"Wantonness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nature. It brings before us a group of persons, attractive, full of desire, vessels of the genial, seed-bearing powers of nature, a gaudy existence flowering out over the old court and city of Vienna, a spectacle of the fulness and [174] pride of life which to some may seem to touch the verge of wantonness. Behind this group of people, behind their various action, Shakespeare inspires in us the sense of a strong tyranny of nature and circumstance. Then what shall there be on this side of it—on our side, the ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... to wantonness, since—wishing to prove the swiftness of her horses—she ran over the daughter of the paraschites Pinem. Noble-hearted as she is, she herself carried the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... my subject, one word in season. Observe as a golden rule—never to be broken—this: Do not snare, shoot, nor kill any more birds or animals than you absolutely want—in fine, do not kill for killing's sake, or snare in wantonness. Let all you do have reference to some object to be attained, either to procure specimens wanted for a collection, or, in cases of necessity, for food. Bear this in mind, for, without sympathy with creatures fashioned in as complex and beautiful ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... the postcoach of ruin; the horses, that draw it are Vanity, Insolence, Luxury, and Credit; the footmen who ride behind it are Pride, Lust, Tyranny, and Oppression; the servants out of livery, that wait at table, {59}are Folly and Wantonness; them Sickness and Death take away. Were ladies once to see themselves in an ill temper, I question if ever again they would choose to appear in ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... He lived there for years and then found that the danger against which he had made such full preparations was not the one that threatened him. The natives did not revolt, though why they did not I do not understand, for he treated them like beasts of burden and killed many in mere wantonness. It was his own men who rose against him. They had gathered a great deal of gold, but grew homesick. They hated the country and begged him again and again to leave or allow them to go, since they had enough wealth for all. He swore that not one should depart till the store ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... court affected to receive Choisnin with favour, but their suppressed discontent was reserved for "the happy ambassador!" Affairs had changed; Charles the Ninth was dying, and Catharine de' Medici in despair for a son to whom she had sacrificed all; while Anjou, already immersed in the wantonness of youth and pleasure, considered his elevation to the throne of Poland as an exile which separated him from his depraved enjoyments! Montluc was rewarded only by incurring disgrace; Catharine de' Medici and the Duke of Anjou now looked ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Utrecht, and of Marpurg, by the liberality of his friends; but when he returned home, in the midst of the ravages caused by the Spanish arms, instead of being received by his mother, he found that she, as well as her daughters, and all her family, had been sacrificed to the wantonness of the ferocious enemy. His distress was for a while inconsolable; but the thirst after distinction called him to the newly-founded university of Leyden, where his industry acquired him the protection of the magistrates of Amsterdam, at whose expense he travelled to Geneva and Italy, to hear ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... swords, not voting tablets, in your hands, and it was in your power to aid the fellows if you liked; but, to speak the honest truth, you neither aided them nor did you join me in striking the disorderly. In other words, you enabled any evilly-disposed person among them to give rein to his wantonness by your passivity. For if you will be at pains to investigate, you will find that those who were then most cowardly are the ringleaders to-day in brutality ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... person he took himself to be? That he had neither the courage, nor the honesty, nor the piety, nor the humility that he dreamed he had? That a very little pain, for instance, putteth him out of patience, and as little pleasure softens and disarms him into ease and wantonness? That he has been at more pains, and labour, and cost, to be revenged of an enemy, than to oblige the best friend he has in the world? That he cannot bring himself to say his prayers, without a great deal of reluctancy; and when he does say ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... villages, or, haply, it sought some other scene of blood. A skilful eye might have traced the route these fierce creatures of the woods had taken, by fences hurled from their places, or by the carcass of some animal that had fallen, in the wantonness of victory, beneath a parting blow. Of all these wild beings, one only remained; and he appeared to linger at the spot in the indulgence of feelings that were foreign to those passions that had so recently stirred the bosoms of ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, instead of the fruits which we see too often, bigotry and self-conceit, bitterness, evil-speaking, and hard judgments, and joy in a most unholy and damnable spirit, not to mention covetousness and deceitfulness, or even in some cases wantonness and lust. And yet such men will often fancy that they belong especially to God, and doubt whether He will have mercy on any who do not exactly agree with them; while in reality God and His kingdom have utterly ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... patron had many follies, which, as his discernment easily discovered, his imagination might sometimes incite him to mention too ludicrously. A little knowledge of the world is sufficient to discover that such weakness is very common, and that there are few who do not sometimes, in the wantonness of thoughtless mirth, or the heat of transient resentment, speak of their friends and benefactors with levity and contempt, though, in their cooler moments, they want neither sense of their kindness, nor reverence for their virtue: the fault, therefore, of Mr. Savage was rather ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... Belford's house singing obstreperous and unseemly songs at the top of his voice; he would even rattle the ferrule of his cane against the palings of the fence, or throw a stone at Madam Belford's cat in the wantonness of ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... obscure people, who never gave any better reason for it, than that it was their fancy to support the idle complaint of one rival actress against another, in their several pretentious to the chief part in a new tragedy. But as this tumult seem'd only to be the Wantonness of English Liberty, I shall not presume to lay any further ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... FALLS.—There have been three such instances. The first was in 1827. Some men got an old ship—the Michigan—which had been used on lake Erie, and had been pronounced unseaworthy. For mere wantonness they put aboard a bear, a fox, a buffalo, a dog and some geese and sent it over the cataract. The bear jumped from the vessel before it reached the rapids, swam toward the shore, and was rescued by some ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... abounded with game, and it was killed from mere wantonness, such was their improvidence, that they were obliged to resort to their salt pork and other provisions; and as, in thirty days, forty large casks of whisky were consumed, it is easy to suppose, which was indeed the fact, that every night that they halted, ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... life and a vagrant life, I know; but, anyway, my way of life has been a clean way. I have never been a brawler nor a sot, and I have never struck a man to his hurt unless when peril forced me. I have never fought in wantonness or bad blood, but only out of some necessity that would not be said nay to. And, indeed, there have been times when I have let a man live to my own risk. So I hope when my ghost meets elsewhere with the ghosts of my ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... writers, I attempted to imitate his manner in the following vernal poem. I have been very sparing of the antiquated words which are too frequent in most of the imitations of this author. . . His lines are most musically sweet, and his descriptions most delicately abundant, even to a wantonness of painting, but still it is the music and painting of nature. We find no ambitious ornaments or epigrammatical turns in his writings, but a beautiful simplicity which pleases far above the glitter of pointed wit." The "Hymn to May" is in the seven-lined stanza ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... every thousand uses half the possibilities of natural joy and delightful effort which lie in those years between seventeen and seven- and-twenty. All but all men have to look back upon beginnings of life deformed and discoloured by necessity, accident, wantonness. If a young man avoid the grosser pitfalls, if he keep his eye fixed steadily on what is called the main chance, if, without flagrant selfishness, he prudently subdue every interest to his own (by "interest" understanding ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... moved uneasily, and gave me a searching look. And I saw that he took me to be insane. "I killed the poor thing," I explained, "killed it out of mere wantonness, and I am so grief-stricken that I am going to do the best I can for the poor thing—going to give it ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... nothing on which an exasperated enemy could wreak his fury; that they had fire and sword at their command, and it was better that friendly and faithful hands should destroy what must necessarily perish, than that enemies should insult it with haughty wantonness. To these exhortations a dreadful execration was added against any one who should be diverted from this purpose by hope or faint-heartedness. Then throwing open the gates, they rushed out at a rapid pace and with the utmost impetuosity. Nor was there any guard sufficiently ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... succeeding. As he disclosed himself she felt a strange compassion for him. It was plain to her woman's instinct that he was at heart lonely and uncompanioned. Well, what wonder with that hard, mean little being for a wife! Had she captured him, or had he thrown himself away upon her in mere wantonness, out of that defiance of sentiment which appeared to be his favourite parti-pris? In any case, it seemed to this happy wife that he had done the one fatal and irreparable thing; and she was genuinely sorry for him. She felt him very young, too. As far as she could gather, he was about two years ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... spoke: 'Damon, the best of life is in thine eyes— Worship of promise-laden beauty. Seems he not The god of this fair scene? Those waves claim such a master as that boy; And these green slopes have waited till his feet Should wander them, to prove they were not spread In wantonness. What were this flower's prayer Had it a voice? The place behind his ear Would brim its cup with bliss and overbrim; Oh, to be worn and fade beside his cheek!'— 'In love and happy, Delphis; and the boy?'— 'Loves ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... to a penny the expense of moving white troops against them—was a priest-bandit-chief whom we will call the Gulla Kutta Mullah. His enthusiasm for border murder as an art was almost dignified. He would cut down a mail-runner from pure wantonness, or bombard a mud fort with rifle fire when he knew that our men needed to sleep. In his leisure moments he would go on circuit among his neighbours, and try to incite other tribes to devilry. Also, he kept a kind of ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... while the sun blazes and the flowers are beautiful. So thinks everybody who has survived Puritanism unscathed, so thought the majority of Brineweald's visitors that year, so thought Mrs. Delarayne and her party of eager young swains and still more eager virgins. Wantonness was in the air,—wantonness and beauty; and when these two imps of passion come together August is ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... cloud, have steeled My heart against my fate, and now am calm. I will live on; and though these simple folk Who call me sister understand me not, It matters little. There is one who does; And he shall have no liberty of love By any word of mine. 'Tis woman's lot, And man's most weak and wicked wantonness. Mine is like other husbands, I suppose; ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... man used the gun, which he facetiously styled his "minister of justice," and, in mere wantonness, he was known to have committed murder again and again, yet no steps were taken by the authorities to restrain, much less to punish him. Men heard of his murders, but they shrugged their shoulders and did nothing. It was only a wild beast of a negro that was killed, they said, and ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... only those few words, like a watch with an inelastic spring, that just ticks a moment or two and stops again. He seemed a very forlorn old man. In the wantonness of youth, strength, and comfortable condition,—making my prey of people's individualities, as my custom was,—I tried to identify my mind with the old fellow's, and take his view of the world, as if looking through a smoke-blackened glass at the sun. It robbed ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of loss or harm for the possibility of benefit; danger may have no compensating alternative. In hazard the possibilities of gain or loss are nearly balanced; in risk the possibility of loss is the chief thought; the foolhardy take great risks in mere wantonness; in chance and venture the hope of good predominates; we speak of a merchant's venture, but of an insurance company's risk; one may be driven by circumstances to run a risk; he freely seeks a venture; we speak of the chance of winning, the hazard or risk of losing. Accidents ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... him, and she said: "Be it not that I see the king angry." He said: "How should I not be angry? Thou, by craft, and trickery, and intrigue, and plotting, hast brought thy desire from Rome—what wantonness is this that thou hast done?" Then he thought to slay her, but he forbore, because of his great love for her. But he ordered the chamberlain to carry the youth to some obscure place, and straightway ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... there was now more in the business than mere mischief and wantonness? Hester was surprisingly lovely, with this touching, tremulous look, so new, and, to the ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... demon-sphere is never without danger. If, with a little too much self-confidence, I let myself be induced to assume a less haughty and reserved manner, if I associated a little more familiarly with the bold tribe, I soon repented, for I was carried along by their wantonness and folly, I could no longer subdue the laughter and extravagances, nor could I, to my own disgrace and sorrow, restrain myself in ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... that is not true. You are not honest with me nor with yourself, and that is not like you. You know that no other man ever had, or could have, any favor from me, even the slightest. Wantonness is not among my thousand faults. It is not that which angers you. You are sure enough of me in that respect. In truth, I had almost come to believe you were too sure, that I had grown cheap in your eyes, and you did not care so much as I thought ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... of Cornwallis and his officers in Carolina! And while the churches in England were, everywhere, resounding with prayers to Almighty God, "to spare the effusion of human blood," those monsters were shedding it with the most savage wantonness! While all the good people in Britain were praying, day and night, for a speedy restoration of the former happy friendship between England and America, those wretches were taking the surest steps to drive all friendship from ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... provident, the comforting, angel whose pinions are folded round the heart, guarding there a divine spring unmarred by the winter of the world! Helen, soft Helen, is it indeed in thee that the wild and brilliant "lord of wantonness and ease" is to find the regeneration of his life, the rebaptism of his soul? Of what avail thy meek prudent household virtues to one whom Fortune screens from rough trial; whose sorrows lie remote from thy ken; whose spirit, erratic and perturbed, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... better: but in certain stages, or only perhaps in a single stage of it, we frequently find humour and reality supplanted by realism and obscenity; an exchange undeniably for the worse. The note of his earliest comic style was often a boyish or a birdlike wantonness, very capable of such liberties and levities as those of Lesbia's sparrow with the lip or bosom of his mistress; as notably in the parts of Boyet and Mercutio: and indeed there is a bright vein of mere wordy wilfulness running throughout the ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... malice, and abandoned by man, or occupied only by a nomade or thinly scattered population, the task of the pioneer settler is of a very different character. He is to become a co-worker with nature in the reconstruction of the damaged fabric which the negligence or the wantonness of former lodgers has rendered untenantable. He must aid her in reclothing the mountain slopes with forests and vegetable mould, thereby restoring the fountains which she provided to water them; in checking the devastating fury of torrents, and bringing back the surface drainage ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... but having passed three hours in this harmless luxury, he was alarmed on a sudden by an universal scream among the women, and turning back saw the whole assembly flying in confusion. A young crocodile had risen out of the lake, and was ranging the garden in wantonness or hunger. Seged beheld him with indignation, as a disturber of his felicity, and chased him back into the lake, but could not persuade his retinue to stay, or free their hearts from the terrour which had seized upon them. The princesses inclosed themselves in ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... had ever had difficulties, and I told you that I had probably never gone deep enough. It was profoundly true, though I didn't really mean it. But this year—— No, no, I have not been merely vain and hasty! I may be a shallow creature, but it has been natural growth, not wantonness.' ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... it but pluck the sleeve of wantonness, And gently chide the folly of our time? But wave its golden wand ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... under the control of the person that is handling it, and moves as he moves it, similarly this universe, controlled by actions done in Time, moves as those actions move it. Seeing that the births and deaths of creatures take place without any (assignable) cause and in perfect wantonness, grief and joy are perfectly needless. Although this entanglement of thy heart is a mere delusion, still, if it pleaseth thee, O king, perform expiatory rites (for washing thyself free of thy so-called sin). It is heard, O Partha, that the gods and the Asuras fought against ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... piteous looks, of deprecating tenderness which from time to time she bent on him, left room for nothing in his heart but a great love and compassion. Whatever might be the secret of this strange caprice it was evidently no mere piece of wantonness. She was suffering from ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... unkindly that a traveller (though less wide a wanderer than thou) dissuadeth thee from a new-found novelty—the wanton misuse, or rather the misuseful wantonness, of the Indian herb. It is a blind goose that knoweth not a fox from a fern-bush, and a strange temerity that mistaketh smoke for provender. The sow, when she is sick, eateth the sea-crab and is immediately recovered: why, then, ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... yoked to guilt Her pale tormentor, misery. Hence, these shades Are still the abodes of gladness; the thick roof Of green and stirring branches is alive And musical with birds, that sing and sport In wantonness of spirit; while below The squirrel, with raised paws and form erect, Chirps merrily. Throngs of insects in the shade Try their thin wings and dance in the warm beam That waked them into life. Even the green trees Partake the ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... as idleness is quite shut out from our lives, all the sins of wantonness, softness, and effeminacy are prevented; and there is but little room for ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... no works pacify the conscience, new works, in addition to God's commands, were from time to time devised [the hypocrites nevertheless used to invent one work after another, one sacrifice after another, by a blind guess and in reckless wantonness, and all this without the word and command of God, with wicked conscience as we have seen in the Papacy]. The people of Israel had seen the prophets sacrificing on high places [and in groves]. Besides, the examples of the saints very greatly move the minds of those, hoping ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon
... and will assuredly fail to make his way unless he does this; if, then, he betrays his trust he does so under temptation. Whereas the amateur who works with no higher aim than that of immediate recognition betrays it from the vanity and wantonness of his spirit. The one is naughty because he is needy, the other from natural depravity. Besides, the amateur can keep his work to himself, whereas the professional man ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... had affronted his uncle, "le bon Regnier" struck at no individual. Most admirable, amid much that is admirable, is the picture of the old worldling Macette, whose veil of pretended piety is gradually dropped as she discourses with growing wantonness to the maiden whom she would lead in the way she should not go: Macette is no unworthy elder of the family of Tartufe. Regnier confesses freely the passions of his own irregular life; had it been wisely conducted, his genius might have carried him far; as it was, ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... said Asgrim. "I think so all the more because these men fare with laughter and wantonness; but such kinsmen of Njal as Thorgeir is would not smile before some vengeance is taken for the burning, and I will make another guess, and maybe ye will think that unlikely. My meaning is that it must ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... guilty of admitting Hazlitt to his house. The weapons were misrepresentation and unconfined abuse, wielded with an utter disregard of where the blows might fall, in the spirit of a gang of young ruffians who knew that they were protected in their wantonness by a higher authority. In the chastened sadness of his later years Lockhart, who was one of the offenders, confessed that he had no personal grudge against any of Blackwood's victims, in fact that he knew nothing about any of them, but that at the request of John Wilson, his ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... the keel, and gently chafe his broad back to and fro along it, making queer tremors run through the vessel, as if she were scraping over a reef. Whether from superstition or not I cannot tell, but I never saw any creature injured out of pure wantonness, except sharks, while I was on board the CACHALOT. Of course, injuries to men do not count. Had that finback attempted to play about a passenger ship in such a fashion, all the loungers on board would have been popping at ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... good. If it be said that this scheme is chimerical and impracticable on ordinary occasions, and to the generality of mankind, well and good; but those who accuse the author of having trampled on the common feelings and prejudices of mankind in wantonness or insult, or without wishing to substitute something better (and only unattainable, because it is better) in their stead, accuse him wrongfully. We may not be able to launch the bark of our affections on ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... at the ruin. Even that last place of refuge was denied her, had been taken from her in wantonness. ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... carelessly against a carriage, you are liable for all damages resulting from the collision; and if the servant acts wantonly or mischievously, causing thereby additional bodily or mental injury, such wantonness or mischief will enhance the ...
— The Road and the Roadside • Burton Willis Potter
... our authours have introduced by their knowledge of foreign languages, or ignorance of their own, by vanity or wantonness, by compliance with fashion or lust of innovation, I have registred as they occurred, though commonly only to censure them, and warn others against the folly of naturalizing useless foreigners to the ...
— Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson
... confidence in my cause, which led me to the negligence or wantonness which I have been instancing, also laid me open, not unfairly, to the opposite charge of fierceness in certain steps which I took, or words which I published. In the Lyra Apostolica, I have said that before learning to love, we must "learn to ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... several places; the parterres and melon-beds were trampled and destroyed by the hoofs of the Carlist horses, which had seemingly been turned in there to feed, or perhaps been ridden through it in utter wantonness by their brutal owners. The ground in front of the house was strewed with broken furniture, and with articles of wearing apparel, the latter of which appeared to have belonged to the Carlists, and to have been exchanged by them for others of a better description ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... Ganymede, "at the sonettos, canzones, madrigals, rounds and roundelays, that these pensive patients pour out when their eyes are more full of wantonness, than their hearts of passions. Then, as the fishers put the sweetest bait to the fairest fish, so these Ovidians, holding amo in their tongues, when their thoughts come at haphazard, write that they be rapt in an endless labyrinth of sorrow, when walking ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... being obliged to conduct himself in a staid manner, on being released, runs, whisks his tail, kicks up his heels, lays back his ears, opens his mouth, and rushes with mock vicious-looking eyes at whomsoever he meets, and all this from mere wantonness, to enjoy his freedom; so the devil in the man, not perchance the theological one, but still the devil no less actually, as seen every day in the activity of the baser passions, on being released, by the abdication ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the Apaches, in the very wantonness of their skillful horsemanship, threw themselves from side to side upon the backs of their steeds, firing under the neck or belly with as much accuracy as if from the saddle. None of them were furnished ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... nothing for you to say, nothing that I am in the least likely to listen to. You have evidently mis-understood my character from first to last. Probably you even credited me with wantonness in those far-off days when I was fool enough to believe all you swore to me of love and devotion. However that may be, you tried to set my feet in the wrong path, and when it suited you, gave me a push that further evil might conveniently widen the breach between us. ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... there is no longer any estrangement between Ethics and Medical Practice. Medicine, sent from Heaven to be an angel of mercy to man, is now ever faithful to its beneficent mission; it never more performs the task of a destroying spirit, as—not in wantonness, but ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... was no longer Rousseau, he was a poor madman. Who knows if his morbid and disordered imagination, which made him at that time see an insult in every benefit and hatred in all friendship, did not show him likewise the courtesan in the loving woman, and wantonness instead of love? I have always suspected it. I defy any rational man to recompose, with a semblance of probability, the character Rousseau gives to the woman he loved, from the contradictory elements which he describes in her. Those elements exclude each other: if ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... be detected in nearly all French fiction. The mark of the beast is set on not a little of the work done by the strongest men in France. M. Meilhac is too clean and too clever ever to delve in indecency from mere wantonness: he has no liking for vice, but his virtue sits easily on him, and though he is sound on the main question, he looks upon the vagaries of others with a gentle eye. M. Halevy, it seems to me, is made of somewhat sterner stuff. He raises a warning voice ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... behold the Lord Jesus, when this wicked one, even now, desireth mercy at his hands, tells him, and that without the least reflection upon him, for his former misspent life, "To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43). Let no man turn this grace of God into wantonness. My design is now ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... stuffed boa-constrictor ought to content a reasonable curiosity. Imagine what would be felt if a child were subjected to such a fate, or what could be answered if the present victims could tell their agonies as well as feel them! Byron speaks of the barbarians who, in the wantonness of power, were 'butchered to make a Roman holiday;' and verily the horrors exhibited in our public gardens and menageries are something akin to the fights of gladiators; it is the infliction of misery for mere sport. With reference also to lions, tigers, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... he took an opportunity again and again of pressing her not unwilling hand. And still at every pressure he caught that soft momentary glance, was it of love and passion, or of mere coquetry and girlish wantonness, succeeded by the fleeting blush pervading face, neck, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... themselves, presently, "How was this most likely to have happened?" and habits of fresh and accurate thought thus quickly enlivened the formalities of the Greek pictorial theology; formalities themselves beneficent, because restraining by their severity and mystery the wantonness of the newer life. Foolish modern critics have seen nothing in the Byzantine school but a barbarism to be conquered and forgotten. But that school brought to the art-scholars of the thirteenth ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... vexation to the farmer. The Dwarf asked no man's permission to draw his water, but helped himself as often and as liberally as he thought proper, without the slightest regard to the wants of other people, which were often left unsatisfied by his wantonness and extravagance. It was in consequence of this audacious appropriation, that the spring by degrees acquired the name of THE DWARF'S WELL. Countless were the complaints and menaces of Mike—numberless the promised threshings, if he did not give up his thieving; but the effect of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... mere desert sands, in which life's current is lost until it reappears in a parcel of bubbles called babies. What is it but the fool's end, the knave's means; a warning to the wise, a snare to the simple; the wantonness of youth, the weakness of years; a pillory wherein to exercise patience; what is it but the Church's stocks for the wayward feet of women. Marry you! To marry is to commit two souls to the prison of one body; to put two pigs into one poke; two legs into one boot, two ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... it one feels the influence of that faint air of overwrought delicacy, almost of wantonness, which was so strong a characteristic of the poetry of the Troubadours. The Troubadours themselves were often men of great rank; they wrote for an exclusive audience, people of much leisure and great refinement, ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... those days to live in old Urbino. It was not, indeed, so brilliant a place as it became in a later day, when Ariosto came there, and Bembo and Castiglione and many another witty and learned gentleman, and the Courts of Love were held with ingenious rhyme and pretty sentiment, sad only for wantonness. But, if not so brilliant, it was homelier, simpler, full of virtue, with a wise peace and tranquillity that joined hands with a stout courage. The burgher was good friends with his prince, and knew that in any trouble or perplexity ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... first scene we witness an act of brutality, directed against Rienzi's sister Irene, who is however liberated by Adriano, son of the noble Colonna. A Colonna it was, who murdered Rienzi's little brother in sheer wantonness.—Rienzi has sworn vengeance, but, seeing Adriano good and brave and in love with his sister, he wins him to ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... Suspended, holds thine eyes—or ere thyself Mayst at the wedding sup,—shall rest the soul Of the great Harry, he who, by the world Augustas hail'd, to Italy must come, Before her day be ripe. But ye are sick, And in your tetchy wantonness as blind, As is the bantling, that of hunger dies, And drives away the nurse. Nor may it be, That he, who in the sacred forum sways, Openly or in secret, shall with him Accordant walk: Whom God will not endure I' th' holy office ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... frequent sighs, whilst his hands convulsively squeezed, opened, pressed together again the lips and sides of that deep flesh wound, or gently twitched the over-growing moss; and all proclaimed the excess, the riot of joys, in having his wantonness thus humoured. But he did not long abuse my patience, for the objects before him had now put him by all his, and, coming out with that formidable machine of his, he lets the fury loose, and pointing it directly to the pouting-lip ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... means of Christian instruction, whereby the sence of sin being quite lost in them, they fell to whoredoms, incests, and adulteries; so that what my Grandfather was forced to do for necessity, they did for wantonness; nay not confining themselves within the bound of any modesty, but brother and sister lay openly together; those who would not yield to their lewd embraces, were by force ravished, yea many times endangered of their lives. To redress ...
— The Isle Of Pines (1668) - and, An Essay in Bibliography by W. C. Ford • Henry Neville
... sleep; for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand; let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... time I have played a little trick on the unsuspecting birds by stealing up to a brush pile and giving it a sudden blow with my cane; then a whole covey of them would dash pellmell from their covert with loud chirps of protest against such wantonness. ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... too readily to permit me to forgive myself. The part applied to you is pert, and petulant, and shallow enough; but, although I have long done every thing in my power to suppress the circulation of the whole thing, I shall always regret the wantonness or generality of many of its attacks. If Coleridge writes his promised tragedy, Drury Lane will be set up." Though harassed with pecuniary difficulties of all kinds, Byron contrived to help Coleridge, who he had heard was in ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... tenderness the elegaic ballad strain is rendered in Venevil and "Hidden Love" (Dulgt Kaerlighed), and the playful in the deliciously girlish roguery of Vidste du bare ("If you only knew"), and the bold dash and young wantonness ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... audacious in her sentimental experiences. The story circulated of her infidelity to Steno with Werekiew at St. Petersburg, where the diplomatist was stationed, after one year of marriage, was confirmed by the wantonness of her conduct, of which she gave evidence ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... was wholly occupied with the desperate stupidity of the whole affair. If God were indeed shaping the world to any end, if any design of His underlay the activities of men, what insensate waste to quench such a heart and brain as Harry's!—to nip, as it seemed out of mere blundering wantonness, a bud which had begun to open so generously: to sacrifice that youth and strength, that comeliness, that enthusiasm, and all for nothing! Had some campaign claimed him, had he been spent to gain a citadel or defend a flag, I had understood. But that he should be killed on a friendly mission; ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... ivy in his native hue; For the rich metal was so colored That he who did not well avised it view Would surely deem it to be ivy true; Low his lascivious arms adown did creep That themselves dipping in the silver dew Their fleecy flowers they tenderly did steep, Which drops of crystal seemed for wantonness to weep. ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... cells, many persons of each sex amusing themselves in such a manner) that it seemed to me that every one of them must have been drinking satyrion. (On catching sight of us, they attempted to seduce us with paederastic wantonness, and one wretch, with his clothes girded up, assaulted Ascyltos, and, having thrown him down upon a couch, attempted to gore him from above. I succored the sufferer immediately, however,) and having joined forces, ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... been overthrown by the Persians in wantonness, or in hatred of the Egyptian religion; and the priests now put upon it the name of Philip Arridaeus, for whom Ptolemy was ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... And her treacherous sister Judah saw, yes she saw,(177) that, all because recreant Israel committed adultery, I had dismissed her and given her the bill of her divorce; yet her sister treacherous Judah was not afraid, but also went and played the harlot. 9. And it came to pass that, through the wantonness of her harlotry, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stones and with stocks. 10. And yet, for all this, treacherous Judah(178) has not returned to Me with all her heart, but only in feigning.(179) 11. And the Lord said to me, Recreant Israel ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... denominated "libraries," to get a stall, but the people to whom he applied were unable to accommodate him—they hadn't a single seat left. His actual attempt, at another library, was more successful: there was no question of obtaining a stall, but he might by a miracle still have a box. There was a wantonness in paying for a box at a play on which he had already expended four hundred pounds; but while he was mentally measuring this abyss an idea came into his head which flushed the extravagance ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... sides by which it so resembled New York, Paris was like smart, neat prose—and her close correspondence with Madame Merle did much to stimulate such flights. She had never had a keener sense of freedom, of the absolute boldness and wantonness of liberty, than when she turned away from the platform at the Euston Station on one of the last days of November, after the departure of the train that was to convey poor Lily, her husband and her children to their ship at Liverpool. It had been good for her to regale; she ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... is the stepdame of virtue, as our preachers have often told us. Soft living makes a sluggard of the hardiest knight, and steals away his strength. She cradles him with dreams of woman, and is the mother of chambering and wantonness. Folded hands and idleness cause our young damoiseaux to waste their days over merry tales, and dice, raiment to catch a lady's fancy and things that are worse. Rest and assurance of safety will in the end do Britain more harm than force or guile. May the Lord God be praised Who has jogged ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... From data, the acceptance is that upon entering this earth's atmosphere, these vessels have been so racked that had they not sailed away, disintegration would have occurred: that, before leaving this earth, they have, whether in attempted communication or not, or in mere wantonness or not, dropped objects, which did almost immediately violently disintegrate or explode. Upon general principles we think that explosives have not been purposely dropped, but that parts have been racked off, ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... the humour for wantonness, but Rigerboos was disposed to be merry; his sweetheart was at first inclined to be prudish on his taking liberties with her, but as I began to follow his example the ladies relaxed their severity; we went first to one and then the other, and before long they were ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... shade the sun, which will not tan our hay, And nothing thrives to reach its natural term; And life, shorn of its venerable length, Even at its greatest space is a defeat, And dies in anger that it was a dupe; And, in its highest noon and wantonness, Is early frugal, like a beggar's child; Even in the hot pursuit of the best aims And prizes of ambition, checks its hand, Like Alpine cataracts frozen as they leaped, Chilled with a miserly comparison Of the toy's purchase with the ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... story is preeminently the story of Morgan. I have striven to make it a character sketch of that remarkable personality. I wished to portray his ferocity and cruelty, his brutality and wantonness, his treachery and rapacity; to exhibit, without lightening, the dark shadows of his character, and to depict his inevitable and utter breakdown finally; yet at the same time to bring out his dauntless courage, his military ability, his fertility and resourcefulness, ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... compared marriage with cattle-breeding. The Romans of the Republic took much the same view. Greeks and Romans alike regarded breeding as the one recognisable object of marriage; any other object was mere wantonness and had better, they thought, be carried on outside marriage. Religion, which preserves so many ancient and primitive conceptions of life, has consecrated this conception also, and Christianity—though, ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... so pictured, the curate remarked it was no wonder that he was jilted by the fair lady Angelica. To this Don Quixote retorted that lady Angelica was a giddy and frivolous damsel with desires that smacked of wantonness. He only regretted that Roland had not been a poet that he might have libeled her ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the longer upon what I conceive the merit of these poems, because I have been hurt by the wantonness (I wish I could treat it by a gentler name) with which W.H. takes every occasion of insulting the memory of Sir Philip Sydney. But the decisions of the Author of Table Talk, &c., (most profound and subtle where they are, as for the most part, just) are more safely to be relied upon, on subjects ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... be necessary or convenient for their several commands as supplies or for other military purposes; and that while property may be destroyed for proper military objects, none shall be destroyed in wantonness ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... disturbances everywhere. Men out of employment, excited by club orators, were ready for any violence. At Lyons they destroyed the hospitals and orphan asylums, out of mere wantonness. ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... venture back there we realized what other people had been suffering in all the various quarters of France for many years—yes, decades of years. For the first time we saw wrecked and smoke-blackened homes, and in the lanes and alleys carcasses of dumb creatures that had been slaughtered in pure wantonness—among them calves and lambs that had been pets of the children; and it was pity to see the children ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... curtain of the rain exclude the view. The sky was clear, the sun strong overhead; around us, a thin growth of bushes and creepers glittered green in their black setting, like plants upon a ruinous pavement; all else was lava—wastes of lava, some of them enclosed (it seemed in wantonness) with dry-stone walls. But the bushes, when the rain descends often enough from its residential altitudes, flourish extremely; and cattle and asses, walking on these resonant slabs, collect a livelihood. Here and there, a prickly-pear came to the bigness of a standard tree and made a space of shade; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... apparently, for the love of annexation characteristic of flirts, while all the time she was engaged to Victor Braithwaite. And having made mischief like this, she had run away. It was like a child who, having from sheer wantonness set fire to something, runs to a safe distance and ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... as a feather, and he snapped his fingers in the very wantonness of joy as he repaired to Delmonico's, and ordered the first good French dinner that had gladdened his palate since his arrival ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... but little success, I believe; anyhow, Mr. Gisborne had had none, and was in a black humour accordingly. He was coming home, having his gun loaded, sportsman-like, when little Mignon crossed his path, just as he turned out of the wood by Bridget's cottage. Partly for wantonness, partly to vent his spleen upon some living creature, Mr. Gisborne took his gun, and fired—he had better have never fired gun again, than aimed that unlucky shot. He hit Mignon; and at the creature's ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... field of scientific thought. They had brought all science to the feet of Darwin. The few benighted dissenters who still held out against the doctrine were looked upon as not worthy even of contempt. The whole world had adopted the creed of evolution. Was it wantonness then, or was it conscience, that prompted Huxley in what is now a historically famous speech, delivered at the unveiling of a statue to Darwin in the Museum at South Kensington, to openly declare that it would be wrong to suppose "that an authoritative sanction was given ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner
... he showed us places and buildings true to reality, and the features and costumes both of our own people and of strangers, according to his pleasure; not to mention his gift of imparting grace to the heads of young men, old men, and women, reserving modesty for the modest, wantonness for the wanton, and for children now mischief in their eyes, now playfulness in their attitudes; and the folds of his draperies, also, are neither too simple nor too intricate, but of such a ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... very far from Berlin: if he had retired in forced marches he could return thither with equal rapidity in order, in the wantonness of his wrath, to take vengeance on the ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... contradiction, plunged deeper into it than she was aware, endeavoured to extricate herself by new arts, or to cover her error by dissimulation, became involved in meshes of her own weaving, and was forced to carry on, for fear of discovery, machinations which she had at first resorted to in mere wantonness. ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... of deriving my liberty from the spontaneous kindness of a worthy and excellent mind, and that of being indebted for it to the selfishness and baseness of the worst members of society. It was thus that I allowed myself in the wantonness of refinement, even in ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... the Children from the Brick-yards of England," and also those living in canal-boats, in "Our Canal Population," holds good, but with ten times more force concerning the Gipsies. Immorality abounds to a most alarming degree. Incest, wantonness, lasciviousness, lechery, whoring, bigamy, and every other abomination low, degrading, carnal appetites, propensity, and lust originate and encourage they practise openly, without the least blush; in fact, I question if many of them know what it ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... tried at Westminster? We who write, if we want the talent, yet have the excuse that we do it for a poor subsistence; but what can be urged in their defence, who, not having the vocation of poverty to scribble, out of mere wantonness take pains to make themselves ridiculous? Horace was certainly in the right, where he said, "That no man is satisfied with his own condition." A poet is not pleased, because he is not rich; and the rich are discontented, because the poets will not admit them of their number. Thus the case ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... too was observation, for 'although these people are kindly towards each other and their children, they have no sympathy for the suffering of animals, and little sympathy for pain when the person who feels it is not in danger.' I had thought it was in the wantonness of fancy Martin Dhoul accused the smith of plucking his living ducks, but a few lines further on, in this book where moral indignation is unknown, I read, 'Sometimes when I go into a cottage, I find all the women of the place down ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats
... we came to Penmaen Mawr by daylight; and found a way, lately made, very easy, and very safe.[1224] It was cut smooth, and enclosed between parallel walls; the outer of which secures the passenger from the precipice, which is deep and dreadful. This wall is here and there broken, by mischievous wantonness.[1225] The inner wall preserves the road from the loose stones, which the shattered steep above it would pour down. That side of the mountain seems to have a surface of loose stones, which every accident may crumble. The old road was higher, and must have been very formidable. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... corner, in some public place, and preach to the crowds, and give never an inch for all their curses and noise. They fear him too much, I believe, to attack him with aught but words. And I wonder not at it. A few days since, a large dog was in wicked wantonness, as I must allow, set upon a poor Christian boy. Macer, so he is called about the city, at the moment came up. Never tiger seized his prey as he seized that dog, and first dashing out his brains upon the pavement, pursued then the pursuers of the boy, and beat them to ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... artist to obtain early in life such possession of his means that the struggle with them, discipline, tatonnement, cease to exist for him. May not this breed an irresponsibility of cleverness, a wantonness, an irreverence—what is vulgarly termed a "larkiness"—on the part of the youthful genius who has, as it were, all his fortune in his pocket? Such are the possibly superfluous broodings of those who are critical even in their warmest admirations and who sometimes suspect ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... from taking those steps necessary to conserve her limited resources for the purchase of necessaries and the discharge of Reparation. As a result of the existing distribution of wealth in Germany, and of financial wantonness amongst individuals, the offspring of uncertainty, Germany is threatened with a deluge of luxuries and semi-luxuries from abroad, of which she has been starved for years, which would exhaust or diminish her small supplies of foreign exchange. These provisions ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... remained upon their properties, obtained partial immunity, by courting the acquaintance of Federal officers, and, in many cases, extending the hospitalities of their homes to the invaders. I do not know that any Federal functionary was accused of tyranny, or wantonness, but these things ensued, as the natural results of civil war; and one's sympathies were everywhere enlisted for the poor, the exiled, and ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... with malicious glee Her merciless vocation plies, Benignly smiling now on me, Now on another, bids him rise, And in mere wantonness of whim Her favours ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... his wantonness Tasteth death's bitterness; Hell's executioner Hath no ears for to hear What vain art can reply; I am sick, I must die— Lord, have mercy ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... shameful suffering of a woman who fears, with deadly fear, lest her lover be untrue. Plutina had never a doubt as to the faith of the absent one. A natural jealousy sometimes leaped in her bosom, at thought of him exposed to the wiles of women whom she suspected of all wantonness. But she had no cowardly thought that the fairest and most cunning of them could oust her from the shrine of Zeke's heart. Her great grief lay in the failure of any word from the traveler. The days became weeks; almost a month had gone since he held her in his arms, and still ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... but far more wanton than true. Mrs. Maldon in her ignorance could not appreciate the truth, but she could appreciate its wantonness. She was wounded—silly, touchy old thing! She was wounded, and she ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... chiefly wrote Thomas Becket's life—whose names are Herbert Boseham, John Salisbury, William of Canterbury, Alen of Tewkesbury, Benet of Peterborough, Stephen Langton, and Richard Croyland—he bestoyed his youth in all kinds of lascivious lightness, and lecherous wantonness. After certain robberies, rapes, and murders, committed in the king's wars at the siege of Toulouse in Languedoc, and in other places else, as he was come home again into England, he gave himself to great study, not of the holy scriptures, but of the bishop of Rome's lousy laws, whereby ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... certain of their maladies and especially for the wounds which often befall them by reason of their constant fighting among themselves and their feeding in thorny places. It remains to speak of number: this is less to the herd in the case of goats than with sheep because of the wantonness and wandering habit of the goat: sheep, on the other hand, are wont to flock together and keep ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... As the African elephant is a root-eater it is far more destructive than the Asiatic. It is astonishing to observe the waste of trees that are upturned by a large herd of these animals, sometimes out of sheer wantonness, during their passage through a forest. The dense tops of mimosas are a great attraction, and there can be no doubt that elephants work collectively to dig out and to overthrow the trees that would be too large for the strength of a single animal. I have seen trees ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... the pleasant drawing-room and the tasteful arrangements among which Fleda was so much at home;—the easy chairs in whose comfortable arms she had had so many an hour of nice reading; the soft rug where in the very wantonness of frolic she had stretched herself to play with King; that very luxurious, bright grateful of fire, which had given her so often the same warm welcome home, an apt introduction to the other stores of comfort which awaited her above and below stairs; the rich-coloured curtains and carpet, the beauty ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... indeed, every nation is confident before the sword is drawn; and this mutual confidence produces that wantonness of bloodshed, that has so often desolated the world. But it is evident, that of contradictory opinions, one must be wrong; and the history of mankind does not want examples, that may teach caution to the daring, and moderation to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... Calumet that she was badly hurt over the dog's death. Certainly, despite her cold composure, she must be filled with rage against him for killing the animal. He might now have exhibited his arm, to confound her with the evidence of his innocence of wantonness, and very probably she would have been instantly remorseful. But he had no such intention; he was keenly alive to his opportunity to show her that he was answerable to no one for his conduct. He enjoyed her chagrin; he was moved to internal mirth over her impotent wrath; he took a savage ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... indulged himself in this movement of passion, since undoubtedly it broke and disturbed the else uniform stream of public indignation by investing the original aggressor with something like the character of an injured person; and therefore with some set-off to plead against his own wantonness of malice: his malice might now assume the nobler aspect ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... paintings, and the floors of jasper and alabaster. But as the irate crowd dashed onward through the great tenantless chambers they tore down the rich silk hangings and trod them underfoot, broke up the tiny gold-inlaid tables, and out of sheer wantonness hacked the ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... country its ancient laws, traditions, and privileges. Permit no longer, to your shame and ours, a band of Spanish landloupers and other foreigners, together with three or four self-seeking enemies of their own land, to keep their feet upon our necks. Let them no longer, in the very wantonness of tyranny, drive us about like a herd of cattle—like a gang of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... who did well by me. Who is this who hath guarded my honour while I garred his become dishonour? Who protected my Harim and whose Harim I wrecked?" "He is Ghanim son of Ayyub," replied she, "for he never approached me in wantonness or with lewd intent, I swear by thy munificence, O Commander of the Faithful!" Then said the Caliph, "There is no Majesty and there is no Might save in Allah! Ask what thou wilt of me, O Kut al-Kulub." "O Prince of the Faithful!", answered ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... coughing, he cried: "What can I do for you? They are starving you to death! You need food—and I have no food to give!" He raised his arms, in sudden wrath. "Bring forth the masters of this city, who starve the poor, while they themselves riot in wantonness!" ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... oppose it. If we could hear what is said of us in our absence we should torment ourselves without real cause, for we should seldom hear the real sentiments of the speaker; many things are said in mere wantonness, and many more from the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various
... tutor of the mature Stadholder. Step by step we have been studying the inmost thoughts of the Advocate as revealed in his secret and confidential correspondence, and the reader has been enabled to judge of the wantonness of the calumny which converted the determined antagonist into the secret friend of Spain. Yet it had produced its effect ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... crucial moment in Cleopatra's life. She had sacrificed all that a woman has to give; but she had not done so from any love of pleasure or from wantonness. She was queen of Egypt, and she had redeemed her kingdom and kept it by her sacrifice. One should not condemn her too severely. In a sense, her act was one of heroism like that of Judith in the tent of Holofernes. But beyond all question it changed her ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... vulgarities of old Phoenix in the ninth Iliad, or of the nurse of Orestes in the Choephoroe, or perhaps of the grave-diggers in Hamlet, are in themselves unworthy of their respective authors, and refer them to the wantonness of exuberant genius; and yet maintain that the scenes in question contain much incidental poetry. Now and then the lustre of the true metal catches the eye, redeeming whatever is unseemly and worthless in the rude ore; still ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... whose superstitions and wantonness nevertheless they shuddered at. And the teacher (l) of the gentiles himself would not have introduced (m) some verses of the poets into his own writings ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton
... could not take an interest in the islanders who came out in little cockles and proposed to dive for shillings and sixpences, though quarters and dimes would do. The company's tender also came out, and numbers of passengers went ashore in the mere wantonness of paying for their dinner and a night's lodging in the annexes of the hotels, which they were told beforehand were full. The lights began to twinkle from the windows of the town, and the dark fell upon the insupportable picturesqueness ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... immediately pass away. Dr. Cooper determined to punish his son, and he therefore confined him, according to his usual mode of correction, in his own house. Astley was, however, but little disposed to remain passive in his imprisonment, and in the wantonness of his ever-active disposition amused himself by climbing up the chimney, and having at length reached the summit, endeavoured, by imitating the well-known tone of the chimney-sweeper, and calling out as lustily as he could, 'Sweep, sweep!' to attract the ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... destroy us. They kill us because our feathers are beautiful. Even pretty and sweet girls, who we should think would be our best friends, kill our brothers and children so that they may wear plumage on their hats. Sometimes people kill us from mere wantonness. Cruel boys destroy our nests and steal our eggs and our young ones. People with guns and snares lie in wait to kill us, as if the place for a bird were not in the sky, alive, but in a shop window or under a glass case. If this goes ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... names of these Italian toasts, he was thinking of the Princess Visconti. This great lady, finding herself unable to enthral Bonaparte, had given herself to his Chief of the Staff, whom she loved with a fire of wantonness and a refined sensuality which left their mark on the weak-kneed Berthier for the ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... as intimate as those I had with Grimm, and in the end became as familiar; Grimm and he sometimes eat at my apartment. These repasts, a little more than simple, were enlivened by the witty and extravagant wantonness of expression of Klupssel, and the diverting Germanicisms of Grimm, who was not yet ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... a soft caress, Blowing my dreams upon a swallow's wing; O little merry buds in dappled dress, You fill my heart with very wantonness — O little ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... It is not said that sin is the only bitterness, but it is the sting which contains in it the venom of a most exquisite torture. And in truth brethren, it is no mark of courage to speak lightly of human dying. We may do it in bravado, or in wantonness; but no man who thinks can call it a trifling thing to die. True thoughtfulness must shrink from death without Christ. There is a world of untold sensations crowded into that moment, when a man puts his hand to his forehead ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... mankind in the wantonness of a depraved ambition, and tyrannical cruelties have been committed in the gloomy hours of jealousy and terror; yet these demons are not necessary to the creation, or to the support of an arbitrary power. Although no policy was ever more ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... Songs Venetian, cheerful, With southern wantonness and color-wonders,— Rather "Two Shots" (although they make us fearful) Against our shallow ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... cruel brute!" I said to myself, for it seemed as if he were doing this out of wantonness, and I was blaming myself for not interfering to save the poor things from their painful death, when a thought flashed across my mind, and I ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... from top to bottom. It was a tall house, immediately fronting the street, and every window in it was broken. The door hung forlornly on one hinge, glaring cracks in its surface showing where the axe had splintered it. Fragments of glass and ware, hung out and shattered in sheer wantonness, strewed the steps: and down one corner of the latter a dark red stream trickled—to curdle by and by in the gutter. Whence came the stream? Alas! there was something more to be seen yet, something our eyes instinctively sought last of all. The ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... Louvre from the Pavilion de Flore to the Pavilion de Marsan, not one stone is left on another. We remember it after its fiery purgation by the Commune in 1871, a gaunt shell blackened and ruined, fitting emblem of the wreck which the enthroned wantonness and corruption of the Second Empire had ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... itself, and as necessary and useful to the world as is eating, drinking, or any other work. But that some there are who abuse the office of war, who strangle and destroy without need, out of sheer wantonness—that is not the fault of the office, but of the person. Is there any office, work, or thing so good that wicked and wanton persons ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the most horrid torture till he either pointed out his hoard or died under the infliction. Nothing was safe from the pursuit of Pindari lust or avarice; it was their common practice to burn and destroy what they could not carry away; and in the wantonness of barbarity to ravish and murder women and children under the eyes of their husbands and parents. The ordinary modes of torture inflicted by these miscreants were to apply red-hot irons to the soles of the feet; or to throw the victim ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... certain imposing red-sealed documents to a green baize satchel which he held between his knees. He had regained his equanimity; his features wore their usual expression of judicial severity; nothing denoted his recent discomposure, except perhaps an additional wantonness in the stringy black hair falling over the high forehead,—that pallid high forehead which always wore the look of being covered with ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... eager bite of pike, or bleak, or dace; And on the world and my Creator think: While some men strive ill-gotten goods t' embrace: And others spend their time in base excess Of wine; or worse, in war, or wantonness. ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... of animals, and is attributable in part to the peculiarities of the volunteer service—such as the lack of care and knowledge on the part of the officers, and the disposition of the men to break down their horses by improper riding, and sometimes out of mere wantonness, for the purpose of getting rid of animals they do not like, for the chance of obtaining better. A measure has recently been adopted to remedy these evils, by putting into the infantry cavalry officers and men who show themselves ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... wantonness this arrogance of royalty may lead me, I do not know: I will watch, and see. It is written: 'It is not good for man to be alone!' But good or no, the arrangement of One planet, One inhabitant, already seems to me, not merely a natural and proper, but the only natural and proper, condition; so ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... shone Which must have been his Soul; it searched the deep, The earth, the sky, with bright and troubled gaze; And then, glanced forward with so still a look, It seemed that it, perforce, would vanish space, And bring our secret world within its ken; Yet, with no cruelty or wantonness, Such as we hear gleamed from the cunning eyes Of those fierce hordes who, centuries ago, Came in their boats and strove to conquer us. Knowledge was what it craved, with truth it burned; A majesty we cannot name, expressed Its power ...
— The Arctic Queen • Unknown
... with her eyes closed, like a somnambulist, she sniffed the perfume and began to seek its source. In that seeking, there was both innocence and maddening wantonness. A fine quiver went through her body, like the quiver of a moth in its sultry love-play. At last she smelt of the flower itself, and her sudden rigidity showed that she had perceived the great ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... hive. The combination of timid embarrassment with coquettishness and a sort of expostulation was the result either of calculated effect or a spontaneous modesty. Perhaps a sentiment of which women are never utterly divested prescribed to them the cloak of modesty to heighten and enhance the charms of wantonness. So the venerable Taillefer's designs seemed on the point of collapse, for these unbridled natures were subdued from the very first by the majesty with which woman is invested. There was a murmur of admiration, which vibrated like a soft musical note. Wine had not taken love ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... tyranny is always an age of frivolity, of heartless levity, of dwarfish objects and pursuits, of dreadful contrasts—laughter amid mourning, rioting and wantonness amid judgments and executions; dancing and music at the hour of death. Such was the frivolity of the days of Nero; such was the mirth of the "death-dance" in the days of Robespierre. Nothing like this sickly and appalling joy could be seen ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... so much riches, they now became solicitous to find a safe retreat in which to spend their time in mirth and wantonness. They determined upon a place called the Devil's Island upon the river Surinam, where they arrived in safety, and met with a kind reception from the ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... must also appear, maliciously falsified the fact by stating that the child was torn limb from limb, or to quote his own words, "First outraged with demoniacal cruelty and then taken by her heels and torn asunder in the mad wantonness of gorilla ferocity." ...
— The Red Record - Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... resulting therefrom), notwithstanding order on order and some exemplary punishments, had been incorrigibly guilty of every excess. It had not only seized with violence all that its wants demanded, but destroyed in mere wantonness what did not tempt its cupidity. No vandal ferocity was ever more destructive. Those crimes, however, were not committed with impunity. Want, sickness, and an enraged peasantry, inflicted terrible reprisals, and caused daily a fearful reduction ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... whose stupendous altar he was to be an innocent victim, affected him strangely. The horror, the tragedy, the wantonness of it all touched him mightily. Indeed, it seemed to be an obsession with him, and he talked about it constantly, unmindful of the fact that the cruel destiny that was shaping its bloody course had also marked ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... the Abraham heights, victorious. Britannia's genius, is unfortunate, And flags, say they, when Royal tyranny Directs her arms. This let us then disprove, In combat speedily, and take from them, The wantonness of this fell pride, ...
— The Battle of Bunkers-Hill • Hugh Henry Brackenridge
... too hopelessly well-bred ever to commit an act of any decided complexion, either good or bad. Now I see that I have misjudged you, and that you are capable of outraging the most sacred feelings of a woman's heart in mere wantonness, or for the sake of satisfying a base curiosity, which never could have entered the mind of an upright and ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... to find a word inclusive enough for all the contempt she wished to crowd into it. He was learning things. She could have ignored a frank courtesan with disdainful aloofness, but discreetly veiled wantonness made her articulate. When she mentioned Ginger her voice took a soft pity, mixed with certain condescension. She was sympathetic, but there were still many things ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... opposite, therefore, lies in the apparent abandonment of all definite aim or end, and in the removal of all bounds in the exercise of the mind,—attaining its real end, as an entire contrast, most perfectly, the greater the display is of intellectual wealth squandered in the wantonness of sport without an object, and the more abundant the life and vivacity in the creations of the ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... historical characteristics of Christianity and of Christian truths, and in the reduction of religion to the universal conclusions of reason and morality. The accuracy of this definition is very perceptible when we consider the wantonness of the assaults of the Rationalists upon the Scriptures as the canon of faith and practice. This period was marked by desperate attempts to overthrow the early history of all countries, and to convict historians of stating as fact what was only vague tradition. As the Bible was alleged by ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... did touch Hero so near for that she us'd so much; And, thrusting her white neck at Venus, said: "Why may not amorous Hero seem a maid, Though she be none, as well as you suppress In modest cheeks your inward wantonness? How often have we drawn you from above, 280 T' exchange with mortals rites for rites in love! Why in your priest, then, call you that offence, That shines in you, and is[90] your influence?" With this, the Furies stopp'd Leucote's lips, Enjoin'd by Venus; who with rosy whips Beat ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... time a new Governor was sent to Santa Fe, a man who, by his wantonness and tyranny, has since then ruined the province. There has been no act too vile, no crime too dark, ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid |
