin project hung on the whim of an uncertain river, but he did not explain to Barbara nor did he tell her that a vacation would have made ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... in adding variety to its cuisine, either by the audacious invention of new dishes or the felicitous combination of old ones—either by discovering new sources of food or new methods of preparing it. It was a curious incident in the late history of the city that what had been a fashionable whim became a hard necessity—that after Saint-Hilaire and the hippophagists had struggled to introduce horseflesh as regular provender, the siege of Paris made horseflesh a prized rarity. But the zest resulting from the enforced diet ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... surrendered, he was hung on the same pretext, after the most summary trial. If the number of prisoners became inconveniently large, they were shot, or else whipped and let go, apparently according to the whim of the officer in command. Women were seized, stripped half naked, and thrown among the vulgar soldiery to be scourged. The estimate is that five hundred and fifty were hung by order of drum-head ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... not very long that I have learned to disbelieve in that story altogether. I fancy it was an odd whim of my poor father's, and that our ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... him with sharp words, for this was a scheme after his own heart. "What, Thor!" he said. "Would you lose your hammer and keep Asgard in danger for so small a whim. Look, now: if you go not, Thrym with his giants will come in a mighty army and drive us from Asgard; then he will indeed make Freia his bride, and, moreover, he will have you for his slave under the power ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... breaking his night's rest for prayer, and devotional exercise of undue length; "weeping one moment, then smiling in joy the next;" meandering about, capricious, melodious, weak, at the will of devout whim mainly! However, that does not concern us. [Many LIVES of the Saint. See, in particular, Libellus de Dictis Quatuor Ancillarum, &c.—(that is, Report of the evidence got from Elizabeth's Four Maids, by an Official Person, Devil's-Advocate or whatever he was, missioned by the Pope to question ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... deeds without thought. Industries were organised and launched, men employed and thrown out of employment, towns wrecked by the destruction of an industry and other towns made by the building of other industries. At a whim of his a thousand men began building a city on an Indiana sand hill, and at a wave of his hand another thousand men of an Indiana town sold their homes, with the chicken houses in the back-yards and vines trained by the kitchen ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... a heinous offence, and had been convicted thereof, and sentenced to the lash? Not at all! She was brought by her master to be whipped by the common executioner, without trial, judge, or jury, just at his beck or nod, for some real or supposed offence, or to gratify his own whim or malice. And he may bring her day after day, without cause assigned, and inflict any number of lashes he pleases, short of twenty-five, provided only he pays the fee. Or if he choose, he may have a private whipping-board on his own premises, and ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... and, bursting into tears, exclaimed her child was dead, and this was no other than an impostor whom they had brought to defraud her sorrow. Trunnion was confounded at this unaccountable passion, which had no other foundation than caprice and whim; and Gamaliel himself was so disconcerted and unsettled in his own belief, which began to waver, that he knew not how to behave towards the boy, whom his godfather immediately carried back to the garrison, swearing all the way that ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... a nap," the other suggested, raising one of the frosted goblets. "Here's to the gratification of your merest whim, sir!" ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... physician, 'it is only a whim of mine, and every one must be allowed some whims: but ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... London, 1823, 4to, edited for the veteran of ninety-two by Mr. Babbage[469] at twenty-nine. This excellent volume contains James Gregory, Des Cartes, Halley, Barrow, and the optical writings of Huyghens, the Principia of the undulatory theory. It also contains, by the sort of whim in which such men as Maseres, myself, and some others are apt to indulge, a reprint of "The great new Art of weighing Vanity,"[470] by M. Patrick Mathers, Arch-Bedel to the University of St. Andrews, Glasgow, 1672. Professor Sinclair,[471] of Glasgow, a good man at ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... a sentry. When he had received the password he stood back and let us pass. Alone, in that bleak and exposed position in front of the trenches, always in full view as he paced back and forward, carbine on shoulder, with not even a tree trunk or a hedge for shelter, the first to go at the whim of some German sniper or at any indication of an attack, he was a pathetic, almost a tragic, figure. He looked very young too. I stopped and asked him in a whisper ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the precocity with a kind of worship that proved, as it was bound to prove, disastrous. It seems to have been Henry Fox's deliberate belief that the best way to bring up a spirited, gifted, headstrong child was to gratify every wish, surrender to every whim, and pander to every passion that ebullient youth could feel. The anecdotes of the day teem with tales of the fantastic homage that Fox paid to the desires and moods of his imperious infant. He made ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... it as the whim takes me,—now take it on my lap, now touch it with my lips, now keep it by my side on ...
— Fruit-Gathering • Rabindranath Tagore
... replied the little girl. "Mother has often said she conna weel spare Alizon. An mayhap Mistress Nutter may knoa, that she con be very obstinate when she tays a whim ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... own characters, at the end. But Leopold is a man, not a romantic girl, as you are. He has always had a reputation for pride and austerity, for being just before he would let himself be generous; and it may be that to one of his nature, a wild whim ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... last demand of Art is that it shall give us the artist's best. Art is the mintage of the soul. All the whim, foible, and rank personality are blown away on the winds of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... a whole benchful accounted for at one swoop." Still Jemmy did not reply. The sunbeam drifting between the benches before him fell on a little patch of earth—a patch collected by one of the slaves whose comrades, humouring his whim, had brought him a handful or two in their pockets whenever they returned from shore. Upon this patch of earth were sunk the prints of a pair of feet, far apart; and between these footprints glimmered two lines of green, with two other lines ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... into a beautiful room, which aunt Madge had arranged for them with two beds, to suit a whim of Dotty's. ...
— Little Folks Astray • Sophia May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke)
... a hundred warriors of Ulster in the first onslaught with the sword. He met Conall Cernach. "Too great is this rage," said Conall, "upon people and kindred because of the whim of a wanton." "What would ye have me do, ye warriors?" asked Fergus. "Smite the hills crosswise and the bushes around," ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... hundred years before Mr. Ellison's coming of age, there had died, in a remote province, one Mr. Seabright Ellison. This gentleman had amassed a princely fortune, and, having no immediate connections, conceived the whim of suffering his wealth to accumulate for a century after his decease. Minutely and sagaciously directing the various modes of investment, he bequeathed the aggregate amount to the nearest of blood, bearing the name of Ellison, who should be alive at the end of the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... past I have been rambling over the country, but I am now confined with some lingering complaints, originating, as I take it, in the stomach. To divert my spirits a little in this miserable fog of ennui, I have taken a whim to give you a history of myself. My name has made some little noise in this country; you have done me the honour to interest yourself very warmly in my behalf; and I think a faithful account of ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... person of her wealth and position needed to make, he reasoned; what did it matter how she looked and talked at home where, after all, the only person she could hope to please was herself? He held aloof, drawn from his aloofness occasionally by her whim to indulge herself in what she regarded as proofs of his love. Her pouting, her whimpering, her abject but meaningless self-depreciation, her tears, were potent, not for the flattering reason she assigned, ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... the only man who was struck by the skipper's whim. There were mutterings on the deck below, and Dick, who had come from the conning-tower, was bold enough ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... prose, have a charming effect on the ear. They come as dulcet surprises and mostly recur in highly-wrought situations, or they are used to convey a vivid sense of something exquisite in nature or art. Their introduction seems due to whim or caprice, but really it arises from a profound study of the situation, as if the Tale-teller felt suddenly compelled to break ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... stone; he felt that his high hopes were on a more precarious footing than ever. If she had the whim, Barbara would go abroad, far beyond the reach ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... years hence this practice of the English, if the clergy and the physicians will but give them leave to do it; or possibly our countrymen may introduce inoculation three months hence in France out of mere whim, in case the English ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... should declare her intention the next morning of driving her pony buggy to Santa Inez to anticipate the stage-coach and fetch Mary Rogers from the station. Mrs. Peyton, as usual, supported the young lady's whim and opposed her ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... he wished to conceal it from public curiosity,—but, which is the most extraordinary, he is not quite sure that he had any motive for it at all, which his memory can trace. The whole of this is a period of a year and a half; and here is a man who keeps his account upon principles of whim and vagary. One would imagine he was guessing at some motive of a stranger. Why he came to take bonds for money not due to him, and why he enters some and not others,—he knows nothing of these things: he begs them not to ask about it, because it will be of no use. "You foolish Court of Directors ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and Mrs. Mosby—Aunt Loraine—joined the group, giving him a momentary withering glance. She was an inexorable woman, an inch taller than Uncle Buzz, who stood five feet three, but she matched him whim for whim in her attire. Her hair looked black in the graying light; in reality it was splotched and streaked with a chestnut red, colour not so ill as misapplied. Her dress rustled as she swept ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... bed; continually breaking his night's rest for prayer and devotional exercises of undue length, 'weeping one moment, then smiling in joy the next'; meandering about, capricious, melodious, weak, at the will of devout whim mainly; went to live at Marburg after her husband's death, and soon died there in a most melodiously pious sort" ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... and after paying the full price for it, she finds that she is to lose it, for no reason of which she can feel the cogency. She has sacrificed her whole life to it, and her husband will not sacrifice to it a whim, a freak, an eccentricity; something not recognised or allowed for by the world, and which the world will agree with her in thinking a folly, if it thinks no worse! The dilemma is hardest upon that ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill
... I to him; of passports We never had the whim. Strong ones I believe it would need To recall, to our side of the limit, Subjects of Pluto King of the Dead: But, from the Germanic Empire Into the gallant and cynical abode Of Messieurs your pretty Frenchmen,—A ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... information communicated to my father by this Mr. Herries, and the admonitory letter of the young lady, bear upon each other; and that, were you here, you might learn something from one or other, or from both, that; might throw light on your birth and parentage. You will not, surely, prefer an idle whim to the prospect which is ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... farewell for e'er! these flames nought can subdue— The Aqueduct of Sylla gleams, a bridge o'er hellish brew. 'Tis Nero's whim! how good to see Rome brought the lowest down; Yet, Queen of all the earth, give thanks for such a ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... with Bossuet's controversial writings, and was speedily converted by them to the Roman Catholic faith. The apostasy of a gentleman-commoner would of course be for a time the chief subject of conversation in the common room of Magdalene. His whim about Arabic learning would naturally be mentioned, and would give occasion to some jokes about the probability of his turning Mussulman. If such jokes were made, Johnson, who frequently visited Oxford, was very likely to hear of them.' Though Gibbon's Autobiography ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... door. There were no signs of a struggle in the garden, nor had there been the slightest noise to attract the attention of the waiting maid. It was not impossible, after all, that she had slipped away of her own accord, possessed of a sudden whim or impulse. ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... To gratify her daughter's whim, the widow Pillbody finally consented to move into a boarding house, though she did it in the firm belief that the good luck which the young lady had fallen upon would be of brief duration, and they would be glad to come back ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... it is none. The doctrine of hatred must be preached, as the counteraction of the doctrine of love, when that pules and whines. I shun father and mother and wife and brother when my genius calls me. I would write on the lintels of the door-post, Whim. I hope it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation. Expect me not to show cause why I seek or why I exclude company. Then again, do not tell me, as a good man did to-day, of my obligation to put ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... and capitals, index hands and other typographic symbols, were scattered about with remarkable profusion, to give additional force and notoriety to the editorial remarks which were found on every page, according as the whim and inspiration of the editor dictated. The establishment of the paper was undoubtedly a bold attempt at a time when the province was but sparsely settled, and the circulation necessarily limited ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot
... she. "You are free to stop whenever the whim strikes you; I must do exactly as you bid. What do ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... or derived the invention from a source of instruction common to both. But this seems not to be the case, with regard to those customs to which no general principle of human nature has given birth, and which have their establishment solely from the endless varieties of local whim and national fashion. Of this latter kind, those customs obviously are, that belong both to the North and to the South Pacific Islands, from which we would infer, that they were originally one nation; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... Grace good-bye, I left. I had four pounds six, and with it I went down to an old aunt's of mine in Cornwall. After three days there I met some miners, had a night with them, which ended by their initiating me into their clan. Next morning, thinking it over, my better self asserted itself, and the whim took me ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... strongest point of the dilemma. He was to be ruined—utterly ruined; a pauper, a beggar, if Camilla did not save him. The master of his fate demanded his daughter's hand. Habitually subservient to even a whim of her parents, this intelligence, the entreaty, the command with which it was accompanied, overwhelmed her. She answered but by tears; and Mr. Beaufort, assured of her submission, left her, to consider of the tone of the letter he himself should write to Mr. Spencer. He had sat down to this ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... returns again to the charge, and determines to carry out his tyrannical whim by the following order of the Council:—"The Council threaten the Lord Mayor and aldermen with imprisonment, if they do not forthwith enforce the king's command that all shops should be shut up in Cheapside and Lombard Street that were not goldsmiths' shops." ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... assemble without hostile intentions, it should be so imperative to keep the trickling rill of talk running, I find it impossible to imagine. It is a vestige of the old barbaric times, when men murdered at sight for a mere whim; when it was good form to take off your sword in the antechamber, and give your friend your dagger-hand, to show him it was no business visit. Similarly, you keep up this babblement to show your mind has no sinister concentration, not necessarily because you have anything to say, but ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... there were causes for the Minnesota massacres, by the Sioux, in 1862-'3, quite apart from the aboriginal cruelty and ferocity of the Indian nature. We all know that the carnal Indian man is a bad enough fellow at the best, and capable of dreadful crimes and misdemeanors, if only to gratify his whim or the caprice of the moment. And when he is bent upon satiating his revenge for some real or imaginary wrong, I would back him in the horrible ingenuity of his devices for torture, in the unrelenting malice ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... is desirable that she should enjoy, or rather profit by, his instructions; also it is high time she should become thoroughly convinced of the necessity of controlling that violent temper of hers. She needs to be taught submission to lawful authority too; and indulging her in this whim would, in my judgment, be likely to have the very opposite effect. What do you say, ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... while single, than she will be when married. Her father, I fear, will leave her too much to herself, and in that case I scarce know what may become of her; she has neither judgment nor principle to direct her choice, and therefore, in all probability, the same whim which one day will guide it, will the next lead ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... officially spoke slightingly of them at times, why he walked in some days, flung down a manuscript, and said: "Here's a rotten story." Yet it must be that he found pleasure in playing the whole scale, in hopping from the G-string to the E-, in surprising his public each day with a new whim or a recently discovered broken image. I suspect, anyhow, that he delighted in making his editor stare and fumble in the ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... your stage manners!" he exclaimed. "You are here at my pleasure. It was no whim, my carrying you off. After you left I went to the manor, where I tried to forget you. But nights of revelry—why should I not confess it?—could not efface your memory." His voice unconsciously sank to unreserved ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... mothers there are who reason thus—"Oh, the child will grow out of this folly. 'Tis a mere whim—a youthful fancy, not worthy of respect,"—forgetting or shutting their eyes to the fact, that, light though the whim or fancy may be in their eyes, it has positive weight to those who cherish it, and the thwarting of it ...
— Sunk at Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... one day or other, to Walter safe at home: though such a home we never thought of. If you don't object to our old whim, Sir, let us devote this first glass to Walter ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... consciousness of youth in some fashion that shall be through our modern mechanisms as effective as were the old "Fraternities" of primitive life, and as are still the outworn but persistent forms of military discipline, that idea of subordination of private whim to public well-being which lies at the base of all true and ordered social advance. The Children's Courts are a response to the effort of society to give each child a fair chance in life. There are needed, also, devices of education and of compulsory social service and social obedience which ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... Some complacently united to humor their host's whim, as they called it, and others, immediately recognizing its utility and decency, took notes with a view to modifying ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... compromise; distrusting alike the logical habit of the French to push out premises into conclusions at all hazards; and the German habit of system-building. The Englishman has no system, he has his whim, and is careless of consistency. It is quite possible for him to have an aesthetic liking for the Middle Ages, without wishing to restore them as an actual state of society. It is hard for an Englishman to understand to what degree a literary man, like Schiller, ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... stabbing.—Then I went and played pools at picquet with Lady Masham and Mrs. Hill; won ten shillings, gave a crown to the box, and came home. I met at my lodgings a letter from Joe, with a bit annexed from Ppt. What Joe asks is entirely out of my way, and I take it for a foolish whim in him. Besides, I know not who is to give a patent: if the Duke of Ormond, I would speak to him; and if it come in my head I will mention it to Ned Southwell. They have no patents that I know of for such things here, but good security is all; and to think that I ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... what Jean Jacques meant to do; but if a man wants to keep a tight hand on money he should not carry it about in his pocket in cold, hard cash. It was a foolish whim of Jean Jacques that he must have the eight thousand dollars in cash—in hundred-dollar bills—and not in the form of a cheque; but there was something childlike in him. When, as he thought, he had saved himself from complete ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... him on a holiday, Which is with Paddy still a jolly day; When mass is ended, and his load of sins Confess'd, and Mother Church hath from her binns Dealt forth a bonus of imputed merit, Then is Pat's time for fancy, whim, and spirit! To jest, to sing, to caper fair and free, And dance as light as ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... delivered up the harbour to your enemies. Lastly, he was most undisguisedly a tyrant, who made not free men only, but free fellow-citizens his slaves; who put to death, or drove into exile, or robbed of their wealth and property, not malefactors, note you, but the mere victims of his whim and fancy; and these were ever the better folk. Once again restored by the help of your sworn foes and antagonists, the Athenians, to his native town of Sicyon, the first thing he did was to take up arms against the governor from Thebes; but, finding himself powerless to drive him from the acropolis, ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... unmarried for life. He may have been foolish: but I prefer his behaviour to that of a man who treats his father with contumely and ingratitude even while he is living upon him. We hear much of Shelley's unselfishness, but it does not appear that he ever denied himself the indulgence of a whim. The "Ode to the West Wind," the "Ode Written in Dejection near Naples," and "The Skylark" are unsurpassed and unsurpassable; but I can hardly pardon a man for cruelty and turpitude merely because he produces ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... subsequently learned often resulted in a bad caddie service—and an open brook along whose dashing descent a constant stream of shandygaff went merrily bubbling onward to an in-door sea upon which Jupiter exercised his yacht when sailing was the thing to suit his immediate whim. ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... lover what she had done and take the consequences, believing in her power over him to come scatheless out of the adventure. In those days, when human life was so cheap, she might have asked for the death of almost any one, and her whim would have been gratified by a lover who had not hesitated to put to death his own son at her dictation. But with Ibrahim it was another matter; he was the familiar of the Sultan, his alter ego in fact, It says much for the ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... "I have a whim," he said, dreamily, "that I would like to satisfy. It would be a trifle to you: will you grant it?—for the sake of some old happy ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... swayed him hither and thither on the caprice or impulse of the moment, his intentions toward Innocent were not very clear even to himself. When he had begun his "amour" with her he had meant it to go just as far as should satisfy his own whim and desire,—but as he came to know her better, he put a check on himself and hesitated as one may hesitate before pulling up a rose-bush from its happy growing place and flinging it out on the dust-heap to die. She was so ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... the Atherlys, and an infinite pity and sense of duty towards his own race. He had devoted himself and his increasing wealth to this one object; it seemed to him at times almost providential that his position as a legislator, which he had accepted as a whim or fancy, should have ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... shadowy of all footholds, that of the whim of a populace, had already given way under him. His enemies knew it, and were exulting in their triumph. He knew it himself, and stood up, calmly defiant, ready for any event, if only he succeeded in snatching her ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... a moment. If he said no, and went away out of the city wherever his listless and changeful whim called him, he knew how it would be with her; he knew what her life would be as surely as he knew the peach would come out of the peach-flower rosy on the wall there: life in the little hut; among the neighbors; sleepy and safe and soulless;—if he ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... have noted you of late," continued my father, "and I have observed that your old studies are grown distasteful to you; and I have talked with Roland, and I see that your desire is deeper than a boy's mere whim. And then I have asked myself what prospect I can hold out at home to induce you to be contented here, and I see none; and therefore I should say to you, 'Go thy ways, and God shield ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... assailed her. She had cut him deeply, hurt his amour propre and left him scowling in Arcadian resentment. Would the lesson last? Or must she seek further means to convince him of her indifference? Why had she provoked him? A whim—the dormant devil in her—to whom her better self must now pay in ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... near the governmental headquarters; but out a bit there's nothing, Monsieur—not the ghost of a road at all. We get along as best we can over hill and dale, over dwarf palms and mastic-trees. Ne'er a fixed change of horses, the stopping being at the whim of the guard, now at one farm, ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... quite as a whim of the old admiral's, the changing of Charles Holland's name to Bell; but, as Charles himself said when the subject was broached to him,—"I am so well content to be called whatever those to whom I ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... assured herself that it was just a whim of Mr. Orme's, a passing fancy and caprice which would soon be satisfied, and that he would tire of it after a few days, perhaps hours. Of course, she was wrong to humour the whim; but it had been hard to refuse him, hard to seem churlish and obstinate after he had been so kind on the night ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... knew also that the falcon was renowned as the finest bird throughout the countryside, as well as being the joy and pride of his master's heart. But the boy was fretful and restless, and, fearing to thwart his whim lest his life should depend on it, the poor mother promised to go and ask for the falcon on ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... it has actually contributed towards very considerably lowering from time to time the rate of interest in all the foreign money-markets; but when this amount is compared with Freeland finances, the investment of it abroad is seen to be simply an insignificant and harmless whim. This large sum brings in, at the present rate of interest—you will understand that Freeland savers invest merely in the very best European or American bonds—about thirty-four millions sterling; that is, not quite ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... shameful bargain, thus to submit to a pirate's whim, but the wretched ship's company hailed it as a glad surprise. They had stood in the shadow of death and this was a respite and a chance of salvation. Captain Wellsby was heart-sick with humiliation but it was ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... roadside where it makes a great turn to enter the village from the south. There is a wide border to the road at this point, clear of underbrush, where the forest edges it, and there are here, at the whim of some one, or by chance, two great flat stones, one lying upon the other, but not fitting by a hand's thickness by reason of the ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... continued, "upon the occasion of your last visit to me, you were greatly taken with the charms and graces of my only daughter, Thuvia. You saw how I adored her, and later you learned that, inspired by some unfathomable whim, she had taken the last, long, voluntary pilgrimage upon the cold bosom of the mysterious ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... upon this scene as he grew older as the mere expression of a whim of dissolution, but it had made so deep an impression upon him at the time that insensibly the words sank into his plastic mind creating a superstition that refused to yield to reason. The ruby was Helene's birthstone and she was passionately fond of it. She had begged and coaxed to wear this ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... three sledges belonging to my party are sufficiently interesting to be set out at length below. Most of the items were included in the impedimenta of all our parties, but slight variations were necessary to meet particular stances or to satisfy the whim of ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... say to the children that this person is not a gentleman, and thus destroy his influence? or shall I pass it over in silence, and thus leave them to draw the natural inference that all I have said on the subject is only a woman's whim?" ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... the giddiness of being a land-owner for the first time, or perhaps it was the abject wretchedness of the only hotel in town that inspired the whim which seized me during my solitary dinner. I had spent one night here, and did not welcome the prospect of a second. A return to New York was not practicable, because I had arranged to meet several contractors and an architect at the farm, next morning, to discuss ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... adventuress, and finally a murderess, all may be good art, but of a very bad kind. Laura is a sort of American Becky Sharp; but there is retributive justice in Becky's fate, whereas Laura's doom is warranted only by the author's whim. As for her end, whatever the virtuous public of that day might have done, a present-day audience would not have pelted her from the stage, destroyed her future, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... your diamonds as a seal of peace. I can't let you have the Pine Street lot—I want it for a different purpose; but I will give you three acres on the edge of town, near the depot, for your asylum whim. It is a better location ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... floor with it. There the extinguished wicks had ignited the draperies, which had fallen across the stricken man's face and body. The clothes, torso, and legs, had been charred beyond recognition but the face, by some peculiar whim of fate, had ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... the Widow Sprigg needed no urging to drink her favorite beverage, which, like many another countrywoman,—more's the pity!—she kept steeping on the stove all day long. But now, for an instant, she looked doubtfully upon the cup; then, as a sudden whim seized her, caught it up eagerly and again ascended the stairs to Moses' bedroom. He lay motionless, his leg kept taut by a ball and chain and his poor body encased in plaster, but he could use his arms and eyes, the one thrown restlessly here and there and the ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... childhood shown a singularity of conduct as regarded her table furniture, which she would have of no other material than copper. She carried this fancy to such an extent that even the knives and forks were of copper. People laughed at her, and tried to reason her out of her whim, but in vain. She was in her element as soon as attention was directed to her fancy and arguments against it were addressed to her. She liked nothing better than to be afforded a full opportunity to discuss with any one the manifold advantages ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... of the Spanish noblemen of the period. Thus, he was unduly arrogant and autocratic towards his comrades of inferior rank, flinging Villagran into prison on his first arrival in the country as the result of little beyond a whim. On the other hand, it must be admitted that Mendoza spared no endeavours to conciliate and treat with ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... my darling!" he said. "This is like you. I took this up as a whim as well as a stubborn belief; but somehow that poor little ignorant fellow, with his rough ways, seems to be rousing warmer feelings towards him, and, please God, we'll make a man of him of whom ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... My dear Melesinda, press me no more for the disclosure of that, which in the face of day so soon must be revealed. Call it whim, humor, caprice, in me. Suppose, I have sworn an oath, never, till the ceremony of our marriage is over, to disclose ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... rarely left his palace, and bothered little about affairs outside, and Zaphnath must have been at the bottom of an edict which was shortly issued. Nothing that I remember in Kem better illustrated the absolute power of the Pharaoh and the unrestrained enforcement of his merest whim. The edict referred to the scarcity of bread and the multitude of foreigners who were flocking to the city to secure it, and provided (ostensibly for the good of the Kemish people) that no man in the city ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... the grassy level beneath a tree. He rather regretted now the impulse which had made him ship his bag and blanket roll from the last town, and undertake this solitary hike. He had merely humored a whim to walk through orchards and green fields in a leisurely fashion, to be a careless trudger for a day. True, he was saving carfare, but he observed dryly that he was expending many dollars' worth of energy—to say nothing of shoe leather. The pleasure of ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... year 1245, for his tardiness in joining the King's army in Wales, he was succeeded by the false-hearted Geoffrey de Mountmorres, who held the office till 1247. During the next twenty-five years, about half as many Justices were placed and displaced, according to the whim of the successive favourites at the English Court. In 1252, Prince Edward, afterwards Edward I., was appointed with the title of Lord Lieutenant, but never came over. Nor is there in the series of rulers we have numbered, with, perhaps, two exceptions, any who have rendered their ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... Till thought is wearied out, and dreams grow dim. What bitter chance, what woe beyond belief Could keep his lady's heart so hid from him? Or was her love indeed but light and brief, A passing thought, a moment's dreamy whim? Aye there it stings, the woe that never sleeps: Poor Nino leans upon his ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman |
