"Wont" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at this time of day, madam," Charley said. "They're attending to their domestic duties—and—and most of them, about now, are wont to be enjoying the tenderest happiness of motherhood ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... that time called the Covered Street, because, to keep out the great heat and burning of the sun, this street was canopied above with black cloths and other things,—for such is the use in that country always. And here was wont to be great bargaining, or a fair once a week of old clothes; and specially of trees or timber, by the little house which stood before a den under the earth, made and shaped like a little cellar, where Isai and others that dwelt there after him put certain necessaries that belonged to the household, ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... garrisoned. This was a castellated town, strongly situated upon a high mountain, partly surrounded by thick forests and partly girdled by a river. It defended one of the rugged and solitary passes by which the Christians were wont to make their inroads, insomuch that the Moors, in their figurative way, denominated it the ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... fine sunset colour, unable to arrest the mounting tide. She had been rowing, she said; and, as he directed his eyes, according to his wont, penetratingly, she defended herself by fixing her mind on Robinson Crusoe's old goat in the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... speech of the beaver-killer in The Hunting of the Snark.] Now the Beaver had placed himself under water, with his tail out of it and rising upwards, that he might sink the canoe with a blow thereof; for the Beaver strikes mightily in such wise, as is his wont. But he of the magic power, with one blow of his tomahawk, cut the tail from the body, and ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... nothing could more contribute to Bonaparte's happiness than his union with Maria Louisa. He was wont to compare her with Josephine, by giving the latter all the advantages of art and grace; the former the charms of simple modesty and innocence. His former empress used every art to support or enhance her personal charms; but with so ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various
... rude ox cart the most precious of his movable possessions; while the women, with loud sobbing, dragged along by their hands the frightened and reluctant little ones. By another road, leading into the wooded hills where the villagers were wont to cut their winter firewood, a few of the more hardy and impetuous of the Acadians, disdaining to bend to the authority of Le Loutre, fled away into the wilds with their muskets and a little bread; and these the Indians dared ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... to play on the guitar, which in the first days of their married life was the recreation of every evening. Seldom with the later years had he asked her to sing, because he was so busy; and somehow his ear had not that keenness of sound once belonging to it. There was a time when he himself was wont to sing, when he taught his little Zoe the tunes of the Chansons Canadiennes; but even that had dropped away, except at rare intervals, when he would sing Le Petit Roger Bontemps, with Petite Fleur de Bois, and a dozen others; but most ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... violent-coloured plaid, -a pair of white cord trousers that fitted tightly to the leg, - and a white-spotted blue handkerchief, which was twisted round a neck that might have served as a model for the Minotaur's. In his mouth, the Pet cherished, according to his wont, a sprig of parsley; small fragments of which herb he was accustomed to chew and spit out, as a pleasing relief to the monotony of ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... possible, Mrs. Douglas, as was her wont when in any anxiety, sought a conference with her brother. After telling him all, there was complete silence for a moment. ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... against the impetuous sailor that they clamoured for his instant execution, and at last, unable or unwilling to resist the pressure of public opinion, the officers in charge of him gave in. They put a rope round his neck, and led him to a spot where criminals were wont to be executed. ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... were kings; but the lips of Rudolph of Hapsburg do not move to the music of the others, and Philip of France beats his breast and Henry of England sits alone. On and on we go, climbing the marvellous stair, and the stars become larger than their wont, and the song of the kings grows faint, and at length we reach the seven trees of gold and the garden of the Earthly Paradise. In a griffin-drawn chariot appears one whose brows are bound with olive, who is veiled in white, and mantled in green, and robed in a vesture that is ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... the direction whither they journeyed were roan and sable and water-buck and probably lions to rejoice the heart of a game young British South African policeman with a bloodthirsty desire to kill. Moore, in his quaint, Irish way, chaffed him a good deal, as was his wont; for though one had received his education at the Bedford Grammar School and was a clergyman's son, and the other at a board-school and was the son of a small innkeeper, in the Rhodesia police force all troopers are equals, and there is a frank camaraderie which is ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... came, softly and swiftly as was her wont. Her face was pale, but her eyes and lips were steady. She went straight to Ethel; was at once encircled by the girl's arms, and drew Ethel's ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... rendering house-hold assistance, such as putting coal on the fire, etc., which I knew would go a long way to dull the memory of my afternoon's walk in my mother's mind. In the evening when father came home he asked the question as was his wont: "How has Henry been to-day?" "As good as gold," ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... not to run about any longer in gleaning up of coppersmiths and tinkers; for the jobbernolls had already a pretty good beginning in their dance of the British jig called the estrindore, to a perfect diapason, with one foot in the fire, and their head in the middle, as goodman Ragot was wont to say. ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... prematurely grey, though Time has passed thee and our old association, Tom. But, in those sounds with which it is thy wont to bear the twilight company, the music of thy heart speaks out—the story of thy ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... Raby's black satin quilted jacket was not a particularly inspiriting one. The jacket, full in the skirts, long in the shoulders, wide in the sleeves and enormous round the neck, would scarcely bear comparison with the neat, tight-fitting garments which the other girl graduates of St. Benet's were wont to patronize. Prissie felt glad she was not attired in it that unfortunate day when she sat in Mrs. Elliot-Smith's drawing-room; and yet— and yet— she knew that the poor, quaint, old-world jacket ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... indifferently, and stood by the great polished platter-frame over the sideboard, dropping oil on the screws of a certain cunning instrument which he was wont to use in the elucidation of the ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... too much wine kept neither secrets nor promises. Another thing he must not do was to flatter people; Don Quixote considered this a very odious practice. Last, but not least, said Don Quixote, he must remember not to use such quantities of proverbs as he had been wont to. ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... for at this hour he was always very good-natured and affable; and, on this account, the Grand Vizier Mansor always visited him at this hour. He came also this afternoon, but looking very thoughtful, quite against his wont. The caliph took the pipe partly away from his mouth, and said, "What makes you look so ...
— What the Animals Do and Say • Eliza Lee Follen
... without increasing taxation or diminishing the privy purse. The work of administration could be done at least as effectively, much more economically, and with far less danger to internal peace by deputies of lower rank than the dukes and earls and barons who had been wont to abuse these high positions for the furtherance of private ends, and often for the levying of (p. 018) private war. Nowhere were the advantages of Henry's policy more conspicuous than in his arrangements for the government of Ireland. Ever since Richard, ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... island. Upon this island doth stand my own poor parsonage, and ye may all see the whereabouts of the village church. Mark ye, also, that there be eight bridges and no more over the river in my parish. On my way to church it is my wont to visit sundry of my flock, and in the doing thereof I do pass over every one of the eight bridges once and no more. Can any of ye find the path, after this manner, from the house to the church, without going out of the parish? Nay, nay, my friends, I do never cross ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... the cause of her troubled face, took this occasion to offer comfort. His manner toward her had changed since she no longer had a part in the management of the eating-house, and for that reason she did not repulse him as sharply as she had been wont to do. He really bore Cavanagh no ill-will, and was, indeed, shrewd enough to understand that Lee admired the ranger, and that his own courtship was rather hopeless; nevertheless, he persisted, his respect for her ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... was on Decoration Day in the City of New York, the last one he ever saw on earth. That morning the members of the Grand Army of the Republic, the veterans in that vicinity, arose earlier than was their wont. They seemed to spend more time that morning in unfurling the old battle flags, in burnishing the medals of honor which decorated their breasts, for on that day they had determined to march by the house ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... to their lands to turn renegade, they would surrender him; and other suitable things. Therewith great and small were content and pleased, since they were freed from the tyranny of the king of Terrenate. The governor remitted to them the third part of the tributes which they were wont to pay their king, and gave the Moros other advantages. Then he planned a new and modern fort, in a very conspicuous and suitable location, and began to build it. In order that the old fort might be better defended while the new one was being ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... a West Indies word. The early Spanish writers are wont to apply it to any sort of native official. Here, no doubt, the correct term would be the Quichua word Curaca. Officials thus designated under the Inca dominion were the hereditary chiefs of formerly independent tribes and territories—roughly analogous ...
— An Account of the Conquest of Peru • Pedro Sancho
... had quite an affectionate parting with the President this morning. He told me, as is his wont, a number of stories more or less decorous, but all he said having any bearing on political matters was: 'I suppose my position makes people in England think a great deal more of me than I deserve, pray tell 'em ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... neighboring fields—and twice during Sunday, when we were paraded in the same formal manner to the morning and evening service in the one church of the village. Of this church the principal of our school was pastor. With how deep a spirit of wonder and perplexity was I wont to regard him from our remote pew in the gallery, as, with step solemn and slow, he ascended the pulpit! This reverend man with countenance so demurely benign, with robes so glossy, and so clerically flowing, ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... have avoided Captain Zoradus Wass if he had spied that boisterously cheerful mariner in season. But the captain had him by the arm and was dancing him about the sidewalk, showing more affability than was his wont. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... to gratify, first, his jealousy of Plato and then his love for Alexander. Plato was horrified at the tyranny of the Athenians. Machiavel was full of his idol, the Duke of Valentinois. Thomas More, who was wont to speak of what he had read rather than of what he had thought, wanted to govern every state upon the model of a Greek city. Harrington could think of nothing but an English republic, while hosts of writers ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... parallel and included me guilty of a similar act. And when I pleaded guilty, but defended the act as highly rational, he but pressed me closer and laughed as only one of God's own lovers could laugh. I was wont to deny that heredity and environment could explain his own originality and genius, any more than could the cold groping finger of science catch and analyze and classify that elusive essence that lurked in the constitution of ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... heard outside a plaintive voice calling: "Give something from your yule-log to the sorrowful poor!" And then the children quickly, would carry out to the calling poor one good portions of food. Pious families, also, were wont to ask some poor friend or acquaintance, or even a poor passing stranger, to eat the Great Supper with them; and of the fragments a part would be sent to the poor brethren in the Hostel de Dieu: which offerings were called always "the share of ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... profess love to him and win him to confess and after tell us the facts of his case." And she answered, "O my papa, I know how I will make proof of him." Then she went away and after supper her husband came in to her, according to his wont, whereupon Princess Dunya rose to him and took him under the armpit and wheedled him with winsomest wheedling (and all-sufficient[FN54] are woman's wiles whenas she would aught of men); and she ceased not to caress him and beguile him with speech sweeter than the honey ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... in his hand, and said that he was to smear it over the face of Sigmund, and to fill his mouth with it. Now he went to Sigmund, and did as he was bid, after which he returned home. And during the night came the same she-wolf, as was her wont, and reckoned to devour him, like ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... to spare. Oh, sister! have you come so far to talk of gowns? And that odious woman too! What brought her here?" Angela asked, with more temper than she was wont to show. ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... half an hour. The days when he was wont to sit and talk at large through a whole evening were no more; partly because of his diminished leisure, but also for a less simple reason—the growth of something like estrangement between ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... and quite still, or with one leg advanced in the act of walking; or seated upon a chair or a cube; or kneeling; or, still more frequently, sitting on the ground cross- legged, as the fellahin are wont to sit to this day. This intentional monotony of style would be inexplicable if we were ignorant of the purpose for which such statues were intended. They represent the dead man for whom the tomb was made, his family, his servants, his slaves, and his kinsfolk. The ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... its hungrily gaping shelves is responsible for many crimes committed in the name of bric-a-brac, and calls to mind sundry specimens with which proud owners were wont to satisfy its greed: the glass case of wax or feather flowers, flanked and reenforced by plush photograph frames, shells, china vases shining "giltily," silvered and beribboned toasters, peacock-feather ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... especially the spirit of enthusiasm was complete—all sorts of ideas for fetes and sports, and bonfires and illuminations, exercised the minds of the simple fisher-folk, who were wild with joy at the singular destiny that had befallen their 'waif of the sea' as they were wont to call the beautiful girl who had grown up among them,—and the aged Rene Ronsard was made the centre of their interest and attention,—even of their adulation. But Ronsard had grown very listless of late. His age began to tell heavily upon him, and the news that Gloria was returning ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... longer found it possible to employ monks as messengers, as he had done at first, he would send a little page, dressed now in one colour and now in another; and the page used to stand at the doorways through which the ladies were wont to pass, and deliver his letters secretly in the throng. But one day, when the Queen was going out into the country, it chanced that one who was charged to look after this matter recognised the page, and hastened after him; but he, being ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... was Peter a god. While he was at all times chivalrous, yet he was not painstakingly thoughtful in the small matters which are supposed to advance the cause of love at a high pace. Nor was he guided by a set of fixed rules such as men are wont to employ at roulette and ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... sensation of desolateness, and loneliness, and darkness, with which you see it now, will pass away; the sharp grief of love and friendship will become soothed; men will repair thither as they are wont to commemorate the great days of history; the same glance shall take in, and same emotions shall greet and bless, the Harbor of the Pilgrims and ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... final preparations for the examination, I wrestled, as was my wont, with my attempts to come to a clear understanding over Duty and Life, and was startled by the indescribable irony in the word by which I was accustomed to interpret my ethically religious endeavours,—Himmelspraet. [Footnote: Word implying one who attempts to spring up to Heaven, ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... Middle Ages that afterwards led him on many a pleasant pilgrimage with no better companions than a wallet and a sketch-book. Indeed, so sensible was Glastonbury of the influence of the early and constant scene of his youth on his imagination, that he was wont to trace his love of heraldry, of which he possessed a remarkable knowledge, to the emblazoned windows that perpetuated the memory and the achievements of many ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... he throw the sacred relic before him? What does "wert wont of yore" mean? ("As you used ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... Choctaws provided for a road through the Choctaw country which should be "a highway for citizens of the United States and the Choctaws." Jackson, passing along the road with some slaves, dared the agent to interfere. He also exerted himself to bring about the removal of Dinsmore, and, as his wont was, made a personal matter of the dispute. His feeling was so strong that years afterwards, when Dinsmore, happening to meet him, made a courteous advance, ...
— Andrew Jackson • William Garrott Brown
... soon upon the scene of action filled to the brim with the stubborn fury with which they were wont to fight. At their head marched their Major, the dark-faced Inverawe, his son only ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... standing in the class with the best; but to-day he was far below his usual mark, and his attention constantly wandered; and most of his fellow culprits were in like case. In view of the escapade of the previous night and its impending consequences, that was hardly to be wondered at; but Lewis was wont to make light of such matters, and he was evidently taking this more seriously ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... Misses Simpkins sat in their cheerless back-room, hovering over a small fire, busily plying their noisy knitting-needles, and meantime indulging in their usual dish of scandal, which, however, it is but justice to say, was not quite so highly seasoned with the spice of envy and malice as was its wont. Whether it was that the memory of a bright and beaming little face that had intruded upon their solitude during the afternoon, had half succeeded in awakening the slumbering better nature which had slept so long, it was somewhat doubted if any ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... a dull, thrumming sound attracted his attention. It was something like Files's dinner gong, whose summons Mr. Britt was wont to obey ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... were of the imagination, and the imagination was begotten of the accounts given by Von Falterle, the accomplishments-master of Albano in the village of Bluemenbuhl, and of his former pupil Liana, daughter of the Minister von Froulay. It was his wont to paste up long altar-pieces of Liana's charms, charms which her father had sought to enhance by means of delicate and almost meagre fare, by shutting up his orangery, whose window he seldom lifted off from this flower of a milder ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... of us knows," answered Edward: "until he himself opens his door, nobody ventures to go to him; and it is still shut. His wont however is to rise early, and he says he sleeps but little. Whether he employs these early solitary hours in reading, or in prayer and devotion, no one can tell; so great is his reserve toward everybody. But as to announcing you—even by and by—I know ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... previous evening, the first hours of which, after dinner, in his room, he had devoted to the copious composition of a letter. He had quitted Waymarsh for this purpose, leaving him to his own resources with less ceremony than their wont, but finally coming down again with his letter unconcluded and going forth into the streets without enquiry for his comrade. He had taken a long vague walk, and one o'clock had struck before his return and his re-ascent to his room by the aid of ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... wont' be as poor as your father, Harry," said Mrs. Walton, sighing, as she thought of the years of pain privation and pinching poverty reaching back to the time of their marriage. They had got through it somehow, but she ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... perhaps, the most we have attained to before or since. With men this culminating epoch comes often in manhood, or even at maturity, especially with men of arduous and successful careers. But with women it comes most frequently perhaps in girlhood and young womanhood. Particularly is this wont to be the fact with women who do not marry, and with whom, as the years glide on, life becomes lonelier ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... flushed cheek to a deeper carnation. He felt the appeal in the girl's attitude as she leaned ever so little towards him. He caught the tremulous note in her voice. His own was less steady than its wont as he answered:— ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... meekly, and the others melted away also as they were wont to do when the vrouw showed signs of war, so that she and we two were ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... rivaling his Maker in the creation of beauty. In her it was a determination of greater loyalty toward the Provider of undeservedly happy days to man, whose heart is wicked from his birth, as her mother had been wont ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... a dignified stare, made a signal to the engineer, and the Wiggle started forward, as was her wont, with a jerk which put upon Bones the alternative of making a most undignified sprawl or clutching a very hot smoke-stack. He chose the latter, recovered his balance with an easy grace, punctiliously saluted ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... old hill farmer (Thomas Abergroes by name), well skilled in the folk-lore of the district, informed me that, in years gone by, though when, exactly, he was too young to remember, those dames (Gwragedd Annwn) were wont to make their appearance, arrayed in green, in the neighbourhood of Llyn Barfog, chiefly at eventide, accompanied by their kine and hounds, and that, on quiet summer nights in particular, these ban-hounds were often to ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... after an illness of two days, was the first item of news carried to us from here after we had reached our Northern homes. We shall not soon forget how in the warm summer days, at the noon recess, he was wont to sit in the shade of the house with his open Bible in his hand. Often we would overhear him, with painstaking repetition, studying a psalm of David, or some passage from the 'Sermon on the Mount.' I heard him in the pulpit once when he preached a warning discourse, his theme ...
— The American Missionary - Vol. 44, No. 3, March, 1890 • Various
... The Archdeacon was wont to respond with his genial smile: "Ah, it's all very well for you, doctor!—you're a free lance. I am constrained by my cloth.—And frankly, for the rest of us, that kind of thing's too—well, too disturbing. ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... Sereda: "This Mother Middle is the world generally (an obvious anagram of Erda es), and this Sereda rules not merely the middle of the working-days but the midst of everything. She is the factor of middleness, of mediocrity, of an avoidance of extremes, of the eternal compromise begotten by use and wont. She is the Mrs. Grundy of the Leshy; she is Comstockery: and her shadow is common-sense." Yet Codman speaks with certainly no more authority than Prote, when the latter, in his Origins of Fable, declares this epos is "a parable of ... man's vain journeying in ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... essential human-heartedness in the Son of Man, our Divine Saviour, which made Him one with us in His need of the quiet, sympathetic ministrations of nature — perhaps the heart of the reason why this olive-grove was 'the place where He was wont to go' for prayer." See St. ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... the spot, while this matter should be pending. Thorne might need advice, certainly would need sympathy and petting; he must not learn to do without her. Even if he had only been amusing himself here, after his reprehensible wont, her presence in New York could do no harm and might ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... speakers of agglutinative languages might be, it was nevertheless a crime for an inflecting woman to marry an agglutinating man. Tremendous spiritual values were evidently at stake. Champions of the "inflective" languages are wont to glory in the very irrationalities of Latin and Greek, except when it suits them to emphasize their profoundly "logical" character. Yet the sober logic of Turkish or Chinese leaves them cold. The glorious irrationalities and formal ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... he was wont to do, into the beech wood that lay behind the home of the monks. It was a very beautiful place at all times; never more so than when the first tender green of coming summer was clothing the giant trees, and the primroses and wood sorrel were carpeting the ground, which was yet brown with the ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... and not above middle height, but very erect, and with the carriage of a person a little conscious of being of some importance. Sir Reginald Cromarty was, in fact, extremely conscious of his position in life, and the rather superior and condescending air he was wont to assume in general society made it a little difficult for a stranger to believe that he could actually be the most popular person in the county; especially as it was not hard to discover that his temper could easily become peppery upon provocation. If, however, ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... men are wont to answer statesmen who complain of their calling,—half in compliment, half in contradiction; but ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... only nasty thing Ellen said all that evening. And even Daisy noticed that her stepmother seemed dazed and unlike herself. She went about her cooking and the various little things she had to do even more silently than was her wont. ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... precautions; meanwhile, do not blame me if in your presence I cannot admit fear. Oh Madeline, dear, dear Madeline, could you know, could you dream, how different life has become to me since I knew you! Formerly, I will frankly own to you, that dark and boding apprehensions were wont to lie heavy at my heart; the cloud was more familiar to me than the sunshine. But now I have grown a child, and can see around me nothing but hope; my life was winter—your love has breathed ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... horror overwhelmed me. Almah had spoken these words and stood looking at me with a face of woe. This, then, was that daily task from which she was wont to return in such sadness—an abhorrent task to her, and one to which familiarity had never reconciled her. What was she doing here? What dark fate was it that thus bound this child of light to these children of darkness? or why was ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... of recreation before Compline, which upon great Feasts was wont to be so glad, lay heavily upon the brethren that night, so that Mark could not bear to sit in the Cloister; there being no guests in the Abbey for his attention, he sat in the library and wrote ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... Siege: why liue we idly here? Talbot is taken, whom we wont to feare: Remayneth none but mad-brayn'd Salisbury, And he may well in fretting spend his gall, Nor men nor Money hath he ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... been within walking distance, he certainly would have seen her again. Her memory in his child's mind was always that of a real and near personality. When he became older, and conscious of his superiority to his fellows, he was wont to say: "I am proud to attribute my love of letters, such as I may have, not to my presumed Anglo-Saxon father, but to my sable, unprotected, and uncultivated mother." Thus, after his mother died, his vivid imagination kept before him her image, as she appeared to him that last time he ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... truth to tell, the swains were few Of Gwendolyn (and Gladys, too). So morning, afternoon, and night Upon their sister they Were wont to vent their selfish spite, And in the rudest way: For though her name was Leonore, That's neither there nor here, They called her Cinderella, for The kitchen was her sphere, Save when the hair she had to do ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... timidum et umbratilem, gestaque secus verbis comptioribus exornantem. Ammianus, s. xvii. 11. * Note: The philosophers retaliated on the courtiers. Marius (says Eunapius in a newly-discovered fragment) was wont to call his antagonist Sylla a beast half lion and half fox. Constantius had nothing of the lion, but was surrounded by a whole litter of foxes. Mai. Script. Byz. Nov. Col. ii. 238. Niebuhr. Byzant. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... brave fellow, and four years at our national military academy had "taught him a thing or two," as old army officers are wont to express it. He was a prisoner of the enemy, but he did not intend to remain so very long, if he could help it. To think that he had been captured by a Union officer much younger than himself, supported by only one or two followers, filled him with chagrin, ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... was wont to cry, "I commence by taking; afterward I shall always have pedants enough to establish my rights." Pedants or not, the members of the teaching corps of every grade in Germany are a wheel of the State, their mission is to form not ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... had its old, whimsical inflection, but there was a deeper note in it, too. She parried him gently, yet not quite so composedly as was her wont. ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... the waterfront taverns a motley crowd of loggers and raftsmen, woodsmen and timbermen, were wont to gather for nights of revelry. The old taverns rang with as rollicking songs as ever enlivened a western bar in gold-rush days. Here too woodsman and logger rubbed shoulders betimes with Devil Anse Hatfield and Randall McCoy, for it was to the mouth ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... number thirteen as in every way ominous of evil; and if they find thirteen coins in their purse, cast away the odd one like a polluted thing. The philosophic Beranger, in his exquisite song, "Thirteen at Table," has taken a poetical view of this humiliating superstition, and mingled, as is his wont, a lesson of genuine wisdom in his lay. Being at dinner, he overthrows the salt, and, looking round the room, discovers that he is the thirteenth guest. While he is mourning his unhappy fate, and conjuring up visions of disease and suffering, and the grave, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... once one of the men showed him that it was no fancy, for he raised his eyes looked across at his companion, and made a mocking grimace, just as he had been wont to do on shipboard, getting as answer a deprecating ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... to dine with Howard, who, contrary to his wont, lavished some care on flowers and decorations, to make the place unobtrusively pretty and home-like, and he determined that he would be as quiet and straightforward as he could, but promised himself at least one afternoon with Maud strolling round the place. But this was all to happen as if ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... such spite, They shrewdly suspect it is all but a bite. You certainly know, though so loudly you vapour, His spite cannot wound who attempted the Drapier. Then, pr'ythee, reflect, take a word of advice; And, as your old wont is, change sides in a trice: On his virtues hold forth; 'tis the very best way; And say of the man what all honest men say. But if, still obdurate, your anger remains, If still your foul bosom more rancour contains, Say then more ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... Four creatures, wont to prowl,— Sly Grab-and-Snatch, the cat, Grave Evil-bode, the owl, Thief Nibble-stitch, the rat, And Madam Weasel, prim and fine,— Inhabited a rotten pine. A man their home discover'd there, And set, one night, a cunning snare. The cat, a noted early-riser, Went forth, at break ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... trespassed too long already upon your brother's hospitality; beside, Miss Alice, I begin to feel that his welcome is worn out. Your brother, for some days, has seemed less cordial than was his wont during the first weeks of ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... the Quindecemviri meet and pass several resolutions: that the rules regarding the ceremonies shall be made known to the public by advertisement (albo propositae); that the mornings of May 26, 27, and 28, shall be set apart for the distributio suffimentorum, in which the Quindecemviri were wont to distribute among the citizens torches, sulphur and bitumen, for purification; and the mornings of May 29, 30, and 31, for the frugum acceptio, or distribution of wheat, barley, and beans. To avoid overcrowding, four centres of distribution are named, and each of them is placed under ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... due to frequency of occurrence] — N. habit, habitude; assuetude|, assuefaction|, wont; run, way. common state of things, general state of things, natural state of things, ordinary state of things, ordinary course of things, ordinary run of things; matter of course; beaten path, beaten track, beaten ground. prescription, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... of education to the mass of the population, with earnest discussions of its scope and methods by both speculative and practical men; in schemes, more speedily animated into operation than good designs were wont to be, for spreading useful knowledge over tracts of the dead waste where there was none; in exciting tens of thousands of young persons to a benevolent and patient activity in the instruction of the children of ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... compasses, as the commandant was wont to say, the miserable vehicle which was then used as the mail-coach drew up before the inn of the Trois Maures, in the middle of the main street of Alencon. The sound of the wheels brought the landlord to the door. No one in Alencon ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... mentioning were it not for the fact that it shows that from boyhood he knew the force of this formidable weapon which later he used with so much skill. The country store furnished the frontier substitute for the club, and there the men were wont to congregate. It is needless to say that young Lincoln was the life of the gatherings, being an expert in the telling of a humorous story and having always a plentiful supply. His speech-making proved so attractive that his father was forced to forbid him to practise ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... as she reached her own home, and she went to her room with a heaviness of heart almost unendurable. She sat down on the rug before the fire, and threw her arms up over a chair, as she was wont to do in childhood; and, as she remembered that the winter rain now beat pitilessly on the grave of one who had never known privation, nor aught of grief that wealth could shield her from, she moaned bitterly. What lamp ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... farms, conquered the savage wilderness into blooming cornfields, orchards, and gardens—and here was their true El Dorado! where they hoped to live in peace, plenty, and security. They were not afraid of the savages, but their wont was to make friends of them, and to be their friends, entertaining them at their homes when they visited the settlements, and doing all they could—with some exceptions—to perpetuate among them a good feeling and an ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... but when the Indian came to examine his assets, it always appeared that a buzzard was all he could make of it. Partly, perhaps, by way of softening the asperities of such a discovery, the Dutch merchant had been wont to furnish his victim with brandy (not eleemosynary, of course); but the results were disastrous. The Indians, transported by the alcohol beyond the anything-but-restricted bounds which nature had imposed upon them, felt the insult of the buzzard more keenly ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... the table—a lamentable instance of prostrated ecclesiastical dignity. His disgust, however, was far exceeded by the horror of one of the party, a meek, cadaverous-looking boy, whose parents lived in the town, and who was wont to regard the head master as the vicegerent of all powers, civil and sacerdotal—I am not sure he did not include military as well. I caught him looking several times at the door and the ceiling with a pale, guilty face, as if he expected some immediate visitation to punish the sacrilege. However, ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... to be said upon the quantity and source of the blood which thus passes, is of a character so novel and unheard of that I not only fear injury to myself from the envy of a few, but I tremble lest I have mankind at large for my enemies, so much doth wont and custom become a second nature. Doctrine once sown strikes deeply its root, and respect for antiquity influences all men. Still the die is cast, and my trust is in my love of truth, and the candour of cultivated minds."(28) Then he goes on ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... 9 P.M., Mr. Lyon had sent to Mrs. Canning's to make inquiries; the girl was not wont to stay out so late on a holiday. About 9 P.M., in fact, the two Colleys were escorting Elizabeth as ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... was apparent; no one settled down to cards or music. Even the "odd" individual moved about and dropped cynical remarks along the route of his progress, instead of sitting down to backgammon as was his wont. A few other misguided individuals, of the male sex, offered and accepted bets sotto voce on the chances ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... or St. Vitus's dance; the lascivious dance, [919] Paracelsus calls it, because they that are taken from it, can do nothing but dance till they be dead, or cured. It is so called, for that the parties so troubled were wont to go to St. Vitus for help, and after they had danced there awhile, they were [920]certainly freed. 'Tis strange to hear how long they will dance, and in what manner, over stools, forms, tables; even great bellied ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... they broke, Through the surging cannon-smoke, And they drove the foe before like frightened cattle! O, but never wound was his, For in other wars than this, Where the volleys of Life's conflict roar and rattle, He must still, as he was wont, In the front bear ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... lugubrious accents. "We may have more heart when morning comes. A piping easterly breeze, such as is wont to come up with the sun in Charles Town, and we can steer for the coast all taut ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... of sin, there are two things which may withdraw man therefrom: one is the inordinateness and shamefulness of the act, the consideration of which is wont to arouse man to repentance for the sin he has committed, and against this there is "impenitence," not as denoting permanence in sin until death, in which sense it was taken above (for thus it would ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... explain the causes of her past and her future action, conscious the while of a feeling of pained surprise, as though a man we valued highly had done some dreadful deed. We love to idealise destiny, and are wont to credit her with a sense of justice loftier far than our own; and however great the injustice whereof she may have been guilty, our confidence will soon flow back to her, the first feeling of dismay over; for in our heart we plead that she must have reasons we cannot fathom, that there must be ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... It seemed indeed as though some strange influence were dominating Sapt; he went about the work like a man who is hardly awake. They placed the bodies each where the living man would be by night—the king in the guest-room, the huntsman in the sort of cupboard where the honest fellow had been wont to lie. They dug up the buried dog, Sapt chuckling convulsively, James grave as the mute whose grim doings he seemed to travesty: they carried the shot-pierced, earth-grimed thing in, and laid it in the king's room. ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... tribunals; the physician is to be persuaded, not commanded; he is to choose, not be terrorized; he is not to be haled to his patient, but to come with his consent and at his pleasure. Governments are wont to give physicians the public recognition of honours, precedence, immunities and privileges; and shall the art which has State immunities not be ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... singular point of view; for, in opposition to their own wishes they laid the foundations of a religion which has not only superseded their peculiar rites, but is rapidly advancing towards that universal acceptation which they were wont to anticipate in favour of their own ancient law. In spite of themselves they have acted as the little leaven which was destined to leaven the whole lump; and in performing this office, they have proceeded with nearly the same absence of intention ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... sweet-tempered and polite, toward her tormentor, and ended it with a deep sense of humiliating failure, and of having lost something of the high esteem and admiration in which her almost idolized husband had been wont ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... and self-denials that the rearing of this child incurred, it was a trifle inconsistent that Maumee Nina should have opposed the friendly advances of gallants from the town. She was not of a class that is wont to consider the etiquette of such attentions, nor would she have refused to give her daughter in marriage to any Cuban. It was that her feeling toward the Spaniards was deepening into hate, and it rejoiced her to learn that a revolution was really intended. ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... solid food was carefully and accurately weighed. The conversation was chiefly alimentary, and Sheila listened with a growing wonder to the description of the devices by which the ladies of Mrs. Lavender's acquaintance were wont to cheat fatigue or win an appetite or preserve their color. When by accident the girl herself was appealed to, she had to confess to an astonishing ignorance of all such resources. She knew nothing of the relative strengths and effects of wines, though she was frankly ready ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... his strain. A notable immobility of nature—his friends called it firmness, his enemies obstinacy; a seeming disregard of what others might think of him; a certain sternness of manner—an unreadiness, as it were, to open his door to the people about him; a searching regard with which he was wont to peruse the face of anyone holding talk with him, when he seemed always to give heed to the looks rather than the words of him who spoke; these peculiarities had combined to produce a certain awe of him in his inferiors, and a dislike, not unavowed, ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... the 14th of February, on which young people of both sexes were wont (the custom seems gradually dying out) to send love-missives to one another; it is uncertain who the Valentine was that is associated with the day, or whether it was with ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... old the haughty Thanes of Ross Were wont, with clans and ready vassals thronged, To wake the bounding stag, or guilty wolf; There oft is heard at midnight or at noon, Beginning faint, but rising still more loud, And louder, voice of hunters, and of hounds, And horns hoarse-winded, blowing far ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... his war-horse, down to his knees; embraces the feet of old Anselm: he too begs his blessing; orders men to escort him, guard him from being robbed, and under dread penalties see him safe on his way. Per os Dei, as his Majesty was wont to ejaculate! ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle |
