"Self-willed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... me up to love books and music and pictures. She died when I was twelve, and poor Father, who worshiped her, wanted to carry out her plans for me, though he had no special sympathy with them. To make things worse for him, nobody but Mother ever had any control over me; I was spoiled and self-willed and precocious, and I thought the world owed me a good time. Dad's business judgment of human nature saved the situation, he thoroughly understood one thing about me, that I'd keep a bargain if I made it. So we fixed up our ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... differs from other animals." Now a child does not attend to the order of reason; and in like manner "concupiscence does not listen to reason," according to Ethic. vii, 6. Secondly, they are alike as to the result. For a child, if left to his own will, becomes more self-willed: hence it is written (Ecclus. 30:8): "A horse not broken becometh stubborn, and a child left to himself will become headstrong." So, too, concupiscence, if indulged, gathers strength: wherefore Augustine says (Confess. viii, 5): "Lust served became a custom, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... the end of a box-couch, a young woman was perched, thin shoulders rounded over the ink-stained drawing-board resting on her knees. She had a large, self-willed mouth and dark Bohemian hair, and wore a dreary cotton kimono over a silk petticoat whose past had been lurid. One hand clutched gingerly a bottle of India ink, the other wielded a scratchy ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... formerly refused to withdraw his resignation at her entreaty, felt that she had no reason to expect any great consideration for the opinions or wishes of either herself or the king from one so conceited and self-willed, who would be likely to attribute his re-appointment, not to the king's voluntary choice, but to his necessities: she therefore strongly pressed that the archbishop should be preferred. In an unhappy moment she prevailed;[10] and on the 1st of May, 1787, Lomenie de ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... restless-looking little boy, thinner and paler than the others, whose round black eyes seem to shine with a somber brilliance. These eyes, which, eight or ten years later, were to hunt and pursue so many enemy airplanes, are passionately self-willed. The same temperament is evident in a snapshot of this same period, in which Georges is seen playing at war. The college registers of this year tell us that he had a clear, active, well-balanced mind, but that he was thoughtless, mischief-making, disorderly, careless; that he did not work, ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... looking him fairly in the face, almost laughing, but slim and erect in her white tunic, which seemed to protect her person against the liberties of his wit. He, the conqueror, the irresistible, had never met one of that audacious, self-willed race. So he enveloped her in all the magnetic currents of his seductive charm, while around them the murmur of the fete, the flute-like laughter, the rustling of satins and strings of pearls played an accompaniment to that duet ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... de Groodt shower down a pannier load of maledictions upon his burgomaster for a set of self-willed, obstinate, factious varlets, who would neither be convinced nor persuaded. Nor did he omit to bestow some left-handed compliments upon the sovereign people, as a heard of poltroons, who had no relish for ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... and the part of the poor weeping parents, whom she can fancy, against the savage law. No doubt, as Egyptologists tell us, the princesses of the royal house had separate households and abundant liberty of action. Still, it was bold to override the strict commands of such a monarch. But it was not a self-willed sense of power, but the beautiful daring of a compassionate woman, to which God committed the execution of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... among the poor in large cities are aware of the value of orderly and systematic industrial training for girls of irresponsible parentage, between the years of twelve and eighteen. These girls are often bright and attractive, but they are usually self-willed, lacking in judgment, and ignorant of every useful art, as well as of all social and domestic standards that lend themselves to the development of a true womanhood. Their homes are usually unworthy of the name, often scenes of disorder, not infrequently of violence, from which their only ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... I was such a mere babe when she died, I have often wondered what it would be like to have a mother. Auntie Hagar was always very kind to me, however; so kind, in fact, that my step-father, fearing, he said, that I would grow up self-willed and disobedient, sent her away, and procured the services of the ugly old woman you saw in the garden. Poor Auntie Hagar," sighed the girl, "she was sorely grieved at our parting and, that she might be near me, bought the little cottage in ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... formerly served him: and when true jewels are placed before him, counterfeit ones in his eyes soon lose their lustre, and become things which he scorns. The multitude are teachable—teachable as a child; but, like a child, they are self-willed and obstinate, and will learn in their own way, or not at all. And, if the artist wishes to raise them unto a fit audience, he must consult their very waywardness, or his work will be a Penelope's web ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... with their enemies. The court did not venture at once to strike down one so formidable. A mission was assigned the cardinal at Rome, to remove him from the country. He refused to accept it. The boy-king was growing reckless, passionate, self-willed. He began to feel the power that was in his hand. The cardinal was warned of his danger. He smiled, and said "that, sustained by his ecclesiastical rank, ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... things for which you are not fitted, or by looking down upon companions not gifted with powers like your own. Do not despise Patience, or think that you are too clever to need it. It is not the quickest or sharpest pupil that really spends Time to best purpose. Often has the haughty, self-willed genius been found to ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... obstinate, self-willed, reckless—and the man most to my heart," he continued. "Have your way, in God's name, but I wish not to see what will come of it! ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... wrong opinions, you think me quiet, easy, gentle, I may be so, but I am also passionate, determined, and you say selfish; be that as it may, I cannot give up without a very hard struggle, not even then usually. I am unyielding. Persevering and firm, Emily would say, self-willed and obstinate, Grace ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... greyhounds whose tails curl between their legs. Outside of the Plantation those dogs caught and ate my future wife, as I have said. It was her own fault, for I had warned her not to go there, but she was a very self-willed character. As it was she never even gave them a run, for they were all round her in a minute. Then they made a kind of cartwheel; their heads were in the centre of this cartwheel and their tails pointed out. In its exact middle ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... originality was the power of seeing every object from the exact point of view in which others would see it. He was the Proteus of human intellect. Genius in ordinary is a more obstinate and less versatile thing. It is sufficiently exclusive and self-willed, quaint and peculiar. It does some one thing by virtue of doing nothing else: it excels in some one pursuit by being blind to all excellence but its own. It is just the reverse of the cameleon; for it does not borrow, but lends its colour to all about it; or like the glow-worm, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... went on, he began to grow jealous of the cousin Konrad; and Konrad, though he was a light-hearted young fellow, and meaning no harm whatever, resented being forbidden to see his cousin. He refused to cease visiting the house, though the young wife begged him to do so. He was very proud and self-willed, you must know, Natalushka. Well, the husband did not say much, but he was morose, and once or twice he said to his wife, 'It is not your fault that your cousin is impertinent; but let him take care.' Then one day an old friend of his wife's father came to her, and said, 'Do you ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... calmed for the rest of the evening; but so wakeful and restless a night ensued, that he began to be alarmed, and fully came to the conclusion that Philip Carey was in the right after all. Towards morning, however, a short sleep visited him, and he awoke at length quite sufficiently refreshed to be self-willed as ever; and, contrary to advice, insisted on leaving his bed at ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... have a right to tell others to keep away. And you may do so without being held severe or uncharitable. Didn't I say to Monsieur Maurice the moment that lady entered here: Look out! Keep away! And he didn't, and so he fell in. Just like a naughty, self-willed child. And when a man acts like that he has to have a spanking, like any ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... opposition to his apostolic authority (verse 14). These disorderly persons seem to have been the same as those who were engaged in propagating erroneous notions respecting the time of our Lord's second advent. Their visionary views on this subject made them self-conceited, talkative, and self-willed, and led them to neglect the ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... for the mad excitement of a perilous adventure. Then, when the thoughtless "I'd like a lark of that sort" had been spoken, came the derisive answer, "You haven't the nerve for it." And then again the subtle leading of an ardent and self-willed nature into the morass, Scaife pretending to dissuade a friend, entreating him to consider the risk, urging him to go to bed, as if he were a headstrong child. And finally Desmond's challenge, "Bet you I have the nerve," and its acceptance, protestingly, by the ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... an ardent, impetuous, and self-willed boy, such as the sons of rich and powerful men are very apt to become. They imbibe, by a sort of sympathy, the ambitious and aspiring spirit of their fathers; and as all their childish caprices and passions are ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... defer to the will of a child! Such a child too! So stubborn and spoiled and self-willed! If we say it is good for her to ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... mother, as her mother had died soon after the Baroness decided to adopt the child. She knew that Leonore would otherwise be all alone in the world, and she hoped that a gentle sister would have an extremely beneficial influence on the two self-willed brothers. Now a time began for me which was more wonderful than anything I could ever have imagined. Leonore was to continue her studies, of course, and take up new ones. For that purpose a very refined German lady came to the ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri
... though a few things may be gathered that tend to make the biography somewhat more distinct than before, in some particulars. On the subject of his first unfortunate marriage, we are made aware that his wife was a self-willed, ill-taught young woman, who set her own father at defiance, and threw herself on the protection of such a wandering oddity as Percy Shelley. She was strong-minded, and brought with her into her husband's ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... brilliancy. Associated with impotency and ignorance, they are disgusting beyond expression. Augustus Brammel was the most sensual and self-engrossed of men—the most idle and dissipated; and, as if these were not enough to render him an object of the deepest aversion, he was as self-willed, thick-headed, overbearing a dunce as ever moved a man to that contempt "which wisdom holds unlawful ever;" and Brammel was not only a fool, but a conceited, upstart, irritating fool. He considered himself the shrewdest of mortals, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... was governed by the most hardened and inveterate cruelty. She never did anything either under persuasion or compulsion, but employed all her self-willed efforts to carry out her resolutions, and no one ventured to intercede in favour of those who fell in her way. Neither length of time, nor fulness of punishment, nor carefully drawn-up prayers, nor the fear of death, nor the vengeance of Heaven, ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... James when he found that not only the clergy had disobeyed his orders, but that the Seven Bishops were sustained by the nation. When this was discovered, he should have yielded, as Elizabeth would have done. But he was a Stuart. He was a bigoted, and self-willed, and infatuated monarch, marked out most clearly by Providence for destruction. He resolved to prosecute the bishops for a libel, and their trial and acquittal are among the most interesting events of an inglorious reign. They were tried ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... remained at a respectable distance from the scene of action. What an excellent caricature might have been made of that good-humoured savant, as he sat on his Rosinante, armed with an enormous doubled-barrelled gun, loaded but not primed, some time, to no purpose, spurring the self-willed animal, and then spying through an opera-glass at the majestic animals ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... choice of the masses. His popular vote in 1824 revealed not only his personal popularity but the growing power of the democratic elements in the nation, and his defeat in the House of Representatives only strengthened his own and the people's determination to be finally victorious. The untrained, self-willed, passionate frontier soldier came to power in 1828 as the standard bearer of a mighty democratic uprising which was destined before it ran its course to break down oligarchical party organizations, to liberalize state and ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... women who had nothing in common with the fine gentlemen and the fine ladies who fill the historical fashion plates. If, unfortunately, Squire Western and Parson Truliber were true pictures, at least Parson Adam and Sir Roger de Coverley still held good. None the less a young, self-willed King, not too intelligent and not too well educated, could scarcely have come to his sovereignty at a time less like to be fruitful of good for him or for the country that he was ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... about you than I can say, Laura. I don't know how you'll ever get on in life—you're so disobedient and self-willed. It would serve you very well right, I'm sure, for not coming this morning, if I didn't give you a penny of pocket-money to ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... so persistently, and his housekeeper, Mrs Sands, was so gentle and meek-spirited, that the effect on a naturally self-willed child can easily be imagined; and, as she grew up, she became more and more uncontrollable. She was a pretty, gypsy-looking girl, inheriting her sweet looks from her mother, and her voice and musical ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... of this scurril fool, Ajax is grown self-willed as broad Achilles. He keeps a table too, makes factious feasts, Rails on our state of war, and sets Thersites (A slanderous slave of an o'erflowing gall) To level us with low comparisons. They tax our policy with cowardice, Count wisdom of ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... village-gossip. All that he fully understood was that this had been a perverse and unmanageable child, and that the extraordinary care which had been bestowed on her had been so far thrown away that she was a dangerous, self-willed girl, whom all feared and almost all shunned, as if she carried ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... performing the duties of a coxswain to a married captain were not so observable. Besides which, being no longer under discipline, he was almost every night intoxicated; and, being so, was more self-willed and regardless of his wife's injunctions. The consequences were that having received from my father fifty pounds, my mother first locked that up, and then "unlocked her jaw." Disputes were now hourly occurring; and it was ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... Succeeding in her first efforts, she was praised—was pleased, and persevered till she became an example of activity to her companions. But Victoire, though now nearly seven years old, was not quite perfect. Naturally, or accidentally, she was very passionate, and not a little self-willed. ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... worship; begins services an hour or two after the time fixed; has long hymns sung and preaches long, so that those who come from a distance must drive till late into the night and are compelled to neglect their cattle. He is headstrong (koppich), that is, self-willed, and will not allow any one to tell him anything or to give him advice. He says he did not come here to learn from the people, but to teach them. Nor did he, said they, cultivate the friendship of the old ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... that was obsolete; or decried Sullivan's music in favour of Debussy's or of Scarlatini's 17th century tiraliras; or wore spectacles and had to have their front teeth in gold clamps. Just clear-eyed, good-tempered, good-looking, roguish and spontaneously natural and reasonably self-willed children, who adored their parents and did not openly mock at the ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... the natural constitution of society that bigoted zeal, which in such times makes a show of public acts of penance, should avail itself of the semblance of religion. But this took place in such a manner that unbridled, self-willed penitence degenerated into luke-warmness, renounced obedience to the hierarchy, and prepared a fearful opposition to the Church, paralyzed as it ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... brought, as was his wont, and before his congregation set, his last sermons were mainly the touching, tender words, "My little children, love one another." O, that his mantle could on many of us fall! But oft, alas! we see grow cross, self-willed and sour the shepherd of the flock. This, too, when age should give his words both weight and wisdom. Lord, give me poverty and affliction, if it be thy will, but save me, I pray, from this sad end. Far better that one die young, than grow old against the grain. "Is life worth ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... of English Toryism, that it gives way just in time. Every reform has hitherto been granted as it was on the point of being extorted. Official carriages roll over the very spot where Charles I. dropped his self-willed head; Lady Macbeth might wash her hands as soon as the English people their memories of the civil bloodstain. Toryism knows one thing well: that no water-pipes can be made strong enough to withstand the sudden stoppage of a long column of water. They will burst and overflow. No matter what material ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... in heaven, because in music there is no self-will. Music goes on certain laws and rules. Man did not make those laws of music, he has only found them out, and if he be self-willed and break them, there is an end of his music instantly; all he brings out ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... goes my noble, feudal, self-willed Baron! Epitome of what brave chivalry The preux Chevaliers of the good old times Have left us. Yesterday he would have given His lands[175] (if he hath any), and, still dearer, His sixteen quarterings, for as much fresh air As would have filled a bladder, while ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... Ildico, the beautiful Burgundian, stood at the window lost in thought and absent-minded. She had seen in Worms the hero before whom the world trembled, and she had really been captivated by the little man's majestic bearing. Herself fond of power, and self-willed, she had been enticed by the prospect of sharing power with the man before whom all and everything bowed; therefore she had ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... thought, and the next day went to pray again—but not that she might be delivered. She brought to the shrine at which she knelt substantial promises as offerings. Hers were not the prayers of a saint, but of a passionate, importunate child, self-willed and tempestuous. She would not have prayed if she could have hoped for help from any earthly means. She had never prayed for anything before. She had always taken what she wanted and gone her way; but she ...
— The Pretty Sister Of Jose - 1889 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... caused by their own conduct or that of others, made them hard to be pleased—and so the cloud thickened about them, and with all outward means for being happy, loving and beloved, they were a wretched family. James, the eldest, was impetuous and self-willed, but affectionate, generous, and very fond of reading and study, and with gentle and judicious management, would have been the joy and pride of his family, with the domestic and literary tastes so invaluable to every youth, in our day, when temptations of every kind are so rife ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... taken him forth to Grubner's dwelling, and if so he had lifted a heavy task from me, for indeed my whole soul yearned to this dearly-beloved aunt, yet meseemed it was no light matter to prepare her, who was so feeble and yet so self-willed, for the joy and the strife of soul which awaited her. The board was spread for them as it were, and yet she and Gotz, by their baleful oath, had barred themselves from tasting of that ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Ave. You and I have no past to grieve over together, but poor Henry will never feel free of having left me to my self-willed obstinacy, and let me go to that place. Besides, the disgrace in the sight of the world touches him more, and you can tread that down more easily than he.' Then, in answer to a wondering look, 'Yes, you can, when you recollect that it ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... She had been aching to have it out with this self-willed young woman who was playing fast and loose with attainable millions, ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... 'Bouquet Imperatrice'. Tut! Tut! Give me some ink— 'Bouquet de la Reine', what do you think? Not the same receipt? Now, Martin, put away your conceit. Who will ever know? 'Extract of Nobility'—excellent, since most of them are killed." "But, Monsieur Antoine—" "You are self-willed, Martin. You need a salve For your conscience, do you? Very well, we'll halve The compliments, also the pastes and dentifrices; Send some to the Kings, and some to the Empresses. 'Oil of Bitter Almonds'—the Empress Josephine can have that. 'Oil of Parma Violets' fits the other one ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... condescend to look around, Miss Briskett divined that behind the curtains of the neighbouring houses the occupants were looking on with admiring curiosity, and noting every detail of the girl's attire. If Cornelia were self-willed and defiant, in appearance at least she was a worthy representative of her race. The stern lines of the spinster's mouth relaxed into an unwilling smile as ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... to all. Hunters of their type resembled explorers in slow and deliberate attention to details. What they had to deal with here was a situation of unlimited possibilities; the horses and outfit needed; a long detour to reach Magdalena unobserved; the rescue of a strange girl who would no doubt be self-willed and determined to ride on the stage—the rescue forcible, if necessary; the fight and the inevitable pursuit; the flight into the forest, and the safe delivery of the girl ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... I listened with a heart forlorn The pulses of my being beat anew: And even as life returns upon the drowned, Life's joy rekindling roused a throng of pains— Keen pangs of Love, awakening as a babe Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart; And fears self-willed, that shunned the eye of hope; And hope that scarce would know itself from fear; Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain, And genius given, and knowledge won in vain; And all which I had culled in wood-walks wild, And all which patient toil had reared, and all, Commune ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... you are a prodigal, and self-willed fool. Nay, never look at me, it's I that speak, Take't as you will, I'll not flatter you. What? have you not means enow to waste That which your friends have left you, but you must Go cast away your money on a Buzzard, ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... we have the sad picture of a character steadily deteriorating. He is growing daily more self-willed and impatient of the restraint of God's commanding will. He is chafing at his position as a viceroy, not an absolute sovereign. He is becoming tyrannical, careless of his subjects' lives, intolerant of opposition, remonstrance, or advice. The tragedy of his decadence is summed up in Samuel's ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... that Homer was his original; but a more intellectual age than that of the Grecian epic had arrived, and with Aeschylus, philosophy passed into poetry. The dark doctrine of fatality imparted its stern and awful interest to the narration of events—men were delineated, not as mere self-acting and self-willed mortals, but as the agents of a destiny inevitable and unseen—the gods themselves are no longer the gods of Homer, entering into the sphere of human action for petty motives and for individual purposes—drawing their grandeur, not from the part they ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... affairs she had been of much help to her husband and was deeply interested in them. She was therefore in many ways well-fitted to undertake the serious responsibilities that devolved upon her, but her good qualities were marred by a self-willed and autocratic temperament, which made her resent any interference with her authority. William Bentinck, who was wont to be insistent with his advice, presuming on the many services he had rendered, the Duke of Brunswick, and the council-pensionary Steyn were all alike distrusted and ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... is one of my dearest friends and belongs to our sorority at home. At one time she was my bitterest enemy," she continued reminiscently. "She was so self-willed and domineering that none of us could endure her. She entered the junior class in high school when Miriam, Anne and I did. For a year and a half she made life miserable for all of us, then something happened and she turned out ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... either herself, her home, her sisters, or her school; she was far from being the fresh, happy creature that she had been the year before. She had seen the fallacy of her principle of love, but in her self-willed adherence to it she had lost the strong sense and habit of duty which had once ruled her; and in a vague and restless frame of mind, she merely sought from day to day for pleasure and idle occupation. Lent came, but she was not ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and the surges were so loud-tongued and incessant, throwing themselves on the beach with a tremendous boom, and drawing the shingle back with them with an equally tremendous rattle, so impolite and noisy, bent only on showing their strength, reckless, rude, self-willed, and inconsiderate! This purposeless display of force, and this incessant waste of power, and the noisy ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... "—And here his reflections suddenly took a strange, unbidden turn. If he had only himself to consider! ... well, what then! Was it not just within the bounds of probability that, under the same circumstances, he might be precisely as self-willed and as haughtily opinionated as the friend whose arrogance he ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... yielding liquid material of water by arm and foot movements. The resistance met on account of currents and waves may be very great, but it is still that of a will-less and passive object. But in riding man has to deal with a self-willed being whose vitality calls forth not only his strength but also his intelligence and courage. The exercise is therefore very complicated, and the rider must be able perpetually to individualize it according to the necessity; at the same time, he must give attention not only to the ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... hundred thousand honest women whom we have so carefully sifted out from all the European nations, we indulge the belief that there are a certain number, say three hundred thousand, who will be sufficiently self-willed, charming, adorable, and bellicose to raise the standard of ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... Majesty," I answered, rising and bowing, "and feel sure you have done all that is needful to keep my cousin at court. She has certain prudish standards which I fear are too easily shocked, and is as self-willed as—well, as ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... that memorable day when I first saw her in the meeting- house. How perverse my fate has been, giving me that for which I might well thank God on my knees, and yet which my heart refuses, and withholding that which will impoverish my whole life. Why must the heart be so imperious and self-willed in these matters? An elderly gentleman would say, Everything is just right as it is. It would be the absurdity of folly for Miss Warren to give up her magnificent prospects because of your sudden and sickly sentiment; and what more could you ask or wish than this beautiful girl, whose ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... two archbishops, he ascended the vacant throne, he was greeted with the joyous acclaim of those assembled. The Archbishop of Canterbury made a speech full of unction, the drift of which was, that henceforth it would not be a child, such as the late sovereign had been, self-willed and void of understanding, but a Man that would rule over them, in the full maturity of his understanding, and resolved to do not so much his own will ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... sighed as she heaped up the supper things for Perrin to wash. Such a good, kind son as he was, and to be made a fool of by a self-willed ...
— Where Deep Seas Moan • E. Gallienne-Robin
... is, my children; your mother excites her heart, excites her fury. Hasten as quick as possible within the house, and come not near her sight, nor approach her, but guard against the fierce temper and violent nature of her self-willed mind. Go now, go as quick as possible within. But it is evident that the cloud of grief raised up from the beginning will quickly burst forth with greater fury; what I pray will her soul, great in rage, implacable, irritated by ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... arrogance had passed away; every stain of passion had been removed; every particle of hardness had been calcined in the flame of trial. All was gentleness, love, and dependence, in the once bright, impetuous, self-willed boy; it seemed as though the lightning of God's anger had shattered and swept away all that was evil in his heart and life, and left all his true excellence, all the royal prerogatives of his character, pure and unscathed. Eric, even in his worst days, ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... certain class of mills that is practically controlled by one man, a very able man, but exceedingly self-willed and stubborn. He owns a chain of mills from coast to coast, and the rest of the manufacturers in his line follow his lead in everything. He has fought the Safety First idea from the start—calls it 'one ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... her suddenly in his arms, his fine young features aglow. This then was the goal of his desires; a goal of delight, far, far beyond all youthful dreams or early imaginings. With drooping eyelids, she stood in his embrace; she, once so proud, so self-willed. He drew ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... his self-esteem nor did shadows darken his glowing hopes. He had promised Richard Gessner to arrest the girl Lois Boriskoff, and arrested she would be before twelve o'clock to-morrow. As for this amiable English lad, so full of fine resolutions, so defiant, so self-willed, it would be a good jest enough to clap him in a police-station for four-and-twenty hours and to bow him out again, with profuse apologies, when the girl was on her way to Petersburg to join her amiable ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... zeal against the enemies of the Cross into remorseless hatred of all mankind. As to the forged seals and signatures you talk of, and the deceptions practised on the Turks, if such there were, they were the self-willed act of our woivodes, and in no way ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... we need to use our wills, it is often, necessary to drop all self-willed resistance first, before we begin an action, if we want to succeed with the least possible effort ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... think what toil it was to build A world of men imperfect even as this, Where we conceive of Good by what we miss, Of ill by that wherewith best days are filled; A world whose every atom is self-willed, Whose corner-stone is propt on artifice, Whose joy is shorter-lived than woman's kiss, Whose wisdom hoarded is but to be spilled. Yet this is better than a life of caves, Whose highest art was scratching on a bone, Or chipping toilsome arrowheads of flint; Better, though ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... exhorted them to desist. The proclamation was effective in the south, and the opposition died out in North Carolina. Not so in Pennsylvania. There the Scotch-Irish borderers who lived in the western counties were bent on having their way. A brave, self-willed, hotheaded, turbulent people, they were going to have their fight out. They had ridden rough-shod over the Quaker and German government in Pennsylvania before this, and they no doubt thought they could do the same ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... are brought up from their cradles in an atmosphere of flattery not being spoiled; but unless they are angels—which is a very exceptional case—it cannot be otherwise. Richard Luscombe was a good fellow in many ways; liberal with his money (indeed, apt to be lavish), and kind-hearted, but self-willed, effeminate, and impulsive. He had also—which was a source of great alarm and grief to his father—a ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... of course, Renee, who when quite little began to adore him. She was very lively and self-willed and he alone could make her listen to reason and obey. As she grew up he had been the moulder of her character, the confessor of her intellect, and the director of her tastes. His influence over the young girl had increased day by day as they grew more and more familiar. ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... his business. The wild animals he sought fled from the presence of many men. Though the Indian had penetrated more or less to all these secluded regions, the Indian has enough of the reserve of outdoor life not to disturb any of the animals. It is the imperious, self-willed, noisy white man who drives away the shy creatures ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... on hers, which, in her ecstasy of doubt, terror, and perplexity, she cast up towards him, "I have ever remarked that when others called thee girlish and wilful, there lay under that external semblance of youthful and self-willed folly deep feeling and strong sense. In this I will confide, trusting your own fate in your own hands for the space of twenty-four hours, without my interference by word ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... "crabbed old friend of men," born at Pertuis, in Provence, claimed to be of Florentine descent; "could never make the world go to his mind," and set about reforming it by coercing a family as self-willed as himself, to the driving of his celebrated son to desperate courses and reckless excesses; advocated the doctrines of the French economists in a series of writings instinct with ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... with a slight cough, "let the thoughtful man picture a father: a desperate, self-willed man, who scorned the laws of God and society—keeping only faith with a miserable subterfuge he called 'honor,' and relying only on his own courage and his knowledge of human weakness. Imagine him cruel and bloody—a gambler ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... walrus, the roar of the seal rookeries, where millions of cubs wallowed, and where bulls lashed themselves in their rage and fought for mastery of the herd. By November, Waxel alone was holding the vessel up to the wind. No more solemn conferences of self-important, self-willed scientists filled the commander's cabin! No more solemn conclaves and arguments and counter-arguments to induce the commander to sail this way and that! Bedlam reigned above and below decks. No man had any thought but how to reach home alive. Prayers and vows and offerings went up from the decks ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... call Wagner self-willed and perverse because he could not conform to their notions of what is right for an artist, who attempt to measure an infinite mind by the paltry canons of self-interest, reflect upon the harvest that we are now reaping from his unswerving loyalty to ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... Prague, the reigning belle of the city, as his bride. There was a rumor afloat that the match afforded the fair lady but meagre satisfaction, and that her taste and wishes were not much consulted in the matter; but the angry importunities of her proud, self-willed mother at length induced her to marry a man she did not love. But this idle report was hushed after their marriage, and the devotion of the young couple loudly descanted on in fashionable circles throughout the city; for was not Hardin all attention, and how ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... beckoning to Ni-ha-be, and there was an impatient look on his dark, self-willed face. It was time for her to make haste, therefore, and Rita put the three magazines under the light folds of her broad antelope-skin cap and tripped away toward the bit of bushy ...
— The Talking Leaves - An Indian Story • William O. Stoddard
... of this, I could see. She is not at all shy, and she still is very fond of planning, or managing things, and people too, for that matter, though of course she is much more sensible now, and not so impatient and self-willed as she used to be. Still, on the whole, she gets on better with Peterkin than with any of us, though she is fond of us, I know, and so are we of her. But Peterkin is just a sort of slave to her, and does everything she asks, ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... gives a boarder a good character, I know without meeting her that she is some spineless old maid who is afraid to call her soul her own, or that she is a hypocrite like me who wants peace at any price. Now she tells me that Miss Kean is head-strong, self-willed, flippant, slangy, ill-bred, inconsiderate——" ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... was quite certain that he would not observe his engagements, if it should be for his interest to violate them. Even if it should be for his interest to observe them, it might well be doubted whether the strongest and clearest interest would induce a man so haughty and self-willed to co-operate heartily with two governments which had always been the objects of his scorn ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... curates in many cases became mere spies and Government informers. Many of the best men in the land laid down their lives rather than cease to proclaim the Gospel of love and peace and goodwill in Jesus Christ. Of course their enemies set them down as self-willed and turbulent fanatics. It has ever been, and ever will be, thus with men who are indifferent to principle. They will not, as well as cannot, understand those who are ready to fight, and, if need be, die for truth! Their unspoken argument seems to be: "You ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... the Kensington Convent.... All the little straw-mats on the slippery floor of the parlour were swept like chaff before the hurricane of her advancing petticoats as she bore down upon the most disappointing, erratic, and self-willed niece that ever brought the grey hairs of a solicitous and devoted aunt in sorrow to the grave, demanding in Heaven's name what Bridget-Mary meant by this maniacal decision? Then she drew back, for at first she hardly credited that this tall, pale, quiet woman in ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... detection, but, standing tensely still, with set lips and heart beating faster than usual, she shrank from the decisive action. She could still replace the letter and look for other means of bringing about what she wished. She was self-willed and endowed with few troublesome principles, but until she had poisoned Evelyn's mind against Vane she had never done anything flagrantly dishonorable. Then while she waited, irresolute, a fresh temptation seized her in the shape of a burning desire ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... to do? Was she to aid and abet Lucy, against her father's will, in pursuing David Grieve? And if in spite of all appearances the little self-willed creature succeeded, and Dora were the means of her marrying David, how would Dora's conscience stand? Here was a young man who believed in nothing, and openly said so, who took part in those terrible atheistical meetings and discussions, which, ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "Thou art a self-willed fool for thy pains," said Julian, turning from him; and signing Christie to approach, he whispered in his ear, "there is promise in that young fellow's looks, Christie, and we want men of limbs and sinews so compacted—those thou hast brought to me of late ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... a girl in the school who was once very rude and self-willed, and very hard to control. She had a poor bed-ridden brother who had been a cripple for years, and was a great care to the family. They used to carry him out in the garden in fine weather and lay him on a seat under the trees, and sometimes his sister would come home ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... cruel when he chose. To admit this is, as I know, a proof of weakness. So be it, I have never concealed from myself that I am weak. Yet, believe me, I struggled while I could; I wrote to you even, but they intercepted my letter; and I told all the truth to Mr. Cohen, but he was self-willed and passionate, and would take no heed of my pleading. So I married him, Leonard, and was fairly happy with him, for he was kindness itself to me, but from that ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... best named and described by his own naked name; so Bunyan is always best illustrated out of his own works. And I turn accordingly to the Heavenly Footman for an excellent illustration of the wilfulness of the will both in a good man and in a bad; as, thus: 'Your self-willed people, nobody knows what to do with them. We use to say, He will have his own will, do all we can. If a man be willing, then any argument shall be matter of encouragement; but if unwilling, then any argument shall give discouragement. The ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... steadfast, I would fain believe, if less noisy, than the antipathy of my foes; and commending to these a passage from Bishop Butler, which they have either not read or failed to lay to heart. 'It seems,' saith the Bishop, 'that men would be strangely headstrong and self-willed, and disposed to exert themselves with an impetuosity which would render society insupportable, and the living in it impracticable, were it not for some acquired moderation and self-government, some aptitude and readiness in restraining themselves, and ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... said the old man almost cheerfully. He loved having his own way. He was almost insanely self-willed. It did his dark soul good to triumph over this ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... ignorant of the trouble given to the consciences of many worthy men, viewed this conduct on their part as self-willed, and an unwarrantable opposition to what appeared to him a needful regulation. He ordered Lilius and Reinhardt to be removed from office, if they delayed to subscribe, and gave the others time for consideration. The two former, ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... young men, do not remember this, how among our turbulent, self-willed gentry, always under arms though they were, no police were ever needed: while the true faith flourished, laws were respected; there was liberty with order and glory along with plenty I In other lands, I hear, the government maintains soldiers and all sorts of policemen, gendarmes, ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... effective way to rear one stubborn boy I know of. The neighbors and the ladies' aid society often said my mother was cruel with that angel child. But the neighbors did not know what kind of an insect mother was trying to raise. Mother did know. She knew how stubborn and self-willed I was. It came from father's "side ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... Edward's Dealings with Scotland.—Edward's dealings with Scotland, mistaken as they were, were not those of a self-willed tyrant. If it be once admitted that he was really the lord paramount of Scotland, everything that he did may be justified upon feudal principles. First, Balliol forfeited his vassal crown by breaking his obligations as a vassal. Secondly, Edward, ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... when he first saw a boat so built that it could go with or against the wind, that his strongest instinct was awakened. He would not rest until he had learned how to make and then to manage it. When this strange, passionate, self-willed boy was seventeen years old, he realized that his sister was scheming for the ruin of himself and his mother. In the rupture that followed, the people deserted Sophia and flocked about Peter. He placed ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... for me at once touching and striking. She was the one who seemed to notice me the most, and to direct her music to me: only I could not make up my mind about her; for she appeared to me now tender, now whimsical, now frank, now self-willed, according as she changed her mien and mode of playing. Sometimes she seemed to wish to excite my emotions, sometimes to tease me; but, do what she would, she got little out of me; for my little neighbor, by whom I sat elbow to elbow, had gained me entirely to herself: and while I clearly saw ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... had not exaggerated the amiable qualities of the donkey. "Little Brownie," as the children had unanimously and immediately named him, was of equable and even nature. True, as the days went by it was discovered that he was somewhat lazy, also self-willed. If he wanted to stop he would not move again until he wished to, in face of all pleading, urging, or inducements. He refused even to be led, and stood very pleasantly viewing the surrounding landscape till with a sudden jerk he would resume his usual trot. The children finally accepted ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... endure ... I myself have conquered and have learned thereby that man's mightiness may fall in the twinkling of an eye. Shall Troy o'erthrown exalt our pride and make us overbold? Here we the Danaans stand on the spot whence she has fallen. Of old, I own, I have borne myself too haughtily, self-willed and proud of my power. But Fortune's favour, which had made another proud, has broken my pride. Priam, thou makest me proud, thou makest me tremble. I count the sceptre naught save a glory bright with worthless tinsel ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... common, and I heard many stories of their being tamed: one will suffice:—A fisherman caught a young seal; it was very affectionate, and frequented his hut, fishing for itself in the sea. At length it grew self-willed and unwieldy; it used to push the children and snap at strangers, and it was voted a nuisance, but the people could not bear to kill it on account of its human ways. One day the fisherman took it with him in his boat, and dropped it in a stormy sea, far from home; the stratagem was ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... was a good wife in the main), the grown-up son and daughter felt themselves a little jostled out. Grace, gentle and submissive, found all her comforts shrunk within the space of her father and her Bible; Thomas, self-willed and open-hearted, sought his pleasure any where but at home, and was like to be taking to wrong courses through domestic bickering: Grace had the dangerous portion, beauty, added to her lowly lot, and attracted ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... this communication with close attention. He knew the Widow Guff as a person who took boarders in the town where he had sold his cow. She had three children, and had the reputation of being a rather tart and self-willed woman. ...
— From Farm to Fortune - or Nat Nason's Strange Experience • Horatio Alger Jr.
... Bellmont's wishes, would be like encountering a whirlwind charged with fire, daggers and spikes. She was not as susceptible of fine emotions as her spouse. Mag's opinion of her was not without founda- tion. She was self-willed, haughty, undisciplined, arbitrary and severe. In common parlance, she was a SCOLD, a thorough one. Mr. B. remained silent during the consultation which follows, engaged in by mother, Mary and John, or Jack, as he ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson
... inquiry he found that Moss Tower was not very deeply dipped after all; Mrs. Dalzell had her jointure off it, but he was an only son, and any little wildness or extravagance of youth was likely to be put an end to by marriage. Laura was a somewhat troublesome ward, so passionate and so self-willed that even at school she had carried her point against him by sheer determination over and over again, and he wished heartily to be well freed of her by marriage with a tolerably respectable man. Her ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... bullies. This one, like others, was a mortal coward. Like other men, who have no fear of God before their eyes, he made up for it by having a very hearty fear of sickness, death, departed souls, and one or two other things, which the most self-willed sinner knows well enough to be in the hands of a Power which he cannot see, and does not wish to believe in. Bully Tom had spoken the truth when he said that if he thought there was a ghost in Yew-lane he wouldn't ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... of military organization relied upon throughout the West was that of the volunteer militia. In periods of ordinary Indian warfare the system served its purpose fairly well. Under stern necessity, the self-willed, independence-loving backwoodsmen could be brought to act together for a few weeks or months; but they had little systematic training, and their impatience of restraint prevented the building up of any real ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... express courier to Berlin and ordered the Town Council to advise the rich and well-to-do to retire from the city with their portable property, my recommendation was not followed: you yourself excited the Council to disobedience. In your self-willed obstinacy you had the impudent assurance to make your way through a country infested by the enemy; and if my colonel, Von Prittwitz, had not found you in those woods, and brought you to me in the village, your obstinate head would have adorned the lance of some Cossack or other. And what ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... generality of mankind, to be ruined: "Lost 60,000 men last Campaign; was beaten twice; his luck is done; what is to become of him?" say his enemies, and even the impartial Gazetteer, with joy or sorrow. Among his own people there is gloom or censure; hard commentaries on Maxen: "So self-willed, high, and deaf to counsel from Prince Henri!" Henri himself, they say, is sullen; threatening, as he often does, to resign "for want of health;" and as he quite did, for a while, in the end of this Campaign, or interval between ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Veda. Religion will consist in wasting wealth, In fasting and performing penances At will; the man who owns most property, And lavishly distributes it, will gain Dominion over others; noble rank Will give no claim to lordship; self-willed women Will seek their pleasure, and ambitious men Fix all their hopes on riches gained by fraud. The women will be fickle and desert Their beggared husbands, loving them alone Who give them money. Kings, instead of guarding, ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... and golden youth, Victurnien had never met with opposition to his wishes. He had been the king of the house; no one curbed the little prince's will; and naturally he grew up insolent and audacious, selfish as a prince, self-willed as the most high-spirited cardinal of the Middle Ages,—defects of character which any one might guess from his qualities, essentially those of ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... terribly head-strong and self-willed in all they do. They do not seem to know what fear means in any sense—they are dangerous lovers and husbands to trifle with, for they will stop at nothing if their blood is ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... obedience; and, therefore, it is reasonable to suppose the devil could not understand our Lord. If He be the Son of God, so might Satan argue, He has all the more reason to be proud; and, therefore, it is all the more easy to tempt Him into shewing His pride, into proving Himself a conceited, self-willed, rebellious being—in ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... long had a high reputation. Except for its practical value as a means of getting a position I care little enough for the medal. What I do care for is the justification which the being marked in this position gives to the course I have taken. Obstinate and self-willed as I am...there are times when grave doubts overshadow my mind, and then such testimony as ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... insufficient, the enemy on the alert and strongly defended. The history of the Department so far might read: the forts were taken, one thousand-odd children were taught to read, and one negro regiment was formed.[107] Hunter seems to be a narrow, self-willed man—to me—who don't know much about his affairs. At first the soldiers were allowed to go wherever they pleased; consequently they poured over our end of the island, confusion coming with them. They cheated, ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... come to nothing. And it was this little monster, who looked as fair and as white as a seraph, who had just shattered my first hopes. Huddled up in the cab, an expression of fear on her self-willed looking face and her thin lips compressed, she was gazing at me under her long ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... which they neither believed nor did. Socrates was executed for corrupting youth and infidelity to the gods; Jesus for proposing to overthrow the government; Luther was to the officials of his time one who taught "a loose, self-willed life, severed from ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... received regularly, that he could have this, and that it would be intensely disagreeable for her to visit New York. He, who had yielded indifferently to all her little exactions, was inexorable, and the proud, self-willed woman found that he had so much law and reason on his side that she was compelled ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... was crushed or even cowed in spirit by the treatment he had received, never were they more deluded. "Snuffed out by an article," indeed! He had infinitely more magnanimity, in its fullest sense, than that very spoiled, self-willed, and mean-souled man,—and I have authority for the last term. To say nothing of personal and private transactions, pages 204-207 in the first volume of Mr. Monckton Milnes's life of our poet will be full authority for my estimate of his Lordship. "Johnny Keats" had, indeed, "a ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... was commended as a fairly good soldier, though too rebellious to be very reliable, too self-willed to be ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... that things had not always gone on smoothly at the White House, even when Mrs. Cheyne had her husband. She had been an only child, and had married the only survivor of a large family. Both were handsome, self-willed young people; neither had been used to contradiction. In spite of their love for each other, there had been a strife of wills and misunderstandings from the earliest days of their marriage. Neither knew what giving up meant, and before many months were over ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... that his tomahawk was also his pipe, and that he might wish to use it in that capacity before their business was closed. At this moment, a tall, lank-sided Pennsylvanian, who was standing among the spectators, and who, perhaps, had no love for the shining tomahawk of the self-willed chief, cautiously approached, and handed him an old, long stemmed, dirty looking earthen pipe, intimating, that if Tecumseh would deliver up the fearful tomahawk, he might smoke the aforesaid pipe. The chief took it ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... Eva knew she would not. Mistaken, Toni might often be—foolish, self-willed, a little intolerant of advice; but she would never be selfish. If she could be convinced that her departure would be beneficial to the man she loved, she would certainly leave him, though it broke her ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... went to Thorkel foulmouth's booth, and Asgrim said then to his companions, "This booth Thorkel foulmouth owns, a great champion, and it were worth much to us to get his help. We must here take heed in everything, for he is self-willed and bad tempered; and now I will beg thee, Skarphedinn, not to let thyself ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... Arthur Henningham's sonne. But upon his beating and misusing her she was sequestred to one Barkers, a proctor, and from thence to Sir Henry Billingsleyes,(1720) where she yet remaines till the matter be tried. If the obstinate and self-willed fellow shold persist in his doggednes (as he protests he will) and geve her nothing, the poore lord ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... opinions, the prophetic instinct, and the force of character to make things go his way, without drifting into success by a fortunate turn in tide and wind. He was not a mere day-dreamer, a theorist, a philosopher, a scholar, although he possessed the gifts of each. He was, rather, a man of action—self-willed, self-reliant, independent—as ambitious as Burr without his slippery ways, and as determined as Hamilton with all his ability to criticise an opponent. Clinton relied not more upon men than upon measures, and ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... could not be permitted in a large family. I had sense enough, however, to bend my temper to my new circumstances; but such was the agony which I internally experienced, that I have guarded against nothing more in the education of my own family, than against their acquiring habits of self-willed caprice and domination. I found much consolation during this period of mortification in the partiality of my mother. She joined to a light and happy temper of mind a strong turn to study poetry and works of imagination. ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... the schooner would have a much better chance to get through the blockaders in tow of the Trafalgar than in going on her own hook. Bird is a big fellow in his own estimation; but it struck me that Captain Sullendine had an ignorant and self-willed fellow for a mate, and probably he took the best one he could find; for I think good seamen, outside of the Confederate navy, must be ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... nature! Well, to say the truth, the Lady Gycia is not at all to my taste. It is a cold, insipid style of beauty, at the best; and she is as self-willed and as straitlaced as a lady abbess. I suppose she is well ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... proof. Ten days ago, when the boy thanked me for pulling him off Bertrand's back, he as much as said he had nothing to pay me with. Now if this lie of a plot against the King were the truth, would not a self-willed boy like the Dauphin, boastful as boys are, proud and galled by the debt he thought he owed me, have hinted that the day would come when he could pay in full, and sooner than some expected? He surely would. His pride would have run away with his discretion. ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... easily comprehend the mortification you must have felt in having one so self-willed to deal with," returned the surgeon, glancing his eyes reproachfully at his comrade. "But you should rise superior to such opinions, and pity the ignorance by which they ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... the multitude, Bismarck is a great but unscrupulous statesman, intent upon uniting Germany and making it the leading nation of Europe. As a man, he seems hard-headed, self-willed, and iron-handed. As a ruler, he is looked upon as the incarnation of the despotic spirit,—a believer in force, an infidel as to ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... persons of wealth and position with whom Robert Morton was on terms of the greatest intimacy. It even demanded no very skilled psychologist to perceive the girl's sentiment toward his guest, for Miss Galbraith was a petulent, self-willed creature who did not trouble to conceal her preferences. Her attitude was transparent as the day. But with what feeling did Robert Morton regard her? That was the burning question the little man longed ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... God, are told to hope in the midst of the misery, and may hope; their sorrows shall be turned into joy. But the ungodly who, without regarding the Lord, and without hearkening to His Servant, would help themselves, will bring destruction upon themselves by their self-willed doings, and shall be visited by the avenging hand ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... the language of all four countries, and an unconsidered trifle of some half-dozen European languages besides? Then there was the English student from Bonn, who had come down to the front accompanied by a terrible brute of a dog, vast, shaggy, self-willed, and dirty; an animal which, so to speak, owned his owner, and was so much the horror and disgust of everybody that on account of him the company of his master—one of the pleasantest fellows alive— was the source of general apprehension. There was ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... it. He knows how obdurate you are, how fruitless it would be. Ah, Edith! you are a terribly haughty, self-willed girl. He will not detain you a moment—he wishes to ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... it. Yet he had come more clearly to an understanding of the girl; her cheerfulness, her unselfishness, and, above all, the sweet, beautiful philosophy of life that must lie back, to render her so uncomplainingly the slave of the self-willed woman, yet without the indifferent cynicism of Gerald, the sullen, yet real, partisanship of Kendrick, or the general's ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... instant as to what he should do, for had it been otherwise he would have ordered him to be destroyed as quickly as he would have ordered the execution of any criminal.—But hardened and calloused as he was by power, and self-willed as he was from never being thwarted in his wishes, yet he found it difficult to give the order that should sacrifice the life of one who had so ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... that it is very difficult to keep, and for a cat religiously brought up it is very little inclined to seclusion. It never sees a window without wishing to jump out, it would have leaped over the wall twenty times if it had not been prevented, and no secular cat could be more lawless or more self-willed." ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... balky; immovable, unshakable, not to be moved; inert &c. 172; unchangeable &c. 150; inexorable &c. (determined) 604; mulish, obstinate as a mule, pig-headed. dogged; sullen, sulky; unmoved, uninfluenced unaffected. willful, self-willed, perverse; resty[obs3], restive, restiff|; pervicacious[obs3], wayward, refractory, unruly; heady, headstrong; entete[Fr]; contumacious; crossgrained[obs3]. arbitrary, dogmatic, positive, bigoted; prejudiced &c. 481; creed- ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... as melodious. If ever he felt uneasy during her long absences in town, one of these evenings sufficed to reassure him. Alma was Alma still, and could he but have reconciled himself to the thought of her playing in public, she would have been yet the wife he chose, frankly self-willed, gallantly independent. ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... of that; if I wanted him, he might be Apollo himself and you would have none of him." King Henry had been compelled to refuse several very advantageous alliances because this fair, coaxing, self-willed sister would not consent to be a ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... strangely on his path, This love engendered in his withered heart, This hindrance to his rituals,—might these not Have been ordained to teach him? Call him back To ways marked out for him by Love divine? And with a mind less self-willed ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt
... longer played the lover to a cold and distant mistress, but carried himself haughtily at times—captiously at times—and always with an air of indifference. All affection seemed transferred to his boy, who was growing self-willed, passionate, and daring. These qualities were never repressed by his father, but rather encouraged and strengthened. On learning that his next heir was a daughter, he expressed impatience, and muttered something ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... that the light shimmered over them as it does on watered silk. When she turned her head, superb folds formed about her neck, the admiration of sculptors. She carried on this triumphant neck the small head of a Roman empress, the delicate, round, and self-willed head of Pompeia, with features of elegant correctness, and the smooth forehead of a woman who drives all care away and all reflection, who yields easily, but is capable of balking like a mule, and ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... which is seen also on the faces of some men while waltzing, and on the faces of most women when entertaining their relatives by marriage. I have one friend who is addicted to this form of punishment in a violent, not to say a malignant form. He uses for his purpose a tall and self-willed horse of the Tudor period—a horse with those high dormer effects and a sloping mansard. This horse must have been raised, I think, in the knockabout song-and-dance business. Every time he hears music or thinks he hears ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... advice for a little, but presently he forgot, and the ring pricked him so sharply that his finger had a drop of blood on it. This happened again and again, for the prince grew more self-willed and headstrong every day; he had some bad friends, too, who urged him on, in the hope that he would ruin himself and give them a chance to seize the throne. He treated his people carelessly and his servants cruelly, and everything he wanted he ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... the companion of their refined and elevated pleasures. He thought, even, that the Rector—that name of fear—had at last found in himself the ideal which he had vainly sought in so many examples of lettered youth. He became vain, perhaps, but certainly a little self-willed, as was his nature, feeling himself to be on the top of the wave, and above those precautions for keeping himself there which had once seemed necessary. He did not, indeed, turn to any harm, for that was not in his nature; but feeling himself no longer a schoolboy, but a man, and the chosen ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... good for him; in which, too (probably, from similar champagney reasons), Miss Parkington's unfortunately self-willed nose again assumes a more roseate hue than is becoming to a maiden; in which, too, Mr. Verdant Green being called upon to return thanks for "the ladies" -(toast, proposed in eloquent terms by H. Bouncer, Esq., and drunk "with the usual honours,")- ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... humble my noble husband, who is enthusiastically devoted to Prussia—that he could mistake his character so grievously, and prefer such cruel charges against him. He called him—the best, the most intelligent and reliable of all his servants—a seditious man; he charged him with being self-willed, stubborn, and proud, and said he was mischievous and disobedient to the state. Oh, believe me, that accusation is what troubles Stein! The King of Prussia has humbled his pride so deeply and unjustly, that a reconciliation between them is out of the question. Stein lives, thinks, and grieves ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... was going very strong with her. More than once the farmer cautioned her to give him a pull over the plough. And she attempted to obey the order. But the horse was self-willed, and she was light; and in truth the heaviness of the ground would have been nothing to him had he been fairly well ridden. But she allowed him to rush with her through the mud. As she had never yet had an accident ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... them they turned away without answering,—avoiding her as if she was infected with the plague. When the cold northeast storms came, when the clouds hung low upon the hills, when the wind howled in the woods, when the rain pattered upon the withered leaves, how lonesome the hours! She was haughty and self-willed, friendless and alone; but instead of becoming loyal and behaving like a good, sensible girl, she nursed her pride; and comforted herself by thinking that her great-grandfather Funk was a fine old Virginian gentleman. If a still, small voice whispered that it was mean ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... eagerly volunteered to march against the Western insurgents should now be with difficulty kept down by sword and carbine, these were signs full of evil omen to the House of Stuart. The warning, however, was lost on the dull, stubborn, self-willed tyrant. He was resolved to transfer to his own Church all the wealthiest and most splendid foundations of England. It was to no purpose that the best and wisest of his Roman Catholic counsellors remonstrated. They ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... constitutes the spirit, the power, the charm of youth is extinguished. The young man becomes prematurely old. We have all witnessed that saddest of spectacles, the petulant child developing into the ruffian boy, and hurrying into the ruffian man,—rude, hard-natured, swaggering, and self-willed, a darkness over his conscience, a glare over his appetites, insensible to duty or affection, and only tamed into decencies by the chains of restraint which an outraged community binds on his impulses. Now give this young savage arbitrary power, let him inherit ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... almost the same lordly fashion as the preachers. Of a certain congregation at Norwich Wesley writes, 'I told them in plain terms that they were the most ignorant, self-conceited, self-willed, fickle, untractable, disorderly, disjointed society that I knew in the three kingdoms. And God applied to their hearts, so that many were profited, but I do not find that one was offended.'[727] At one time he had an idea that tea was expensive and unwholesome, ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... favorite bird, a starling. Alas! he but repeats what he has heard echoed through the solitude of these rooms. I thought I had smothered him up sufficiently to insure his silence during this interview. But he is a self-willed bird, and seems disposed to defy the wrappings I have bound around him; which fact warns me to be speedy and hasten our explanations. Thomas, this is what I require: John Poindexter—you do not know where he is at this hour, but I do—received a telegram but now, which, if he is a man at all, ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... fox-hunting squire as in any of these. Sharp alternations of violent action and self-indulgent repose; a hard run, and a long revel after it: this is what over-much horse tends to animalize a man into. Such antecedents may have helped to make little Dick Venner a self-willed, capricious boy, and a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... lived with the Judge in the days of Judy's lady grandmother, turned his offended back on this self-willed and unworthy scion of a noble race, and marched into the ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... size, it was a case of every fellow shift for himself, which rule Napoleon followed out with a vengeance. He himself said in later years: "I was self-willed and obstinate, nothing awed me, nothing disconcerted me. I was quarrelsome, exasperating; I feared no one. I gave a blow here and a scratch there. Every one was afraid of me. My brother Joseph was the one with whom ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden |
