"Wont to" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nation, we are thinking more about trees and woods than we were wont to do in the years gone by. We are growing to love the trees and forests as we turn more and more to outdoor life for recreation and sport. In our ramblings along shady streets, through grassy parks, over wooded valleys, and in mountain wildernesses we find that much more than formerly ...
— Studies of Trees • Jacob Joshua Levison
... evening with a large audience present Mrs. Desha Breckinridge spoke on The Prospect for Woman Suffrage in the South. "Although Kentuckians are wont to boast that within these borders is the purest Anglo-Saxon blood now existing, the spirit of their ancestors has ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... Press being "gagged" by the new Press Act is absurd. It is as free to-day as it has always been to criticize Government as fully and fearlessly, and, one may add, often as unjustly, as party newspapers in this country are wont to criticize the Government of the day. It is no longer free to preach revolution and murder with the cynical audacity shown in some of the quotations I have given various Nationalist organs. "Repression" in India, whether of the ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... their own rancheria. The soldiers who stood round as witnesses were furious at this insult, and, left to themselves, would have inflicted summary punishment upon the offenders. But the good father pacified them, attributing his failure—of which he was wont to speak tearfully to the end of his life—to his own sins and unworthiness. However, this first experience in convert-making was fortunately not prophetic, for though it is true that many months elapsed before a single neophyte was gained for the ...
— The Famous Missions of California • William Henry Hudson
... back. Why does she leave Gavinia's blue hearth this evening, and seek the solitary Den? She has gone to summon them, and she knows it. They come thick in the Den, for they know the place. It was there that her mother was wont to walk with them. Have they been waiting for you in the Den, Grizel, all this time? Have you found ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... from the Chinese to the Araucanians, from the Ethiopians to the Dacotahs, rites of honor have been paid to the dead, various offerings have been placed at their graves. The Vedas enjoin the offering of a cake to the ghosts of ancestors back to the third generation. The Greeks were wont to pour wine, oil, milk, and blood into canals made in the graves of their dead. The early Christians adopted these "Feasts of the Dead" as Augustine and Tertullian call them from the heathen, and Celebrated them over the graves of their martyrs ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... is Stephanie herself?" cried Sucy when the Marquis had spoken the first few words. "Ah! until now I did not feel sure!" he added. Tears filled the dark eyes that were wont to wear a ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac
... May was at the door, And Moone was wont to sing, Many a maid and bachelor Whirled into the ring: Standing on a tilted wain He played so sweet and loud The Mayor forgot his golden chain And jigged ...
— The Lord of Misrule - And Other Poems • Alfred Noyes
... before the rostra, and the greatest orator of the time spoke the funeral oration; for Faustus, Sulla's son, was too young to do so. Then some strong senators took up the litter on their shoulders and bore it to the Campus Martius, where kings only were wont to be buried. There it was placed on the funeral pyre; and the knights and all the army circled round it in solemn procession. ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... sweet no more? the same blue sky Arches the woods; the green earth, filled with trees, Glories with song, happy it knows not why, Painted with flowers, and warm with murmurous bees; This earth, this golden home, Where men, like unto gods, were wont to dwell, Was all this builded, with the stars for dome, For ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... is something exhilirating in quick motion; and, old as I am, I feel a pleasure in making any person whom I meet on the way put his horse to the full gallop, to keep pace with my trotter. Poor Ethiope! you recollect him, how he was wont to lay back his ears on his arched neck, and push away from all competition. He is done, poor fellow! the spavin spoiled his speed, and he now roams at large upon "my farm at Truro." Mohawk never ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... heart-breathings of prayer, we spoke of the dealings of the Lord in this mission among the children of our million-peopled city. Whilst doing this, it was difficult to realise that we were not at home, among the dear brothers and sisters who are wont to meet with us for prayer ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe
... these gifts he was ever hitting something with either the arrows of speech or the slungshot, which produced a public impression of ceaseless activity and of material accomplishment. In addition to this it was his wont to do all things smiling with an almost boyish manifestation of pleasure, so that he endeared himself to the people and was pronounced in some respects likeable even by ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... approachable by mortal virtue or intelligence. John Calvin and John Milton were in an extraordinary degree the authors of modern institutions of liberty, and it would be difficult to decide which has most merit of this praise. The late Albert Gallatin was wont to say that when we celebrated our condition on the fourth of July, we should first drink to the memory of John Calvin, and then to the immediate authors of the Declaration of Independence. Mr. Gallatin did not hold to all the dogmas of Calvin, but he could not speak of the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... forms a part, to say nothing of his own. "Aristotle," says Montesquieu, "wanted to gratify, first, his jealousy of Plato and then his love for Alexander. Plato was horrified at the tyranny of the Athenians. Machiavel was full of his idol, the Duke of Valentinois. Thomas More, who was wont to speak of what he had read rather than of what he had thought, wanted to govern every state upon the model of a Greek city. Harrington could think of nothing but an English republic, while hosts of writers ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... seven or eight hundred men; the enemy disputing it very stiffly with us." But a tremendous rally of the garrison—wherein Colonel Castle and other officers were killed—drove out the column, which retreated disheartened and baffled. Then the general did that which as commander he was seldom wont to do, and which he passes ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... Haram flies, Nor bends on woman's form his eyes; 440 The unwonted chase each hour employs, Yet shares he not the hunter's joys. Not thus was Hassan wont to fly When Leila dwelt in his Serai. Doth Leila there no longer dwell? That tale can only Hassan tell: Strange rumours in our city say Upon that eve she fled away When Rhamazan's[84] last sun was set, And flashing from each Minaret 450 Millions of lamps proclaimed the feast ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... return unless Mr. Elmendorf should come in, Major Cranston went in search of him. It was barely noon, up to which hour he was supposed to be closeted with his pupil at the Allisons' home. Then after a light luncheon it was his wont to sally forth on a tramp, Cary starting, but rarely returning, with him. When Cranston was at head-quarters a fortnight previous, the officers were speaking of the almost daily appearance about two o'clock of Mr. Elmendorf, who was ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... to have come to England in the time of the Normans. They are brave in battle, and always conquer their enemies. At home they brook no manner of servitude. They are very fond of noises that fill the ears, such as explosions of guns, trumpets, and bells. In London, persons who have got drunk are wont to mount a church tower, for the sake of exercise, and to ring the bells for several hours. If they see a foreigner who is handsome and strong, they are sorry that he is ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... ones; and twelve crosses, some of gold and some of silver. And, besides all this, they went up to the tower and took away the great table which the monks had hidden there, which was all of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and wont to be before the altar, with abundance of books, and other precious things, which were valuable, there being not the like ...
— The New Guide to Peterborough Cathedral • George S. Phillips
... perfect indifference. He had heard men talk who had grown grey bending over the Scriptures, and their conversation had passed by him unheeded; but when a young girl, much younger than himself, reasoned with him in that innocent and persuasive manner that woman is wont to use when she has entered with her whole soul upon an object, it was too much for his stout heart, and he yielded. Her next aim was to vindicate the Bible from sustaining the monstrous institution of slavery. She said, "God has ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... passed through Dorking, stood within a few hundred yards of the Marquis of Granby. It was a cold, dull evening; the little street looked dreary and dismal; and the mahogany countenance of the noble and gallant marquis seemed to wear a more sad and melancholy expression than it was wont to do, as it swung to and fro, creaking mournfully in the wind. The blinds were pulled down, and the shutters partly closed; of the knot of loungers that usually collected about the door, not one was to be seen; the place was ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... expect and to inculcate a harmony between the teachings of revelation and the dictates of reason, thus to exhibit and confirm the intrinsic moral fitness and glory of those truths of revelation. And it is these and similar things which a certain class of German theologians of late are wont to style rationalizing tendencies. ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... books and I are good old pals: My laughing books are gay, Just suited for my merry moods When I am wont to play. Bill Nye comes down to joke with me And, Oh, the joy he spreads. Just like two fools we sit and laugh And ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... his measures do not die with him like a private individual's notions. He is a matter of history; and, wherever I find a tyrant or a villain, I will mark him. I attacked him no more than I had been wont to do. As to the Liberal,—it was a publication set up for the advantage of a persecuted author and a very worthy man. But it was foolish in me to engage in it; and so it has turned out—for I have hurt myself without doing much good to those for ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... familiar) enlivened this part of our way by such anecdotes of Dick Turpin, the celebrated highwayman, as she deemed suitable for my amusement. With what interest I gazed at the little house by the roadside where Turpin was wont to lodge, and where, arriving late one night, he demanded beef-steak for supper in terms so peremptory that, there being none in the house, the old woman who acted as his housekeeper was obliged to walk, then and there, to the nearest ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... dread net and Justice' noose That none may conquer, for thy use: And the great cord, renowned of old, Which Varun ever loves to hold. Take these two thunderbolts, which I Have got for thee, the Moist and Dry. Here Siva's dart to thee I yield, And that which Vishnu wont to wield. I give to thee the arm of Fire, Desired by all and named the Spire. To thee I grant the Wind-God's dart, Named Crusher, O thou pure of heart, This arm, the Horse's Head, accept, And this, the Curlew's Bill yclept, And these two spears, the best e'er flew, Named the Invincible and True. ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... intervenes between the Phutra plain where the city lies, and the inland sea where the Mahars were wont to disport themselves in the cool waters. Not until we had topped this ridge did we get a view ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... sins of the fathers are visited on the children," he was wont to say, "then surely the good deeds of the children are repaid to the fathers." His marked reverence for his wonderful son spread outwards, and Sabbatai became the object of a wistful worship, of a ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it.—Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table in a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chop-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favor she must come; make ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... the skirts, long in the shoulders, wide in the sleeves and enormous round the neck, would scarcely bear comparison with the neat, tight-fitting garments which the other girl graduates of St. Benet's were wont to patronize. Prissie felt glad she was not attired in it that unfortunate day when she sat in Mrs. Elliot-Smith's drawing-room; and yet— and yet— she knew that the poor, quaint, old-world jacket ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... Overbeck's edifying drawings for her, "The Seven Sacraments," a serious study of which, as well as of the commentary, is to be highly recommended. The work is published at Ratisbon; my bookseller here is wont to do business in Tempo moderato molto commodo. He kept me waiting, and I had to go to Belgium (on the 30th of April). I only received the above-mentioned work here yesterday, and send it you today together with the "Ave Maria" for Harmonium and Meyer's excellent ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... and sent forth a savoury odour as well as a pleasant hissing noise. The inhabitants of the block-house were self-taught brewers, and the result of their recent labours now stood displayed in a row of goodly casks of beer—the only beverage with which the dwellers in these far-off regions were wont to regale themselves. ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... surprise at any trait of thoughtlessness or folly; but know, rather, that the intellectual outlook of the normal man indeed surpasses that of the brute,—whose whole existence resembles a continual present without any consciousness of the future or the past—but, however, not to such an extent as one is wont to suppose. ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... always in a ferment, was wont to commit the most ridiculous mistakes. Thus when "Sir Edward" says to "Wilford," "You may have noticed in my library a chest," he transposes the words thus: "You may have noticed in my chest a library," and the house ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... whose rocky side O'erbrowed a grassy mead, And fenced a cottage from the wind, A deer was wont to feed. ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... smiled. He could never quite be sure whether it was or was not to Mrs. Oliver's credit that her looks made so powerful an appeal to the chivalry of young men. "All young men immediately want to protect her," he was wont to say, "and their trouble is that they can't find ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... testimony to the Holy Trinity. Their analysis was: All things are created by God the Father through the Son—even as he does all things through the Son—and are preserved, in God's good pleasure, through the Holy Spirit. So Paul is wont to say elsewhere; for example (1 Cor 8, 6): "There is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things." And concerning the Holy Spirit, Genesis 1, 31 says: "And God saw everything ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... the soul should be, even amidst hordes of savages, the peculiar appanage of youth, grace, and beauty." Peron remarked that nearly all the older women were marked with wounds, "sad results of bad treatment by their ferocious spouses," for the black was wont to temper affection with discipline, and to emphasise his arguments ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... day I saw him seated in the portico of Zeus Eleutherios, [1] and as he appeared to be at leisure, I went up to him and, sitting down by his side, accosted him: How is this, Ischomachus? you seated here, you who are so little wont to be at leisure? As a rule, when I see you, you are doing something, or at any rate not ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... to Johnson's life of his friend Savage and to his great Dictionary. It was Savage, every one remembers, with whom Johnson in his days of starvation was wont to walk the streets all night, neither of them being able to pay for a lodging, and with whom, walking one night round and round St. James's Square, he kept up his own and his companion's spirits by inveighing ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... to the 'Hume' volume Huxley expresses himself forcibly thus,—equally antagonistic as was his wont to both ostensible friend and ostensible foe, as soon as they got off what he considered the ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... versification!"—but cries in rapture, "Heavens! what a prodigy a poet from the scullery! a muse in livery! or, Apollo with a trowel!"—The public is astonished into liberality—the scullion eats from those trenchers he scoured before—the footman is admitted into the coach behind which he was wont to stand—and the bricklayer, instead of plastering walls, bedaubs his illustrious partner with the mortar of his praise. Thus, lifted into a higher sphere, their talents receive cultivation; they become professed bards, ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... business energy of Plattville concentrates on the Square. Here, in summer-time, the gentlemen are wont to lounge from store to store in their shirt sleeves; and here stood the old, red-brick court-house, loosely fenced in a shady grove of maple and elm—"slipp'ry ellum"—called the "Court-House Yard." When the sun grew too hot for the dry-goods box whittlers in front ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... to take an eager delight in its exercise—if not exactly in its display—and did not hesitate to confess the pleasure thus derived. He boasted to me, with a low chuckling laugh, that most men, in respect to himself, wore windows in their bosoms, and was wont to follow up such assertions by direct and very startling proofs of his intimate knowledge of my own. His manner at these moments was frigid and abstract; his eyes were vacant in expression; while his voice, usually a rich tenor, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... far from town in rural hall, Like me, were wont to dwell near pleasant field, Enjoying all the sunny day did yield— With me the change lament, in irksome thrall, By rains incessant held; for now no call From early swain invites my hand to wield The scythe. In parlour dim I sit concealed, And ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... peculiar interest in her descendant, which marks a grandmother's irresponsible love. These two passed half their time in the nursery, a room fitted between their respective chambers; leaving Maud more alone than it was her wont to be, and of course to brood over her thoughts and feelings. These periods of solitude our heroine was much accustomed to pass in the forest. Use had so far emboldened her, that apprehension never shortened her walks, ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... ashamed, fled to hide himself: "bending, weeping, sad and slow, and dragging his long spear behind, Cathullin sank in Cromla's wood, and mourned his fallen friends. He feared the face of Fingal, who was wont to greet him from ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... her, and gave her immense satisfaction. But even the beauty of the Cathedral was as nothing when the organ began to play. Mr. Holmes, the organist, was a great musician, and could manage his instrument with a wizard touch. In the afternoons, between four and five o'clock, he was wont to practice his voluntaries, and to listen to these took Winona into a new world of sound. He was a disciple of the extreme modern school of music, and his interpretations of Debussy, Cesar Franck, Medtner and Glazounow came to her as a revelation. The glorious weird harmonies, the ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... the way of the primitive man," said Paul, who was wont to think about origins and causes. "He was never sure of his food, and when he had it he ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... their emporium Carchemish had no less importance than Tyre or Carthage. There, met merchants from all parts of the world; who brought thither the products and manufactures of their respective countries, and were wont to worship at the Sacred City, Katish of the Khati. The etymology of their name is also unknown. Some historians having pretended that they were a Scythian tribe, derived it from Scythia; but I think that we may find it very ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... reached a spot where he felt sure that he would find a flock of wild turkeys, when he saw Pocahontas ahead of him. She too was hurrying, bent evidently on some errand that absorbed her, for she did not stop to peer up at the birds or to pull the flowers as she was wont to do. ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... that comes up again and again in the account of Mr. Brisk's courtship,—a word that contains far more interest and instruction for us than might on the surface appear. When Mr. Brisk was rallied upon his ill-success with Mercy, he was wont to say that undoubtedly Mistress Mercy was a very pretty lass, only she was troubled with ill conditions. And then, when Mercy was confiding to Prudence all about her possible husbands, she said that they were all such as did not like her conditions. To which Prudence, keeping her countenance, replied, ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... combed his sandy whiskers with a thoughtful forefinger. Not thus had Judith been wont to reply to him. Always before, if there had been denial, there were too, reasons adduced, shy looks from the corners of those dark eyes and tender inquiries as to the health of ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... gowns enough and to spare. Oh, sister! have you come so far to talk of gowns? And that odious woman too! What brought her here?" Angela asked, with more temper than she was wont to show. ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... stay that summons which none may refuse, to give still further length of days to him whose time-honored life was so dear to mankind, prayers were not wanting to the throne of grace. Close to the couch of the sufferer, resting her head upon that ancient book with which she had been wont to hold pious communion a portion of every day for more than half a century, was the venerable consort, absorbed in silent prayer, and from which she only arose when the mourning group prepared to lead her from the ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... morning Caius, smitten with the fever of hope and fear, rose up at dawn, and, as in a former time he had been wont to do, ran to the seashore by the nearest path and walked beside the edge of the waves. He turned, as he had always done, towards the little island and ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... away across rock-tumbled Gatun dam that squats its vast bulk where for long centuries, eighty-five feet below, was the village of Old Gatun with its proud church and its checkered history, where Morgan and Peruvian viceroys and "Forty-niners" were wont to pause from their arduous journeyings. They call it a dam. It is rather a range of hills, a part and portion of the highlands that, east and west, enclose the valley of the Chagres, its summit resembling the terminal yards of some great city. There ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... were dark and stout, hot-blooded, fierce, and impetuous. They were apparently vigorous; but many of them died young. The Draytons, on the other hand, were slender and fair, and usually lived to a round old age; a fact of which they were wont to boast in contrast with the ...
— The Christmas Peace - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... O my enlightened father, to take up your well-spent leisure by a too prolific account of the matters which followed, they being in no way dissimilar from the manifestations by which the uninitiated little ones of Yuen-ping are wont to amuse themselves and pass the winter evenings. From time to time harmonious sounds could be plainly detected, flowers and branches of wood were scattered sparsely here and there, persons claimed that passing ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... "boudoirs," ripping our fragrant patches of roses into fantastic "parterres," covering our centre tables with albums and wax flowers, and, in short (for these details pain us), stripping our nooks and corners of the welcome warm air of pleasant homeliness, which was wont to be a charm and a privilege, to substitute for it a chilly gloss—an unwholesome straining after effect—a something less definite in its operation than in its ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... cheek with odorous tears. So each with each inwoven lived with each, And were in union more than double-sweet. What marvel my Camilla told me all? It was so happy an hour, so sweet a place, And I was as the brother of her blood, And by that name was wont to live in her speech, Dear name! which had too much of nearness in it And heralded the distance of this time. At first her voice was very sweet and low, As tho' she were afeard of utterance; But in the onward ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... apostleship were following their vocation as fishermen even while Jesus was actively engaged as a Teacher in their own neighborhood. One day, as the Lord stood by the lake or sea of Galilee, the people pressed about Him in great numbers, eager to hear more of the wondrous words He was wont to speak.[427] Near the place were two fishing boats drawn in upon the beach; the owners were close by, washing and mending their nets. One of the boats belonged to Simon Peter, who had already become identified with ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... silence and futility. Then came the seances, and at once, to add fuel to her hatred, she found herself stripped of those gifts and commissions which she had exacted from the herd of common tricksters who had been wont to make their harvest out of Mme. Dauvray. Helene Vauquier was avaricious and greedy, like so many of her class. Her hatred of Celia, her contempt for Mme. Dauvray, grew into a very delirium. But it was a delirium she had the cunning ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... (1478-1535).—Historical and political writer, s. of Sir John M., a Justice of the King's Bench, was b. in London. In his 16th year he was placed in the household of Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was wont to say, "This child here waiting at the table ... will prove a marvellous man." In 1497 he went to Oxf., where he became the friend of Erasmus and others, and came in contact with the new learning. He studied law at New Inn and Lincoln's Inn, and for some time thought of entering the Church. He was, ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... uneasy at the captain's stay (for he was always most punctual at his meals); and gave orders that the bell should be rung without the doors, and especially towards those walks which the captain was wont to use. ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... omens," said Annot, smiling through her tears; "and nothing coming through the hands of my two patrons," so she was wont to call Lord Menteith and Allan, "can bring bad luck to ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... enclosed in a bag, containing a portion of their native earth. In March 1821 a letter of acknowledgment was received by his correspondent from the Doctor, who was himself well skilled in botany, and had a garden rich in plants, both tropical and European. In this enclosure he was wont to spend an hour every morning, before he entered upon those labours and studies which have rendered his name illustrious both at home and abroad, as one of the most accomplished of Oriental scholars and a translator of the Holy Scriptures ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... was often made a sort of confessional, at which she presided, the tenderest and most sympathetic little priestess in the universe; and every afternoon the piazza, with its lattice of green vines, served as a mimic throne-room, where she was wont to hold high court, surrounded by her devoted subjects. Here Geoffrey Strong used often to read to the assembled company David Copperfield, Alice in Wonderland, or snatches from the magazines, while Jack Howard lazily stretched himself under the orange-trees and braided lariats, a favourite occupation ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... pleasure. To what can I compare your fidelity and devotion to me? Ah! it is indeed delightful that you still continue to love me so well. I know how to prize you, and to distinguish you from all others; you are not like my Vienna friends. No! you are one of those whom the soil of my fatherland is wont to bring forth; how often I wish that you were with me, for your Beethoven is very unhappy. You must know that one of my most precious faculties, that of hearing, is become very defective; even while you were still ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace
... weeds—the precipice fell away a sheer two thousand feet, and below spread a vast rich green plain populous and diversified, bounded at last by the blue sea, like an amethystine wall. Over this precipice Christophe was wont to fling his victims, and below this terrace were bottle-shaped dungeons where men, broken and torn, thrust in at the neck-like hole above, starved and died: it was his headquarters here, here he had his torture chambers and the means for ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... recalled their numerous leather trunks, and for a moment stood a child again, seeing them drive away on post-cars. A few more shops had been added—very few—and then the town dwindled quickly, slated roofs giving way to thatched cottages, and of the same miserable kind that was wont to provoke his antipathy when ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... and Bess Janner were my only stay," the young doctor was wont to say. "Only such care as his would have saved you, and you had a close race of ...
— "Seth" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Kartaus, "I have wronged thee in banishing thee from my kingdom. Abide here and choose the best city and the fairest villages. My treasures are open to thee—take what thou desirest, and thy place is at my side." Yaroslav answered: "O Tsar, I am wont to rove about, to seek adventure and to fight." So, after he had eaten salt and bread with the Tsar and with his parents, he took leave of them ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... few days of her death people had been wont to remark that Mrs. Scales looked as young as ever, and that she was as bright and as energetic as ever. And truly, regarding Sophia from a little distance—that handsome oval, that erect carriage of ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... journalism, owned to no regular service but that of the law. How it paid him might be inferred from the oldness of his clothes and the ricketiness of his office. There was a card saying "Back in ten minutes" on the door which he opened to admit Larcher and himself. And his friends were wont to assert that he kept the card "working overtime," himself, preferring to lay down the law to companionable persons in neighboring cafes rather than to possible clients in his office. When Tompkins had lighted the gas, Larcher saw a cracked low ceiling, a threadbare carpet ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... and, at times, his hand shook like a drunkard's. It was even worse with the spiritual man. He had become irritable, peevish, and ill-natured; he had lost, by degrees, every generous sentiment. As a young man he had been remarkable for his liberality in pecuniary matters. He had been wont to part freely with his money. Inconsistent as it may seem, notwithstanding his heavy losses through his partners, and his fearful expenditure, he was as greedy of gain as though he were stinting himself of every farthing, and secretly hoarding up his chests ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... you ought to marry, but not in order to gain wealth or to avoid poverty; neither should you, as men are wont to do, choose a wife who is like yourself in property and character. You ought to consult the interests of the state rather than your own pleasure; for by equal marriages a society becomes unequal. And yet to enact a law that the rich and mighty shall not marry the rich and mighty, that the quick ...
— Laws • Plato
... waly, waly up the bank! And waly, waly, down the brae! And waly, waly yon burn-side, Where I and my love wont to gae! ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various
... give vent to his grief in heartrending sobs. Everything in his wife's room remained as it was during her lifetime; all her furniture, even her clothing, being left as it was on the day of her death. Here he was wont to seclude himself daily and think of her who had been his treasure-the joy of ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... wandering over the world, seeking for what they could not find. And how was he to call to Nina across the black gulf of the night, wheresoever she might be? Suddenly there leaped into his recollection an old German ballad he used to sing. It was that of the three comrades who were wont to drink together, until one died, and another died, and nevertheless the solitary survivor kept the accustomed tryst, and still, sitting there alone, he had the three glasses filled, and still he ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... children,' she was wont to say, 'Talking of what we cannot understand,' And in the dark or daylight, all the way, Holding so trustfully a Father's hand. And this was her religion, not to dwell On tenets, creeds, or doctrines, but to live On a pure faith, and striving to do well ...
— Kansas Women in Literature • Nettie Garmer Barker
... over books. Intellect is what we want. Intellect makes money. Intellect makes the world. We would rather see our son a genius than an athlete." Well: and so would I. But what if intellect alone does not even make money, save as Messrs. Dodson & Fogg, Sampson Brass, and Montagu Tigg were wont to make it, unless backed by an able, enduring, healthy physique, such as I have seen, almost without exception, in those successful men of business whom I have had the honour and the pleasure of knowing? What if intellect, or what is now called intellect, did not make the world, or ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... best days, presented an aspect of rather snug respectability. But the events I am about to relate invested it with an evil reputation, and made it an object to be contemplated at a safe distance, rather than from any near approach. Youngsters on their way to school were wont to eye it askance as they hurried by on their way to their daily tasks. Even children of a larger growth manifested no unbecoming desire to penetrate too curiously into its inner mysteries, and for years its threshold ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... a man's mind is sometime wont to tell him more than seven watchmen, that sit above ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... of ancient Greece in Phocis, at the foot of Parnassus, where Apollo had a temple, and whence he was wont to issue his oracles by the mouth of his priestess the Pythia, who when receiving the oracle used to sit on a tripod over an opening in the ground through which an intoxicating vapour exhaled, deemed the breath of the god, and that ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... long shirt, drawers, and dirty linen clothes; or, if he is a soldier, he affects a British red coat. He throws it over his shirt, while he gets on his head the picturesque Indo-Afghan turban. Others again—and these are the beau-monde—are wont to assume a half-Persian costume. Weapons are borne by all. Rarely does any one, whether civil or military, enter the bazar without his sword and shield. To be quite a la mode one must carry about one quite an ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough
... salient point in this story is the practical and business part of it,—the actual pulling down of the chateau, as a last resort, to get rid of the disturbance. Mere fancy is not wont to lead to such a result as that. The owner of a piece of valuable property is not likely to destroy it for imaginary cause. Interest is a marvellous quickener of the wits, and may be supposed to have left no stone unturned, before assenting to such ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... in Cavendish Place, and Stafford had been a frequent visitor to the house. Sir Stanley was a childless widower, who was wont to complain that he kept up his huge establishment in order to justify the employment of his huge staff of servants. Stafford suspected him of being something of a sybarite. His dinners were famous, his cellar was one of the best in London and because of his acquaintances ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece And the grandeur that ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... said the lawyer, and he drew near and leaned on the tall fender. This hall, in which he was now left alone, was a pet fancy of his friend the doctor's; and Utterson himself was wont to speak of it as the pleasantest room in London. But to-night there was a shudder in his blood; the face of Hyde sat heavy on his memory; he felt (what was rare with him) a nausea and distaste of life; and in the gloom of his spirits, he seemed to read a menace in the flickering ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... right hands are benumbed? or what other miracle is it? You who, when few, have been accustomed to conquer numbers, now scarce maintain your ground, the many against the few. Brave in speech only, you were wont to boast that you would take Rome by storm if you could find a general to lead you. Lo! here is a task of less difficulty. I would have you try your strength and courage here. Take Nola, a town situated ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... few blocks, he entered an hotel and sought the telephone booth. The wide awake voice that answered him was very unlike the sweet and sleepy drawls of protest his matutinal ringings were wont to call forth when Dorothy had been a gay and frivolous debutante. The enforced quiet of her mother's prolonged illness, and the sojourn in the retirement of a hill sanitarium, had made of her a very different ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... calmes, but with the new Moone we had winde enough out of the West and North West. The 27. of May we found the water abord our shippes to bee much lessened, and therefore euery mans portion was but halfe as much as he was wont to haue; so that each man was allowed but foure draughts euery day, which was but a small quantitie. Whereby through the extreame heat we endured great thirst, so that at that time a draught of water abord our ship was worth a Riall ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... which three cannon shots always announce the disappearance of a convict, serving to warn the peasants, and call them to earn the handsome reward given to whoever arrests one of the branded fugitives. They are easily recognised by the halt in one limb; as they are wont to drag after them that which has been ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 546, May 12, 1832 • Various
... country, often in the possession of strange owners, almost always to be had for gold. To acquire these was Cotton's chief delight from the age of eighteen; and as a natural consequence, this taste surrounded him with learned friends. At his house at Westminster the literati of the day were wont to meet. Josceline, Camden, Noel, Speed, Sir John Davis, and others formed, together with himself, the then Society of Antiquaries, which ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... satisfactorily made out by them that confine themselves to deduce things from Salt, Sulphur and Mercury, and the other Notions peculiar to the Chymists, without taking much more Notice than they are wont to do, of the Motions and Figures, of the small Parts of Matter, and the other more Catholick and Fruitful affections of Bodies. Wherefore it will not perhaps be now unseasonable to let our Carneades warne Men, not to subscribe to the grand Doctrine of the Chymists ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... laborious, if not weary hour before her part of the care necessary to the well-rearing of the child, was so complete that the worthy woman might sit down and expect a small return; for, as she was wont to say, the child could not be made, for years after she could hold a needle, to understand that the threads should not be pulled as tight in darning as in hem stitch, and this, she would say, was unaccountable, considering how ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... miles of country he had crossed was a trifle, as regarded distance, to a lad of nineteen, the rugged mountain-path by which he had come would have tried the muscles of a Red Indian, and the nerve of a goat. "You were wont to keep to time better in days gone by. Truly it seems to me a strange thing that I should thus be made a sort of walking post between my mother's house and this bay, all for the benefit of a man who seems to me no better than he should be, and whom I don't like, ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... who remained had a single individual escaped, without having undergone some change. In some, the gaiety of youth had been exchanged for the thoughtful expression of maturer years; upon the foreheads of others, grey hairs were seen where glossy ringlets were wont to wave; the rosy hue which had once adorned the cheek, was now broken into streaks; and on brows formerly smooth, the handwriting ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... tell thee: One day I was very busy in holding my plough (for thee seest that I am but a ploughman) and being weary I ran under the shade of a tree to repose myself. I cast my eyes on a daisy, I plucked it mechanically and viewed it with more curiosity than common country farmers are wont to do; and observed therein very many distinct parts, some perpendicular, some horizontal. What a shame, said my mind, or something that inspired my mind, that thee shouldest have employed so many years in tilling the earth and destroying so many flowers ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... a modern Rabbi, of supererogation in the path of honesty. The post is in the hands of the Government, and, accordingly, the late Rabbi Bamberger of Wurzburg, whenever he gave a Haskamah, or recommendation, which would be delivered by hand, was wont to destroy a postage stamp, so as not to defraud the Government, even in appearance. With this remarkable instance of conscientious uprightness, we may fitly conclude this notice, suggested as it has been by the modern improvements in the postal system, which depend for their success so largely on ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... Echoed the breath that warbling sea-maids breathed; This magic shell, From the white bosom of a syren fell, As once she wandered by the tide that laves Sicilia's sands of gold. It bears Upon its shining side the mystic notes Of those entrancing airs,[1] The genii of the deep were wont to swell, When heaven's eternal orbs their midnight music rolled! Oh! seek it, wheresoe'er it floats; And, if the power Of thrilling numbers to thy soul ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... not wont to be thus short-sighted, Lanyere. There must be some other mode of exit, which you have failed to discover," Sir Giles cried furiously. "Ha! here it is!" he exclaimed, dashing aside a piece of tapestry that seemed merely hung against the wall, but in reality concealed a short flight of ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... teach all lesser criminals to pay respect to the power of their sovereign. Albany, moved by these reasons, was induced to forget Hume's past services, to which he had in a great measure been indebted for the regency; and he no longer bore towards him that favorable countenance with which he was wont to receive him. Hume perceived the alteration, and was incited, both by regard to his own safety and from motives of revenge, to take measures in opposition to the regent. He applied himself to Angus and the queen dowager, and represented to them the danger to which the infant prince ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... with an odd shrinking from him, she noticed that there was something furtive in his manner, and that his voice, wont to sound alarmingly through the house on his return to it, was husky and hushed. "Lydia, how much money have ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... to know of ourselves. Abroad, we wonder we are not at once recognized as Carolinians; at home, we let the vulgar world know who we are. Indeed, we regard the outside world-of these States we mean-very much in that light which the Greeks of old were wont to view the Romans in. Did we but stop here, the weakness might be pardonable. But we lay claim to Grecian refinement of manners, while pluming all our mob-politicians Roman orators. There is a profanity about this we confess ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... no spectre have we here; He growls, doubts, lays him on his belly too, And wags his tail-as dogs are wont to do. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... is, so long as men would suffer him to do so; for it happened more than once that his ship was boarded by Vikings, who in the end went away, finding that they had made a mistake in thinking that they had found a prize in a harmless trader, for Grim was wont to man his ship with warriors, saying that what was worth trading was worth keeping. I mind me how once he came to England with a second cargo, won on the high seas from a Viking's plunder, which the Viking brought alongside our ship, thinking to add our goods ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... marigold. When I was of smallest dimensions, and wont to ride impacted between the knees of fond parental pair, we would sometimes cross the bridge to the next village-town and stop opposite a low, brown, "gambrel-roofed" cottage. Out of it would come one Sally, sister of its ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... retreat to the rear of the room out of the general melee; for he was shrewd enough instantly to comprehend that, while there might be fatal danger to him in the crowd, there was but little when he stood aloof: God's Bishops were not wont to be murdered deliberately in public. Yet it did not save him from arrest, for Raynor glanced at the Protector, and reading the order in his face stalked back and clapping Morton on the shoulder said gruffly: ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... were but two; either we shot them, or hunted them with greyhounds. We were never able to ensnare them. Those sportsmen who relied on the gun seldom met with success, unless they slept near covers, into which the kangaroos were wont to retire at night, and watched with great caution and vigilance when the game, in the morning, sallied forth to feed. They were, however, sometimes stolen in upon in the day-time and that fascination of the eye, which has ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... soiled with frequent handling. He re-read it in a half methodical, half patient way, as if he were waiting for some revelation it inspired, which was slow that afternoon in coming. At other times it had called up a youthful enthusiasm which was wont to transfigure his grave and prematurely reserved face with a new expression. To-day the revelation and expression were both wanting. He put the letter back with a slight sigh, that sounded so preposterous in the silent room that he could not forego an embarrassed ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... distinctly nautical atmosphere was lent to the broad, deck-like verandah by a ship's barometer, a chart of Cape Cod, and a highly polished brass telescope mounted on a tripod so as to command the entire expanse of the bay. Here Cap'n Bryant, a retired New Bedford whaling captain, was wont to spend the sunny days in his big cane-seated rocking-chair, puffing meditatively at his pipe and for my boyish edification spinning yarns of adventure in far-distant seas and on islands with magic names—Tawi Tawi, Makassar Straits, the Dingdings, ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... summit is a succession of short tunnels, the space between being covered with snow-shed; and when I came through, the openings and crevices through which the smoke from the engines is wont to make its escape, and through which a few rays of light penetrate the gloomy interior, are blocked up with snow, so that it is both dark and smoky; and groping one's way with a bicycle over the rough surface is anything but pleasant going. But ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... originator of the Coronation Hymnal, a book into whose making went five years of prayer, was Dr. A.J. Gordon, late Pastor of the Clarendon St. Baptist church, Boston. While the volume was slowly taking form and plan he was wont to hum to himself, or cause to be played by one of his family, snatches and suggestions of new airs that came to him in connection with his own hymns, and others which seemed to have no suitable music. The anonymous ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... warrior. No sooner was he in view, than the little wings of the doves were rapidly fanning the air towards him. One, the lesser, and scarce larger than a fly, lighted on his lip, the larger crept to his bosom, as it was wont to do in life, and was fondly pressed to his heart, which loved the form it bore when living, and deeply cherished its memory, and hailed its return to the earth, in a new shape, with inconceivable delight. ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... scope to the loving sorrow and filial piety of the children, descendants, and family of her whom we meet to commemorate and honour—now that the minister, whom she was accustomed to hear, and the worshippers, with whom she was wont to join in praise and prayer, have recorded their solemn union in the same sacred memory, I crave leave to offer my humble tribute of devotion as representing the general circle of her friends, and the far ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell |
