"Wanton" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... descendants of the Goths," said Maltravers, and his voice slightly trembled; "they gave up to the monopoly of the senses what ought to have had an equal share in the reason and the imagination. Their love was a beautiful and wanton butterfly; but not the butterfly which is the ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... commenced the Russian, "by your continued and wanton interference with M. Rokoff and his plans you have at last brought yourself and your family to this unfortunate extremity. You have only yourself to thank. As you may imagine, it has cost M. Rokoff a large amount of money to finance ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... peoples that their faith has built up a shining civilisation in Europe, and now there flash and quiver through the nerves of the world the daily messages of horror, of fierce hatred, of appalling carnage, of the wanton destruction by Christians of Christian temples. The Gospel has, somehow, broken down ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... could crib "doubtful white stuff" that was a nuisance among folks, and sell it for something he could put in his pocket. In this way Romescos accumulated several hundred dollars; but avarice increased, and with it his ferocity. It belonged to the trade, a trade of wanton depravity. He became the terror of those who assumed to look upon a negro's sufferings with sympathy, scoffing at the finer feelings of mankind. Twice had his rapacity been let loose-twice had it nearly ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... English clubs and English oarsmen whose fame had never before come to his ears. Several times, and, once above all, on the question of sliding-seats, he was within an ace of exposure. As for the Cigarette, who has rowed races in the heat of his blood, but now disowns these slips of his wanton youth, his case was still more desperate; for the Royal Nautical proposed that he should take an oar in one of their eights on the morrow, to compare the English with the Belgian stroke. I could see my friend perspiring in his chair whenever ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... young man unreservedly agreed—"like a wanton meddling ass!" His candour, his freedom had decidedly a note of their own. "But my conviction, after those moments with your picture, was too strong for me not to speak—and, since you allow it, I face the danger and ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... down here is worth singing about like that!" continued the glazier, as the Scotchman again melodized with a dying fall, "My ain countree!" "When you take away from among us the fools and the rogues, and the lammigers, and the wanton hussies, and the slatterns, and such like, there's cust few left to ornament a song with in Casterbridge, or the ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... know? Easily!—inasmuch as she knows all things. 'Twould have been strange indeed had she NOT known!" and he caught at a down-drooping rose and crushed its fragrant head in his hand with a sort of wanton petulance—"The King himself is less acquainted with his people's doings than the wearer of the All- Reflecting Eye! Thou hast not yet seen that weird mirror and potent dazzler of human sight, . . no,—but thou WILT see it ere long,—the glittering ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... the plain; and, ere ye strip the slain, First give another stab to make your search secure, Then shake from sleeves and pockets their broad-pieces and lockets, The tokens of the wanton, the plunder of ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... done for you! Ah! the dolt! To trust a wanton! To trust Warcolier! To trust everybody! To trust ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... fight. And far away in the East—yes it was the East's business to see what went on in the West—were myriads of wage-earners forced to pay exorbitantly for coal and wood and lumber and house rent because of this wanton waste; this seizing fraudulently by the few of the property belonging to the many. If they had thrown down the challenge, assuredly he was taking it up! What would the people do about it, he wondered, when they came to know? Would ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... abundantly manifest that the object was by wounding the feelings of and belittling the Filipino Government to provoke a collision, and it was clear also that this system of exasperating us was not merely the wanton act of the soldiery but was actually prompted by General Otis himself, who, imbued with imperialistic tendencies, regarded the coming of the Civil Commission with disfavour and especially would it be unsatisfactory that this Commission should find the Philippines in a state ...
— True Version of the Philippine Revolution • Don Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy
... on his feet again, purple with rage. With uplifted scimitar he sprang toward our host. The old man stepped between. Ja-khaz, with wanton cruelty, brought his steel upon the ancient head, and stretched him upon the floor. For an instant the younger one stood horror-stricken, then snatching from the floor the patriarch's staff—a heavy stick with an iron end—he jumped forward, and, quicker than words can tell it, ...
— The Last American - A Fragment from The Journal of KHAN-LI, Prince of - Dimph-Yoo-Chur and Admiral in the Persian Navy • J. A. Mitchell
... my vanished memory. I had hoped For better things; I hoped I should not leave This earth without a vestige. Fate decrees It shall be otherwise, and I submit. Henceforth, oh, world! no more of thy desires, No more of hope, that wanton vagrant hope; Now higher cares engross me, and my tired soul, With emulative haste, looks to its God, And prunes its ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... to be valued, and the avoidance of wanton opposition honoured. All men are swayed by class feeling and few are intelligent. Hence some disobey their lords and fathers or maintain feuds with neighbouring villages. But when the high are harmonious and the low friendly, and when there is concord ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... vile names in his ample vocabulary of billingsgate. The queen was present and aided and abetted with a word now and then, until Henry, with her help, at last succeeded in working himself into a towering passion, and wound up by calling Mary a vile wanton in plainer terms than I like to write. This aroused all the antagonism in the girl, and there was plenty of it. She feared Henry no more than she feared me. Her eyes flashed a fire that made even the king draw back as she exclaimed: ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... had the greatest curiosity about words, and as this was a new one, I looked it up in our large 'English Dictionary'. But there the definition of the term was this:—'Minx: the female of minnock; a pert wanton.' I was as much ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... palega. Wand vergo, vergego. Wander erari, vagi. Wander (be delirious) deliri. Wanderer nomadulo, vagisto. Wandering nomada, eraranta. Wane ekfinigxi. Wanness paleco. Want seneco, mizerego. Want (need, require) bezoni. Wanton malica. War milito—ado. Warble pepi. Warbler pepulo, silvio. Ward (guard) gardi, prizorgi. Ward (turn aside) deklinigi, evitigi. Ward (a person) zorgatulo. Ward (care) gardeco, zorgateco. Ward (district) kvartalo. Ward off deturni. Warder gardanto. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... case," returned the Harvard man. "Our forefathers killed in self-defense. You folks are killing out of wanton greed." ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... with Trevison last night had convinced her of the futility of hope. She had gone out of his life as a commonplace incident slips into the oblivion of yesteryear. Worse—he had refused to recall it. It hurt her, this knowledge—his rebuff. It had aroused cold, wanton passions in her—she had become a woman who did not care. She met Corrigan's gaze with a look of ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... city of Pho-hai'? That city no longer exists; but the memory of Kao-pien remains, for he was governor of the province of Sze-tchouen, and a mighty poet. And when he dwelt in the land of Chou, was not his favorite the beautiful wanton Sie,—Sie-Thao, unmatched for grace among all the women of her day? It was he who made her a gift of those manuscripts of song; it was he who gave her those objects of rare art. Sie-Thao died not as other women die. Her ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn
... eat. To be sure, they gave themselves a wide range; they were willing to eat almost anything that they could shoot, even blackbirds, which were so abundant and so easy to shoot. But there were some things which they would have thought it not only wanton but wicked to kill, like turtle-doves, which they somehow believed were sacred, nor robins either, because robins were hallowed by poetry, and they kept about the house, and were almost tame, so that it seemed a shame to shoot them. They were very plentiful, and so were the turtle-doves, ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... has the advantage that its discipline is the discipline of impersonal necessity, not that of wanton personal coercion. The eagerness of children in our industrial districts to escape from school to the factory is not caused by lighter tasks or shorter hours in the factory, nor altogether by the temptation of wages, nor even by the desire for novelty, but by the dignity of adult work, the ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... I shall not consent to any violence, no matter what the issue. Furthermore, I should like to be given charge of the palace, in order to see that his wants are properly provided for. We cannot afford to have our movement discredited at the outset by unnecessary bloodshed or by any wanton outrages." ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... appropriating the entire product, would receive, would be far less, not more, than what it actually receives to-day. Instead of defrauding it of any part of its due, the existing system is treating it with an extreme and even wanton generosity. ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... wife of Chad Harrison moved him to resentment at life's satiric paradoxes. To give this sweet young innocent to such a man was to mate a lamb with a tiger or a wolf. The outrage of it cried to Heaven. What could her mother be thinking of to allow such a wanton sacrifice? ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... mine ear be true, My best guide now. Methought it was the sound Of riot and ill-managed merriment, 172 Such as the jocund flute or gamesome pipe Stirs up among the loose unlettered hinds, When, for their teeming flocks and granges full, In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan, And thank the gods amiss. I should be loth To meet the rudeness and swilled insolence Of such late wassailers; yet, oh! where else Shall I inform my unacquainted feet 180 In the blind mazes of this tangled wood? My brothers, when they saw me wearied ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... and sermons and edicts were alike fruitless against those scandalous disorders, not less pernicious to military discipline, than repugnant to evangelic purity. In the first days of the siege and the possession of Antioch, the Franks consumed with wanton and thoughtless prodigality the frugal subsistence of weeks and months: the desolate country no longer yielded a supply; and from that country they were at length excluded by the arms of the besieging Turks. Disease, the faithful companion of want, was envenomed ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... will so commit them to our cause That they cannot stand off or "square" themselves; But to your wishes' height you'll all advance. The City's courts have houses of ill-fame, Town's palaces are full of wanton wealth, The slums are ruthless, ravenous ripe for crime. Then speak, and strike, brave boys, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 19, 1890 • Various
... authority. With a knowledge of this disposition, a British Chancellor of the Exchequer and Treasurer of the Navy, incited by no public advantage, impelled by no public necessity, in a strain of the most wanton perfidy which has ever stained the annals of mankind, have delivered over to plunder, imprisonment, exile, and death itself, according to the mercy of such execrable tyrants as Amir-ul-Omrah and Paul Benfield, the unhappy and deluded souls who, untaught by uniform example, were still ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of the library with Boag's Dictionary open in his hand. "'Minx: A pert, wanton girl. A she-puppy.' Do you hear that, Caroline? He calls his sister a wanton she-puppy." But Mamma had ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... writer because I think it necessary to our justification, nor from any fear that your Lordships will not do us the justice to believe that we have good authority for the facts which we state, and do not (as persons with their licentious tongues dare to say) wanton in fabulous antiquity. I quote the works of this author, because his observations and opinions could not be unknown to Mr. Hastings, whose associate he was in some acts, and whose adviser he appears to have been in that dreadful transaction, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... it, it is seen to expand into two large basins, at least as secure as any of the docks on the banks of the Thames, and capable of containing (I think) the whole British navy. We found the wreck of the Boyd in shoal water, at the top of the harbour, a most melancholy picture of wanton mischief. The natives had cut her cables, and towed her up the harbour till she had grounded, and then set her on fire, and burnt her to the water's edge. In her hold were seen the remains of her cargo—coals, ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... remember, we were at Balbec, I saw him one day make an almost tasteless preparation out of pure black nicotine, which in mere wanton lust he afterwards gave to some of the dwellers by the Caspian to drink. But the fiend would surely never dream of giving to me that browse of hell—to me an aged man, and a ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... The wanton infliction of pain on man or beast is a crime; pity is that so many of those who (as I think rightly) hold this view, seem to forget that the criminality lies in the wantonness and not in the act of inflicting pain ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... reached a large bungalow, which, we afterwards learned, had been the commissioner's house, and as I went with my companion from room to room, which at one time must have been furnished in exquisite taste, there were traces of the wanton destruction of a savage mob. Furniture had been smashed, the floor was littered with the remains of mirrors and ornaments; curtains and carpets were torn to shreds, and everything that could be battered and destroyed ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... Judicial Pomp and Social Pleasure Now indeed make marvellous meeting. See with suasion firmly sweet That brisk trio, gaily greeting To that portal guide his feet. Neptune's hoarse hails his friend's approach declare, Probate, the winged sprite, about must play; With wanton wings that winnow the soft air In gliding state Lord Cupid leads the way To where grave Law must mark, assay, reprove Wanderings of young Desire, and lures ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 14, 1891. • Various
... I hold it venerable, and even sacred, in all its shapes, and every mode of composition. The pathetic of tragedy, of which you, Maternus, are so great a master; the majesty of the epic, the gaiety of the lyric muse; the wanton elegy, the keen iambic, and the pointed epigram; all have their charms; and Eloquence, whatever may be the subject which she chooses to adorn, is with me the sublimest faculty, the queen of all the arts and sciences. But this, Maternus, is no apology for you, whose conduct is ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... or else through fear, thinking that this at least would cause the foreigners to respect their position. Bands of revelers accordingly jeered at them,—they were still celebrating the festival, which, although they were at no time noted for temperate behavior, rendered them still more wanton,—and finally a man planted himself in the road of Postumius and, with a forward inclination, threw him down and soiled his clothing. At this an uproar arose from all the rest, who praised the fellow as if he had performed ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... In wanton rage at his defeat, Prince Maurice fired red-hot balls and bars of twisted lead into the town; but no farther attempt was made to capture it, and the following day his army was in full retreat, he having heard that the Earl of Essex with a large force ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... back, and thrown them all into the sea Told us he had not been in a bed in the whole seven years Too much of it will make her know her force too much Two shops in three, if not more, generally shut up Up, leaving my wife in bed, being sick of her months Wanton as ever she was, with much I made myself merry and away Well enough pleased this morning with their night's lodging What silly discourse we had by the way as to love-matters When she least shews it hath her wit at work Where money is free, there is great plenty Which may teach me ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... shade anywhere—that is, outside the houses. For the place had grown up on the crests of the bald, green rollers of the Western plains as though its original seedling had been tossed there by the wanton summer breezes, ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... rule was not so stern as wholly to withdraw from them the right of self-disposal—all tended to drive the youth of Campania in troops to the standards of the recruiting officers. As a matter of course, this wanton and unscrupulous selling of themselves here, as everywhere, brought in its train estrangement from their native land, habits of violence and military disorder, and indifference to the breach of their allegiance. These Campanians could see no reason why a band of mercenaries should ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... peoples, the antagonistic, furious, implacable God—that was a ridiculous conception. A cheap, a vain one. "As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods." Wasn't that how Shakspere's blind king had uttered it? "They kill us for their sport." How strangely flattering—to believe that the Immensity that had conceived and wrought the unbelievable universe should ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... thief; though in open daylight a robber could not be slain without some previous evidence of danger and complaint. Whoever surprised an adulterer in his nuptial bed might freely exercise his revenge; the most bloody and wanton outrage was excused by the provocation; nor was it before the reign of Augustus that the husband was reduced to weigh the rank of the offender, or that the parent was condemned to sacrifice his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... their houses, and took the spoil of them, as they would have done of us." After this exploit they returned to the ship and set sail immediately. It does not appear from the journal that the natives had ever offered them any harm or given any provocation for so wanton an act. The writer only asserts that they would have done it if they could. No plea is more commonly used to justify tyranny and cruelty than the supposed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... convenience, which might be expected to occur did people copy the ways of the really best, or follow their own ideas of propriety, we have a reign of mere whim, of unreason, of change for the sake of change, of wanton oscillations from either extreme to the other—a reign of usages without meaning, times without fitness, dress without taste. And thus life a la mode, instead of being life conducted in the most rational manner, ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... revelation is concerned, we are far richer than the patriarchs. But their devotion to a comparatively inferior revelation was greater; they were lovers of the bridegroom. We, on the other hand, are that fat, bloated, wanton servant, Deut 32, 15; for we have the Word and are overwhelmed by the ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... planets seven, I suspect, in wild abnormal Interchange of influences, Must have at my hapless birth-time All their various gifts presented. Fickleness the Moon implanted In my nature; subtle Hermes With and genius ill-employed; (Better ne'er to have possessed them); Wanton Venus gave me passions — All the flatteries of the senses, And stern Mars a cruel mind (Mars and Venus both together What will they not give?); the Sun Gave to me an easy temper, Prone to spend, and when means failed me Theft ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... by Dioneo are all apparently of a light, if not a wanton, character and "not fit to be ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... imminence of the danger, in having to contend with armed men instead of ferocious brutes, and in the higher value of the prizes which they would obtain in case of success. The idea of there being any injustice or wrong in this wanton and unprovoked aggression upon the territories of a neighboring nation seems not to have entered the mind either of the royal robber himself ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... later we received the usual insulting communication on a sheet of Charles's own dainty note. Last time he wrote it was on Craig-Ellachie paper: this time, like the wanton lapwing, he had ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... the warm blood that runs into song, chiefly because song is the voice of a joy. And no doubt, when I look back on the past years I must own that I have too often been led astray from the objects set before my reason, and cherished at my heart, by erring impulse or wanton fancy." ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... were found in the houses, and hatchets made of hard and heavy stone. One of the seamen declared that he found a human arm roasting, but this statement was probably made to excuse himself and his companions for the wanton mischief they had committed. ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... to point out any defects and excesses of which Byron was guilty at this period beyond what were common to other fashionable young men of rank and leisure, except a spirit of religious scepticism and impiety, and a wanton and inexcusable recklessness in regard to women, which made him a slave to his passions. The first alienated him, so far as he was known, from the higher respectable classes, who generally were punctilious in the outward observances of religion; and the second made ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... distresses Mock those starts of wanton glee; And thy inmost soul confesses Chaste ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... and had touched at the Cape some time before, reported, that we were in a most wretched state, having only fourteen hands left on board the Resolution, and seven on board the Discovery. It is not easy to conceive the motive these people could have had for propagating so wanton and malicious a falsehood. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... .22 rifle. A gopher is only a little bigger than a chipmunk, and usually pokes nothing more than his head out of his hole, so when I got thirteen out of fifteen shots I began to feel that I was a sharp-shooter. But don't regard this as wanton cruelty, for the gopher is worse than a rat, and in this country the government agents supply homesteaders with an annual allowance of free strychnine to ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... O wanton one, O wicked one, how was it that you came, Down from the paths of purity, to walk the streets of shame? And wherefore was that precious wealth, God gave to you in trust, Flung broadcast for the feet of men ...
— The Englishman and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... undergone a revulsion of feeling. The assault of the old woman on two harmless strangers seemed too wanton to be tolerated. Ludlow's easy manner and calm language restored them fully to their senses, and the sight of his revolver effectually overawed the more excitable or reckless. They were also jealous of the good name of the ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... could there be found on record a murderer, whose cruel act might compare with his? What fiend more wanton in his mischief, what damned soul more worthy of perdition! But he was not reserved for this agony of self-reproach. He sent for medical assistance; the hours passed, spun by suspense into ages; the darkness ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... some strange unrest—some change that's seemed to come over everything. But she can't prove to me the death of anything outside of herself. She can't prove that any more than Mel Iden's confession proved her a wanton. It didn't. Not to me. Why, when Mel put her hand on my breast—on this medal—and looked at me—I had such a thrill as I never had before in all my life. Never!... Blair, it's not dead. That beautiful thing you mentioned—that spirit—that fire which burned ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... nothing to do for the moment, like a man in absolute leisure, turns his thoughts to God. He believes that God is neither good nor bad, but simply capricious. What's the use of being God, if you can't do what you like? He treats earth's creatures as a wanton boy treats his toys; they belong to me; why shouldn't I break them if I choose? No one ought to complain of misfortunes: you can not expect God is going to reward the virtuous and punish the guilty. He has no standards ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... built a wall around these fine ruins for their protection from wanton destruction. It takes proof of the kind afforded by these ruins to convince this unbelieving generation that the ancient Irish were skilled carvers on stone, and architects of no mean order. I have looked into some of what has been said as ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... first real interlude which has come down to us is that called De Clerico et Puella, Of the Cleric and the Maiden, which was written not later than the early fourteenth century. This is little more than a dialogue depicting the attempted seduction of a maiden by a wanton cleric. The only other surviving fourteenth-century interlude, that of Dux Maraud, is, on the other hand, the dramatization of a tragic tale of incest and murder. This is, however, somewhat exceptional, and may perhaps be regarded as belonging rather to a type of miracle play not ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... hammered out for himself an iron spade?" He condemned Scott's historical writings: "Strange," he said, "that a man should think he was writing the history of a nation while he is describing the amours of a wanton young woman and a sulky booby blown up with gunpowder." After having slighted biography in this characteristically Carlylese utterance, he straightway set to work, with splendid inconsistency, to base his philosophy of history mainly ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... might have been mistaken for a young jaguar, was his special pet, and when this beautiful animal followed him, purring, into the pantry, and he always followed, there was no end to the dainty morsels given him. The best was none too good. This wanton waste made the Schroeder girl, faithful soul that she was, fly into a rage, for she often saw her plans for dinner ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... again," said Grace, dryly, as with eyes askance she bent a sapling down. "But I am not incensed against you as you are against me," she added, abandoning the tree to its natural perpendicular. "Before I came I had been despising you for wanton cruelty; now I only pity you for misplaced affection. When Edgar has gone out of the house in hope of seeing you, at seasonable hours and unseasonable; when I have found him riding miles and miles across the country at midnight, and risking his life, ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... monuments in Europe. Now there was no military significance in this; it was simply an exhibition of unbridled rage and savagery. With Rheims Cathedral, and hundreds of lesser churches and chateaux, these ruins will be perpetual monuments to the wanton ruthlessness ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... With tape-tied curtains never meant to draw, The George and Garter, dangling from that bed, Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red, Great Villiers lies. Alas! how changed from him, That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim! Gallant and gay, in Cliveden's proud alcove, The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love; Or just as gay, at Council, in a ring Of mimic statesmen, and their merry king, No wit to flatter, left of all his store! No fool to laugh at, which he valued more. There, ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... village of Socorro, in New Mexico, has been the scene of a fearful tragedy. A band of desperadoes had gradually collected there, who indulged in the most wanton acts of outrage and barbarity, upon the Mexican residents, finally ending in more than one deliberate murder. A few members of the Boundary Commission who had been left there, headed an organization ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... for spoil, sacked and destroyed their houses, and pulled down and burned their towers and palaces with such outrageous fury, that the most cruel enemy of the Florentine name would have been ashamed of taking part in such wanton destruction. ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... in the nursery rhymes of our literature. Yet in its place a malignant spirit of evil revels in the ruin of the human race; it delights in the crowd; it loves the gaslight, the lascivious song and wanton dance; it presides over our convivial banquets with brow crowned with ivy and faded roses; whilst all the unholy delights of earth sacrifice to it, in return it scatters amongst its adorers all the ills and sorrows that flow from ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... Gabine land: Besides the succours which cold Anien yields: The rocks of Hernicus—besides a band That followed from Velinum's dewy land— And mountaineers that from Severus came: And from the craggy cliffs of Tetrica; And those where yellow Tiber takes his way, And where Himella's wanton waters play: Casperia sends her arms, with those that lie By ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... I heard the cry of the wanton sea And the moan of the wailing wind; For love's sweet pain in his heart had he, But the gray old sea ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... The first, being used in Churches, should be sung as becomes the Sanctity of the Place, which does not admit those wanton Graces of a lighter Stile; but requires some Messa di Voce, many Appoggiatura's, and a noble Majesty throughout. But the Art of expressing it, is not to be learned, but from the affecting Manner of those who devoutly dedicate their ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... dark that their very hideousness protects them from exposure. During a decade and a half, while Mahdism controlled the country, there flourished a tyranny which for cruelty, blood-thirstiness, unintelligence, and wanton destructiveness surpassed anything which a civilized people can even imagine. The keystones of the Mahdist party were religious intolerance and slavery, with murder and the most abominable cruelty as the method ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... ribald line Which tells his lapse from duty, How kissed the maddening lips of wine Or wanton ones ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... had ever borne towards Ilius with Priam and his people; for they forgave not the wrong done them by Alexandrus in disdaining the goddesses who came to him when he was in his sheepyards, and preferring her who had offered him a wanton to his ruin. ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... the way. As to its looks, it belongs to 1814, and is plain and simple enough, but it carries a graceful clock tower and a copper cupola, and its destruction is not to be thought of. The day has gone for wanton throwing into the past what the past has left, and the little Town Hall will continue to slow down the traffic and draw visitors to the High Street, it is to be hoped, for many years to come. The town corporation have done better for themselves than to pull down the old ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... Wanton, mutual annihilation inevitable: so long as a single polis wished to exist—its envy for everything superior to itself, its cupidity, the disorder of its customs, the enslavement of the women, lack of conscience in the keeping of oaths, in ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... speedily alarmed the garrison, who, hastening to their guns, opened fire on their own frigate, thus paying us the compliment of having taken it; though, even in this case, their own men must still have been on board, so that firing on them was a wanton proceeding, as several Spaniards were killed or wounded by the shot of the fortress, and amongst the wounded was Captain Coig, the commander of the Esmeralda—who, after he was made prisoner, received a severe contusion by a ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... for waging such a war against Egypt. The monarch who had deceived his father was dead, and there had never been any cause of complaint against his son or against the Egyptian people. Psammenitus, therefore, regarded the invasion of Egypt by Cambyses as a wanton and wholly unjustifiable aggression, and he determined, in his own mind, that such invaders deserved no mercy, and that he would show them none. Soon after this, a galley on the river, belonging to Cambyses, containing a crew of two hundred men, fell into ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the Moorish ranks was deeply interested in forwarding their views, his disorderly and savage followers were affording proofs of their wanton cruelty and insubordination. El Feri saw with disgust and sorrow, that the men he led to the field adhered not to the principles which they pretended to profess. He perceived that his army more resembled a horde of undisciplined barbarians than true and sincere patriots; ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... of lords shall be abhorr'd, For every man's a brother; No reason why in Church and State One man should rule another; But when the change of government Shall set our fingers free, We'll make these wanton sisters stoop, And hey, then, up ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... hast; then hear: The changeling King who oft has kneel'd before me, And own'd no other pow'r, now treats me With ill dissembl'd love mix'd with disdain. A newer beauty rules his faithless heart, Which only in variety is blest; Oft have I heard him, when wrapt up in sleep, And wanton fancy rais'd the mimic scene, Call with unusual fondness on Evanthe, While I have lain neglected by his side, Except sometimes in a mistaken rapture He'd clasp me to ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey
... "'Tis a wanton wastrel, and he well deserves the pillory. But, Rebecca, I've a mind to see what observance these people will give the varlet. Last time I saw one pilloried, alas! they slew him with shards and paving-stones. This fellow is liker to ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... advance of the Confederate troops when they invaded Maryland, or, who perhaps, living unfortunately in the very track of the conflicting armies, found themselves driven from their burning homesteads, and devastated fields, victims of a wanton soldiery. Destitute, ragged and shelterless, their condition appealed with peculiar force to the friends of the Union. State aid was by no means sufficient, and unorganized charity ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... embitter your visit with it. Not that I think you wouldn't like to read it, for I think you would; but not on a holiday that's not the time. I see how you were situated—another familiarity of Providence and wholly wanton intrusion—and of course we could not help ourselves. Well, just think of it: a while ago, while Providence's attention was absorbed in disordering some time-tables so as to break up a trip of mine to Mr. Church's on the Hudson, that Johnstown dam got loose. I swear I was afraid ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the clamb'ring Ivy grew, Knitting his wanton arms with grasping hold, Lest that the poplar happely should rew Her brother's strokes, whose boughs she doth enfold With her lythe twigs, till they the top survew And paint with pallid green her ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the will, the cruel will, of love-inciting Venus, Who takes delight in wanton sport and ill-considered jokes, And brings ridiculous misfits beneath her brazen yokes,— A very infelicitous proceeding, just ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... principle. Reason and understanding are represented as the voluntary slaves of the senses. Hence we shall find that the very principle of Comedy necessarily occasioned that which in Aristophanes has given so much offence; namely, his frequent allusions to the base necessities of the body, the wanton pictures of animal desire, which, in spite of all the restraints imposed on it by morality and decency, is always breaking loose before one can be aware of it. If we reflect a moment, we shall find that even in the present day, on our own stage, the infallible ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... could show an arrogant contempt of the simple family life which had reigned there had been done. There was a kind of childish spitefulness in the sword thrusts through the few pictures which hung on the walls. The German genius for destruction and wanton vandalism was evident in broken knick-knacks and mottoes of hate and bloody vengeance scrawled ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... royalty, he laid no hand on any pillar of the throne. But Beaumarchais, in "The Marriage of Figaro," singled out especially what were called the privileged classes; he attacked the licentiousness of the nobles; the pretentious imbecility of ministers and diplomatists; the cruel injustice of wanton arrests and imprisonments of protracted severity against which there was no appeal nor remedy; and the privileged classes in consequence denounced his work, and their complaints of its character and tendency made such an impression ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... kind, from the lawless and ruthless savagery which characterizes the warfare of the Teutons against the Entente Powers. A civilizing mute would deaden the resonance of bestial passion; and even private property—in especial that of Germany—would be safe from confiscation and wanton destruction, and when peace is restored the rich mercury mines of Italy will again belong to the Kaiser and his advisers. Last summer[30] a series of private meetings was held for three days running in Switzerland, ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... forbid the time may ever come when the temples of justice in our land shall be desecrated by this unhallowed and contaminating influence, or by wanton disregard of the Constitution, or by a perfidious delinquency on the part of the ministers of the law. Here let passion and prejudice find no abiding place. Here let equal and exact justice be meted out to all men—to rich and to the ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... and wanton: Till they killed the colibris. Then outspake the great Good Spirit, Who can see through ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... sing, if ye will hearken, If ye will hearken unto me; The king has ta'en a poor prisoner, The wanton laird ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various
... so vital to her happiness, angrily repulsed and insulted both of them, even after he saw that a marriage was inevitable. The consequence was, as has been mentioned, that Markland, who possessed an independent spirit, would not go to the house of his father-in-law; and Mary, resenting the wanton attacks that had been made upon her husband's feelings in more than one or two instances, absented herself also. Mr. Howland, however much he might regret the hardness of his unavailing opposition, was not the man to yield anything; ...
— The Iron Rule - or, Tyranny in the Household • T. S. Arthur
... day, Mine honest Labours God will Bless, But he hateth Idleness. My King, and all my Governors, My Parents and Superiors, These I must Honour and Obey, To these I must my Duty pay. I must not be Rude nor Wild, I must not be a Wanton Child: I must sing no wanton Songs, I must forgive my Neighbours wrongs: I must speak of no Man ill, But to all must bear good will: I had better die Than tell a Lie. I must not sin, A World to win. My Tongue Must do no wrong. ...
— A Little Catechism, 1692 • John Mason
... straggling bands of Irish made their appearance and demanded food: but it can scarcely be imputed to them as a crime that they did not choose to die of hunger; and there is no evidence that they committed any wanton outrage. In truth they were much less numerous than was commonly supposed; and their spirit was cowed by finding themselves left on a sudden without leaders or provisions, in the midst of a mighty population which felt towards them as men feel towards a drove of wolves. Of all the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... rather to the history of Sweden than of Gustavus. Enough to say that, having by promises of peace and pardon got all the leading Swedes into his power, he had them murdered, and then he and his soldiers went on slaying the common people right and left in mere wanton savagery. All the surviving nobles were in his pay; the least suspicion of an uprising was crushed with an iron hand, the least murmur of discontent brought death. Never had Sweden seemed more helpless in the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... blaspheme the Author of nature, formally and in words renounce their allegiance to their Creator. Put an instance, then, with respect to any one of these three. Though we should suppose profane swearing, and in general that kind of impiety now mentioned, to mean nothing, yet it implies wanton disregard and irreverence towards an infinite Being our Creator; and is this as suitable to the nature of man as reverence and dutiful submission of heart towards that Almighty Being? Or suppose a man guilty of parricide, with all the circumstances of cruelty which such an action can admit ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... forms of decency without really violating its laws. Hacquet moreover only half understood those songs of the Slovenzi. We will at least not condemn them without having seen them. Among the Russian songs, there are some of a certain wanton and equivocal character, displaying with perfect naivete a scarcely half-veiled sensuality. The boldness, with which these songs are sung in chorus by young peasant women, has often excited the astonishment of foreigners. The number of ballads of this description, ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... to me that the evidence I have submitted above clears the Allies, including Russia, of any wanton breach of faith toward Rumania, though the failure of their intention to relieve her certainly does not diminish their responsibility toward ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... When the bull of Attis was sacrificed his worshippers were drenched with its blood, and were afterwards ceremonially fed with milk, as they were supposed to have "renewed their youth" and become children. The ancient Greek god Eros (Cupid) was represented as a wanton boy or handsome youth. Another god of fertility, the Irish Angus, who resembles Eros, is called "the ever young"; he slumbers like Tammuz and ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... but seemed to think that the function of the American men of war. It was no secret at the time that sentiment in the Navy was strongly pro-Ally. Probably had it been wholly neutral the mind of any commander would have revolted at this spectacle of wanton destruction of property and callous indifference to human life. It is quite probable that had this event occurred before the invention of wireless telegraphy had robbed the navy commander at sea of all initiative, there ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... received them with every appearance of good will. But this was merely a mask. A few hours later the treacherous savages suddenly fell upon and slew the messengers of peace. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., 238, 239, etc.; also Marshall.] It was never learned whether the deed was the mere wanton outrage of some blood-thirsty young braves, or the result of orders given by one of the Indian councils. At any rate, the Indians never punished the treachery; and when the chiefs wrote to Washington they mentioned ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... a fair companion of his way, A goodly Lady clad in scarlet red, Purfled with gold and pearl of rich assay, And like a Persian mitre on her head She wore, with crowns and riches garnished, The which her lavish lovers to her gave; Her wanton palfrey all was overspread With tinsell trappings, woven like a wave, Whose bridle rang with golden bells ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... Lee, and to many besides, that notwithstanding the extensive researches of Wodrow and others, there have died away in the silent lapse of time, or are still hovering over our cleuchs and glens, in the aspect of a dim and misty tradition, many instances of extreme cruelty and wanton oppression, exercised (during the reign of Charles II.) over the poor Covenanters, or rather Nonconformists, of the south and west counties of Scotland. In particular, although the whole district suffered, it was in the vale of the Nith, and in the hilly portion of the parish of Closeburn, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... share of mischief. If they have a grudge against an active magistrate or a thriving neighbour, his farmstead is set on fire, not once, but many times probably. Added to this, the Wallack takes an actual pleasure in wanton destruction. As an instance, an English company who are working coal mines in the neighbourhood of Orsova have been obliged within the last two years to relay their railway from the mines to the Danube no less than three times, in consequence of the Wallacks persistently ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... the war declared between the United States and Mexico, Colonel Fremont thought it expedient to return to California. He judged it, however, to be necessary first, as a lesson to the savages, to punish them severely for their wanton murder of his men. Kit Carson, at the head of ten chosen mountaineers, was sent forward in search of their strongholds. If he discovered them without being seen himself he was to return for reinforcements. If seen he was to ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... some one or a few, doth naturally spread itself towards many, and maketh men become humane and charitable; as it is seen sometime in friars. Nuptial love maketh mankind; friendly love perfecteth it; but wanton love ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... Incomparably nerved and cheered, The enormous heart of London joys to beat To the measures of his rough, majestic song: The lewd, perennial, overmastering spell That keeps the rolling universe ensphered And life and all for which life lives to long Wanton and wondrous ...
— The Song of the Sword - and Other Verses • W. E. Henley
... Nicholas, of Rhode Island, cheering letter written to Washington by, i. 597; supply of powder sent by, to the camp at Cambridge, i. 628; acting governor of Rhode Island in place of Governor Wanton (note), i. 729. ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... The wanton youths less violently shake thy fastened windows with their redoubled knocks, nor do they rob you of your rest; and your door, which formerly moved its yielding hinges freely, now sticks lovingly to its threshold. Less and ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... were Christians; but he was a heathen, the only unbeliever on the island, a gross materialist, who believed that when he died he was dead. He believed merely in fair play and square dealing. Petty meanness, in his code, was almost as serious as wanton homicide; and I do believe that he respected a murderer more than a man ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... learned, for instance, in his industrious quest after knowledge; the merchant, in his dangerous voyages; the ambitious, in his passionate pursuit of honour; the conqueror, in his earnest desire of victory; the politician, in his deep-laid designs; the wanton, in his pleasing charms of beauty; the covetous, in his unwearied heaping-up of treasure; and the prodigal, in his general and extravagant indulgence.—Thus far it may be well;—but, so mistaken are we in our road, as to run on in the very opposite tract, which leads directly to our ruin. ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... instances Hazlitt was consciously the aggressor, but his attacks were never wanton. He denounced Wordsworth and Coleridge and Southey because they were renegades from the cause which lay nearest to his heart. Their apostasy was an unforgivable offence in his eyes, and his wrath was proportioned to the admiration which ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... lack of opposition the mob grew more cheerful. The lion played. They pressed forward, wanton and jeering, firing now and then at random, breaking windows as they passed, looting small shops which they stripped like locusts. Their pockets bulging, and the taste of pillage forecasting what was to come, they moved onward more rapidly, shooting at upper windows ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the turning point of the poem. As soon as the mariner felt in his heart love for the "happy living things," the spell which had been laid on him for the wanton slaying of the albatross began to break. In the third stanza from the end of the poem, this point is ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... whether the relation into which marriage betrays them be decent or indecent. What I should like to be able to discover is—what provision does either man or civilization propose to make for the woman whom Fate, in wanton irony, reduces, even in marriage, to the self-considered level of the girl ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... two days of grace had passed for those doleful hostages in the Plymouth Adventure. They beheld the black flag hoisted to the rigging of the Revenge as a signal of tragic import, but the bandy-legged monster with the festooned whiskers was not to disport himself with this wanton butchery. The sky had closed darkly around the becalmed ships, in sodden clouds which were suddenly obscured by mist and rain while the wind sighed in fitful gusts. It steadied into the southward and swiftly increased in force until ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... earth. He regarded the Brethren as a noisome pest. Not a stone did he and his servants leave unturned to destroy them. They began with the churches. Instead of razing them to the ground, which would, of course, have been wanton waste, they turned them into Roman Catholic Chapels by the customary methods of purification and rededication. They rubbed out the inscriptions on the walls, and put new ones in their places, lashed the pulpits with whips, beat the altars with ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... us and our path was strewn with flowers. And now! Now we came two fugitives from the vengeance of the Teules, I borne in a litter by four tired soldiers, while Otomie, the princess of this people, still clad in her wanton's robe, at which the women mocked, for she had been able to come by no other, tramped at my side, since there were none to carry her, and the inhabitants of the place cursed us as the authors of their woes. Nor did we know if they would ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... remembers that what it is not possible for man to perform, it is scarce possible for man to believe he did perform. This conviction perhaps gave birth to many stories of the antient heathen deities (for most of them are of poetical original). The poet, being desirous to indulge a wanton and extravagant imagination, took refuge in that power, of the extent of which his readers were no judges, or rather which they imagined to be infinite, and consequently they could not be shocked at any prodigies related of it. This hath been strongly urged in defence ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... over Vienna and could drop tons of bombs. On the contrary we leave a salutation and the flag with its colors of liberty. We Italians do not make war on children, the aged and women. We make war on your government, which is the enemy of the liberty of nations,—on your blind, wanton, cruel government, which gives you neither peace nor bread, and nurtures you on hatred and delusions. People of Vienna, you have the reputation of being intelligent, why then do you wear the Prussian uniform? Now you see the entire world is ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... him in the sea. O, but when he returneth whence he came Down to the west, then dawns his deity, Then doubled is the swelling of his looks. He overloads his car with orient gems, And reins his fiery horses with rich pearl. He terms himself the god of poetry, And setteth wanton songs ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... utterly abhorrent to the generous sympathies of the whole American people. Every possible kindness compatible with the necessity of removal must therefore be shown by the troops; and if in the ranks a despicable individual should be found capable of inflicting a wanton injury or insult on any Cherokee man, woman, or child, it is hereby made the special duty of the nearest good officer or man instantly to interpose, and to seize and consign the guilty wretch to the severest penalty of ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... himself too. This Margot, who had just taken off her gloves to drink her wine, had large, red hands, and seemed as silly as a goose, but all the same she was a beautiful creature, and the poet began to talk to her, while she laughed and looked at him with a wanton's eyes. Meanwhile the orchestra burst into a polka, and Maurice, in raising his voice to speak to his friend, called him several times Amedee, and once only by his family name, Violette. Suddenly little Rosine started up and looked at ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... had never before come into Bailey's life. He had read of somewhat similar cases in the papers, and had passed harsh judgment on the man and woman. He had called the woman wanton and the man a villain, but here the verdict was less easy to render. He liked Mrs. Burke, and he loved his friend. He had looked into their faces many times during the last six months without detecting any signs of degradation; on the contrary, Blanche ...
— The Moccasin Ranch - A Story of Dakota • Hamlin Garland
... is mere folly,' said the Duchess. 'We hold not Catholic tenets on merit in abstaining, but rather go by St. Paul's advice that the younger widows should marry, rather than wax wanton. And, to tell you the truth, Maitre Gardon, this daughter of yours does seem to have ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... have to, at any rate—to know better—if that's the line you're proposing to take." Mrs. Wix had never been so harsh; but on the other hand Maisie could guess that she herself had never appeared so wanton. What was underlying, however, rather overawed than angered her; she felt she could still insist—not for contradiction, but for ultimate calm. Her wantonness meanwhile continued to work upon her friend, who caught again, on the rebound, ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... Governor had made no conditions as to the mode in which the war was to be carried on. He had troubled himself about nothing, but his forty lacs; and, though he might disapprove of Sujah Dowlah's wanton barbarity, he did not think himself entitled to interfere, except by offering advice. This delicacy excites the admiration of the biographer. "Mr. Hastings," he says, "could not himself dictate to the Nabob, nor permit the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... disliked. Over and over again we find the Church councils complaining that the peasants (and sometimes the priests too) were singing 'wicked songs with a chorus of dancing women,' or holding 'ballads and dancings and evil and wanton songs and such-like lures of the devil';[14] over and over again the bishops forbade these songs and dances; but in vain. In every country in Europe, right through the Middle Ages to the time of the ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... all life? to which we either abandon ourselves in chill patience, or weep and struggle against it convulsively, or play through a caricature of happiness and joy, while in our dreary heart we are fully aware that it is all a wanton lie." ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... one case since it was taken," replied AEmilius. "That was a veritable murder. A vicious, dissolute lad stabbed a wounded Goth in a lonely place, out of vengeful spite. I readily delivered him up to the kinsfolk for justice, and as this proved me to be in earnest, these wanton outrages have become much more rare. Unfortunately, however, the fellow was son to one of the widows of the Church—a holy woman, and a favourite of my little Columba, who daily feeds and tends the poor thing, and thinks her old ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... little groups of striking employes have gathered, holding aloof from the reckless and infuriated mob, appalled at the sight of riot and devastation resulting from their ill-advised action. Many of their number, conscious of their responsibility for the scenes of bloodshed and pillage and wanton destruction of property, public and private, would now gladly undo their work and array themselves among the few defenders of the great corporations they have served for years and deserted at the call of leaders whom they never saw and in a cause they never understood, but there can ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... the Bay of Baia, and from its windows commanded the same exquisite view which had charmed Cicero and Lucullus, Severus and the Antonines. Hard by stood Baia, the princely seaside resort of the empire. That most luxurious and wanton of all cities of antiquity survived the cataclysms of ages, and only lost its civic continuity and became the ruined village of to-day in the sack of the fifteenth century. But a continuity of wickedness is not so easily ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... an appalling destruction of property and loss of life. Brant proved himself one of the most successful of the leaders in this border warfare, and while he does not seem ever to have been guilty of wanton cruelty himself, those under him, on more than one occasion, ruthlessly murdered their foes, irrespective of age or sex. That he tacitly permitted his followers to murder and scalp unarmed settlers shows that he was still ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... Hia was practically exterminated. This was the last great event in the life of Genghis Khan. He died in 1227, having by his ruthless warfare sent five millions of victims to the grave. With his last words he deplored the wanton cruelty with which his wars had been fought, and advised his people to refrain in future from such ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... and fresh and young, The stars hung in a cloudless sky, Sweet perfumes on the air were flung From every breeze went laughing by; The brook and bird in wanton glee, Attuned their notes in such refrain That earth was full of minstrelsy, And heaven ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... officious and good-natured; but, used to live a scrambling, rakish course of life himself, he had not the least idea of the extent of Lord Glenvarloch's mental sufferings, and thought of his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick of a wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his tutor. With the appearance of the place, too, he was familiar—but on his companion it produced a ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... mountain roe: 25 With many a wanton stroke Her feet disperse the powdery snow, That rises up ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... wealth and commerce of this proud city were at an end. Richberta herself, whose wanton act had raised the sand-bank, had her ships wrecked there one by one, and was reduced to begging for bread in the city whose wealthiest inhabitant she had once been. Then, perhaps, she could appreciate the words of the old traveller, that ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... a pretty fellow to prate about sallying forth at midnight to do good to thy fellow creatures!—Here we find thee, within an hour after thy departure from thy home, on an 'errand of mercy,' embraced in the soft arms of a pretty wanton, and revelling in the delights of voluptuousness. We might have portrayed thee as a paragon of virtue and chastity; we might have described thee as rejecting with holy horror the advances of that frail but ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... he preferred that it should be them. Preyer or preyed upon—such was the iron immutable law of life, from man in his highest development to the minutest of insects; and with this law he was but complying, not in wanton cruelty, ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... what Tongue can praise the mighty Worth, Who to Ridotto gave an English Birth; To him let every Templar bend the Knee, Receive a Ticket, and give up the Fee: Let Drury-Lane eternal Columns raise, And every wanton Wife resound his Praise; Let Courtiers with implicit Faith obey, And to their grand ...
— The Ladies Delight • Anonymous
... "This wanton sacrifice of horrors speaks eloquently of a forlorn hope! Sweep the walls with light, Kennedy; all those filthy things are nocturnal and they will retreat before us ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... insist that it shall be a thing of noble art and serious moral. He was no narrow-minded fanatic and will write a piece for great ladies to perform when asked by his accomplished friend Lawes: but he is already {120} the man who was later to denounce "court amours, Mix'd dance and wanton masque"; and if he writes a mask himself it will be to take the old "high-flown commonplace" of the magic power of chastity and give it an entirely new seriousness and beauty. The notion of Mr. Newbolt that there were two Miltons, one before and the other after the Civil ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... shame brought upon her attaches, in part, to them: they feel the injustice done them; and, if such a man, when the grey hairs, and tottering knees, and piping voice come, look round him in vain for a prop, let him, at last, be just, and acknowledge that he has now the due reward of his own wanton cruelty to one whom he had solemnly sworn to love and to cherish to the last hour of ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... situation. Even at this distance of time, I am shocked at it, and bitterly lament the painful necessity I have often been under of inflicting similar punishment; but I hope and trust I never did it without a cause, or in the wanton display of arbitrary power. ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... round another sighing (Forgot the serpents stinging at my breast), Gayly, when I in the dumb grave am lying, Pour the warm wish or speed the wanton jest, Or play, perchance, with his new maiden's tresses, Answer the kiss her lip enamored brings, When the dread block the head he cradled presses, And high the blood his kiss once ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... wanton band, Deep in our hearts we guard from scathe Of last year's log a smouldering brand, To light at ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days! Behold! The hire of the laborers who have reaped down thy fields, which you kept back by fraud, crieth, and the cries of them which have reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth! Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth and been wanton! Ye have nourished thy hearts as in a day of slaughter! Ye have condemned and killed the just!" Then addressing his words more closely to those about the table he said, "Be patient, therefore, brethern, unto ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... different cause. The wind failed to distress him. He had become accustomed to it in the months spent in preparing her home. It was like an old friend that sometimes whispered in his tired ears words of infinite sweetness. He forgave the wanton shrieks of it because of this sweetness, the sweetness of a capricious woman, all the more sweet because ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... that she should have dared to unbolt the door, or to withdraw the bars. What was she, that she should be trusted to open or to close the house? And there came upon him some idea of wanton and improper conduct. Why was she there at that hour? Must it be that he should put her again from ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... Icentum, in Warwickshire. In his youth, perceiving himself somewhat touched with wanton love on seeing a woman dance, he withdrew into a thicket hard by, and, lying prostrate, bewailed his fault before God, with very great contrition. And he was endowed from that time, by Almighty God, with the gift of such a constant watchfulness ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... captive in triumph to Samarkand. An attempt to facilitate his escape, by digging a mine under the tent, provoked the Mongol Emperor to impose a harsher restraint; and in his perpetual marches, an iron cage on a wagon might be invented, not as a wanton insult, but as a rigorous precaution. But the strength of Bajazet's mind and body fainted under the trial, and his premature death might, without injustice, be ascribed to the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... alliance countries voted against the admission of People's China to the United Nations during the Dulles Era. The stalemated outcome of the Korean War (1950-3) called Washington anti-socialist policies into serious question. The stupidities, mendacities and wanton cruelties of the United States' undeclared Vietnam War, even before the advent of Johnson and Nixon, had so weakened Washington leadership that no major power would associate itself with the adventure. The "Allies" ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... wiser. She realized what an awful price she was paying for her fun. She knew that, with the sacrifice of her chastity, she had surrendered everything a self-respecting woman holds dear, all for what—a few glittering trinkets! In what was she better than a common wanton? And what would her end be, but the end of all women of her kind? When her youth had passed and her beauty had faded, her admirers would grow cold and indifferent. Abandoned by all, friendless and homeless, she would go unwept to ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... these principles; and when, as I was saying, the elements of hot and cold, moist and dry, attain the harmonious love of one another and blend in temperance and harmony, they bring to men, animals, and plants health and plenty, and do them no harm; whereas the wanton love, getting the upper hand and affecting the seasons of the year, is very destructive and injurious, being the source of pestilence, and bringing many other kinds of diseases on animals and plants; for hoar-frost and hail and blight ...
— Symposium • Plato
... kind, Are gathered in groups on the level ice. They look on the robe and its beauty gladdens, And maddens their hearts for the splendid prize. Lo the rounded ankles and raven hair That floats at will on the wanton wind, And the round brown arms to the breezes bare, And breasts like the mounds where the waters meet, [4] And feet as fleet as the red deer's feet, And faces that glow like the full, round moon When she laughs in the ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... inculcate, I shall ever submit without murmur or reproach. But, when men, assuming that respectable office, openly violate all the duties attached to it, and, sinking the critic in the partizan, make a wanton attack on my veracity, it becomes proper to repel the injurious imputation; and the same spirit which dictates submission to the candid award of an impartial judge, prescribes indignation and scorn at the cowardly attacks of a ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... "public safety:" and from this committee went forth all accusations and arrests which were tantamount to condemnation.. Against these Robespierre now turned his power, but as they had been accustomed to act as they pleased, as they had been allowed to send victims to the scaffold even out of mere wanton cruelty, this act of Robespierre gave them offence, and they resolved upon his overthrow. It was reported by them, that Robespierre had demanded the heads of half the assembly, and this alarmed the major part into resistance. Foreboding the approaching storm, Robespierre, with his confidants, especially ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... and with judgment. It is to be used, not abused. I call that an abuse which squanders the precious and unreturning hours over long chronicles of depravity. The murders, the suicides, the executions, the divorces, the criminal trials, are each and all so like one another that it is only a wanton waste of time to read them. The morbid style in which social disorders of all kinds are written up in the sensational press, with staring headlines to attract attention, ought to warn off every healthy mind from their perusal. Every scandal in society that can be brought to the surface is ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... be good enough to tell me the name of this hulking young blackguard who assaults quiet elderly gentlemen, taking constitutionals, in this most unprovoked and wanton fashion," said the higher mathematician in the ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... this flag over into your custody, let me charge you to guard it with exceeding care. It should be treated with reverence because it symbolizes our common country. Whoever regards it with indifference has no patriotic blood in his veins. Whoever lays wanton hands on it is a traitor to it. And whoever insults or defames it in any way, deserves, and will receive, the open scorn and lasting contempt of all his countrymen. Ladies and ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene |
