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More "Wanton" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... resignation, but was the victim of a compact, in which his disasters were part of the price paid by the powers of darkness for an immortal soul! He who pined in consumption supposed that his own waxen effigy was revolving and melting at the charmed fire; the changes of his sensations told him when wanton cruelty damped the flame, to waste it lingeringly, or roused it in the impatience of revenge: and when came those sharp and shooting pains, the hags were thrusting in their bodkins, and their laugh rang in his ears: they sat upon his breast asleep,—he awoke gasping, and, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... believe or could be expected to believe the actual truth of the matter. Who would believe then as regards your uncle that I have gone off and escaped from him still a maid, but a maid to no purpose? Folk would hold me a light-of-love and a wanton, and you a madman. But it is meet to keep and observe the command of St. Paul, for St. Paul teaches him who does not wish to remain continent to act so wisely that he may never incur outcry nor blame nor reproach. ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... by Ragon, perfumer on rue Saint-Honore, Paris, towards the end of the eighteenth century; about 1793 she took in hand the amorous education of Cesar Birotteau, the little Tourraine peasant just employed by the Ragons as errand-boy. Ill-natured, wanton, wheedling, dishonest, selfish and given to drink, Ursule did not suit the candid Cesar, whom she abandoned, moreover, two years later, for a young Picardie rebel, who owned a few acres of land. He found concealment in Paris, and let ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... Kuhn—and, in short, where Mr. Muller sees a myth of sun and dawn, Kuhn recognises a fire-myth. Roth, again (whose own name means red), far from thinking that Urvasi is 'the chaste dawn,' interprets her name as die geile, that is, 'lecherous, lascivious, lewd, wanton, obscene'; while Pururavas, as 'the Roarer,' suggests 'the Bull in rut.' In accordance with these views Roth explains the myth in a fashion of his ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... great that we could not sufficiently resist it without ruin and harm to the natural life. For, as has been said, in the practice of fasting, watching and labor, we are not to look upon the works in themselves, not on the days, not on the number, not on the food, but only on the wanton and lustful Adam, that through them he may be cured ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... gates. They swung to. The heavy bars lumbered into their places under his guidance. Then, as though in the bitterness of disappointment, the howling gale flung itself with redoubled fury against them, till the stout timbers creaked and groaned under the wanton attack. ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... performance of all kinds of experiments on living animals by uninstructed students. Against this notion we were first to protest, as being at once cruel and worse than useless; for an experiment performed by bungling fingers is no experiment at all, but wanton cruelty." ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... voyage of Gonzales da Cintra, likewise a gentleman in the household of Don Henry, in some measure expiated the wanton outrage which had been committed in that of Lancerot. The merit of Gonzales had raised him to the rank of a gentleman in the household of Don Henry, and his character was held in much estimation; but his confidence ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... beneficiary was accustomed to smoke and covered it with tobacco, so that when he lighted it the powder exploded and injured his eyes. The report of the Senate committee states that it does not appear that "any notice was taken of this wanton act of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... will refuse to see him again," said Grace, dryly, as with eyes askance she bent a sapling down. "But I am not incensed against you as you are against me," she added, abandoning the tree to its natural perpendicular. "Before I came I had been despising you for wanton cruelty; now I only pity you for misplaced affection. When Edgar has gone out of the house in hope of seeing you, at seasonable hours and unseasonable; when I have found him riding miles and miles across the country at midnight, and risking his life, and getting covered with mud, to get a ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... group of as many at the back of the house; but they were paying little heed to us for the moment, being engaged in watching their companions, who were running from cottage to cottage, firing them by thrusting torches under the thatch, and shouting and chattering to each other, as if these acts of wanton destruction were so much amusement in which ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... dream caught old Lanciotto's reins, Bent in a weary huddle on his steed, In darkling haste along the blindfold lanes, Making a clattering halt in all that speed:— 'Fool! fool!' he cried, 'O dotard fool, indeed, So ho! they wanton while the old man rides,' And on the night flashed pictures of the deed. 'Come!'—and he dug his charger's panting sides, And all the homeward dark tore ...
— English Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... woman ought to be. Her hair is soft brown and sweeps back from a low white forehead. She has tried to make it straight and simple, as every woman should, but the angels seem to have curled it here and mussed it there, so that all her care cannot hide its wanton waves. Her face is full of life and health, so open, so candid, that there you read her heart, and you know that it is as ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... the Lord—but it was no use at our end of the line. What to do with it was a problem. The lowest plantation darky would regard the gift as an insult, and to burn even the filthiest rags would give rise to stories of wanton waste. So we hit upon an expedient which had been successfully employed in other fields—that of putting worthless articles in nice, clean barrels, rolling them out on the doorstep, and forgetting to bring them in at night; and every morning ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton
... sensation, and those wakeful birds Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy, As if some sudden gale had swept at once A hundred airy harps! And she hath watched Many a nightingale perch giddily On blossomy twig still swinging from the breeze, And to that motion tune his wanton song Like tipsy joy that reels with ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... that such indifference could not have been found among the leading citizens of London, whose public spirit had been aroused to provide such housing conditions as should protect tenement dwellers at least from wanton loss of vitality and lowered industrial efficiency. When I met the same Englishman in London five years afterward, he immediately asked me whether Chicago citizens were still so indifferent to the conditions of the poor that they took no interest in their proper ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... said he, "this is wanton waste of time. Let the girl understand the fact. Here, what's your name! Your father has absconded, deserted you—and you mustn't expect to see him again as ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... to the bruised spirit, but now the solitary instinct of the sick animal was upon him and he longed to be alone. Some sorrows are so personal they cannot be shared. Nor was it all sorrow. There was the passion of a fierce resentment, the bitter protest of helpless nature against a wanton and ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... the hay harvest on Sir Gerald Malloring's Worcestershire estate and led to the introduction of strike-breakers, shows no sign of abatement. A very wanton spirit of mischief seems to be abroad in this neighborhood. No reason can be ascertained for the arson committed a short time back, nor for this further outbreak of discontent. The economic condition of the laborers on ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... about people who objected to Catholic ceremonies; their dislike of them did not present itself to him as arising out of a different religious experience from his own; but it appeared as a propensity toward unmannerly behaviour, as a kind of wanton disregard of decency and good taste. He was indeed still at the age when externals possess not so much an undue importance, but when they affect a boy as a mould through which the plastic experience ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... was the winter wild, While the Heaven-born child, All meanly wrapt, in the rude manger lies; Nature, in awe to him, Had doff'd her gaudy trim, With her great Master so to sympathize: It was no season then for her To wanton with the Sun, her ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... self-esteem. He who loves the praise of man naturally begins to praise himself. As a result of self-esteem arises (3) Censoriousness, since he who thinks well of himself is apt to think ill of others. As a system Pharisaism was wanton hypocrisy—a character of seeming righteousness, but too ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... given in Chapter XXVI. (see p. 360), man is an irresponsible being. He does not know the difference between right and wrong, between good and evil. Therefore it is according to their opinion unjust and cruel to punish criminals. "The Christian regards the hooligan, the thief, the wanton, and the drunkard as men and women who have done wrong. But the humanist regards them as men and women who have been wronged."[883] "Human law, like divine law, is based upon the false idea that men know what is right and what is wrong, and have power to choose the right."[884] "Man becomes ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... Hercules might labor now; there are other stables than the Augean; and not yet are all Hydras slain. Armor is needed; and a Vulcan spirit is making the anvil ring beneath the earth-crust of humanity. But Venus, the voluptuous, the wanton,—no sensuousness pervading any religion of this era finds in her its fitting type and sign. She, her companions, and her paramours, with the magnificent religion which evolved them, were entombed centuries ago; and no angel has rolled the stone from the door of their sepulchre. They are dead; ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... 1898, can never be forgotten. I will not close this narrative without mentioning an act of bravery performed by a lone woman which stopped the vulgar and inhuman searching of women in our section of the city. The most atrocious and unpardonable act of the mob was the wanton disregard for womanhood. Lizzie Smith was the first woman to make a firm and stubborn stand against the proceeding in the southern section. It was near the noon hour when Lizzie, homeward bound, reached the corner of Orange and ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... generally to be out of date and in the way. As to its looks, it belongs to 1814, and is plain and simple enough, but it carries a graceful clock tower and a copper cupola, and its destruction is not to be thought of. The day has gone for wanton throwing into the past what the past has left, and the little Town Hall will continue to slow down the traffic and draw visitors to the High Street, it is to be hoped, for many years to come. The town corporation have done better ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... of St. Benoit for its protection, the remainder of the troops to return to Montreal. The utmost compassion and consideration should be felt for the families of the sufferers plunged into affliction by the reckless conduct of their relatives; every house injured or destroyed at St. Benoit was a wanton destruction, perpetrated in defiance of guards placed to protect property." Thus writes Lord Seaton. Colonel Hanson, after quoting the above, proceeds to state that the evidence before the commissioners proves that "immediately ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... I mean Sir, is not immaginary, invented by Slander and Malice, but a true Copy of a universally known Original, which is a trifling, wanton femal Rake: composed of Folly, rudeness, and Indecency. whose Vanity is in pursuit of ev'ry Fellow of Fashion She Sees, and whose Life is a continual Round ...
— The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir • Charles Macklin
... opposed to the wanton destruction of life. Moreover, it seems to me that the trees, the shrubbery, the vines and the flowers on the Schmittheimer place have certain rights which the invaders ought to respect. At any rate, I spent the better part ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... dwelt a day in Pellam's hall: This Garlon mocked me, but I heeded not. And one said "Eat in peace! a liar is he, And hates thee for the tribute!" this good knight Told me, that twice a wanton damsel came, And sought for Garlon at the castle-gates, Whom Pellam drove away with holy heat. I well believe this damsel, and the one Who stood beside thee even now, the same. "She dwells among the woods" he said "and meets And dallies with him in ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... and wanton playfulness, And some unspoken radiant vanity, And some enrapturing bewitching charm, And perfect virgin beauty are your own! Fading like gods' pale images, you seem! Even the bird sometimes bows to your grace! And Nereids wind-footed ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... has the advantage that its discipline is the discipline of impersonal necessity, not that of wanton personal coercion. The eagerness of children in our industrial districts to escape from school to the factory is not caused by lighter tasks or shorter hours in the factory, nor altogether by the temptation of wages, nor even by the desire for novelty, but by the dignity of adult work, the ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... Should she yield? The pride of birth, the disobedience of a youthful son to a mother of her indulgent nature, the stigma of a low connection upon a noble family name—all these things pleaded urgently, No. She looked up vindictively at the gaping congregation, which seemed spellbound in wanton curiosity, wherewith was mingled not a little religious dread. And then, again, she turned her eyes down upon the innocent face beside her bosom, so guileless, to be the cause of such varying passions ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... or twelve, including three lay sisters, also possessed, into the choir of the said church, accompanied by a great many monks, Carmelites, Capuchins, and Franciscans; and by three physicians and a surgeon. The sisters on entering made some wanton remarks, calling Grandier their master, and exhibiting great ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... myself with these no doubt wanton reflections on the unfair division of opportunities in human life, I was leisurely crossing the common, and presently I came up with a pedestrian who, though I had little suspected it as I caught sight of him ahead, was destined by a ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... scruple to use the power which his love has placed in your hand. Your position of vantage may be read in a gesture, a look, a tone. Oh! darling, how truly are you the mad wanton your mother called you! You do not question, I fancy, that I am greatly Louis' superior. Well, I would ask you, have you ever heard me contradict him? Am I not always, in the presence of others, the wife who ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... Richard. "Strange, indeed! All this wasteful, wanton chess-playing IS very strange. To see that composed court yesterday jogging on so serenely and to think of the wretchedness of the pieces on the board gave me the headache and the heartache both together. My head ached with wondering how it happened, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... become a bald protuberance strewn with gravel and clay. The whole scene had that strange, repellent ugliness that goes with breaking up and throwing into disorder what has been sanctified as final, and belongs, in particular, to the wanton disturbing of earth's gracious, green-spread crust. In the pre-golden era this wide valley, lying open to sun and wind, had been a lovely grassland, ringed by a circlet of wooded hills; beyond these, by a belt of virgin forest. A limpid river and more than one creek had meandered across its ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... the hidden depths, a small tissue paper parcel. This she opened carefully, and disclosed a tiny shoe, homely but neat, a little child's chemise, and an old, faded, pink print sun-bonnet, minus a string. In the upper leather of the shoe were several cuts, the work of some wanton hand. Sitting back upon her heels, she let the open ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... peaceably, but I have lately experienced so many instances of your most bare-faced and wanton oppression, to my prejudice, that there's no longer a doubt with me what course I must be under the disagreeable necessity to take, that I may obtain redress and do justice to myself and family. I shall expect your immediate answer for my ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... summer of 1862, I was brought again to Harper's Ferry, with my regiment, and the old familiar scenes were carefully revisited. The terrible destruction of fine public buildings, the wanton waste of private property, the deserted village instead of the thriving town, the utter ruin and wretchedness of the country all about, and the bleak waste of land from Harper's Ferry to Charlestown, are all set features in every picture of the war in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... uninterruptedly at peace for sixty, and, with the exception of a single campaign (that of A.D. 441), for eighty years. They had ceased to feel that respect for each other's arms and valor which experience gives, and which is the best preservative against wanton hostilities. Kobad was confident in his strength, since he was able to bring into the field, besides the entire force of Persia, a largo Ephthalite contingent, and also a number of Arabs. Anastasius, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... an infinite variety of moods and touch, reserves a special category of scorn for Von Tirpitz. Savage cruelty in war, the wanton destruction of life and property, the whole gospel of frightfulness—these things have been abandoned (so the historians tell us), not because savagery was bad morals but because it was the worst way of making war. It was wiser to take the enemy's property—and ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... retard it. Of the feigned madness of Hamlet there appears no adequate cause[17], for he does nothing which he might not have done with the reputation of sanity. He plays the madman most, when he treats Ophelia with so much rudeness, which seems to be useless and wanton cruelty. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... great rejoicings at the court of Palermo when prince Alfonso came among them once more. He forgave the queen for her wickedness, and rebuked his father for having stirred up such a wanton and ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... intuitional experience. Animism developed into mythology, mythology into gnomic philosophy, and this again became differentiated into science, art, philosophy, and theology. In the earlier stages, the instability of men's imaginings and conceptions was kaleidoscopic; but it was no more governed by wanton fickleness and caprice than is the course of modern thought. The human spirit was striving then, as now, to realise worlds vaguely experienced and dimly surmised. The more imperfect expression was continuously yielding place to the less imperfect—the lower concept continuously yielding ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... fief. The king was too courteous and gallant a knight to refuse this request, and even made a pretty and right royal speech, intimating his desire to lose the wager. Then, after vespers, the guard passed fresh and warm into the king's chamber, a lady most dazzlingly white—most delicately wanton, with long tresses and velvet hands, filling out her dress at the least movement, for she was gracefully plump, with a laughing mouth, and eyes moist in advance, a woman to beautify hell, and whose ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... hide those tempting eyes, that faultless form, Those looks with feeling and with nature warm; The neck, the softly-swelling bosom hide, Nor, wanton gales, blow the light vest aside; For who, when beauties more than life excite Silent applause, can gaze without delight! But innocence, enchanting maid, is thine; Thine eyes in liquid light unconscious shine; And may thy breast no other feelings prove, Than those of ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... congratulation that Congress and the country had the virtue and firmness to bear the infliction, that the energies of our people soon found relief from this wanton tyranny in vast importations of the precious metals from almost every part of the world, and that at the close of this tremendous effort to control our Government the bank found itself powerless and no longer able to loan ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... by their ancestors of 1762. Judging from the language of English writers, we should infer that England has a vested right to pound and pulverize all places that refuse to acknowledge her supremacy but that such conduct as distinguished her troops at Copenhagen and elsewhere is wanton butchery when imitated by the military of other nations. Be that as it may, it is a fact that the British batteries pounded the Havana savagely on the 11th of August, one hundred and one years ago, without causing any ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... to pieces. There had been a marten in this trap, but nothing remained of him except a few hairs that clung to the bark of the fall-log. The bait was gone, the bait house was broken apart, and the pieces strewn about in the most savage and wanton manner. The tracks were only a few hours old, and Connie was for following them and killing the marauder with the rifle. But 'Merican Joe shook his head: "No, we ain' kin fin' him. He climb de tree and den git in nodder tree an' keep on goin' an' we lose time an' don' do no good. ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... came behind him, gave him a gentle Tap upon the Shoulder, and asked him if he would drink a Bottle of Mead with her? But the Knight, being startled at so unexpected a Familiarity, and displeased to be interrupted in his Thoughts of the Widow, told her, She was a wanton Baggage, and bid her go ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... their secret mews The flowers the wanton Zephyrs chuse; Proud be the Rose, with rains and dews Her head impearling; Thou liv'st with less ambitious aim, Yet hast not gone without thy fame; 30 Thou art indeed by many a claim The ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... programme placed before me by Seguin, I had not bargained for such wanton cruelties as I was now compelled to witness. It was not the time to look back, but forward, and perhaps, over other scenes of blood and brutality, to that happier hour, when I should have redeemed my promise, and won ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... no quaint details to attract the eye; no gorgeous colour-patterns or pleasing irregularities of form; the frosted beauty of the scene appeals rather to the intelligence. Contrasted with the wanton blaze of green, the contorted trunks and labyrinthine shadow-meanderings of our woodlands, these palm groves, despite their frenzied exuberance, figure forth the idea of reserve and chastity; an impression ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... was typical of France itself, which was harried by human wolves intent on rapine and wanton plunder. There were great schools of theology, but the students who attended them fought and slashed one another. If a man's life was threatened he must protect it by his own strength or by gathering about him a band of friends. ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... the leaves Duke Joc'lyn thrust his head, "O fie! Thou naughty, knavish knight!" he said. "O tush! O tush! O tush again—go to! 'T is windy, whining, wanton way to woo. What tushful talk is this of 'force' and 'slaves', Thou naughty, knavish, knightly knave of knaves? Unhand the maid—loose thy offensive paw!" Round sprang Sir Gui, and, all astonished, saw A long-legged jester who behind ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... harbored jealousy and distrust of the admiral as a foreigner. The cavaliers and hidalgos, of whom there were too many in the expedition, contemned him as an upstart, whom it was derogatory to obey. From the first moment of their landing in Hispaniola, they indulged the most wanton license in regard to the unoffending natives, who, in the simplicity of their hearts, had received the white men as messengers from Heaven. Their outrages, however, soon provoked a general resistance, which led to such a war of extermination, that, ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... present world conflict goes further than our own immediate affairs, and meets those interests which we have in common with the rest of humankind. Much as we deplore the wanton destruction of property, much as we bewail the reckless loss of life, we mourn especially the diminution of ethical standards and the perversion of our whole outlook on life. For this means the lapse of much for ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... after knowledge; the merchant, in his dangerous voyages; the ambitious, in his passionate pursuit of honour; the conqueror, in his earnest desire of victory; the politician, in his deep-laid designs; the wanton, in his pleasing charms of beauty; the covetous, in his unwearied heaping-up of treasure; and the prodigal, in his general and extravagant indulgence.—Thus far it may be well;—but, so mistaken ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... apt to think that the scheme of Providence must have been framed with a provision for the complete exclusion of such accidents. To allow of the sudden undoing of all this fair scene, which it has taken thousands of years to bring out in its full proportions, seems like a wanton destruction of valuable property, and we are not disposed to believe that such a thing could be permitted. But we must at the same time remember, that our sense of what is important and consequential has a regard to the earth alone, which is but a trifling atom ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 - Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852 • Various
... Gough was entirely unacquainted with the ground, as he had previously known it, especially the country to the left of the enemy. It was generally supposed by his lordship's censors that the attack was a wanton waste of life, and arose from the brave, rash, and unreflecting temperament of the general, and the irritation caused by the sudden and severe artillery fire opened upon him. On the other hand, the Duke of Wellington declared that he would, in Lord ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... intelligence refusing to take cognisance of the truths that men like Darwin and Huxley had worked all their lives to discover, and faced the common hatred to proclaim, seemed to her cruel ingratitude to the great and wanton contemning of the power of thought, which was the only tool man had been given to help him break this prison of disordered society. She leaned across the table and demanded in a heckling tone: "But you must ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... two degrees nearer ruin than his room. Great green stains were on the walls; plaster was lying here and there in a heap; the floors, rotted everywhere with damp, were sinking in all directions. Yet there had been no wanton destruction, for the glass in the windows was little broken. Merest neglect is all that is required to make of both man and his works a heap; for will is at the root of well-being, and nature speedily resumes what the will of man does ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... stranger wore a white veil of rich material, which was fastened above her brow by a single diamond of unusual size and brilliant luster. When the veil was drawn aside, shining auburn tresses were seen depending in wanton luxuriance over shoulders of alabaster whiteness: a beautiful but deadly pale countenance was revealed; and a splendid purple velvet dress delineated the soft and flowing outlines of a form modeled ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... draw it clearly; you will not care to hide it among scratches and burrs. And herein is the first grand distinction between etching and engraving—that in the etching needle you have an almost irresistible temptation to a wanton speed. There is, however, no real necessity for such a distinction; an etched line may have been just as steadily drawn, and seriously meant, as an engraved one; and for the moment, waiving consideration of ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... hell," which stood as the caption of a leading abolitionist paper of Boston. That signs of coming danger so visible, evidences of hostility so unmistakable, disregard of constitutional obligations so wanton, taunts and jeers so bitter and insulting, should serve to increase excitement in the South, was a consequence flowing as much from reason and patriotism as from sentiment. He must have been ignorant of human nature who did not expect such a tree to bear fruits of ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... as I remember, we were at Balbec, I saw him one day make an almost tasteless preparation out of pure black nicotine, which in mere wanton lust he afterwards gave to some of the dwellers by the Caspian to drink. But the fiend would surely never dream of giving to me that browse of hell—to me an aged man, and ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... young Puss playing her wanton Gambols, and with a thousand antick Shapes express her own Gayety at the same time that she moved mine, while the old Grannum hath sat by with a most exemplary Gravity, unmov'd at all that past; it hath made me reflect what should ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... dropped on their knees around her. If Voltaire had not existed we might have thought it a new miracle. I don't know if God gave her much credit for her tardy virtue, for love after all must be a sickening thing to a woman as weary of it as a wanton of the old Opera. Mademoiselle Laguerre was born in 1740, and her hey-day was in 1760, when Monsieur (I forget his name) was called the "ministre de la guerre," on account of his liaison with her. She abandoned that name, which was quite unknown down here, and called herself Madame des Aigues, ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... like some tired wanton, the moon in an orange hood was stealing down to her rest between ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... hastily, and in an apologetic manner. 'Tom Dixon's got charge of my interests, you know, and he sees to it that she has everything she wants.' Malemute Kid laid hand upon his arm and hushed him suddenly. They had stepped without. Overhead, the aurora, a gorgeous wanton, flaunted miracles of color; beneath lay the sleeping town. Far below, a solitary dog ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... Hsia seasons, drive in the chariot of Yin, wear the head-dress of Chou, take for music the Shao and its dance. Banish the strains of Cheng and flee men that are glib; for the strains of Cheng are wanton and ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius
... Wanton destruction is another cause of the disappearance of old mansions. Fashions change even in house-building. Many people prefer new lamps to old ones, though the old ones alone can summon genii and recall the glories of ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... away, and not until the sound of the closing door gave warning of his departure did the count turn around. His gaze was fixed upon the Venus, who in her wanton beauty met his ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... came to him: Briscoe had provoked his own death. He had physically attacked the Lhari—threatened them, goaded them to shoot him down in self-defense! "I've been on shipboard with them for months. They're not wanton murderers." ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... see Walkyn o' the Bloody Axe with grim Black Rogerkin, down at the brook yonder, a-sprawl upon their bellies busily a-tickling trout for breakfast, while I, whose good yew bow carrieth death in every twang, toasting deer-flesh on a twig, am mocked of wanton warblers i' the green: and thou, who art an Achilles, a Hector, an Ajax—a very Mars—do sleep and slumber, soft and sweet as full-fed friar—Heigho! Yet even a demi-god must nod betimes, ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... would. Wait till I call on you. What of that pair by the pond? Curse it, but I believe they're our quarries. She has two arms round his neck. The wanton baggage! And she once protested she loved me! On to 'em, Rofflash. Engage the fellow while I handle the wench. Eh?—Why—look ye there, captain. He's thrown her off. He's going. A tiff I'll swear. What a piece of ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... myself asleep when I was not, to prevent my being crammed. But my grandmother began a loud lecture upon the idleness of the wives of this age, who, for fear of their shape, forbear suckling their own offspring; and ten nurses were immediately sent for; one was whispered to have a wanton eye, and would soon spoil her milk; another was in a consumption; the third had an ill voice, and would frighten me instead of lulling me to sleep. Such exceptions were made against all but one country milch-wench, to whom I was committed, and put to the breast. This careless jade was eternally romping ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... again we find the Church councils complaining that the peasants (and sometimes the priests too) were singing 'wicked songs with a chorus of dancing women,' or holding 'ballads and dancings and evil and wanton songs and such-like lures of the devil';[14] over and over again the bishops forbade these songs and dances; but in vain. In every country in Europe, right through the Middle Ages to the time of the Reformation, and after it, country folk continued ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... wore gloves, and that they couldn't stand, and wouldn't; so he was mainly without society. He brought home with him a suit of clothes of such exquisite style and cut in fashion—Eastern fashion, city fashion—that it filled everybody with anguish and was regarded as a peculiarly wanton affront. He enjoyed the feeling which he was exciting, and paraded the town serene and happy all day; but the young fellows set a tailor to work that night, and when Tom started out on his parade next morning, he found the old deformed Negro bell ringer straddling along in his wake tricked ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of the emotions which should belong to love at a later period, the loss of such intellectual attainments as had already been acquired, the vacuous mind, the contentment to remain in the lower depths—in a word, the waste and wanton ruin of a life involved in such a youth, make the contemplation of this pair the most melancholy sight in the world. The boy's early cleverness is gone, the brightness has left his eyes, he reads no more, he has forgotten all he ever learned, he thinks only now of ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... face of the earth. He regarded the Brethren as a noisome pest. Not a stone did he and his servants leave unturned to destroy them. They began with the churches. Instead of razing them to the ground, which would, of course, have been wanton waste, they turned them into Roman Catholic Chapels by the customary methods of purification and rededication. They rubbed out the inscriptions on the walls, and put new ones in their places, lashed the pulpits with whips, ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... solitary, rocking to and fro. The wind fluttered her dress, clogged her footsteps, and drove pricking snowflakes into her face. Walking was difficult; the little feet sank into the snow. Cold and fearful the girl bent forward, like a blade of grass, the sport of the wanton wind. To the right of her on the marsh stood the dark wall of the forest; the bare birches and aspens quivered and rustled with a mournful cry. Yonder in the distance, before her, the lights of the city ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... useful in destroying insects. So of toads and bats. No one should ever be wantonly killed. Boys, old or young, should never be allowed to shoot birds, or disturb their nests, only as they would domestic fowls, for actual use. A wanton recklessness is exhibited about our cities and villages, in killing off small birds, that are of no use after they are dead. Living, they are valuable to every garden and fruit-orchard. In every state, stringent laws should be made and enforced against their destruction. Even ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... of forest ground. In crossing a plain we observed, under the shade of a patch of narrow-leaved tea trees, four bowers of the bowerbird, close together, as if one habitation was not sufficient for the wanton bird to sport in; and on the dry swamps I mentioned above, small companies of native companions were walking around us at some distance, but rose with their sonorous cu-r-r-r-ring cry, whenever Brown tried to approach ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... One wanton villain—it was the French gutter-snipe, Virot—paused a moment to ride up to a window of the hall and discharge his revolver through the glass. Fortunately his aim was as evil as his intent. Beyond shattering a priceless vase, the ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... uncomfortable by challenging them to disputations confessedly leading no whither, and bewildering them with confessedly 'vain and profane babblings, and strivings after words to no profit, but to subverting of the hearers, and overthrow of the faith of some.' And it is as poor an excuse for this wanton tampering with other people's creeds, as it is poor amends for its mischievous consequences, that Hume offers when, after watching for a while his puzzled disciples blown about by the winds of adverse doctrine that he has let ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... from Brussels, they drove through Louvain—martyred Louvain! It was too dreadful to contemplate. First the material destruction of those wonderful buildings, like an exquisite pattern in lace, torn by a ruthless sword and eaten by wanton flame; then the misery and deprivation of the people who were able to resist those hours of ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... sands of the desert Are born by the simoon's wrath, And in wanton and fleet confusion, Are strewn on its trackless path; So our lives with resistless fury, Insensibly and unknown, With a restless vacillation By the winds of fate are blown; But an All-Wise Hand May have changed the sand, For a purpose of ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... with Tatsu, though other things might have been forgiven, the old man's continued disrespect to his daughter's memory, his refusal to join even in the simplest ceremony of devotion, kept both him and old Mata chilled and distant. The one possible explanation,—aside from that of wanton cruelty,—was a thing so marvellous, so terrible in implied suggestion, that the boy's faint soul could make for it no present home; let it drift, a great luminous nebula of hope, a little longer ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... could not lead a young man who was in love with her to such a place without this result. Her purpose in so doing was best known to herself. In his mind there was evidently a doubt whether it was wanton cruelty, or a desire for information concerning her protege. He began to wonder, in view of the persistence of her interest in Emmet, whether she had not divined the cause of his ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... son grew from that of the father, as naturally as new joints on a bough. And the cathedral crowned the whole as naturally as the leafy summit the tree. This cannot be here. The march of peaceful is scarce less wanton than that of warlike invasion. The old landmarks are broken down, and the land, for a season, bears none, except of the rudeness of conquest and the needs of the day, whose bivouac fires blacken the sweetest forest glades. I have come prepared to see all this, to dislike it, but not with stupid ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... modified, or at least greatly postponed, by wise statesmanship and timely compromise. Take, for example, the American Revolution, which destroyed the political unity of the English race. You will often hear this event treated as if it were simply due to the wanton tyranny of an English Government, which desired to reduce its colonies to servitude by taxing them without their consent. But if you will look closely into the history of that time—and there is no history which ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... near the bank, than they were seized upon by a Fisherman, (who was lying in wait for them,) and completely plucked of their feathers, an operation to which they very quietly submitted, and were then suffered to depart. Upon inquiring his motive for what appeared to me a wanton act of cruelty, he told me his intention was to stuff his bed with the feathers; 'or,' added he, 'if you vill, to feather my nest.' Being myself an admirer of a soft bed, I saw no reason why I should not employ myself in the same way; but owing, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various
... sold. But when these articles at such a sale did not fetch a sum equal to the amount of the duty chargeable, then the commodity was to be burnt. Great exertions were undoubtedly made by the soldiers for the suppression of smuggling, but care had to be taken to prevent wanton and improper seizures. The men of this branch of the service were awarded 40s. for every horse that was seized ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... instruments, and catching them again on the points of their fingers. "She has enchanted him with her glamour. Foul is fair! Foul fair thee, young springal, if thou go to the nets. Shadow and goblin to goblin and shadow! Flesh and blood to blood and flesh!"—and dancing round him, with wanton looks and bare arms, and gossamer robes that brushed him as they ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... idle shapes Of little frisking elves and apes, To earth do make their wanton 'scapes As ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... House of Representatives of the State of Massachusetts presented in a still stronger light and with unanswerable argument the causes of this unjust and cruel war, as wanton and unprovoked, and the climax of the various outrages committed ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... one warns the general public against an impostor soliciting alms under false pretences! This is a flagrant violation of my "personal rights relating to my reputation"; and, therefore, according to the above judicial ruling of an American court, Dr. Royce is guilty of wanton and unprovoked libel against one who never injured him in the ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot
... concealed under the mask of gaiety is neither very new nor very strange: the reign of our Charles the Second was equally famous for plots, perjuries, and cruel chastisements, as for wanton levity and indecent frolics: but here at Venice there are no unpermitted frolics; her rulers love to see her gay and cheerful; they are the fathers of their country, and if they indulge, take care not to ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... charged to seek. Where she hides 'twere hard to say; whether on the hill-side, golden with bracken, or in the spray of the sea, or on the bluff headland, or by the breezy links—in all these I seek her. Sometimes I spy her afar off; but the wanton comes and goes. Yet I am persuaded I shall presently find her, and bring her home rejoicing to ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... Cieza de Leon, who crossed this part of the country in 1548, mentions the wanton manner in which the hand of the Conqueror had fallen on the Indian edifices, which lay in ruin, even at that early ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... and good-natured; but, used to live a scrambling, rakish course of life himself, he had not the least idea of the extent of Lord Glenvarloch's mental sufferings, and thought of his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick of a wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his tutor. With the appearance of the place, too, he was familiar—but on his companion it ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... might have compassed every point proposed by continuing its resistance to Britain on the same footing it had begun. This measure occasioned an alienation from its interests in the minds of many of its former adherents. It was looked upon as a wanton abuse of the success with which it had opposed the efforts of the British Ministry to bring them to submission, and as an ungrateful return for the warmth with which their cause had been espoused in Parliament, ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... Kennon, an eminent lawyer of Salisbury, and Rev. Hezekiah J. Balch, a distinguished Presbyterian preacher, were the chief speakers. During the session of the convention, an express messenger arrived, bearing the news of the wanton and cruel shedding of blood at Lexington on the 19th of April, just one month proceeding. This intelligence served to increase the general patriotic ardor, and the assembly, as with one voice, cried out, "Let us be independent. Let us declare our independence, and defend it with our ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... of this exquisite work of art seems entirely wanton and unnecessary. It produced no result whatever of advantage. There were neither English, French, nor Belgian soldiers in Ypres at the time. The populace consisted of about ten thousand peaceful peasants and shopkeepers, ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... each in other's Kisses, From their so wish'd Imbracements seldom parted, Yet seem'd to blush at such their wanton Blisses; But when sweet Words their joining Sweets disparted, To the Ear a dainty Musick they imparted; Upon them fitly sate delightful Smiling, A thousand Souls with pleasing Stealth beguiling: Ah that such shews of Joys ...
— Essays on Wit No. 2 • Richard Flecknoe and Joseph Warton
... Writ as 'Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?' And what can I say to that but Amen? Jack is always loving and tender, but he can (I well perceive) see little comfort herein himself; and to do so much as name the thing to Thekla were wanton cruelty, though I do fancy she should be the best comforter. So I must wait on, and cry unto God. It may be that is the very thing ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... abroad; they say we are in no pain for Gibraltar: but I know that we are in a state of war at home that is shocking. I mean, from the enormous profusion of housebreakers, highwaymen, and footpads; and, what is worse, from the savage barbarities of the two latter, who commit the most wanton cruelties. This evil is another fruit of the American war. Having no vent for the convicts that used to be transported to our late colonies, a plan was adopted for confining them on board of lighters for the term of their sentences. In those colleges, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... Christian Europe. They have assured all these distant peoples that their faith has built up a shining civilisation in Europe, and now there flash and quiver through the nerves of the world the daily messages of horror, of fierce hatred, of appalling carnage, of the wanton destruction by Christians of Christian temples. The Gospel has, somehow, broken down in ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... brain: I'VE been the brain that lit thy dull concavity! The human race Invest MY face With thine expression of unchecked depravity, Invested with a ghastly reciprocity, I'VE been responsible for thy monstrosity, I, for thy wanton, blundering ferocity - ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... depression, when the world, the flesh, and the devil seemed to be gaining against the gospel, sometime in the year 1733 signs began to be visible of yielding to the power of God's Word. The frivolous or wanton frolics of the youth began to be exchanged for meetings for religious conference. The pastor was encouraged to renewed tenderness and solemnity in his preaching. His themes were justification by faith, the awfulness of God's justice, the ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... have to recall the angry and violent speeches which followed the announcement of the new policy; the dogmatic prognostications of Imperial disruption, of financial collapse, and of a cruel Boer tyranny in the emancipated Colonies; the charges of wanton betrayal of loyalists, of disgraceful surrender to "the enemy." Some of the leading actors in these scenes, notably Mr. Balfour and Mr. Lyttelton, have since acknowledged that they were wrong, while apparently ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... that I saw, soon after I got on board the Niagara, the flag of the Lawrence come down, although I was perfectly sensible that she had been defended to the last, and that to have continued to make a show of resistance would have been a wanton sacrifice of the remains of her brave crew. But the enemy was not able to take possession of her, and circumstances soon permitted her flag again to be hoisted. At 45 minutes past 2 the signal was made for "close action." The Niagara being ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... manhood?" To be destitute of that which may be described as raw material in the human frame, means that no really vigorous manhood can have place; to burn up the juices of the system in the fires of lust is madness and wanton folly, {418} but it can be done. To divert the currents of life and energy from blood and brain, from memory and muscle, in order to secrete it for the shambles of prostitution, is death to true manhood; but remember, it can be done! The generous liquid life may inspire ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... pertaining to old Sherwood, perhaps the most famous, and certainly the least picturesque, is the "Parliament Oak", which may be seen to the right of the Mansfield road as it approaches Edwinstowe. To this venerable ruin, which an iron palisading protects from wanton hands, clings the tradition that Parliaments of King John and Edward the First met under its shade, the last in October, 1290. Queen Eleanor was ill—she died in the following month at Harby near Lincoln—and thence was made the most notable ...
— The Dukeries • R. Murray Gilchrist
... all,' said he, 'this is wanton waste of time. Let the girl understand the fact. Let her take it from me, if you like, who have been run away from, myself. Here, what's your name! Your father has absconded - deserted you - and you mustn't expect to see him again as ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... no cases of prisoners surrendering and being instantly shot; nor did civilians complain of any wanton looting of the occupied premises, though at Jacobs's and Boland's full use was made of the stores; nor were there any of the Volunteers found drunk. Certainly they should have prevented looting, but it was a duty as ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... and took possession of his house, and his splendid collections of jewels, laces, furniture, curios and pictures were sold at auction. The fine dresses that once belonged to Saskia were seized: they even took her wedding-gown: and wanton women bid against the nobility for the possession of these things. Rembrandt was stripped of his sketches, and these were sold in bundles—the very sweat of his brain for years. Then he ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... I had settled that my health would never survive such a wanton infringement of all sanitary laws, Irene again sank on her knees and buried her face in her hands. Now was my time. I crept noiselessly back up the corridor until my hand was actually on the baize door. Then excitement ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... tail, while pursuing its gigantic pastime, would be sufficient to destroy us. It came to the surface at about the same distance as before, but on the opposite side of the boat, throwing itself half out of the water as it rose: again it commenced lashing the sea violently, as if in the mere wanton display of its terrible strength, until far around, the water was one wide sheet of foam. The calves still gambolled near us, chasing each other about and under the yawl, and we might easily have killed one of them, had we not been deterred by the ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... pebbled shore, O'erhung with wild woods, shorn of green; The leafless birch and hawthorn hoar Were planted round the wintry scene; No flowers sprang wanton to be pressed— No birds sang love on every spray— But brightest yet o'er all the rest Will ever shine ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy
... that you will obey my orders, nor wait upon me," replied Newton. "All I request is, that you will lay aside your wanton animosity, and exert yourself to save your life. For what you have already attempted against me, may God forgive you, as I do! For what you may hereafter attempt, you will find me prepared. Now ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... had already undergone a revulsion of feeling. The assault of the old woman on two harmless strangers seemed too wanton to be tolerated. Ludlow's easy manner and calm language restored them fully to their senses, and the sight of his revolver effectually overawed the more excitable or reckless. They were also jealous of the good name of the town, and now began to be enraged with the old woman. A murmur passed through ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... some distance, Bellew looked back, and then he saw that Anthea walked with her head averted, yet Cassilis walked close beside her, and stooped, now and then, until the black moustache came very near the curl—that curl of wanton witchery that ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... patriarchs used. Here Love his golden shafts employs, here lights His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings, Reigns here and revels; not in the bought smile Of harlots, loveless, joyless, unendeared, Casual fruition; nor in court-amours, Mixed dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball, Or serenate, which the starved lover sings To his proud fair, best quitted with disdain. These, lulled by nightingales, embracing slept, And on their naked limbs the flowery roof Showered roses, ...
— Love—Marriage—Birth Control - Being a Speech delivered at the Church Congress at - Birmingham, October, 1921 • Bertrand Dawson
... lifted the depression which the eternal drizzle had settled on my spirits. That bold girl singing a martial ballad to the storm and taking pleasure in the snellness of the air, was like a rousing summons or a cup of heady wine. The picture ravished my fancy. The proud dark eye, the little wanton curls peeping from the hood, the whole figure alert with youth and life—they cheered my recollection as I trod that sour moorland. I tried to remember her song, and hummed it assiduously till I got some kind of version, which I shouted ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... angry that she should have dared to unbolt the door, or to withdraw the bars. What was she, that she should be trusted to open or to close the house? And there came upon him some idea of wanton and improper conduct. Why was she there at that hour? Must it be that he should put her again from the shelter of ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... could be no glory, no conquest, no chivalry. It was war which held a nation together, which made Kings more powerful and thrones more stable! But now came a man with shining eyes who talked of the sinful folly of war, of the wanton waste of armies; who dreamed of universal brotherhood, and a world governed by love! Wild words, foolish dreams, perhaps—and yet most dangerous to the idea of the divine right of Kings! So, that evening, the Prince sat and ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... day Autumn repented of its wanton folly, and called out with Sunshine and Brightness for the return of the dead Summer. The light fell on the face of the girl in the Picture, but it did not lift the Shadow. Nor did the dead Summer ...
— The Story of a Picture • Douglass Sherley
... satisfy his own vanity than with any desire to set himself to chisel stone. He used always to wear on his arms, on his neck, and in his clothing, ornaments of gold and suchlike fripperies, which showed him to be rather a courtier, vain and wanton, than a craftsman desirous of glory. Of a truth, just as such ornaments enhance the splendour of those to whom, on account of their wealth, high estate, and noble blood, they are becoming, so are they worthy of reproach in craftsmen and others, who should ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... to be excavated on the site. We have discovered a Demeter some years ago; a mutilated head in marble; it is now in Paris. You can see the very place from my roof here, on bright days. These men, Mr. Denis, were our masters. Do not be misled by what you are told of the wanton luxury of those shores; do not forget that your view of that age has filtered through Roman stoicism and English puritanism which speak with envy lurking at their hearts—the envy of the incomplete creature for him who dares express himself. A plague has infected the world—the plague of repression. ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... with ready zeal and splendid efficiency, and showed himself the wisest and most sincere of counselors. When Essex rejected his advice, forfeited the Queen's confidence by the follies from which Bacon had earnestly striven to deter him, and finally plunged into wanton and reckless rebellion, Bacon, with whom loyalty to his sovereign had always been the supreme duty, accepted a retainer from the Crown, and assisted Coke in the prosecution. The crime of Essex was the greatest of which a subject was capable; ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... jury and executioner. The property of others he could confiscate at pleasure, for his own use. The Indians probably retaliated upon the first band of white men which came within their power. And this retaliation would be deemed an act of wanton savage barbarism demanding ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... Doth spread it selfe for thee. The Earth new Turff's it selfe for thee to tread, The straying starrs fresh fields make glad. Here with their dams, of Kids th'amazed flocks Hang on steep sides of Rocks; Here as they swim, the wanton Hinds do play In the coole streames ...
— The Odes of Casimire, Translated by G. Hils • Mathias Casimire Sarbiewski
... and blatantly unskilfully, with riotous puffs and spinning of wheels, the great car started,—faltered,—balked a bit,—then dragged crushingly across the Senior Surgeon's flattened body, and with a great wanton burst of speed tore down the sloping meadow into the brook—rods away. Clamping down the brakes with a wrench and a racket like the smash of a machine-shop the White Linen Nurse jumped out into the brook, and with one wild terrified glance behind her staggered back ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... girl, Whose sudden beauty shook us from our dreams, And chained our eyes. How beautiful she was? Half-hid among the gay Miletian cushions, The lovely laughing face, the gracious form, The fragrant lightly-knotted hair, and eyes Full of the dancing fire of wanton Corinth. That happy stripling, whose delighted feet Swung at her side, whose tongue ran on so gaily, Is it for him alone she wreathes those smiles, And tunes so musically that flexile voice, Soft as the Lydian flute? ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... that anxiety of feature and that solicitude for results, that lack of inner harmony and ease, in short, by which with us the work is so apt to be accompanied, and from which a European who should do the same work would nine times out of ten be free. These perfectly wanton and unnecessary tricks of inner attitude and outer manner in us, caught from the social atmosphere, kept up by tradition, and idealized by many as the admirable way of life, are the last straws that break ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... stay and enjoy the wife's society as long as he lists, whilst the husband has no shame in the matter, but indeed considers it an honour. And all the men of this province are made wittols of by their wives in this way.[NOTE 3] The women themselves are fair and wanton. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... written just before our departure for Osborne.[11] I hope that you will not have been alarmed by the account of the occurrence which took place on Saturday, and which I can assure you did not alarm me at all. This time it is quite clear that it was a wanton and wicked wish merely to frighten, which is very wrong, and will be tried and punished as a misdemeanour. The account in the Times is quite correct. The indignation, loyalty, and affection this act has called forth ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... feats of archery, of bull-baiting, and other popular amusements, were to be practised, for the more immediate amusement of the populace. In this manner did Prince John endeavour to lay the foundation of a popularity, which he was perpetually throwing down by some inconsiderate act of wanton aggression upon the feelings and prejudices of ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... Ralph. "I should rather say that it was a bit of wanton outrage of all the decencies of ordinary life, and arranged by some of the rude fellows—male and female—of the baser sort. You noticed, of course, that most of those immediately connected with the two cars, looked like ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... scruples into this line of business. I suppose," said I, nettled, "when you read in the General Order that the notorious McNeill was lurking disguised within the circle of cantonments, you took it that Marmont was putting a wanton affront on your character, just for the ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... engaged with a skilful and quick swordsman, might have sent him to the place from which the prayers of his brethren have (we are bound to believe) released so many thousands of souls. But, meanwhile, the servants, who at first thought the clashing of swords was the wanton sport of some young gallants as yet new to the honour of wearing them, grew alarmed by the continuance of the sound, and flocked hurriedly to the place of contest. At their intrusion we mutually drew back. Recovering my presence of mind (it was a possession I very easily ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... squadron, supported by a few battleships and cruisers which had survived the battle of Dover, had proceeded to Portsmouth, destroyed the booms and submarine defences, while a detachment of aerostats shelled the land defences, and then in a moment of wanton revenge had blown up the venerable hulk of the Victory, which had gone down at her moorings with her flag still flying as it had done a hundred years before at the fight of Trafalgar. After this inglorious achievement they had been laid ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... each anxious watcher's sight, Baring her bosom to the wanton sea, The lordly ship sweeps onward in her might, Her ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... loue, anger, spite, sensualitie, excesse, and ambition, trouble and prouoke the mynde? How many doo wee see, whiche euen from their youth, too their latter dais neuer awake nor repet them of the drunkennes, of ambitio, nigardnes, wanton lust, & riatte? Spu. I haue knowen ouermany of that sorte. Hedo. You haue grauted that false and fayned good || thinges, are not too bee estemed for the pure and godly. Sp. And I affirme that ...
— A Very Pleasaunt & Fruitful Diologe Called the Epicure • Desiderius Erasmus
... generative light falling from the moon". When the bull of Attis was sacrificed his worshippers were drenched with its blood, and were afterwards ceremonially fed with milk, as they were supposed to have "renewed their youth" and become children. The ancient Greek god Eros (Cupid) was represented as a wanton boy or handsome youth. Another god of fertility, the Irish Angus, who resembles Eros, is called "the ever young"; he slumbers like Tammuz ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... of Alain Chartier. His Livre de l'Esperance, where the oratorical prose is interspersed with lyric verse, spares neither the clergy nor the frivolous and dissolute gentry, who forget their duty to their country in wanton self-indulgence; yet his last word, written at the moment when Joan of Arc was leaving the pastures for battle, is one of hope. His Curial (The Courtier) is a satire on the vices of the court by one who ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... of 1783 Great Britain agreed to give us the whole West below a certain line, but when the time came for the surrender, she refused to yield the forts south of this line. With the bad faith of wanton power she kept her posts at Oswego, Niagara, Detroit, and Mackinaw, because we were weak and she was strong; and from these points her agents abetted the savages in their war upon the American frontiers. Just before the battle of Fallen Timbers, where Wayne won ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... in her eye, her cheek, her lip, Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out At every joint ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... same time I felt that I had not yet reached the level of straight and simple relations with her. I asked myself despairingly, "What am I to do?" In foolish dreams I imagined her now as my mistress and now as my wife, but rejected both ideas with disgust. To make her a wanton woman would be dreadful. It would be murder. To turn her into a fine lady, the wife of Dmitri Andreich Olenin, like a Cossack woman here who is married to one of our officers, would be still worse. Now could I turn Cossack like Lukashka, ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... south-west from Ripon in Yorkshire, stands in a beautiful wooded valley, through which runs a pretty stream known as the Skell. The abbey is noted for the great extent of its remains, which seem to have escaped any wanton destruction. A fine tower at the north end of the transept still stands, but the central one has fallen into great decay. Besides the church there are many remains of this famous abbey, which at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries was one of the richest in ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... of white men, armed to the teeth, rushed to the vicinity from neighboring cities and towns. Governor Charles H. Brough telegraphed to Camp Pike for Federal troops, and five hundred were mobilized at once "to repel the attack of the black army." Worse than any other feature was the wanton slaying of the four Johnston brothers, whose father had been a prominent Presbyterian minister and whose mother was formerly a school-teacher. Dr. D.A.E. Johnston was a successful dentist and owned a three-story building in Helena. Dr. Louis Johnston ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... throughout a great part of the poem a dangerous indulgence of his wit; the amusement of remote analogies; the use of far-fetched illustrations; quips and cranks and wanton wiles of the reasoning fancy in deviating self-indulgence; and an allusiveness which sets commentators into note-making effervescence. All these, and more, which belong to wit, are often quite ungoverned, allowed to disport themselves as they please. Such matters ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... Lettera, p. 23.] I wish the reader especially to notice that a separate tower or range of apartments was built for this purpose, in order to clear the government of the accusations so constantly made against them, by ignorant or partial historians, of wanton cruelty to prisoners. The stories commonly told respecting the "piombi" of the Ducal Palace are utterly false. Instead of being, as usually reported, small furnaces under the leads of the palace, they were ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... not attached by any practical interest. Some are too distant to be perceived; the proximity of others passes unnoticed. It is far from requisite, in pursuing safety, that every strange animal be regarded as either a friend or an enemy. Wanton hostilities would waste ammunition and idle attachments would waste time. Yet it often happens that some of these beings, having something in common with creatures we are wont to notice, since we stand to them in sexual, parental, or hostile relations, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... of the province of Syria, who in a time of scarcity had been massacred by the people of Antioch, with the connivance, and almost at the instigation, of Gallus, was justly resented, not only as an act of wanton cruelty, but as a dangerous insult on the supreme majesty of Constantius. Two ministers of illustrious rank, Domitian the Oriental praefect, and Montius, quaestor of the palace, were empowered by a special commission * to ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... Bois de Bouvigny to the west of it—where I stood among Canadian batteries just six weeks before the battle of Arras in 1917. The lamentable ruin of once beautiful Arras, the desolation of Douai, and the villages between it and Valenciennes, the wanton destruction of what was once the heart of Cambrai, and that grim scene of the broken bridge on the Cambrai—Bapaume road, over the Canal du Nord, where we got out on a sombre afternoon, to look ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... ancient birds; the earliest travelers note their presence in great flocks, and to-day there are few vistas open to us, without from one to dozens of them wheeling about in mid-air, seeking what they may devour. Public opinion in the valley is opposed to the wanton killing of these scavengers, so useful in a climate as ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... was undiscovered, the Dahcotah raised his person again, and bending forward, he moved his dark visage above the face of the sleeper, in that sort of wanton and subtle manner with which the reptile is seen to play about its victim before it strikes. Satisfied at length, not only of the condition but of the character of the stranger, Mahtoree was in the act of withdrawing ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... youths were swimming in the sea, and there came some wanton women and girls who told the young men to come out and kiss them. But the youths would not come out, so the ladies stripped themselves and ran into the water after them. And the gentles who were driven away swam further into the water, and ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... paradises of the great trout, who frequent the old brickwork and timber foundations. The water in its rush through the arches, had of course worked for itself a deep hole, and then, some twenty yards below, spread itself out in wanton joyous ripples and eddies over a broad surface some fifty yards across, and dashed away towards a little island some two hundred yards below, or rolled itself slowly back towards the bridge again, up the backwater by the side of the bank, as if longing ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... the music float Along the gloaming lea; 'Tis sweet to hear the blackbird's note Come pealing frae the tree; To see the lambkins lightsome race— The speckled kid in wanton chase— The young deer cower in lonely place, Deep in her flowing den; But sweeter far the bonny face That smiles in ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... soldiers there was one who looked with disapproving eyes upon so much wanton cruelty, as he marched along silently with his brows knit in disgust. At length, seeing that the guard, not satisfied with the branch, was kicking the prisoners that fell, he could no longer restrain himself but cried out impatiently, ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... acquired in its passage through the medium of the poet's mind, but in other respects essentially the language of the historical personages who are made to speak. The diction belongs in each case to the period of the ballad in which it is employed, and yet there is no wanton use of archaisms, or any disposition manifested to resort to meretricious artifices by which to impart an appearance of probability to the story other than that which comes legitimately of sheer narrative excellence. The characterisation is that of history ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... birth-rate,'" he went on; "yet if, according to the modern scientist, all civilisations are only so much output of wasted human energy, doomed to pass into utter oblivion, and human beings only live but to die and there an end, of what avail is it to be born at all? Surely it is but wanton cruelty to take upon ourselves the responsibility of continuing a race whose only consummation is rottenness ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... Columbia by our cannon. On the other hand, the night before, when Woods's division was in camp in the open fields at Little Congaree, it was shelled all night by a rebel battery from the other aide of the river. This provoked me much at the time, for it was wanton mischief, as Generals Beauregard and Hampton must have been convinced that they could not prevent our entrance into Columbia. I have always contended that I would have been justified in retaliating for this unnecessary act of war, but did not, though ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... decay should be arrested, and that the future operations of rural husbandry and of forest industry, in districts yet remaining substantially in their native condition, should be so conducted as to prevent the widespread mischiefs which have been elsewhere produced by thoughtless or wanton destruction of the natural safeguards of the soil. This can be done only by the diffusion of knowledge on this subject among the classes that, in earlier days, subdued and tilled ground in which they had no vested rights, but who, in our time, own their woods, their pastures, and their ploughlands ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... rebel has become, Morose, insubordinate and glum, A peevish, wayward, wanton, wicked swain: To strive against the darts of love ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... you; let this suffice you for your salvation. If evil covetousness cry aught else to you, be ye men, and not silly sheep, so that the Jew among you may not laugh at you. Act not like the lamb, that leaves the milk of his mother, and, simple and wanton, at its ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... materially modified, or at least greatly postponed, by wise statesmanship and timely compromise. Take, for example, the American Revolution, which destroyed the political unity of the English race. You will often hear this event treated as if it were simply due to the wanton tyranny of an English Government, which desired to reduce its colonies to servitude by taxing them without their consent. But if you will look closely into the history of that time—and there is no history which is more instructive—you ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... three men, who refused to arrest the assassin, for no other reason than because he endeavoured to have justice done his employers; and the following extract from the report of the Irish Mining Company of Ireland, contains the particulars of as wanton an outrage ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... Gabriel, for in submitting she could save not only Graustark, but the man she loved. The sacrifice —but no! he would not believe that such affliction could come to her! Marry Gabriel! The man who had planned to seize her and make her his wanton! He ground his teeth and glared at Quinnox as if he were the object of his hatred, his vicious jealousy. The captain stepped backward in ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... not responsible for my brothers," the second man spoke up, filling his pipe in a meditative manner. Hay Stockard was at times as thoughtful of speech as he was wanton of ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... nearest had already undergone a revulsion of feeling. The assault of the old woman on two harmless strangers seemed too wanton to be tolerated. Ludlow's easy manner and calm language restored them fully to their senses, and the sight of his revolver effectually overawed the more excitable or reckless. They were also jealous of the good name ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... a sheep.—Levit. xix: 20 to 22, inclusive. Again, there was a law which guarded his people, whether free or bond, from personal violence. If in vindictiveness, a man with an unlawful weapon, maimed his own slave by knocking out his eye, or his tooth, the slave was to be free for this wanton act of personal violence, as a penalty upon the master.—Exod. xxi: 26 to 27, inclusive. But for the same offense, committed against a free person, the offender had to pay an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, as the penalty.—Levit. ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... the shades, I presently do see The god of love forsake his bow and sit me by; If that I think to write, his Muses pliant be; If so I plain my grief, the wanton boy will cry. If I lament his pride, he doth increase my pain If tears my cheeks attaint, his cheeks are moist with moan If I disclose the wounds the which my heart hath slain, He takes his fascia off, and wipes them dry anon. If so I walk the woods, ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... office of his Majesty, to resume the exercise of his negative power, and to prevent the passage of laws by any one legislature of the empire, which might bear injuriously on the rights and interests of another. Yet this will not excuse the wanton exercise of this power, which we have seen his Majesty practise on the laws of the American legislatures. For the most trifling reasons, and sometimes for no conceivable reason at all, his Majesty ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... a few hours earlier not a ship nor a house could have escaped. But it was the lesson, not the loss, that told. As it was, enough damage had been done to demonstrate—as Paul had declared to the wise man of Paris—that the disasters caused by the wanton fires and assaults on the American coasts, could be easily brought home to the enemy's doors. Though, indeed, if the retaliators were headed by Paul Jones, the satisfaction would not be equal to the insult, being abated by the magnanimity of a chivalrous, ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... it so happily if I had my baby," she sobbed to Marilla. "But when I haven't it just seems like wanton cruelty—though I know Phil wouldn't hurt me for the world. Oh, Marilla, I don't see how I can EVER be happy again—EVERYTHING will hurt me all the rest of ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... farewell, you wanton powers; I'm free again. Thou dull disease of bloud and idle hours, Bewitching pain, Fly to fools that sigh away their time: My nobler love to heaven doth climb; And there behold beauty still young, That time can ne'er corrupt, nor death destroy; Immortal ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... carries with her an infectious grief That strikes all her beholders, she will sing The mournful'st things that ever ear hath heard, And sigh, and sing again, and when the rest Of our young Ladies in their wanton blood, Tell mirthful tales in course that fill the room With laughter, she will with so sad a look Bring forth a story of the silent death Of some forsaken Virgin, which her grief Will put in such a phrase, that ere she end, She'l send them weeping one ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... warrior in the Moorish ranks was deeply interested in forwarding their views, his disorderly and savage followers were affording proofs of their wanton cruelty and insubordination. El Feri saw with disgust and sorrow, that the men he led to the field adhered not to the principles which they pretended to profess. He perceived that his army more resembled ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... were disturbed only by those echoes of revelry in honour of the late manifestation of the Hun's divine right to do wanton murder on the ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... him! Those eyes have taught the lover flattery. His face, ...nay, Jacob! Jacob! were it fair To judge a lady in her dishabille? Fancy it dressed, and with saltpeter rouged. Behold his tail, my friend; with curls like that The wanton hop marries her stately spouse: So crisp in beauty Amoretta's hair Rings round her lover's soul the chains of love. And what is beauty, but the aptitude Of parts harmonious? Give thy fancy scope, And thou wilt find that no imagined change Can beautify this beast. Place at ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... not all duty. Indeed, the true spiritual life is quite other, not harsh and constrained, but free and spontaneous—a wealth of feeling playing about a constantly shifting centre. Spirit is not consecutive and law-abiding, but capricious and wanton, seeking the beautiful in no orderly progression, but in a refined and versatile sensibility. If this be the nature of spirit, and if spirit be the nature of reality, then he is most wise who is most ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... recompounded in the other forms with which she daily supplies those which daily disappear, and return under different forms—the watery particles to streams and showers, the earthy parts to enrich their mother earth, the airy portions to wanton in the breeze, and those of fire to supply the blaze of Aldebaran and his brethren.—In this faith have I lived, and I will die in it!—Hence! begone!—disturb me no farther!—I have spoken the last word that mortal ears ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... David to stand up for her. She had not understood how her father's righteous soul would be stirred to the depths of shame and utter disgrace over her wanton action. Not that she would have been in the least deterred from doing as she pleased had she understood, only that she counted upon too great power ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... whirlwind, caught me up and bore me away into a large room, where he made himself visible to my eyes in human form, appearing like a young man whose beard is just growing, with a face of indescribable beauty, but austere, not wanton. He bade me look around the room, and said: "The crowd of men thou seest in this place are all those who up to this day have been born and afterwards have died upon the earth." Thereupon I asked him why he brought me hither, ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... darkened. But what did he want with me? 'Tis thought he had received a despatch - and that he misreads it (so we fully believe) to the effect that they are to have war ships at command and can make their little war after all. If it be so, and they do it, it will be the meanest wanton slaughter of poor men for the salaries of two white failures. But what was his errand with me? Perhaps to warn me that unless I behave he now hopes to be able to pack me off in ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the introduction to his Tibullus: "Verbal translations are always inelegant, because always destitute of beauty of idiom and language; for by their fidelity to an author's words, they become treacherous to his reputation; on the other hand, a too wanton departure from the letter often varies the sense and alters the manner. The translator chose the middle way, and meant neither to tread on the heels of Tibullus nor yet to lose sight of him."[430] The preface to Fawkes' Theocritus harks back to Dryden: "A ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... ladies," said the head-mistress in that slightly vibrating and authoritative voice of hers. "I have a word or two to say to you all. Miss Good has just brought me a painful story of wanton and cruel mischief. There are fifty girls in this school, who, until lately, lived happily together. There is now one girl among the fifty whose object it is to sow seeds of discord and misery among her ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... Calv's impersonation, it seemed that I was enjoying my first revelation of some of the elements of the character of the gypsy as it had existed in the imagination of Prosper Mrime when he wrote his novel. To me she presented a woman thoroughly wanton and diabolically equipped with the wicked witcheries which explained, if they did not palliate, the conduct of Don Jos. Here we had a woman without conscience, but also without the capacity for even a wicked affection; a woman who might have been the thief whom the novelist describes, who ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... part to view— Of wanton waste and reckless gambling, What darker paths shall he pursue With sacrilegious step and shambling? What coarse defiance, haply, hurl At lights beyond his comprehension— An attitudinising churl Who ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Jan. 9, 1892 • Various
... the eye; the richest and most delicate sculpture being put on the walls of the porches, or on the facade of the building, just high enough above the ground to secure it from accidental (not from wanton[23]) injury. The decoration, as it rises, becomes always bolder, and in the buildings of the greatest times, generally simpler. Thus at San Zeno and the duomo of Verona, the only delicate decorations are on the porches and ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... savage animals. The early Christians were especially subjected to this species of cruelty. Nero availed himself of the prejudice against them to turn aside popular indignation after the great conflagration of Rome, which is commonly ascribed to his own wanton love of mischief; and we learn from Tertullian, that, after great public misfortunes, the cry of the populace was, "To the lions with ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... what I'm about," she said, breathing quick. "He made a fule o' me wi' that wanton Lizzie Short, and he near killt me the last morning afore he went. And I'd been a good wife to him for fifteen year, and never a word between us till that huzzy came along. And she's got a child by him, ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... upon him: The third day comes a frost, a killing frost; And, when he thinks,—good easy man,—full surely His greatness is a ripening,—nips his root, And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured, Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, These many summers in a sea of glory; But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride At length broke under me; and now has left me, Weary and old with service, to the mercy Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me. Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye! I ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... baby, and these otherwise gentle folk, evicted and aggrieved, knowing naught of Blakely from previous association, and seeing no reason why he should wish to be at the far end of the row instead of the middle, with his captain, where he properly belonged, deemed themselves the objects of wanton and capricious treatment at his hands, and resented it according to their opportunities. Bridger, being a soldier and subordinate, had to take it out in soliloquy and swear-words, but his impetuous little helpmate—being ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... was good company at jeists. And wanton when he came to feists, He scorn'd the converse of great beasts, O'er a sheep's head; He laugh'd at stones about ghaists; ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... representative of the people, to institute a domiciliary search in his house, and to waste valuable time, which otherwise belonged to the service of the Republic. And this you did, not from a misguided sense of duty towards your country, but in wanton and impure spirit, to be rid of the surveillance of one who had your welfare at heart, and who tried to prevent your leading the immoral life which had become a public scandal, and which has now brought you before this court of justice, ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... including three lay sisters, also possessed, into the choir of the said church, accompanied by a great many monks, Carmelites, Capuchins, and Franciscans; and by three physicians and a surgeon. The sisters on entering made some wanton remarks, calling Grandier their master, and exhibiting ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... apart for Himself and who were obedient to His will; and though by desert of nature they were condemned, yet God by making them partakers in the hidden mystery, long afterwards to be revealed, vouchsafed to recover fallen nature. So the earth was filled by the human race and man who by his own wanton wilfulness had despised his Creator began to walk in his own ways. Hence God willing rather to recover mankind through one just man than that it should remain for ever contumacious, suffered all the guilty multitude to perish by the wide waters of a flood, save only Noah, the just one, with ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... behaved on its advance to Smolensk, things were even worse as they left the ruined town behind them and resumed their journey towards Moscow. It seemed that the hatred with which they were regarded by the Russian peasantry was now even more than reciprocated. The destruction they committed was wanton and wholesale; the villages, and even the towns, were burnt down, and the whole country made desolate. It was nothing to them that by so doing they added enormously to the difficulties of their ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... a thousand pleasures bring, Which from decrepid age will fly; Sweets that wanton in the bosom of the spring, In winter's ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... last times is, that professing men (for so I understand the Text) s[h]all be, many of them, base; (2 Tim. 3.) but continue thou in the things that thou hast learned, not of wanton men, not of licentious times, but of the Word and Doctrine of God, that is according to Godliness; and thou shalt ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... characterises the descendants of the Goths," said Maltravers, and his voice slightly trembled; "they gave up to the monopoly of the senses what ought to have had an equal share in the reason and the imagination. Their love was a beautiful and wanton butterfly; but not the butterfly which is ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the Russians to mistreat the people of Galicia. They came, in their own estimation at least, as deliverers, not as despoilers. As for the Austrians, they were in their own country when in Galicia. When they penetrated north into Russia, it appears that they did little wanton damage. On their return, it is true, they laid waste a large part of the province of Volhynia, burning villages and farmsteads as they proceeded. But this was dictated by military exigencies, in order to ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... threat seemed to be nearly as effectual as the mop. Edmund stretched himself lazily, and in very sleepy accents desired to know what his brother could possibly mean by such wanton cruelty. ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... you, Sir, that a feather would have knocked me down. The coarse insult, the wanton injustice, had deprived me of the use of my limbs and of my speech. Then the juge ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... messenger seemed to strike the host with More astonishment than any other enormity that had taken place on the road; and indeed it was the first time so wanton an outrage had been committed; the robbers generally taking care not to meddle with any thing ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... were quite as ghastly as anything set forth in the reports from Cuba. And yet every thinking man among us, young and old, turned cold with apprehension when we were threatened with a European interference which would have dishonoured us. That Spain is behaving with wanton brutality would not be to the point, even if the reports were not exaggerated, which they are,—for the matter of that, the Cubans are equally brutal when they find the opportunity. The point is that it is none of our business. The Cubans ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... This is my last evening with you. Do you think a woman has the right to be as gloriously beautiful as you are to-night? Do you think it's fair to the feelings of a poor wretched man, who adores her, and whom she, in mere wanton wickedness, is sending to the ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... wedded wife (for invoking some other god). But Kunti addressed him, saying, 'The wise do not sanction a fourth delivery even in a season of distress. The woman having intercourse with four different men is called a Swairini (wanton), while she having intercourse with five becometh a harlot. Therefore, O learned one, as thou art well-acquainted with the scripture on this subject, why dost thou, beguiled by desire of offspring, tell me so in seeming forgetfulness of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... sides. To one like me, whose occupations tie him to the town-foot, it really is a sweet and grateful thing to be let loose, as it were, for a wee among the scenes of peace and quietness, where nature is in a way wild and wanton—where the clouds above our heads seem to sail along more grandly over the bosom of the sky, and the wee birds to cheep and churm, from the hedges among the fields, with greater pleasure, feeling that ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... bent as I am on the full fruition of love and vengeance, I would use cruelty—Understand me: I mean wanton or unnecessary brutality. I will be as forbearing as she will permit. I fear she will not suffer me to caress her tenderly—But she shall never sleep in the arms of Henley!—She never shall!—I will make sure of that! My mind is reconciled ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... the company of a more refined, licentious sort of people, and taking to all their wanton ways rushed into the opposite extreme from an abhorrence of his father's meanness. At last, being a better man than his corruptors, he was drawn in both directions until he halted midway and led a life, not of vulgar and slavish passion, but of what he deemed ...
— The Republic • Plato
... which crest With waving woods wide Huron's breast,— Her countless isles, that love too well The crystal waters whence they rise, Far from her azure depths to swell, Or wanton ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... Romans, or writing with a desire to appeal to them, can recognize only material, concrete causes. The deeper spiritual motives of the struggle escape him altogether, as they escaped the Roman procurators. He recounts the wanton insults of a Pontius Pilate, who brought into Jerusalem Roman ensigns with the image of Caesar, and spoiled the sacred treasures of the Korban for the purpose of building aqueducts; and he dwells on the attempt of Gaius ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... Not to be forgotten was the wrath in his eye and voice when she had come upon him with his limping horse, and now, at last she knew why his horse had been lamed and by whom! For that seemingly wanton cruelty had accomplished that which it was planned to do, making her certain beyond a doubt that Thornton had lied to her, that he had been the man whom she had seen following her, hence that he it was who had robbed her and had kissed her ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... that the Admiral's high temper was usually kept under firm control, and that he showed far less severity than most men would have done under similar provocation. Bartholomew was made of sterner stuff, but his whole career presents no instance of wanton cruelty; toward both white men and Indians his conduct was distinguished by clemency and moderation. Under the government of these brothers a few scoundrels were hanged in Hispaniola. Many more ought to ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... far out at sea, There came a sudden tiny puff of smoke— And then a dull strange throb, a whistling hiss, And scarce a score of yards away a shot Ploughed up the turf. None knew, none ever knew From whence it came, whether a perilous jest Of English seamen, or a wanton deed Of Spaniards, or mere accident; but all Her maids in flight were scattered. Bess awoke As from a dream, crying aloud—"'Tis he, 'Tis he that sends this message. He is not dead. I will not pass the porch. Come home with me. 'Twas he that ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... household of the wazir were surprised, and exclaimed, "What man has entered [the house]!" The young merchant, that is, the wazir's daughter, ran and threw herself at her mother's feet, and wept and said, "I am your child." On hearing this, the wazir's wife began to reproach her, by saying, "O, wanton girl, thou hast greatly dishonoured thyself; thou hast blackened thine own face, and brought shame on thy family; we had imagined thee lost, and, after weeping for thee, had with resignation given thee up; ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... Jimmie, watching him, was torn between two contradictory emotions. He hated him—hated him with a deadly and abiding hatred. But also he admired him, marvelled at him, cringed before him. Lacey was a wanton, a cursing tyrant, a brutal snob; but also he was the master, the conqueror, the proud, free, rich young aristocrat, for whom all the rest of humanity existed. And Jimmie Higgins was a poor little worm ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... found a great crowd surrounding a party who were dancing, by the light of some large fires, to the music of four drums, which were beat with great exactness and uniformity. The dances, however, consisted more in wanton gestures than in muscular exertion or graceful attitudes. The ladies vied with each other in displaying the most voluptuous ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... a young fellow got a wanton cocquette, a cream keiper, wt child. For fear he sould be put to marry hir he quietly went and enrolled himselfe amongs the sogers whom the King was levieng at Poictiers. She gets notice of it, causes clap him fast and lay him prisoner. The Captain came to seik back his soger, since he was ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... unfaithfulness. Yet shall they not with him take But of wilful heart his liberal grace forsake. Which will compel me against man for to make In my displeasure, and send plagues of correction Most grievous and sharp, his wanton lusts to slake, By water and fire, by sickness and infection Of pestilent sores, molesting his complexion; By troublous war, by dearth and painful scarceness, And after this life by an extreme heaviness. I will first begin with Adam for his lewdness Which for an apple neglected ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... student of soldiership, and wreaked in that sort the passion of his most gallant spirit. But whether this was true or not, it is certain that he pursued the study with a devotion which never blinded him to the atrocity of war. Some wars he could excuse and even justify, but for any war that seemed wanton or aggressive, he had ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of non-combatants, men, women, and children engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modem history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid ...
— Why We are at War • Woodrow Wilson
... had broken out, and were marked by all the ferocity and terrorism characteristic of luddism in the manufacturing districts. They spread from Kent, Sussex, and Surrey into Hampshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire, and Buckinghamshire. In these four counties there was a wanton and wholesale destruction of agricultural machinery, of farm-buildings, and especially of ricks, as if the misery of labourers could possibly be cured by impoverishing their only employers. The rioters moved about in large organised bodies, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... the altar tomb (6) which now contains the remains of Bishop Beauchamp, who died in 1481. When this was removed from the aisle at the north end of the great transept it was empty, and showed no trace of its original dedication. During the wanton demolition of the Beauchamp chantry, where, "in marble tumbes," with his father and mother on either hand, the remains of Bishop Beauchamp had been unmolested for over three hundred years, his own tomb was "mislaid" and never recovered. It is pleasant ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... the juicy pine, On choicest melons and sweet grapes they dine, And with potatoes fat their wanton kine,' ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... one of the daisies we are treading on," answered Buttar. "Do you know, Bracebridge, I never like treading on wild flowers; it seems such wanton destruction of some of the most beautiful works of nature. I feel all the time as a donkey who has got into a flower-bed ought to feel,—that I am a very mischievous animal. I would always rather go out of my way than injure them, especially ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... you?" cried the father, putting one hand to his ear, while with the other he pointed to a chair; and as Mrs. Morton looked up from the preserves with that air of indignant suffering with which female meekness upbraids a husband's wanton outrage, Mr. Roger added, shrugging ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... destruction, having seen it in full operation and practised on the gigantic scale. Henceforth he would devote all the energy he possessed to construction—on however modest and private a one—to a building up, as personal protest against much lately witnessed wanton and chaotic pulling-down. ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... shutting of the eyes, a self-deception. Every other book becomes clean, once one has read the New Testament: for example, immediately after reading Paul I took up with delight that most charming and wanton of scoffers, Petronius, of whom one may say what Domenico Boccaccio wrote of Caesar Borgia to the Duke of Parma: "e tutto festo"—immortally healthy, immortally cheerful and sound.... These petty bigots make a capital miscalculation. They attack, but everything they attack ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... the slain fresh bleeding at the end of their axes. After them followed the Seleucian singing women, repeating scurrilous and abusive songs upon the effeminacy and cowardliness of Crassus. This show was seen by everybody; but Surena, calling together the senate of Seleucia, laid before them certain wanton books, of the writings of Aristides, the Milesian; neither, indeed, was this any forgery, for they had been found among the baggage of Rustius, and were a good subject to supply Surena with insulting remarks upon the Romans, who were not able even in the time of war to forget such writings ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... have been mistaken for a young jaguar, was his special pet, and when this beautiful animal followed him, purring, into the pantry, and he always followed, there was no end to the dainty morsels given him. The best was none too good. This wanton waste made the Schroeder girl, faithful soul that she was, fly into a rage, for she often saw her plans for dinner ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... dimber dell I courted [1] She had youth and beauty too, Wanton joys my heart transported, And her wap was ever new. [2] But conquering time doth now deceive her, Which her pleasures did uphold; All her wapping now must leave her, For, ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... the clearest of his showing. Here he appears as an irrepressible felicitous sketcher, and I know no pleasanter record of the joys of sketching, or even of those of simply looking. Theophile Gautier himself was not more inveterately addicted to this latter wanton exercise. There ought to be a pocket edition of Mr. Boughton's book, which would serve for travellers in other countries too, give them the point of view and put them in the mood. Such a blessing, and such a distinction too, is it ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... it. For her talk with Trevison last night had convinced her of the futility of hope. She had gone out of his life as a commonplace incident slips into the oblivion of yesteryear. Worse—he had refused to recall it. It hurt her, this knowledge—his rebuff. It had aroused cold, wanton passions in her—she had become a woman who did not care. She met Corrigan's gaze with a look of ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... do fade, and wanton fields To wayward winter reckoning yields. A honey tongue, a heart of gall, Is fancy's spring but ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... whom they had long maintained a continued intercourse of kindness and good offices. Nay, even death was the slightest punishment inflicted by these monsters in human form; all the tortures which wanton cruelty could invent, all the lingering pains of body, the anguish of mind, the agonies of despair, could not satiate revenge excited without injury, and cruelly derived from no just cause whatever. Depraved nature, even perverted religion, though encouraged ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... Waked from the dead repose of rolling years; When sacred worthies she bids breathe anew, That men may be what she displays to view; By fashion's law with light fantastic mien The Comic Sister trips it o'er the scene; Armed at all points with wit and wanton wiles, Plays off her airs, and calls forth all her smiles; Till each fine feeling of the heart be o'er, And the gay wonder how ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... golden shafts employs, here lights His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings, Reigns here and revels; not in the bought smile Of harlots, loveless, joyless, unendeared, Casual fruition; nor in court-amours, Mixed dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball, Or serenate, which the starved lover sings To his proud fair, best quitted with disdain. These, lulled by nightingales, embracing slept, And on their naked limbs the flowery roof Showered ...
— Love—Marriage—Birth Control - Being a Speech delivered at the Church Congress at - Birmingham, October, 1921 • Bertrand Dawson
... I will take away my eyes from your face. If it suddenly startles you in your walk, I will step aside and take another path. If it confuses you in your flower-weaving, I will shun your lonely garden. If it makes the water wanton and wild, I will not row my boat ...
— The Gardener • Rabindranath Tagore
... chieftain, who received the envoy in his tent, surrounded by his captains. Theodomir was frank and abrupt in speech, for the most of his life had been passed far from courts. He delivered, in round terms, the message of the Prince Ataulpho; upbraiding the Arab general with his wanton invasion of the land, and summoning him to surrender his army, or ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... slaughtered and driven the birds from the river! And this, in fact, is precisely what happened at a distance from London, where guns could be discharged without danger to the public, in numberless bays and rivers in which the birds sought refuge. They were simply slaughtered wholesale in the most wanton manner; in Morecambe Bay a hundred and twelve gulls were killed at one discharge, and no hand and no voice was raised to interfere with the hideous sport. Not because it was not shocking to the spectators, but ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... in New Mexico, has been the scene of a fearful tragedy. A band of desperadoes had gradually collected there, who indulged in the most wanton acts of outrage and barbarity, upon the Mexican residents, finally ending in more than one deliberate murder. A few members of the Boundary Commission who had been left there, headed an organization which captured a number ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... so beautiful that it seemed to be like so much wanton destruction to throw it away, and I could not help thinking what delight it would have given me before I had seen Uncle Dick's collection, to have been the possessor of one of these noble birds. But as my uncle very reasonably ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... wanton grace, Then unto sudden tears give place, While gazing, silent, on my face With mild devotion. Her's all the art of tenderness, That pleases while it wounds no less: Her breasts, half-covered, now confess Their strange emotion. Then sighs that can no reason find, Or used to make my ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... inclination and motion, towards love of others, which if it be not spent upon some one or a few, doth naturally spread itself towards many, and maketh men become humane and charitable; as it is seen sometime in friars. Nuptial love maketh mankind; friendly love perfecteth it; but wanton love ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... particularly to recount the destruction and havoc they made here, burning and sinking all the shipping except a Bristol galley, and destroying the fisheries and stages of the poor planters without remorse or compunction; for nothing is so deplorable as power in mean and ignorant hands—it makes men wanton and giddy, unconcerned at the misfortunes they are imposing on their fellow-creatures, and keeps them smiling at the mischiefs that bring themselves no advantage. They are like madmen that cast fire-brands, arrows, and death, and say, Are not ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... fails to bring prosperity. Just now industry is collapsed; but it is not dead; it sleepeth. It is vital yet. It will spring like mown grass from the roots that need but showers and heat and time to bring them forth. Though in many districts not a generation will see wanton wastes of self-invoked war repaired, and many portions may lapse again to wilderness, yet, in our lifetime, we shall see States, as a whole, raised to a prosperity, vital, wholesome, and immovable, 6. The destruction of class interests, working with a religion which tends toward true democracy, in ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... hardly any of the trouble required for continuous farming, quickly recovers itself by being simply let alone. So when we consider how easily it can be preserved in Labrador, and how beneficial its preservation is to all concerned, we can understand how the wanton destruction going on there is quite as idiotic ...
— Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... from Ninus, and the last King of the Assyrians, exceeded all his Predecessors in Sloth and Luxury; for besides that he was seen of none out of his family, he led a most effeminate life: for wallowing in Pleasure and wanton Dalliances, he cloathed himself in Womens' attire, and spun fine Wool and Purple amongst the throngs of his Whores and Concubines. He painted likewise his Face, and decked his whole Body with other Allurements.... He imitated likewise a Woman's voice...; ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... indication, and yet it was enough to tell me that the great malignant brain was there, as the gentlest tremors of the edges of the web remind one of the foul spider which lurks in the centre. Petty thefts, wanton assaults, purposeless outrage—to the man who held the clue all could be worked into one connected whole. To the scientific student of the higher criminal world no capital in Europe offered the advantages which London then possessed. But now——" He shrugged ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... same dream caught old Lanciotto's reins, Bent in a weary huddle on his steed, In darkling haste along the blindfold lanes, Making a clattering halt in all that speed:— 'Fool! fool!' he cried, 'O dotard fool, indeed, So ho! they wanton while the old man rides,' And on the night flashed pictures of the deed. 'Come!'—and he dug his charger's panting sides, And all the homeward dark tore by ...
— English Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... bringing. What dreams beguile you on your poet's height? What puts a full house in a merry mood? More closely view your patrons of the night! The half are cold, the half are rude. One, the play over, craves a game of cards; Another a wild night in wanton joy would spend. Poor fools the muses' fair regards. Why court for such a paltry end? I tell you, give them more, still more, 'tis all I ask, Thus you will ne'er stray widely from the goal; Your audience seek to ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... too," said Lucien, "because the least necessary. The other creatures were but following out their instincts to procure food, whereas Basil's only motive was one of wanton destruction." ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... nymphs the Queen of Love Summons to the myrtle-grove; And see ye, how her wanton boy Comes with them to share our joy? Yet, if Love be arm'd, they say, Love can scarce keep holiday: Love without his bow is straying! Come, ye nymphs, Love goes a Maying. His torch, his shafts, are laid aside— From them no harm shall you betide. Yet, I rede ye, nymphs, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... to understand from an intimate woman-friend why it was that his elder niece, who had been privily married, "could no longer hide her secret" (the reticence of his friend was the sort of silly thing that you get in books and plays, but never in life) was perhaps a little wanton and caused needless embarrassment both to the young wife and to us. And one need not be very squeamish to feel that it was a pity to put into the lips of a mere child, a younger sister, the rather precocious comment that she makes on the inconvenience of a secret marriage. The humour of the play ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... his pebbled shore, O'erhung with wild woods, thickening green; The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar, Twin'd amorous round the raptur'd scene. The flowers sprang wanton to be prest, The birds sang love on ev'ry spray, Till too, too soon, the glowing west Proclaim'd the speed of ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... those great expansive instincts—sympathetic, aesthetic, and scientific—which Nature has implanted in every child, it set itself to extirpate them, one and all, with ruthless pertinacity. As a partial compensation for this work of wanton destruction, it made the child blindly obedient, mechanically industrious, and (within very narrow limits) accurate and thorough. I have described it at some length because I see clearly that no one who does not realise what the elementary school used to be, in the days of ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... fear, I shall begin to grow in love With my dear self, and my most prosperous parts, They do so spring and burgeon; I can feel A whimsy in my blood: I know not how, Success hath made me wanton. I could skip Out of my skin, now, like a subtle snake, I am so limber. O! your parasite Is a most precious thing, dropt from above, Not bred 'mongst clods, and clodpoles, here on earth. I muse, the mystery was not made a science, It is so liberally profest! almost ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... vital elements in the human body. It not only assists in maintaining the life of the individual, but communicates the essential, transforming principle which generates another mortal having an imperishable existence. Its waste is a wanton expenditure, which robs the blood of its richness and exhausts the body of its animating powers. No wonder that its loss enfeebles the constitution, and results in impotency, premature decline, St. Vitus's dance, paralysis, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... Erh snatched her hands out of his grasp and ran away out of the room; which so exasperated Chia Lien that as he bent his body, he exclaimed, full of indignation: "What a dreadful niggardly young wench! she actually sets her mind to stir up people's affections with her wanton blandishments, and then, after all, she ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... He has done more than conquer others—he has conquered himself: and in the midst of the blaze and flush of victory, surrounded by the homage of nations, he has not been betrayed into the commission of any act of cruelty or wanton offence. He was as cool and self-possessed under the blaze and dazzle of fame as a common man would be under the shade of his garden-tree, or by the hearth of his home. But the tyrant who kept Europe in awe is ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... perspective so much, that though they took the greatest pains with the circlet of a crown, or the rim of a crystal cup, in the heart of their picture, they would twist their capitals of columns and towers of churches about in the background in the most wanton way, wherever they liked the lines to go, provided only they left just perspective enough to please ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... whether she would take notice of it or no) and off to Stangate and so to the King's Head at Lambeth marsh, and had variety of meats and drinks, but I did so towse her and handled her, but could get nothing more from her though I was very near it; but as wanton and bucksome as she is she dares not adventure upon the business, in which I very much commend and like her. Staid pretty late, and so over with her by water, and being in a great sweat with my towsing of her durst not go home by water, but took coach, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... greater imminence of the danger, in having to contend with armed men instead of ferocious brutes, and in the higher value of the prizes which they would obtain in case of success. The idea of there being any injustice or wrong in this wanton and unprovoked aggression upon the territories of a neighboring nation seems not to have entered the mind either of the royal robber himself or of ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Perceval tells us that it was the Act for the dissolution of some of the Irish bishoprics, passed in 1833, winch first made the authors of the Tracts resolve to commence their publication. Mr. Perceval himself cannot even now speak of that Act temperately; he calls it "a wanton act of sacrilege," "a monstrous act," "an outrage upon the Church;" and his friends, it may be presumed, spoke of it at the time in language at least equally vehement. Now, I am not expressing any opinion upon the justice or expediency of that Act; it was opposed by many good men, and its ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... he tore the fuse from his weapon, and flung the gun—too heavy to be of use to us longer—to the ground. It was done in a moment. While the mob swept over the barricade, and smashed the rich furniture of it in wanton malice, we filed aside, and nimbly slipped under it one by one. Then we hurried in single file to the end of the room, no one taking much notice of us. All were pressing on, intent on their prey. We gained the door as the butcher struck his first blow on that which we had guarded—on that which ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... Metz, where he surprised a large division of the Alemanni, before they had time to run to their arms; and flushed his soldiers with the confidence of an easy and bloodless victory. Another division, or rather army, of the enemy, after the cruel and wanton devastation of the adjacent country, reposed themselves on the shady banks of the Moselle. Jovinus, who had viewed the ground with the eye of a general, made a silent approach through a deep and woody vale, till he could distinctly perceive ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... among vulgar vices and tame slavery, will stare at these accounts. Pray be acquainted with your own country, while it is in its lustre. In a regular monarchy the folly of the Prince gives the tone; in a downright tyranny, folly dares give itself no airs; it is in a wanton overgrown commonwealth that whim and debauchery intrigue best together. Ask me which of these governments I prefer—oh! the last—only I fear it ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... walk without wetting her silken shoes. The fertility of the place is apparent from its extraordinary verdure, and it is so shaded with large and flourishing elms, that its narrow lanes are a natural grove or walk, which, in the regularity of its plantation, vies with the power of art, and in its wanton ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... her, my arms folded on my breast. Overcome though I was by the wonder of her loveliness I hated her in my heart, this woman who dared to clothe herself in the dress of Isis, this usurper who sat upon my throne, this wanton squandering the wealth of Egypt in chariots and perfumes. When she had looked me over from head to the feet, she spake in a low full voice and in the tongue of Khemi which she alone had learned ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... highest Alpine crests. How had she solved in such short space the Jesuitical problem how to display a bosom whiter than her soul by hiding it in gauze? How could she look so ethereal while her eyes drooped so murderously? Those almost wanton glances seemed to give promise of untold languorous delight, while by an ascetic's sigh of aspiration after a better life the mouth appeared to add that none of those promises would be fulfilled. Ingenuous youths (for there ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... will not close this narrative without mentioning an act of bravery performed by a lone woman which stopped the vulgar and inhuman searching of women in our section of the city. The most atrocious and unpardonable act of the mob was the wanton disregard for womanhood. Lizzie Smith was the first woman to make a firm and stubborn stand against the proceeding in the southern section. It was near the noon hour when Lizzie, homeward bound, reached the corner of Orange and Third streets. ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... the people on Bora Bora were Christians; but he was a heathen, the only unbeliever on the island, a gross materialist, who believed that when he died he was dead. He believed merely in fair play and square dealing. Petty meanness, in his code, was almost as serious as wanton homicide; and I do believe that he respected a murderer more than a man given ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... reflects the ways of life and thought of the people who conceived it; and this religion of Here, the special religion of Argos, is congruous with what has been here said as to the place of art in the civilisation of the Argives; it is a reflexion of that splendid and wanton old feudal life. For Here is, in her original essence and meaning, equivalent to Demeter—the one living spirit of the earth, divined behind the veil of all its manifold visible energies. But in the development of a common ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... feet, was on random themes: Dan Rice, John Owens, Adelina and Carlotta Patti, the comparative merits of Victor's and Moreau's restaur'—hah! Greenleaf snatched up his light cane, sprang erect, and gazed close into the mild eyes of Maxime. Gibbs's more wanton regard had no such encounter; Hilary gave him a mere upward glance while ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... in Kendal, a town nearly twenty miles distant, of necessity I was but imperfectly known; and though there was a pretty general expression of disgust at the character of the publication, and the wanton malignity which it bore upon its front, since, true or not true, no shadow of a reason was pleaded for thus bringing forward statements expressly to injure me, or to make me unhappy; yet there must have been many, in so large a place, who had too ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... dollars!" scowled President Bascomb. "Now, Reade, doesn't that amount of wanton, revengeful mischief teach you the folly of trying to regulate camp life ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... a man never marry, nor have children, What takes that from him? Only the bare name Of being a father, or the weak delight To see the little wanton ride a-cock-horse Upon a painted stick, or hear him chatter Like ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... Gods that whileom heard the Romaine state, And Quirinus, whose strong puissant arme, Did shild the tops and turrets of proud Rome, Do now conspire to wracke the gallant Ship, Euen in the harbor of her wished greatnesse. And her gay streamers, and faire wauering sayles, With which the wanton wind was wont to play, To drowne with ...
— The Tragedy Of Caesar's Revenge • Anonymous
... the watchful spirit of a thieving camp-follower. When William landed at Torbay on the invitation of the other Whig nobles, Churchill, as if to add something ideal to his imitation of Iscariot, went to James with wanton professions of love and loyalty, went forth in arms as if to defend the country from invasion, and then calmly handed the army over to the invader. To the finish of this work of art but few could aspire, but in their ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... administration, and some of regret at the wrongs we were suffering from their country. So, also, during the short interval of Mr. Fox's power. But every other administration since our Revolution has been equally wanton in their injuries and insults, and has manifested equal hatred and aversion. Instead, too, of cultivating the government itself, whose principles are those of the great mass of the nation, they have adopted the miserable ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... Mr. Clifford spoke of the "wanton barbarity with which the Federal Government has allowed its officers to wage the war, as though they sought to emulate the ravages of Attila and Genghis-Khan. . . And these things were done not for military objects which would afford some excuse for them, ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... of Push methods that sealed his tongue. No one would risk his skin by giving evidence. If the police had brought the offenders to book, the magistrates, who seemed to regard these outrages as the playful excesses of wanton blood, would have let them off with a light punishment, and the streets would never have been safe for him again. So he held his tongue, thankful to have ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... obligation. Since the Romans saw you in my theatre—you, a man of the most approved taste, of the soundest knowledge, and a master in art, not only has my fame increased, but my receipts have doubled. I am therefore all the more deeply pained to learn that certain wicked wanton boys made a murderous attack upon you and your friends as you were returning from my theatre at night. But I pray you, Signor Pasquale, by all the saints, don't cherish any grudge against me or my theatre on account of this ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... found it had been sacked and burned, evidently by Arab slave-raiders, who, Omar said, were constantly descending upon the towns and villages on the border of his land. At evening we went over the ruins of what not long ago must have been a populous trading town, saw how wanton had been the destruction, and judged from the heaps of bleaching bones how terrible had been ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... whole. In general, I will only say that I have written nothing which savors of immorality or profaneness; at least, I am not conscious to myself of any such intention. If there happen to be found an irreverent expression, or a thought too wanton, they are crept into my verses thro' my inadvertency; if the searchers find any in the cargo, let them be stay'd or forfeited, like counterbanded goods; at least, let their authors be answerable for them, as being but imported merchandise, and not of my own manufacture. On the other side, ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... the fairies, has been commonly identified with pogge, the toad, which was believed to sit upon most of the unwholesome fungi; and the Champignon (or Paddock Stool) was said to owe its growth to "those wanton elves whose pastime is to make midnight mushrooms." One of the "toad stoo's" (the Clathrus cancellatus) is said to produce cancerous sores if handled too freely. It has an abominably disgusting odour, and is therefore named the "lattice ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... not fetch a sum equal to the amount of the duty chargeable, then the commodity was to be burnt. Great exertions were undoubtedly made by the soldiers for the suppression of smuggling, but care had to be taken to prevent wanton and improper seizures. The men of this branch of the service were awarded 40s. for every horse that was seized ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... this man was wanton, and entirely unprovoked on the part of McIntire, not only from his relation of the circumstance, but from the account of those who were with him, and who bore testimony to his being unarmed, the ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... accurate copy. But I don't think you will get much out of it. Depend upon it, it is mere nonsense, a wanton scribble. I must be going now, Dyson. No, no more; that stuff of yours is ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... were left perhaps as soon as they were finished. Though Saxony is one of the richest and most fertile provinces of Germany, and the vicinity of Leipzig has been remarkable for abundance, yet it cannot appear surprising, that, with such wanton waste, famine, the most dangerous foe to an army, should have at length found its way into all the French camps. Barns, stables, and lofts, were emptied; the fields were laid bare; and the inhabitants fled into ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)
... of the company of holy Kiaranus, called Crithir of Cluain (a boy of great wit, but hurtful and wanton) fled from Saint Kiaranus to the settlement of Saigyr, in the northern border of Mumonia, that is, the land of Hele, to the other Kiaranus, the most holy aged bishop. And that boy, sojourning for some days with the holy bishop, after his ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... The "wanton, ragged garments of the Muse," which you abandon with strict generosity, make a show and please almost everywhere. Her sensual charm is not unknown to me; yet I think I may say that it was given me ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... gave him a gentle tap upon the shoulder, and asked him if he would drink a bottle of mead with her? But the Knight, being startled at so unexpected a familiarity, and displeased to be interrupted in his thoughts of the widow, told her, "she was a wanton baggage," and bid her go ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... being as you say, should he work so wanton a destruction?" he asked stupidly, as if jealousy were not cause enough to drive an evil man to destroy that which he may not possess. "Nay, nay, your wits are disordered. You remember that he looked at Madonna whilst she drank, and you construe that into a proof that he ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... now, no longer deaf to honour's call, Forth issues Paris from the palace wall. In brazen arms that cast a gleamy ray, Swift through the town the warrior bends his way. The wanton courser thus with reins unbound(176) Breaks from his stall, and beats the trembling ground; Pamper'd and proud, he seeks the wonted tides, And laves, in height of blood his shining sides; His head now freed, he tosses to the skies; His mane dishevell'd o'er his shoulders ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... became the seat of baronial splendour and of civil feuds,—of the best and basest feelings of mankind;—the loyalty and hospitality of cavaliers; the fanatic outrages of Roundheads; and ultimately of wanton desolation! The gate through which Colonel Lilburne and his men entered, was blocked up with a hurdle; and the yard where his forces were marshalled was covered with high flourishing grass; the towers had almost become mere shells, but the vaulted passages, once stored with luxuries and weapons, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 279, October 20, 1827 • Various
... rage of mad bigotry and cruel fanaticism, the shocking features of the situation had been mitigated. Instead, however, of welcoming a softened disposition or protective intervention, we have been afflicted by continued and not infrequent reports of the wanton destruction of homes and the bloody butchery of men, women, and children, made martyrs to ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... ever against eating cares Lap me in soft Lydian airs; Married to immortal verse Such as the meeting soul may pierce, In notes with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out; With wanton heed, and giddy cunning, The melting voice through mazes running; Untwisting all the chains that tie ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... replied 'The attack from me, sir, was not wanton. It was provoked by acts of the ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... managed, with assistance, to clamber up our low side and reach the deck; when, as well as their drunken state would allow, they forthwith proceeded, in ribald language, to entertain their more sober shipmates with a tale of gross, wanton, cruel outrage, perpetrated on board the Spaniard, that made my blood boil with indignation, and caused me, thick-skinned sailor as I was, to blush at the thought that the perpetrators were, like myself, human. I noticed that Danton listened with greedy ears ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... before our eyes, that many agriculturists—indeed, I fear the majority—persist in the old-fashioned system of taking the flax to a watering-place with its valuable freight of seed unremoved, and plunge the sheaves under water, losing thereby, in the most wanton manner, rich feeding materials, worth from L1 ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... that a separate tower or range of apartments was built for this purpose, in order to clear the government of the accusations so constantly made against them, by ignorant or partial historians, of wanton cruelty to prisoners. The stories commonly told respecting the "piombi" of the Ducal Palace are utterly false. Instead of being, as usually reported, small furnaces under the leads of the palace, they were comfortable rooms, with good flat roofs of larch, and carefully ventilated. [Footnote: ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... Henry O'Bail, and Captain Cold, who was wounded. In a council held with them yesterday, they covenanted not to scalp or murder; and I am happy to say, that they treated the prisoners with humanity, and committed no wanton cruelties on ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... troops when they invaded Maryland, or, who perhaps, living unfortunately in the very track of the conflicting armies, found themselves driven from their burning homesteads, and devastated fields, victims of a wanton soldiery. Destitute, ragged and shelterless, their condition appealed with peculiar force to the friends of the Union. State aid was by no means sufficient, and unorganized charity unavailable to ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... On either hand hung the little Flora's great-grandmother-in-law, and her great-grandfather accordingly, Mrs. Mehitable and Parson Job Hyde, peering out, one from a bushy ornament of pink laurel-blossoms, and the other from an airy and delicate garland of the wanton sweet-pea, each stony pair of eyes seeming to glare with Medusan intent at this profaning of their state and dignity. "Isn't it charming, dear?" said the innocent little beauty, with a satisfaction half doubtful, as her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... reach there is nothing to be seen but decayed fangs, protruding from a swamp of filth, covered with a green slime where water has accumulated. This is not the unavoidable ruin of shell-fire. No battle was fought here. The demolition was the wanton spite of an enemy who, because he could not hold the place, was determined to leave nothing serviceable behind. With such masterly thoroughness has he done his work that the spot can never be re-peopled. The surrounding fields are too poisoned and churned up for cultivation. The French Government ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... with unconfined wings Hovers within my gates, And my divine Althea brings To whisper at the grates; When I lie tangled in her hair And fetter'd to her eye, The Gods that wanton in the air ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... dropped, and he gazed at her befuddled. His illogical belief in her guilt was illogically converted to a profound conviction of her innocence. The wanton whom he had accused was metamorphosed into a slandered angel who would not, could not sin. In his eyes ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... thy grave, remember still thy end, Let not thy winding-sheete be staind with guilt; Trust not a fained reconciled frend, More than an open foe (that blood hath spilt): (Who tutcheth pitch, with pitch shalbe defiled), Be not with wanton ...
— The Affectionate Shepherd • Richard Barnfield
... years. They went on producing and producing, long after they had ceased to have anything to say, racking their brains to find something new, something more sensational, more bizarre: for the public was surfeited and sick of everything, and soon wearied of even the most wanton imaginary pleasures: they had always to go one better—better than the rest, better than their own best—and they squeezed out their very life-blood, they squeezed out their guts: it was a pitiable sight, ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... scowled President Bascomb. "Now, Reade, doesn't that amount of wanton, revengeful mischief teach you the folly of trying to regulate camp life outside of ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... saw herself as a little rosy-cheeked girl sitting at his side on the beach fifteen years ago. But the music gathered strength from her glance, and onward it rushed through the noisy years of boyhood, shouting with wanton voice in the lonely glen, lowing with the cattle on the mountain pastures, and leaping like the trout at eventide in the brawling rapids; but through it all there ran a warm strain of boyish loyalty and strong ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... and all his wanton raillery, he stood up with his face a-shine, and spake as if he were the heaven-sent messenger ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Then let the louns beware, Sir! Scotland, they'll find, is Scotland yet, And for hersel' can fare, Sir. The Thames shall run to join the Tweed, Criffel adorn Thames valley, 'Ere wanton wrath and vulgar greed On Scottish ground shall rally. Fal de ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various
... easy, on the surface to feel that if she wanted to be gay and wanton, living for the hour, it was no one's affair but her own. She fought the question out in her mind. She fixed her determination on the young and, in one sense, inexperienced newspaper man whose ambitions pleased her fancy and whose ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... Pius and the wife of Marcus, has been as much celebrated for her gallantries as for her beauty. The grave simplicity of the philosopher was ill-calculated to engage her wanton levity, or to fix that unbounded passion for variety which often discovered personal merit in the meanest of mankind. The Cupid of the ancients was, in general, a very sensual deity; and the amours of an empress, as they exact on her side ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... to whom harsh fate has dealt A captive's birthright—thou wilt never scamper With winged feet across the windy veldt, Where are no crowds to stare nor bars to hamper; Thou wilt not ring upon the rhino's pelt In wanton sport. But there—why put a damper On thy young spirits by recounting what Africa is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... at the idea of these primeurs, and evidently anticipated great joy in eating them; but after they had tasted them they laid down their forks and ... meditated! The servant removed the plates with their primeurs, wondering how such wanton capriciousness could exist in this primeur-less Paris. Only Mr. Moulton ate them to the last pea. We—the initiated—knew where the peculiar taste of soap, tooth-wash, perfume, etc., came from! The peas ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... beloved nymph, fair Dove, Princess of rivers, how I love Upon thy flowery banks to lie, And view thy silver stream, When gilded by a Summer's beam! And in it all thy wanton fry Playing at liberty, And, with my angle, upon them The all of treachery I ever learned ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... seemed to when she most needed it. Ahead, there lay a stretch of smooth bench and she took a run to cross it. But below a slight rise on the near side an ugly break suddenly faced her. Decision was forced. Recklessness said: "Take it." She spurred. The gray hesitated—almost as if to give his wanton mistress a chance to reconsider; but he got the ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... have seemed to those about the Mexican Emperor who were better informed with regard to Napoleon's negotiations with the government of the United States. By those whose all was at stake it must have been taken for a wanton insult. ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... with a laugh; "and what poor gull am I to adore an attested wanton?" Then, with a sneer, he spoke of Melicent, and in such terms as are ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... She minded not, as used To such disport before her through the field From every beast, more duteous at her call . . . Curled many a wanton wreath in sight of Eve. His turret crest and sleek enamelled neck . . . What may this mean? Language of man ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat[1]." A discontent with the abundance of blessings which were given, because something was withheld, was the sin of our first parents: in like manner, a wanton roving after things forbidden, a curiosity to know what it was to be as the heathen, was one chief source of the idolatries of the Jews; and we at this day inherit with them a ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... time with her fingers: ravished with these favours, he thought himself the happiest man in the world, and felt disposed to kiss the charming lady, but durst not take that liberty before so many slaves, who had their eyes upon him, and laughed at their lady's wanton tricks. The young lady continued to tip him with her fingers, but at last gave him such a sound box on the ear, that he grew angry; the colour came into his face, and he rose up to remove to a greater distance from such a rude playfellow. Then the old woman, who brought him thither, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... in the exercise of the most wanton cruelties towards the natives, to obtain from them large quantities of gold. "Make the most of your time," he would say, "there is no knowing how long it will last;" and the colonists were not backward in ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... pertain to youthful vigor and manhood?" To be destitute of that which may be described as raw material in the human frame, means that no really vigorous manhood can have place; to burn up the juices of the system in the fires of lust is madness and wanton folly, {418} but it can be done. To divert the currents of life and energy from blood and brain, from memory and muscle, in order to secrete it for the shambles of prostitution, is death to true manhood; but remember, it can be done! The generous ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... of an old hip-roofed house here and there at their angles; the Swiss chalet, histrionic decorativeness of the stations in prospect or retrospect; the vagaries of the lines that narrowed together or stretched apart according to the width of the avenue, but always in wanton disregard of the life that dwelt, and bought and sold, and rejoiced or sorrowed, and clattered or crawled, around, below, above—were features of the frantic panorama that perpetually touched his sense of humor and moved his sympathy. Accident and then exigency seemed the forces at work ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... French nation is illiberal, in the highest degree; nay, it is more, it is a national disgrace.—When I recollect with what ease and uninterruption I have passed through so many great and little towns, and extensive provinces, without a symptom of wanton rudeness being offered me, I blush to think how a Frenchman, if he made no better figure than I did, would have been treated in a tour through Britain.—My Monkey, with a pair of French jack boots, and his hair en queue, rode postillion upon my sturdy horse some hours every day; ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... most amusing part of the affair was that I construed Angelique's wanton insult into a declaration of love. I was astounded. Lucrezia, remarking the state I was in, touched my arm, enquiring what ailed me. I told her, and she said ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... into your keeping, cast her to infamy and vice—never, never! She is now with no powerless, miserable convict, for whom Law has no respect. She is now no helpless infant without a choice, without a will. She is safe from all, save the wanton, unprofitable effort to disgrace her. O Jasper, Jasper, be human—she is so delicate of frame—she is so sensitive to reproach, so tremulously alive to honour—I am not fit to be near her now. I have been a tricksome, shifty vagrant, and, innocent ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... muche a doo too call it selfe whom agein? How many yeares doeth loue, anger, spite, sensualitie, excesse, and ambition, trouble and prouoke the mynde? How many doo wee see, whiche euen from their youth, too their latter dais neuer awake nor repet them of the drunkennes, of ambitio, nigardnes, wanton lust, & riatte? Spu. I haue knowen ouermany of that sorte. Hedo. You haue grauted that false and fayned good || thinges, are not too bee estemed for the pure and godly. Sp. And I affirme that still. Hedo. Nor that there is no true and perfect pleasure, ...
— A Very Pleasaunt & Fruitful Diologe Called the Epicure • Desiderius Erasmus
... out better than might be expected is Judas. The conception of his character is very fine and very human. Judas, as the treasurer of the little band, naturally felt indignant at the apparent wanton extravagance which led Mary Magdalene to pour ointment worth 300 pence upon the head of her master. There is real human nature and sound practical common sense in his reply to those who told him not to worry about the money, when he retorted, ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... her or make a convincing case against her sanity, perhaps both. The very notion made him boil with rage. The cold-blooded infamy of the plot to do away with his father was as nothing compared with the wanton brutality of the attempt on Esther's life. To think of this fresh and lovely body, so near to him now that he could feel the throbbing of her heart, dismembered, defiled in the work of annihilation, filled him with unspeakable horror. He had to take a firm ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... Ministers themselves. The Lords, however, no doubt evince a very imprudent disposition to exercise their power of rejection without grave and sufficient cause, and needlessly to expose themselves to the charge of wanton and intemperate opposition to the measures of the Commons. It is the height of folly to make the line between the two Houses as broad as possible, and to publish to the world on every occasion that the one House is Whig and the other Tory; not but what (in ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... character so as to create a manner peculiarly her own. You received from the hands of Hymen only one woman, awkward and innocent; the celibate returns you a dozen of them. A joyful and rapturous husband sees his bed invaded by the giddy and wanton courtesans, of whom we spoke in the Meditation on The First Symptoms. These goddesses come in groups, they smile and sport under the graceful muslin curtains of the nuptial bed. The Phoenician girl flings to you her garlands, gently sways herself ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... so agreeable; the furz in full blossom; the ground enamelled with daisies, and primroses, and cowslips; all the trees bursting into leaves, and the hedges already clothed with their vernal livery; the mountains covered with flocks of sheep and tender bleating wanton lambkins playing, frisking, and skipping from side to side; the groves resound with the notes of blackbird, thrush, and linnet; and all night long sweet Philomel pours forth her ravishingly delightful song. Then, for variety, we go down to the nymph of Bristol spring, where the company is assembled ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... expostulated with Manco in vain, on the wanton destruction of human life. His answer was, "We treat the Spaniards as they treated us. I cannot prevent my people ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... sack of Antwerp was termed, vastly enriched the soldiers, but did small benefit to the cause of Spain. The attack was wanton and unprovoked. Antwerp had not risen in rebellion against Philip, but had been attacked solely for the sake of plunder; and all Europe was shocked at the atrocities that had taken place, and at the slaughter, which was even greater than the massacre in Paris on ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... was the national correlative to Northern brutality—leads him to idealize the polite refinement, the disciplined passions, the firm and astute policy, the power over men, and the excellent government which distinguished the noblest Italian princes. When he says 'Wanton cruelty was not in his nature: on the contrary, where no political object was at stake, his disposition was soft and humane'; he seems to have forgotten Gian Maria Visconti, Corrado Trinci, Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, and Cesare Borgia. When he writes, 'His passions, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... pantomimist, continually inventing practical jokes; and perhaps to startle me with a false alarm in the very skin of the old Bruin which had so nearly done for him, he had thrown it round him on finishing its cleaning, and so, in mere wanton fun, had crept on deck at the hour of his watch. The head of the bear-skin, and the fog, must have prevented him from ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... that for some reason unknown the thief had transferred its contents to some other bag—perhaps his own—and then had discarded the original one, in wanton humor filling ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... deliberately to do. This material devastation, this annihilation of effort, hope, and love, this substitution of sorrow for joy—is just what plans and guns were laid for, what the worshipped leaders of the Fatherland prepared with the most wanton and scientific solicitude. It is desperately cruel. But it is far worse than cruel—it is idiotic in its immense futility. The perfect idiocy of the thing overwhelms you. And to your reason it is monstrous that ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... gone from this life, but he is waiting for us beyond this life. He is waiting beyond this life and this world of wicked war and wanton cruelty and slaughter. And we shall come, some day, his mother and I, to the place where he is waiting for us, and we shall all be as happy there as we were on this earth in the happy days before ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... subjected, for we deprive them for ever of their caudal appendage, and the ridiculous stump sticking up where the tail ought to be, is as ungraceful as it is indecent, especially in the case of mares. Our friend, the late Dr. George Fleming, says in The Wanton Mutilation of Animals, "nothing can be more painful and disgusting to the real horseman and admirer of this most symmetrically formed and graceful animal than the existence of this most detestable and torturing fashion; and those who ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... She soon fell into the habit of going there every evening. She treated everybody to cakes and liquors, amused herself by showing off little Jupillon, playing pat-a-cake with him, sitting on his knee, telling him to his face that he was a beauty, treating him like a child, playing the wanton with him and joking him because he was not a man. The boy, happy and proud of these attentions from the first woman who had ever taken notice of him, manifested before long his preference for Adele: so ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... the Inns of Court, the most magnificent and costly was the famous Anti-Prynne demonstration, by which the lawyers endeavored to show their contemptuous disapproval of a work that inveighed against the licentiousness of the stage, and preferred a charge of wanton levity against those who encouraged ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... them of such trifles as knives, tobacco, combs, &c. If any resistance is made, death is pretty sure to be the result; or if the poor negro is so unfortunate as to appear to recognize his persecutors, he can then expect nothing less. Negroes are often shot, as it appears, just out of wanton cruelty, for no reason at all that any one can imagine. The older and more respected class of white men seem to deplore the condition of things; think, however, that there is no way to stop it, except to let it have ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... probability, but whether with complete historical accuracy or not I do not know, represents this useless exposure as wanton bravado ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... defense of its acts, and in view of the manifest possibility of conforming to the established rules of naval warfare, the Government of the United States cannot believe that the Imperial Government will longer refrain from disavowing the wanton act of its naval commander in sinking the Lusitania or from offering reparation for the American lives lost, so far as reparation can be made for a needless destruction of human life ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... turns;) yet even these deplorable objects, that would move the most obdurate, stubborn heart to pity and repentance, render not mine relenting; and yet I am wondrous pitiful by nature, and I can weep and faint to see the sad effects of my loose, wanton love, yet cannot find repentance for the dear charming sin; and yet, should'st thou behold my mother's languishment, no bitter words proceeding from her lips, no tears fall from her downcast eyes, but silent and sad as death she sits, and will not view the ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... on the Carse, and Mar communicated to them the lately discovered treason, they so well affected surprise at the contents of the scroll, that Wallace might not have suspected their connection with it, had not Lord Athol declared it altogether a forgery of some wanton persons, and then added with bitterness, "to gather an army on such authority is ridiculous." While he spoke, Wallace regarded him with a look which pierced him to the center; and the blood rushing into his guilty heart, for once in his life he trembled before the eye of ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... European governments in Borneo, punitive expeditions have been necessary from time to time in order to put a stop to wanton raiding and killing. In this respect the Ibans and some of the Klemantans have been the chief offenders; while the Kayans and Kenyahs have seldom given trouble, after once placing themselves under the established governments. In the Baram river, in which the Kayans form probably a larger proportion ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... for October 29, 1768, regards the book in Bode's translation as an individual, unparalleled work of genius and discourses at length upon its beneficent medicinal effects upon those whose minds and hearts are perplexed and clouded. The wanton passages are acknowledged, but the reviewer asserts that the author must be pardoned them for the sake of his generous and kind-hearted thoughts. The Mittelstedt translation is also quoted and parallel passages are adduced to demonstrate the ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... cause had not blinded and misled them; this cause was their mythology, which, peopling the universe with graceful phantoms, robbed creation of its solemnity, of its sublime repose. Christianity came—and fauns, satyrs, and wanton nymphs disappeared; the grottos regained their holy silence; the dim woods their mystic reveries; the vast forests their vague and sublime melancholy; the streams overturned their petty urns to drink only ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the thoughts that had been drifting through his mind in whiskey-lit ruminations. That he was a wanton killer she had always heard. If he could persuade himself it could be done with safety, he would not hesitate to make ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... clamb'ring Ivy grew, Knitting his wanton arms with grasping hold, Lest that the poplar happely should rew Her brother's strokes, whose boughs she doth enfold With her lythe twigs, till they the top survew And paint with pallid ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... unwary Heart misled? Whither am I come? The false deluding Lights of an imaginary Flame, have led me, a poor benighted Victim, to a real Fire. I burn and am consumed with hopeless Love; those Beams in whose soft temperate warmth I wanton'd heretofore, now flash destruction to my Soul, my Treacherous greedy Eyes have suck'd the glaring Light, they have united all its Rays, and, like a burning-Glass, convey'd the pointed Meteor to my Heart—Ah! Aurelian, how ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve
... by a tall and refined old clergyman to Miss Norah Hood, he found himself shaking hands with a grave young person of unassertive beauty. Hers was the loveliness of the violet, which is apt to pall in this modern day—to aggravate, and to suggest wanton waste. For feminine loveliness is on the wane— marred, like many other good things, by over-education. Norah Hood was a typical country parson's daughter, who knew the right and did it, ignored the wrong and refused ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... when a ship, by skilful steersman wrought Nigh river's mouth or foreland, where the wind Veers oft, as oft so steers, and shifts her sail,— So varied he, and of his tortuous train Curl'd many a wanton wreath in sight of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... the careful handwriting to the horizon beyond his window. Why had he fished out the poem from its drawer? She, the writer—his child—was a wanton. ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... by the trail-side or lounging around the stove, men made rough estimates of the numbers that had perished at his hand. They had been whites, all of them, these poor murdered people, and they had been slain singly, in pairs, and in parties. And so purposeless and wanton had been these killings, that they had long been a mystery to the mounted police, even in the time of the captains, and later, when the creeks realized, and a governor came from the Dominion to make the ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... rejected houses even in this severe climate, and preferred open tents or sheds. In Hungary and Transylvania they dwell in tents during the summer, and for their winter quarters make holes ten or twelve feet deep in the earth. The women, one writer says, "deal in old clothes, prostitution, wanton dances, and fortune-telling, and are indolent beggars and thieves. They have few disorders except the measles and small-pox, and weaknesses in their eyes caused by the smoke. Their physic is saffron put into their soup, with bleeding." ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... and gold, The organ, in whose tones the ocean rolled, The crypts, of mighty shades the dwelling places, The Virgin's gentle hands, the Saints' pure faces, All, even the pardoning hands of Christ the Lord Were struck and broken by the wanton sword ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the power of official removal, which were then only dimly apprehended. The power of removal from office belonged, Mr. Madison believed, rightfully to the chief magistrate, and, if by some unhappy chance the wrong man should find his way to that position and abuse the power intrusted to him, "the wanton removal of meritorious officers would," he said, "subject the President to impeachment and removal from ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... shall be abhorr'd, For every man's a brother; No reason why in Church and State One man should rule another; But when the change of government Shall set our fingers free, We'll make these wanton sisters stoop, And ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... and your father out of this town and this state," he exclaimed. "They shall know here in San Mateo, and wherever you go if it's in my power to reach there, what sort of a pretending, double-faced, disreputable wanton——" ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... pass, Osbech, King of the Turks, who abode in continual war with the Emperor, came by chance to Smyrna, where hearing how Constantine abode in Chios, without any precaution, leading a wanton life with a mistress of his, whom he had stolen away, he repaired thither one night with some light-armed ships and entering the city by stealth with some of his people, took many in their beds, ere they knew of the enemy's coming. Some, who, taking the alert, had run to arms, ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... yearnings burn the human breast; What wild desires like prisoned birds Impel the heart from east to west; What urgings baffling words Beat up from nature unexpressed Till soul distinct stands manifest, On guard for heaven, or, wanton, hurled ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... blasphemer, he deems himself wiser than the gods! No, 'twere better we remain true to the old gods whom we know. They may not always be just, sometimes they may flare up in unjust wrath, and they may also be seized with a wanton lust for the wives of mortals; but did not our ancestors live with them in the peace of their souls, did not our forefathers accomplish their heroic deeds with the help of these very gods? And ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... forgotten they are toys of Death That in his sad aphelions of desire They still regret the joy that perisheth, And Spring's great reveries that exceed and tire,— Faintly accusing Love's unmercied yokes With almost wanton grace, the craft and art Of precious frailty that with subtle strokes Of sweetness finds the core of Passion's heart? They carry fans and mirrors, or make fast The mournful flute-like cadence of a veil. Slight fans that winnowed ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor
... over Kings! Wherefore hast thou feet and wings? Is it to show how swift thou art, When thou would'st wound a tender heart? Thy wings being clipped, and feet held still, Thy bow so many would not kill. It is all one in Venus' wanton school Who highest sits, the wise man or the fool! Fools in love's college Have far more knowledge To read a woman over, Than a neat prating lover. Nay, 'tis confessed ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... remained true to him. A terrible plot was on foot. Presently the blow fell. Moranget, La Salle's nephew, was despatched with an axe; Nika, the faithful Shawanoe, and Saget, the leader's servant, were murdered as they slept. As for La Salle, a wanton bullet pierced his brain. Thus the man who had braved the poisoned arrows of the Iroquois and the hatchets of Indians without number, against whose iron strength deadly fevers had stormed in vain, whose fortitude had been unbroken by the almost incredible perversities of fortune—this paladin of ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... much better than the manner. It is fantastic to say that Raphael's pictures of the Madonna and Child dealt a deadly blow to the monastic life, and to say, with reference to Greek art, that 'Cupid by the side of Venus enables us to forget that most of her sighs are wanton' is a very crude bit of art criticism indeed. Wordsworth, again, should hardly be spoken of as one who 'was not, in the general, a man from whom human sympathies welled profusely,' but this criticism is as nothing compared to the passage where Mr. Robertson tells ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... constellations ride the silence High overhead, her cheek is on my cheek. I know her in the thrill behind the dark When sleep brims all her silent thoroughfares. She is the glamor in the quiet park That kindles simple things like grass and trees. Wistful and wanton as her sea-born airs, Bringer of dim, rich, age-old memories. Out on the gloom-deep water, when the nights Are choked with fog, and perilous, and blind, She is the faith that tends the calling lights. Hers is the stifled voice of harbor bells Muffled and broken by the mist and wind. Hers are the ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... was in a wanton mood to-night, and of late a voice had been desperately urging her to grasp at what she could, that she might, as long as possible, delay ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... that they may choose to cultivate, as do those other evil pleasures, which ought never to be learned. Of such stuff are good soldiers and good generals made. (14) Naturally, those from whose souls and bodies the sweat of toil has washed all base and wanton thoughts, who have implanted in them a passion for manly virtue—these, I say, are the true nobles. (15) Not theirs will it be to allow their city or its sacred soil ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... abounded in the open patches of forest ground. In crossing a plain we observed, under the shade of a patch of narrow-leaved tea trees, four bowers of the bowerbird, close together, as if one habitation was not sufficient for the wanton bird to sport in; and on the dry swamps I mentioned above, small companies of native companions were walking around us at some distance, but rose with their sonorous cu-r-r-r-ring cry, whenever ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... by that adulterous king and his proud ministers, who swear they will strip us to the shirt and turn us out to starve. I'm but just from London, and, although our enemy Anne Boleyn has lost her wanton head, I tell you the danger is great. Money must be had to stir up rebellion, for who can arm without it, and but little comes from Spain. I am in treaty to sell the Foterell lands for what they will fetch, but as yet can give no title. Either that stiff-necked girl must sign a ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... I have been wanton to-night. I confess it. I am proud of it. But it was not—professional. It was the first time in my life. Almost do I regret—almost do I regret that I did not do it sooner—it has been crowned with such success. You have held me ...
— Theft - A Play In Four Acts • Jack London
... composed." Appius Claudius, who was naturally severe, and, by the hatred of the commons on the one hand, and praises of the senators on the other, was become quite infuriated, said, "That these riots proceeded not from distress, but from licentiousness. That the people were rather wanton than violent. That this terrible mischief took its rise from the right of appeal; since threats, not authority, was all that belonged to the consuls, while permission was given to appeal to those who were accomplices ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... march. There were places, indeed, where some straggling bands of Irish made their appearance and demanded food: but it can scarcely be imputed to them as a crime that they did not choose to die of hunger; and there is no evidence that they committed any wanton outrage. In truth they were much less numerous than was commonly supposed; and their spirit was cowed by finding themselves left on a sudden without leaders or provisions, in the midst of a mighty population ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the salvages from their houses, and took the spoil of them, as they would have done of us." After this exploit they returned to the ship and set sail immediately. It does not appear from the journal that the natives had ever offered them any harm or given any provocation for so wanton an act. The writer only asserts that they would have done it if they could. No plea is more commonly used to justify tyranny and cruelty than the supposed bad intentions of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... his vengeance; and poor Jimmie, watching him, was torn between two contradictory emotions. He hated him—hated him with a deadly and abiding hatred. But also he admired him, marvelled at him, cringed before him. Lacey was a wanton, a cursing tyrant, a brutal snob; but also he was the master, the conqueror, the proud, free, rich young aristocrat, for whom all the rest of humanity existed. And Jimmie Higgins was a poor little worm of a proletarian, with nothing but his labour-power to sell, trying ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... plunder according to their own will and pleasure. And now, in 1680, began what has been termed the killing-time; in which Graham of Claverhouse (afterwards Viscount Dundee), Grierson of Lagg, Dalziel, and others, became pre-eminently notorious for their wanton cruelty in slaughtering men, women, and ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... an excellent situation in New York, but his false character, and his wanton disregard of others' feelings and rights, made him as hateful to his employers as to all his associates, and it soon became necessary for him ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
... exceptions to the adoption of this peaceful policy which it will not be wise to overlook. If there be violent and wanton attacks upon the persons or the property of the citizens of the United States or of their government, I see not how demands for immediate redress can be avoided. If any interruptions should be attempted of ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... been assembled on the Sutlej to watch the progress of events; but the Sikhs have hitherto cautiously abstained from giving any pretext for our interference; and, as long as their disorders are confined within their own frontier, such an act would bear the aspect of wanton aggression. But though the appropriation of the Punjab, in whatever form effected, cannot be long delayed, "the pear" (to use a Napoleonic phrase) "is not yet ripe;" and as we intend to return ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... leave, sir, until you tell everything!" she said. "I know what mischievous creatures boys are. You took that miniature away out of wanton mischief; you fiddled with it, and broke it, and now you are afraid to confess. But I'll have no funking the truth. Tell what you have done, this ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... those two medieval institutions which we have now lost—I suppose irrevocably—the whipping boy and the court jester. What a pity that they cannot be revived! The whipping boy, a device to put princes on their honor to be neither negligent nor wanton in the fulfilment of their duties; and the jester to break us of our too self-conscious airs and exhibit to us our follies. See what we have done instead! When our growing sense of priggish decorum and our dishonest ceremoniousness of speech ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... is, if defence you can offer. No flimsy excuse or extenuation will cover you. Even the Scriptures teach us that the penalty is 'a life for a life.' Yours is the hand that struck Leslie down, and now you must face the consequences of your wanton act." ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... under the waste of burning for tar, for potash, and through wanton clearing, the fireplaces shrank in size; and Benjamin Franklin, even in his day, could write of "the ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... saints—the sanctity of the temple known as the "meeting-house" was desecrated by proceedings more in keeping with the shrine of Venus—and the inspired writings themselves were used as the medium of amatory and wanton flirtation by the defendant in ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... say it, unpleasant to me as the discussion of such a subject may well be—your indifference is no apology for your cruel neglect of her. Do not think yourself excused by any weakness, any natural defect of understanding on her side, in the wanton cruelty so evident on yours. You must have known, that while you were enjoying yourself in Devonshire pursuing fresh schemes, always gay, always happy, she was reduced to the ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... dappled shadows—a mosaic of nature fit for the tread of angels or the dance of fairy sprites. Beyond the fence that fringed the little cottage rolled great waves of upland, shimmering in the heat of the midsummer glare—that hot breathing of the earth when wooed too fiercely by her wanton paramour, the sun—while the horizon discovered lines of dreamy sweep all crowned with haze, the vestibules to other hills grander and ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... mentioned, contagious high spirits are the clearest of his showing. Here he appears as an irrepressible felicitous sketcher, and I know no pleasanter record of the joys of sketching, or even of those of simply looking. Theophile Gautier himself was not more inveterately addicted to this latter wanton exercise. There ought to be a pocket edition of Mr. Boughton's book, which would serve for travellers in other countries too, give them the point of view and put them in the mood. Such a blessing, and such a distinction too, is it to have an eye. Mr. Boughton's, in his good-humored ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... puffed up by the honors conceded to them by the natives, they looked on themselves as entitled to these, and condemned the poor Indians as a race immeasurably beneath the European. They not only showed the most disgusting rapacity, but treated the highest nobles with wanton insolence. They even went so far, it is said, as to violate the privacy of the convents, and to outrage the religious sentiments of the Peruvians by their scandalous amours with the Virgins of the Sun. The people of Cuzco were so exasperated, that they would have laid violent hands ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... different from what Campbell had expected, for Le Succes of fifty guns appeared in sight; and, after a desperate engagement with her, in which Walsingham was severely wounded, and every other officer on board killed or wounded, Walsingham saw that nothing was left but to make a wanton sacrifice of the remainder of his ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... Lascivum, playful, wanton; so called because of its many affinities, none of which are very close. The pileus is fleshy, convex, then expanded, slightly obtuse, somewhat depressed, silky at first, then smooth, even. The gills are notched, adnexed, ...
— The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise - Its Habitat and its Time of Growth • M. E. Hard
... "This wanton sacrifice of horrors speaks eloquently of a forlorn hope! Sweep the walls with light, Kennedy; all those filthy things are nocturnal and they will retreat before ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... between four boats, and they had 1000 miles to voyage. They landed at Coupang on September 19th, after undergoing the greatest suffering, aggravated in the case of the prisoners by the most wanton cruelty on the part of Edwards. From here they were sent to England for trial, arriving at Spithead on June 19th, 1792, four years and four months after they had left in the Bounty, of which time these ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... king of the fairies, has been commonly identified with pogge, the toad, which was believed to sit upon most of the unwholesome fungi; and the Champignon (or Paddock Stool) was said to owe its growth to "those wanton elves whose pastime is to make midnight mushrooms." One of the "toad stoo's" (the Clathrus cancellatus) is said to produce cancerous sores if handled too freely. It has an abominably disgusting odour, and ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... necessary emendations, most of them trivial, unless he had under his eye some original containing those variations, to which he wished his own copy to conform? It is surely wild guessing to attribute corrections like these to a mere wanton itch for altering the text; and yet no other alternative is ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various
... facilitate his escape, by digging a mine under the tent, provoked the Mongol Emperor to impose a harsher restraint; and in his perpetual marches, an iron cage on a wagon might be invented, not as a wanton insult, but as a rigorous precaution. But the strength of Bajazet's mind and body fainted under the trial, and his premature death might, without injustice, be ascribed to the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... courtesy and deference for the purpose of pleasing a respected or adored woman. His precepts are, on the contrary, grossly utilitarian, being intended not for a man who wishes to win the heart and hand of an honest girl, but for a libertine who has no money to buy the favors of a wanton, and therefore must rely on ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... comfortable feeling of lending to the Lord—but it was no use at our end of the line. What to do with it was a problem. The lowest plantation darky would regard the gift as an insult, and to burn even the filthiest rags would give rise to stories of wanton waste. So we hit upon an expedient which had been successfully employed in other fields—that of putting worthless articles in nice, clean barrels, rolling them out on the doorstep, and forgetting to bring them in at night; and every ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton
... thou seen the down in the air, When wanton blasts have tossed it? Or the ship on the sea, When ruder winds have crossed it? Hast thou marked the crocodile's weeping, Or the fox's sleeping? Or hast thou viewed the peacock in his pride, Or the dove by his bride, When he ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... said he, 'this is wanton waste of time. Let the girl understand the fact. Let her take it from me, if you like, who have been run away from, myself. Here, what's your name! Your father has absconded - deserted you - and you mustn't expect to see him again as long as ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... work, and the stones would have to be drawn further. The priest held that the extra labour was of secondary importance. He said that to make two roads running parallel with each other would be a wanton ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... the back of the house; but they were paying little heed to us for the moment, being engaged in watching their companions, who were running from cottage to cottage, firing them by thrusting torches under the thatch, and shouting and chattering to each other, as if these acts of wanton destruction were so much amusement in which ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... the Chexington woods; that year the golden weather of October had flowed over into November, and except for a carpet of green and gold under the horse-chestnuts most of the leaves were still on the trees. Gleams of her old wanton humour shone on him. And then would come something else, something like a shadow across the world, something he had quite forgotten since his idea of heroic love had flooded him, something that reminded him of those long ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... of Icentum, in Warwickshire. In his youth, perceiving himself somewhat touched with wanton love on seeing a woman dance, he withdrew into a thicket hard by, and, lying prostrate, bewailed his fault before God, with very great contrition. And he was endowed from that time, by Almighty God, with ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... and infuriated mob, appalled at the sight of riot and devastation resulting from their ill-advised action. Many of their number, conscious of their responsibility for the scenes of bloodshed and pillage and wanton destruction of property, public and private, would now gladly undo their work and array themselves among the few defenders of the great corporations they have served for years and deserted at the call ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... to assert that the natives have been often treated with wanton cruelty, but I do not hesitate to say that no real amelioration of their condition has been effected, and that much of negative evil and indirect injury has been ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... Isa, the dark and dingy cell with its bare stone walls, mud floor, grated aperture and iron door was a fine safe house; its iron bed-frame with cotton-rug-covered laths and stony pillow, a piece of wanton luxury; its shelf, stool and utensils, prideful wealth. If only the place were in Africa or Aden! Well, Aden Jail would do, and if the Brahmin's death led to his being sent there as a serious and respectable murderer, it would be a real case of two enemies on one spear—an insult ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... tradition, to have actually boiled their kettles at the foot of each of a fine avenue of plane-trees. The avenue remains, and fissures can still be traced running up the stem of each tree. Not a memorial of the House of Achnacarrie remained. For this, and other acts of wanton barbarity, the pretext was that the Camerons, as well as other tribes, had promised to surrender arms at a certain time, but had broken their word. "His Royal Highness, the Duke of Cumberland," to borrow from a contemporary writer, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... is this uncertainty, this hazard, that keeps us hammer, hammer, hammering; that keeps us, some from brooding against the marooners, their wanton desertion of us, our ultimate fate at their hands; others from making ready against the return voyage ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... the men inquired solicitously about his journey—how had he stood the cold—and Anna made ready his place at the table. But neither this domestic adulation nor the atmosphere of warmth and affection awaiting him at his own fireside served for a moment to turn him from the wanton brutality that he was pleased to dignify ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... in little better case. Only was the scene here in closer touch with human understanding. Here the terror was of earth, here disaster was of human making. Here the rack of heart was in destruction by wanton fire. Shrieking, hissing, crackling, only insignificant by comparison with the war of the greater elements, flames licked up and devoured with ravening appetites the ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... boyhood, thanks to his custom of roaming the hills; they were for the most part honest men whose occupation in life was the first thought, and they were content to leave politics to Mr. Braden—that being his profession. To the most intelligent of these Mr. Crewe's garden-party was merely the wanton whim of a millionaire. It was an open secret to them that Job Braden for reasons of his own had chosen Mr. Crewe to represent them, and they were mildly amused at the efforts of Mrs. Pomfret and her assistants ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... age to play marbles, he was forbidden to play, because it was, to Miss Hester's mind, a species of gambling. Swimming was too dangerous to be for a moment considered. Fishing, without necessity, was wanton cruelty. Flying kites was foolishness and a ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... to see such an immense and wanton waste of lives and property, not doubting the benevolent feelings of some individuals engaged in that cause. But we cannot for a moment doubt, but that the cause of many of our unconstitutional, unchristian, and unheard-of sufferings emanate from that unhallowed source; ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... can without the utmost horror, conceive the miseries of the latter when your persons, fortunes, wives and daughters, shall be subject to the wanton and unbridled rage, rapine, and lust, of negroes, mulattoes, and others, the vilest and most abandoned ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... the saddle, but, to an English eye, his horses seem unkempt and often ill-used. The magnificent herds of game which wandered over South Africa sixty years ago tempted him to become a keen sportsman, but he has never shown much 'sporting instinct,' and the Boer is responsible for the wanton destruction of the African fauna. The unsophisticated Boer is a curious blend of hospitality and avarice; he would welcome the passing stranger, and entertain him to the best of his ability, but he seized any opportunity of making money, ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... how much it abuseth men's wit, training it to a wanton sinfulness and lustful love. For, indeed, that is the principal if not only abuse I can hear alleged. They say the comedies rather teach, than reprehend, amorous conceits; they say the lyric is ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... "You wanton! You can kill me but my journal is in safe hands! Harm me— cause me to be missing from the palace for a few hours, and they may light your funeral fires! My journal, with the names of the conspirators, and all the details of your daily intriguing, ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... pertinence to Southampton at any period between his father's death in his boyhood and the close of his bachelorhood in 1598. To no other peer of the day are the words exactly applicable. The 'lascivious comment' on his 'wanton sport' which pursues the young friend through the sonnets, and is so adroitly contrived as to add point to the picture of his fascinating youth and beauty, obviously associates itself with the reputation for sensual indulgence that Southampton acquired both at Court and, according ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... mind of our young soldier as he stood there, alert, watchful, with weapons ready, ears open to the slightest sound, and eyes glancing sharply at the perplexing shadows that chased each other over the ground like wanton Soudanese at play. His faculties were intensely strung at what may well be styled "attention," and riveted on that desert land to which Fate—as he called his own conduct—had driven him. Yet, strange to say, his mysterious spirit ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... there, Mr. Roberts. You may judge by our presence here to whose hand and to whose skill we have felt forced to ascribe this wanton shooting of a young and lovely girl. We wish to be undeceived, and stand ready to listen to anything you may have to say in contradiction of these conclusions. That is, if you wish to speak. You know that you will be well within your rights ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... children has the advantage that its discipline is the discipline of impersonal necessity, not that of wanton personal coercion. The eagerness of children in our industrial districts to escape from school to the factory is not caused by lighter tasks or shorter hours in the factory, nor altogether by the temptation of wages, ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... notwithstanding a late good order against that practice, was brought the malefactors, who drank greedily of it. After this the three thoughtless young men, who at first seemed not enough concerned, grew most shamefully daring and wanton. They swore, laughed, and talked obscenely. At the place of execution the scene grew still more shocking; and the clergyman who attended was more the subject of ridicule than of their serious attention. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... whose ungentle past was scarred upon his face: who stalked grotesquely comfortless in his ill-fitting clothes: who with the art of dress had lost in the boozing-kens of Europe the graces of social intercourse. It counted for nothing that he was middle-aged, deserted forever by the elusive wanton, inspiration, condemned (she knew it in her heart) to artistic barrenness in perpetuity. It counted for nothing that her gods awakened his contempt, and his gods her fear. It counted for nothing that they had scarcely ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... with deadly whisky in return for every valuable thing the Indians had to trade. And when the Indian Camp was ablaze with the light of campfires and was a mad whirl of dancing drunkenness the miscreant traders from the South, in a spirit of utter wanton devilry, got under cover of a cut bank by the creek where the camp was, and proceeded to shoot the Indians who were defenceless in their orgy. A volley or two accounted for two score killed and many wounded, only a few escaping to the hills. And this carnival of bloodshed was witnessed ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... France, And yet I have not view'd my lord the king: If I speed well, I'll entertain you all. All. We thank your worship. Gav. I have some business: leave me to myself. All. We will wait here about the court. Gav. Do. [Exeunt Poor Men. These are not men for me; I must have wanton poets, pleasant wits, Musicians, that with touching of a string May draw the pliant king which way I please: Music and poetry is his delight; Therefore I'll have Italian masks by night, Sweet speeches, comedies, and pleasing shows; And in the day, when he shall walk ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... so is the woman, and Georgette has lived to paper one entire wall of her bedroom with trophies won in the battlefields of ardently danced cotillons. The other child is of a stricter nature, and even in the picture her slightly darkened ringlets are less wanton than her sister's. Her eyes are more pensive, and any one could have predicted children for one and ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... person having been killed in Columbia by our cannon. On the other hand, the night before, when Woods's division was in camp in the open fields at Little Congaree, it was shelled all night by a rebel battery from the other aide of the river. This provoked me much at the time, for it was wanton mischief, as Generals Beauregard and Hampton must have been convinced that they could not prevent our entrance into Columbia. I have always contended that I would have been justified in retaliating for this unnecessary act of war, but ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... goods. Light and truth shall be the device of my whole land. This will I seek after, and by this will I govern Prussia. I will have no blinded subjects, no superstitious, conscience-stricken, trembling, priest-ridden slaves. My people shall learn to think; thought shall be free as the wanton air in Prussia; no censor or police shall limit her boundary. The thoughts of men should be like the life- giving and beautifying sun, all-nourishing and all-enlightening; calling into existence and fructifying, not only the rich, and rare, and lovely, but ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... sky, and the waves reflected its radiance. The liberated vessels scudded this way and that, and the sea birds came flying from the south with joyous cries. The fish lay near the surface and glittered in the sun as they leapt high out of the water, wanton after their long imprisonment under the ice. The gulls, which had been circling out beyond the edge of the ice, came in great flocks toward land to fish in ...
— The Treasure • Selma Lagerlof
... and wild animals. Go to, Ab Gwilym, with thy pseudo-amatory odes, to Morfydd, or this or that other lady, fair or ugly; little didst thou care for any of them, Dame Nature was thy love, however thou mayest seek to disguise the truth. Yes, yes, send thy love- message to Morfydd, the fair wanton. By whom dost thou send it, I would know? by the salmon forsooth, which haunts the rushing stream! the glorious salmon which bounds and gambols in the flashing water, and whose ways and circumstances thou so well describest—see, there he hurries upwards ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... number of slain seals to exceed two hundred, and I was shocked and frightened because of the madness of slaughter that had possessed me. I had sinned by wanton wastefulness, and after I had duly refreshed myself with this good wholesome food, I set about as well as I could to make amends. But first, ere the great task began, I returned thanks to that Being through ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... different species, transported from every part of the ancient world into the amphitheatre of Rome. But this accidental benefit, which science might derive from folly, is surely insufficient to justify such a wanton abuse of the public riches. There occurs, however, a single instance in the first Punic war, in which the senate wisely connected this amusement of the multitude with the interest of the state. A considerable ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... happie is ye tailyor-man Yet is he often tried, Lest he, from fullness of ye dimes, Wax wanton in ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... he snatched out his sword and thrust it through the unfortunate lord. The barbarism of the times is most shockingly displayed in the brutal manner in which he treats the dead body; but for the honour of the Danish prince, we must suppose that it was not merely a wanton act, but done the more decidedly to convince the king, when the strange situation of the corpse was seen, how absolutely he must be divested of reason. Being assured he was now alone with his mother, in a most awful manner he turns upon her, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 281, November 3, 1827 • Various
... Clifford spoke of the "wanton barbarity with which the Federal Government has allowed its officers to wage the war, as though they sought to emulate the ravages of Attila and Genghis-Khan. . . And these things were done not for military objects which would afford some excuse for ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... the Church, who guides you; let this suffice you for your salvation. If evil covetousness cry aught else to you, be ye men, and not silly sheep, so that the Jew among you may not laugh at you. Act not like the lamb, that leaves the milk of his mother, and, simple and wanton, at its own pleasure ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... motive of all his actions was his high sense of duty toward his country, and yet in spite of all that she had learned about the plots in which she was enmeshed, her heart refused to believe that he ever could bring himself to participate in such wanton frightfulness. She recalled the spirit of mercy that he had shown toward herself and Thomas Dean after the accident as contrasted with the brutal indifference of his uncle. She kept hoping against hope that ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... fondness for luxurious living, and indulged in excesses that it was not easy for the more frugal citizens to forgive. He sent seven chariots to the Olympic Games, from which he carried off the first, second, and fourth prizes. He gave splendid shows, distributed money freely, and in spite of his wanton follies retained numbers of ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... aside whole sets of motives which do not accord with this determination. Some exclude the seeking of pleasure as a permissible motive, some the love of beauty; some insist upon one's "being oneself" and prohibit or limit responses to exterior opinions. Most of such selections strike me as wanton and hasty. I decline to dismiss any of my motives at all in that wholesale way. Just as I believe I am important in the scheme of things, so I believe are all my motives. Turning one's back on any set of them seems to me to savour of the headlong actions of stupidity. To ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... 'A wanton gadabout you've been all your days, and so you are still', said her husband, who was in such a rage he scarce knew which leg to stand on; 'but if you don't be off to your custards this minute, I'll soon find out how to make you stir your stumps; see ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... modern world is threatened with reduction to Bolshevism by the Bolsheviki. Whatever the word Bolshevism may have meant originally it has come to mean fiendish treatment of women, the savage murder and mutilation of men and the wanton destruction of the accumulated labors of generations. The Bolshevik is a Socialist, not the armchair theorist dreaming fantastic fancies. The Bolshevik is the real Socialist, the ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... high sense of duty toward his country, and yet in spite of all that she had learned about the plots in which she was enmeshed, her heart refused to believe that he ever could bring himself to participate in such wanton frightfulness. She recalled the spirit of mercy that he had shown toward herself and Thomas Dean after the accident as contrasted with the brutal indifference of his uncle. She kept hoping against hope that something might happen to prevent his arriving ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... thought Oldbuck, "how is this man altered from the formal stolidity of his usual manner!he grows wanton under adversitySed pereunti mille figurae."He then proceeded aloud"Sir Arthur, we must necessarily speak a little ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... wings hovers within my gates; And my divine Althea brings to whisper at the grates; When I lie tangled in her hair and fetter'd to her eye; The gods that wanton in the ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... St. Paul insists upon certain practical duties (xii.-xv. 13). We may notice in xiii. 2 ff. the emphasis which is laid upon the dignity of the civil government, a dignity which was immeasurably degraded ten years later by the wanton persecution of the Roman Christians. And xiii. 13 is a verse ever to be remembered by the Church as the verse by which God brought Augustine from free thinking and licentious living to be numbered among the saints. In xiv. begins some considerate advice about certain Christians ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... and the Floches. Rouget assuredly had an ancestor of fiery blood. As for Fouasse and Tupain, they were called thus without knowing why, many surnames having lost all rational meaning in course of time. Well, old Francoise, a wanton of eighty years who lived forever, had had Fouasse by a Mahe, then becoming a widow, she remarried with a Floche and brought forth Tupain. Hence the hatred of the two brothers, made specially lively by the question of inheritance. At the Rouget's they ...
— The Fete At Coqueville - 1907 • Emile Zola
... their own way. Liberal laws were repealed, and intolerance and oppression took their place. Heretics were persecuted; the power of the church in civil affairs was increased; and fines and taxes on the industry of the colony were wanton and excessive. The king of England directly ruled Virginia. The people were forced to pay Berkeley a thousand pounds sterling as his salary, and he declared he ought to get three times as much even as that. His true character was ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... says (De Civ. Dei xiv, 26): "We must be far from supposing that offspring could not be begotten without concupiscence. All the bodily members would have been equally moved by the will, without ardent or wanton incentive, with calmness ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... a virtue long cultivated on the Planet Mars. On your Earth you waste more than you use, not only in food but in the fruits of the Earth. You are using up your resources at a tremendous rate, and some day you must pay the penalty. Witness the wanton destruction of your beautiful forests, the depletion of your coal beds and crude oil deposits. All this waste is the result of lack of Spiritual guidance; a gross materialism: an inordinate selfish greed. Instead of laying up Spiritual treasures you ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish friars, and winking, from their shelves, in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustering high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shop-keeper's benevolence, to dangle ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... really violating its laws. Hacquet moreover only half understood those songs of the Slovenzi. We will at least not condemn them without having seen them. Among the Russian songs, there are some of a certain wanton and equivocal character, displaying with perfect naivete a scarcely half-veiled sensuality. The boldness, with which these songs are sung in chorus by young peasant women, has often excited the astonishment ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... most public officials. The state of things to which Socialism points is a world that will necessarily be harmonious with these constructive conceptions and free from these jealousies. Whitehall and South Kensington have much to fear from the wanton columns of a vulgarized capitalistic press and from the greedy intrigues of syndicated capital, but nothing from a sane constructive Socialism. To the public official, therefore, of the present time, the Socialist has merely to say that he will ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... seneschal's chair. This foot was of narrow proportions, delicately curved, as broad as two fingers, and as long as a sparrow, tail included, small at the top—a true foot of delight, a virginal foot that merited a kiss as a robber does the gallows; a roguish foot; a foot wanton enough to damn an archangel; an ominous foot; a devilishly enticing foot, which gave one a desire to make two new ones just like it to perpetuate in this lower world the glorious works of God. The page was tempted to take the shoe from this persuasive ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... around; whence it falls into yeasty hollows, a sort of feathery snow of a fairy texture, just suited for the bridal veils of the Nereides—only to be churned over again and tossed up anew by the wanton wind in its ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... through the line of captives. Even their habitually brutal guards were touched by such wanton barbarity. The brother of the youth was not six yards from the spot, tightly bound, and witness of the whole scene! Fancy his ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... nothing of the lyre and the flute. The eminent divine was guided in this matter by the same process of illogical reasoning of which, later, the Puritans were guilty when they banished music from the churches. In view of the fact that music was used to heighten the charms of wanton Roman festivities or Pagan rites, St. Jerome condemned the art itself, ignorant of the fact that music can never be immoral in itself, but only through evil associations. St. Augustine took a different view of music from St. Jerome. When he first heard the ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... callous qualities of men of his class might readily show themselves for good or for evil; and he was not of a character to baffle fortune by any ill-timed squeamishness on the score of early impressions, or to trifle with her liberality by unnecessarily provoking her frowns through wanton cruelty. Still, as his name was unavoidably connected with many of the excesses committed by his parties, he was generally considered in the American provinces a wretch who delighted in bloodshed, ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... wit, To vigilance and duty consecrate, Will we acquaint with all that we intend, And we will so commit them to our cause That they cannot stand off or "square" themselves; But to your wishes' height you'll all advance. The City's courts have houses of ill-fame, Town's palaces are full of wanton wealth, The slums are ruthless, ravenous ripe for crime. Then speak, and strike, brave ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 19, 1890 • Various
... quiet shoe clerk had provided the town with an alarm, an astonishment. He was most astounded of all. As he rode back to the frame house in the swaying carriage he absolutely could not believe that such hopes, such plans, could be shattered with such wanton, wasteful cruelty. That he should have loved, married, and begotten, and that the new-made mother and the new-born child should be struck dead, nullified, returned to clay—such things were too ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... upon the man who was brother and pal as well as father to Martin, all the stucco beneath which he had so carefully hidden his spiritual and imaginative side cracked and broke. Under the indescribable shock of what seemed to him to be wanton and meaningless cruelty, the boy gave way to a grief that was angry and agonized by turns. He had left a fit, high-spirited father to drive to a golf shop to buy a new mashie, returned to take him ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... with, for we had made a regular battue of it. We were glad that none of us had missed, and that we had succeeded in obtaining so much good meat, for we were not slaughtering these beautiful creatures out of wanton sport, but from the necessity of procuring food. Each congratulated the others upon their good shooting, and said nothing of his own—although it was plain that all three of us were proud of our respective shots. To do justice, ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... her words before she foamed them from her, "if you weren't a daughter of mine, I'd—I'd say you were a wanton woman. You know in your heart, as your father always taught you—as you could read in the Bible now—if you ever do read your Bible—that the sins of the fathers, yes, and the mothers too, will fall on the children until the third and fourth generation; and do you think ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... several pleas, alleging certain violations of the conditions; and singularly enough, considering that they had not disputed the son's policy on the same ground, they now pleaded that the death was not the result of accident, but arose from wanton and voluntary exposure ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... growing in abundance, diffusing their perfume around. Here dark and gloomy cares are dispelled as if by magic from the bosom, as the eyes wander over the prospect, lighted by unequalled sunshine, in which gaily painted butterflies wanton, and green and golden salamanquesas lie extended, enjoying the luxurious warmth, and occasionally startling the traveller, by springing up and making off with portentous speed to the nearest coverts, whence they stare upon ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... something of a free lance in the troop and been regarded as a troop institution. But there had always been his official place among the Ravens waiting for him whenever it suited his wanton fancy to return like a prodigal to the fold. Now, in the pleasant springtime with the troop divided for the summer rivalries, ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... deed. This license produced a fearful amount of mischief before long. It had produced no little then. Many a domestic schism,—many a disgraceful alliance,—many a broken heart,—were the result of those lawless, wanton speculations. ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... she cast on her brother a look so wanton that the young man blushed under it: but as at the moment he had to think of other things than his illicit loves, he ordered that four servants should be awakened; and while they were getting armed to accompany him, he drew up and signed the six deeds of ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... cold—would not look at me. Idiot, if he had not been in such a sweat to play his witless practical joke upon me, in the beginning, I would have persuaded his thoughts into some other direction, and saved him from committing that wanton ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... I'VE been the brain that lit thy dull concavity! The human race Invest MY face With thine expression of unchecked depravity, Invested with a ghastly reciprocity, I'VE been responsible for thy monstrosity, I, for thy wanton, blundering ferocity ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... make a botch of remodelling the universe. How much more then from the point of view of ends we cannot see! Wise men therefore regret as little as they can. But still some regrets are pretty obstinate and hard to stifle,—regrets for acts of wanton cruelty or treachery, for example, whether performed by others or by ourselves. Hardly any one can remain entirely optimistic after reading the confession of the murderer at Brockton the other day: how, to get rid of the wife whose continued existence bored him, ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... men, who refused to arrest the assassin, for no other reason than because he endeavoured to have justice done his employers; and the following extract from the report of the Irish Mining Company of Ireland, contains the particulars of as wanton an outrage as can well ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... The George and Garter dangling from that bed Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red, Great Villiers lies! Alas! how changed from him, That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim, Gallant and gay in Cliveden's proud alcove, The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love; There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends, And fame, the lord ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... only allow myself the luxury of one. For the theatre's my sole vice, really. Is this more wanton, say, than to devote weeks to the consideration of the particular way in which your friend Mr. Nash may be most intensely a twaddler and a bore? That's not my ideal of choice recreation, but I'd undertake to satisfy you about him ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... already taken measures to present to the Government of Spain the wanton injury of the Cuban authorities in the detention and seizure of the Black Warrior, and to demand immediate indemnity for the injury which has thereby resulted ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... forward, snarling. He slashed Pop across the face with the barrel of his weapon. It drew blood. It was wanton, savage brutality. ...
— Scrimshaw • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... wondrous well! Now, by my gods! The stripling plays the orator! Vain boy! Keep close to that same bloodless war of words, And thou shalt still be safe. Tongue-valiant warrior! Where is thy sylvan crook, with garlands hung, Of idle field-flowers? Where thy wanton harp, Thou dainty-fingered hero? Now will I meet thee, Thou insect warrior; since thou dar'st me thus, Already I behold thy mangled limbs, Dissevered each from each, ere long to feed The fierce, blood-snuffing vulture. Mark me well, Around my spear I'll twist thy shining locks And toss in ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... Jesus' holy feet I'd rush to kill and slay My plighted lass so fair and sweet, Should she the wanton play. ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... according to its modesty, usefulness and grace, or becomingness, all other musical art. For although purity of purpose and fineness of execution by no means go together, degree to degree (since fine, and indeed all but the finest, work is often spent in the most wanton purpose —as in all our modern opera—and the rudest execution is again often joined with purest purpose, as in a mother's song to her child), still the entire accomplishment of music is only in the union of both. For the difference ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... shape: their present conditions represented only the consequence of ancient faults. Any human being also, by reason of like faults, might hereafter be reduced to the same dumb state,—might be reborn as a reptile, a fish, a bird, or a beast of burden. The consequence of wanton cruelty to any animal might cause the perpetrator of that cruelty to be reborn as an animal of the same kind, destined to suffer the same cruel treatment. Who could even be sure that the goaded ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... take a red cow in memory of the sin they had committed in worshipping a calf. And a cow is mentioned rather than a calf, because it was thus that the Lord was wont to designate the synagogue, according to Osee 4:16: "Israel hath gone astray like a wanton heifer": and this was, perhaps, because they worshipped heifers after the custom of Egypt, according to Osee 10:5: "(They) have worshipped the kine of Bethaven." And in detestation of the sin of idolatry it was sacrificed outside the camp; in fact, whenever sacrifice was offered ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... 'The wanton! ay, I have; and if you can whisper in his ear that matter of Malcolm and the signet, it might lessen his inclination. But,' he sighed, 'I have little hope, James; I see nothing for Lancaster but that which the old man at ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... truth, Tolstoi had not all the facts, perhaps from pure Muscovite inability to comprehend them all The spirituality of love might be a western product—she was half inclined to think it was; but at all events it existed, and it was wanton to leave out of consideration a thing that made all the difference. Moreover, if these things ought to be probed—and Janet was not of serious opinion that they ought to be—for her part she preferred to obtain advices thereon from between admissible and respectable book-covers. It hurt her ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... dismay this wanton destruction of his interior, cried to the Tin Woodman to save him; and that good friend responded with renewed energy. His axe fairly flashed among the Jackdaws, and fortunately the Gump began wildly waving the two wings remaining on the left side of its body. The flutter of ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... however, utterly, when applied to the later or transitional landscape schools, mountains being there introduced in mere wanton savageness by Salvator, or vague conventionalism by Claude, Berghem, and hundreds more. This need not, however, in the least invalidate our general conclusions: we surely know already that it is possible to misuse the best gifts, and pervert ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... attacks of judicial functionaries. It will readily be understood that by connecting the censorship of the laws with the private interests of members of the community, and by intimately uniting the prosecution of the law with the prosecution of an individual, legislation is protected from wanton assailants, and from the daily aggressions of party spirit. The errors of the legislator are exposed whenever their evil consequences are most felt, and it is always a positive and appreciable fact which serves as ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... streets of London, from one end of the city to the other, almost entirely undressed. The intention of this severe exposure was to designate her to those who should assemble to witness the punishment as a wanton, and thus to put her to shame, and draw upon her the scorn and derision of the populace. They found some old and obsolete law which authorized such a punishment. The sentence was carried into effect on a Sunday. The unhappy criminal was conducted through the principal streets of the ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... ready beforehand. I longed to hit them,—I who don't ever want to hit anybody, I whom you've so often reprimanded for being too friendly. But the meekest lamb, a lamb dripping with milk and honey, would turn into a lion if its polite approaches were met with such wanton rudeness. I was so indignantly certain that these people, any of them, policemen or policed, would have answered the same question with the most extravagant politeness if I had been an officer, or with an officer. ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... pretensions of superior capacity, for the established order was in danger, not from the average citizens, but from men, like Miltiades, of exceptional renown. The people of Athens venerated their constitution as a gift of the gods, the source and title of their power, a thing too sacred for wanton change. They had demanded a code, that the unwritten law might no longer be interpreted at will by Archons and Areopagites; and a well-defined and authoritative legislation was a triumph ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... of mine have never wandered, Still may they gleam with long forgotten light. Since in no wanton way my youth was squandered, Some sense of youth still clings ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... advance of the Confederate troops when they invaded Maryland, or, who perhaps, living unfortunately in the very track of the conflicting armies, found themselves driven from their burning homesteads, and devastated fields, victims of a wanton soldiery. Destitute, ragged and shelterless, their condition appealed with peculiar force to the friends of the Union. State aid was by no means sufficient, and unorganized charity unavailable to ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... retribution from a superhuman power upon the person against whom they are uttered. Anathema is a solemn ecclesiastical condemnation of a person or of a proposition. Curse may be just and authoritative; as, the curse of God; or, it may be wanton and powerless: "so the curse causeless shall not come," Prov. xxvi, 2. Execration expresses most of personal bitterness and hatred; imprecation refers especially to the coming of the desired evil upon the person ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... who finds it impossible to regard the actions of the enemy with a favourable eye,—an honest citizen this, whose desire is, that while political considerations shall always receive due weight, the demands of morality shall never be overlooked; one who, while the enemy is borne along in his wanton course of good fortune, cannot forbear to point with warning finger to the inevitable consequences, and in his bitterest disaster can with difficulty find him worthy ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... "the haughty oppression of the one and the wanton cruelty of the other, have given Scotland too many wounds for me to hold a shield before them; meet them, and I ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... hammered away with artillery without any very definite plan of attack. The more important of the damaged buildings, such as the waterworks and the power station, have been repaired, the tramway was working, and, after Moscow, the town seemed clean, but plenty of ruins remained as memorials of that wanton and unjustifiable piece of folly which, it was supposed, would be the ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish friars; and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence, to dangle ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... world over, is shown by a recent incident in war-stricken Europe. It was only a few months ago and during the terrible campaign in Eastern Poland, even while shells were bursting and men were dying, that the Central Powers stopt, as it were, in the mad rush of wanton destruction, to re-establish and reorganize the old University of Warsaw. More than that, they added to the old institution two new faculties, or colleges, as we ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... Repository, speaking of the fine displays of anatomy and wonderful construction of insects, creatures so much "despised, and which are, indeed, but too often made the subject of wanton sport by many persons, who amuse their children by passing a pin through the bottom of their abdomen, in order to excite pain and long-suffering in the insect, and thus making them spin, as they ignorantly term it," has the following most humane and benevolent observations:—"Many of these ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various
... La Place was commissioned by Dr. Majendie to invite me to meet her and Madame Gay Lussac at dinner. I was very unwilling to go; for I detested the man for his wanton cruelties, but I found I could not refuse on account of these ladies. There was a large party of savants, agreeable and gentlemanly; but Majendie himself had the coarsest manners; his conversation was horridly professional; many things were said and subjects ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... examine, with more care than there has yet been occasion for, those charges of wanton and illegal cruelty which have for close upon two centuries formed the basis of the popular—I had almost written the historical—conception of the character of Claverhouse. I have used the words "illegal cruelty" because Claverhouse is not only commonly believed to have far surpassed all his contemporaries ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... a contemporary tradition informs us, that Wolsey was instigated to this by personal feelings. His arrogant and wanton proceedings, offensive by their excesses, and withal showing all the priestly love of power, were hateful to the inmost soul of the pure and earnest Queen. She is said to have once reproached him with them, and to have even repelled his unbecoming behaviour with a threatening word, and he on ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... at Germaine the Battalion set off on the 19th for Canizy which was reached by evening. They found this village emptied of the native populace and saw that the Germans had been carrying out their usual work of destruction in the same wanton and deliberate scale as in nearly every village in the regained area. A more cheerful memory of this devastated village is that while here the Battalion got its new bugle band. While stationed there the Battalion marched over to Ham where a football match was to be played. Their march into the town ...
— The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various
... up their instruments, and catching them again on the points of their fingers. "She has enchanted him with her glamour. Foul is fair! Foul fair thee, young springal, if thou go to the nets. Shadow and goblin to goblin and shadow! Flesh and blood to blood and flesh!"—and dancing round him, with wanton looks and bare arms, and gossamer robes that brushed him as they ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Williams began—"Again," said Evellin, "after my strict injunctions, do not insult me with empty titles. Have I not told you that my patent of nobility is cancelled? I am Goodman Evellin of the Fells, husband of the best of women, and father of two wanton prattlers, who know not the misery of having fallen from an eminently glorious station. Mark, Williams, the story of what I was shall die with me, or only survive close shut in the treasured remembrance ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... and get some familiarity with her neighbours, which increaseth from day to day more and more; nay oftentimes it comes to that height, she's better to be found among her neighbours, then at home in her own family. Here she sees Mistris Wanton playing with her child that is a very pretty Babe. There she sees Mistres Breedwell making ready her Child-bed linnens and getting of her Clouts together. Yonder Mistris Maudlen complains that she doth not prove with ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... unlawful manner, made to break stones or wheel barrows on the streets or highways like galley slaves. Persons of rank were frequently taken from their homes, immured in prison, and dismissed after several weeks' incarceration without knowing what alleged offence had provoked such a wanton exercise of power contrary to the charter and the privileges of Poland; state offenders were carried out of the country to Russian prisons and attempts were made to give them a journey to Siberia, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various
... lie wanton to the breeze, "The fields are nude, the groves unfrocked, "Bare are the shivering limbs of shameless trees, "What wonder is it that ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... bring with thee Jest and youthful jollity, Quips and Cranks and wanton Wiles, Nods and becks and wreathed Smiles, Such as hang on Hebe's cheek And love to live in dimple sleek; Sports that wrinkled care derides And ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... of such slender corporeal strength, was to employ him to lie a-bed all day and hatch turkey's eggs. The least allusion to this rumour used to drive him well-nigh frantic, and the fatal termination of his duel with young Crofts, which began in wanton mirth, and ended in bloodshed, made men more coy than they had formerly been, of making the fiery little hero ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... commenced the Russian, "by your continued and wanton interference with M. Rokoff and his plans you have at last brought yourself and your family to this unfortunate extremity. You have only yourself to thank. As you may imagine, it has cost M. Rokoff a large amount of money to finance this expedition, ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... that wonder of Women, and Sinners, and Mourners, St. Mary Magdalen. I call her Saint, because I did not then, nor do now consider her, as when she was possessed with seven devils; not as when her wanton eyes and dishevelled hair were designed and managed to charm and ensnare amorous beholders. But I did then, and do now consider her, as after she had expressed a visible and sacred sorrow for her sensualities; as after those eyes had wept such a flood of penitential tears as did wash, and ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... speech, in the circumstances, but we barely noticed that, we were so shocked and grieved at the wanton murder he had committed—for murder it was, that was its true name, and it was without palliation or excuse, for the men had not wronged him in any way. It made us miserable, for we loved him, and had thought him so noble and so beautiful and gracious, and had ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... the first time it came to him: Briscoe had provoked his own death. He had physically attacked the Lhari—threatened them, goaded them to shoot him down in self-defense! "I've been on shipboard with them for months. They're not wanton murderers." ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... by the wishing-gate Nina's wanton desire to provoke to wrath the monster to whom she was chained died a sudden and unnatural death. She was scrupulously careful of his feelings from that day forward, and he treated her with a freezing courtesy, a cynical ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... to my leaving Nassau Hall were not, after all, the mischievous outbreaks in which college lads indulge. Indeed, I have never been guilty of any of those pieces of wanton wickedness which injure the feelings of others while they lead to no useful result. When I left to return home, I set myself seriously to reflect upon the necessity of greater care in following out my inclinations, and from that time forward I have steadily avoided, whenever it was possible, the ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... you are for acts of wanton cruelty that one would have to look to Indians to find their counterpart, for deliberate insults that had not even the excuse of personal animus to justify them, but were due solely to the cowardice ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... progress or covered by the debris of centuries of movement. But the truth is it is about as easy to learn the habits of the ancient Britons as those of the American tribes, even the most civilized, five centuries ago. This is partly due to the wanton destruction of valuable records by the early conquerors and partly to the prepossession that most men, even able ones, seem to be shackled with; namely, that the origin of America's former inhabitants is to be sought in some people of Asia. If they would ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... mouth to every kiss, Seeing the blossom of this bliss By gathering doth grow, certes! By Godd-es fay, by Godd-es fay! Thy brow-garland pushed all aslant Tells—but I tell not, wanton May! ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... a piece of wanton cruelty, Mr Capstick," exclaimed the captain. "I must prohibit the ship's muskets being made use of for such a purpose; they are intended to be used against our enemies, not employed in slaughtering ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... society in ye time of ye forenoone service on s'd Day by her rude and Indecent Behaviour in Laughing and Playing in ye time of ye s'd Service which Doinges of ye s'd Tabatha is against ye peace of our Sovereign Lord ye King, his Crown and Dignity." Wanton Tabatha had to pay three shilings sixpence for her ill-timed mid-winter frolic. Perhaps she laughed to try to keep warm. Those who laughed at the misdemeanors of others were fined as well. Deborah Bangs, a young girl, ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... in the belief that Benedict was an enemy of the Church, went so far as to try to kill him. And once a few pious persons in Rome induced a company of wanton women to go out to Benedict's monastery and disport themselves through his beautiful grounds. This was done with two purposes in view; one was to work the direct downfall of the Benedictines, with the aid of the trulls, ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... think the practice of scalping an enemy, generally indulged in by the Sioux, is a wanton desire cruelly to mutilate the foe. Such is not the case at all; he is prompted solely by the desire of procuring proof of his success, and he will take more chances to get a scalp than he would for any other object in life. ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... whether the relation into which marriage betrays them be decent or indecent. What I should like to be able to discover is—what provision does either man or civilization propose to make for the woman whom Fate, in wanton irony, reduces, even in marriage, to the self-considered level of the girl ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... thy Queen, Who 'as laid aside the Business of her State, To wanton in the kinder Joys of Love— Play all your sweetest Notes, such as inspire The active Soul with new and soft Desire, [To the Musick, they play softly. Whilst we from Eyes—thus dying, fan the Fire. [She sits ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... various accounts. Some say it is Yhi, the sun, the wanton woman, who has overtaken at last her enemy the moon, who scorned her love, and whom now she tries to kill, but the spirits intervene, dreading a return to a dark world. Some say the enemies have managed to get evil spirits into each ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... was born it was called Leotychides in public, but in her own house she whispered to her friends and attendants that his name was Alkibiades, so greatly was she enamoured of him. He himself used to say in jest that he had not acted thus out of wanton passion, but in order that his race might one day rule in Lacedaemon. King Agis heard of all this from many informants, but was most convinced of its truth by a computation of the time before the birth of the child. Terrified at an ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... the difficulty of answering them satisfactorily. And not seldom they create difficulties that might never have occurred. But, worst of all, they convert things trifling or indifferent into mischievous pretexts for the wanton, fearful difficulties for the weak, and formidable objections for the inquiring. For what man FEARING God dares think any the least point indifferent, which he is required to receive as God's own immediate Word miraculously infused, miraculously recorded, and by a succession of miracles ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... more than any other country—more, even, than republican France—represents the ideals of a pacific and industrial democracy, may never be called upon to assert her supremacy in armed conflict, and to safeguard those ideals against a wanton attack on the part of the most formidable and most systematic military power the world ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... removed, and they are open to the inclemency of the weather, or roughly boarded up. The stove, once of polished steel, is now brown and encrusted with rust as if the iron were 500 years old. It is impossible for an architect or artist to survey the ruthless and wanton destruction of this noble wing, unscathed and uninjured but by the hands of barbarous man, without feelings of the deepest regret and sorrow. How forcibly do the lines of the noble bard recur to the mind on surveying these apartments, still ...
— Recollections of the late William Beckford - of Fonthill, Wilts and Lansdown, Bath • Henry Venn Lansdown
... of taking the fire of his adversary at ten paces. After church, he disappeared as quietly as he had entered, and fortunately escaped hearing the comments on his rash act. His appearance was generally considered as an impertinence, attributable only to some wanton fancy, or possibly a bet. One or two thought that the sexton was exceedingly remiss in not turning him out after discovering who he was; and a prominent pew-holder remarked, that if he couldn't take his wife and daughters to that church, ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... adventure, but blazoning the fact that he was going to moralize as long as he would. He shows no timidity, even declares upon one of his title-pages that in this volume 'there is small offense by lightness given to the wise, and less occasion of looseness proffered to the wanton.' Such courage in this day would be apt seriously to injure the sale of a novel. Did not Ruskin declare that Miss Edgeworth had made virtue so obnoxious that since her time one hardly dared express the slightest bias in favor of ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... did throw. We ever saw thee in the roll of fame Advancing thy already deathless name; And though it could but be above its fate, Thou would'st, however, super-errogate. Now as in Venice, when the wanton State Before a Spaniard spread their crowded plate, He made it the sage business of his eye To find the root of the wild treasury; So learn't from that exchequer but the more To rate his masters vegetable ore. Thus when the Greek ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... lip and brow of scorn, The worshiper of reason and of self, The atheist, wanton, and the giddy maid, The faith-betrayer and the love-betrayed; Self-righteous pharisees, who would adorn Or hide with pious garb ...
— Across the Sea and Other Poems. • Thomas S. Chard
... Attis was sacrificed his worshippers were drenched with its blood, and were afterwards ceremonially fed with milk, as they were supposed to have "renewed their youth" and become children. The ancient Greek god Eros (Cupid) was represented as a wanton boy or handsome youth. Another god of fertility, the Irish Angus, who resembles Eros, is called "the ever young"; he slumbers like Tammuz and ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... she withheld from the infant, she bestowed with the utmost profuseness on the poor unknown mother, whom she called an impudent slut, a wanton hussy, an audacious harlot, a wicked jade, a vile strumpet, with every other appellation with which the tongue of virtue never fails to lash those who bring a disgrace on ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... of El Mahdi on the hill-top beyond the bridge, and watched the day coming through the gateway of the world. It was a work of huge enchantment, as when, for the pleasure of some ancient caliph, or at the taunting of some wanton queen, a withered magus turned the ugly world into a kingdom of the fairy, and the lolling hangers-on started up on their elbows to see a green field spreading through the dirty city and great trees rising above the vanished temples, and wild roses and ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... Robert Wilson's book was the work of a private individual, and published solely on his own responsibility, whereas Sebastiani's was a public document set forth by an official organ, was treated as a wanton and insolent evasion. Meanwhile the language of the press on either side became from day to day more virulently offensive; and various members of the British Parliament, of opposite parties, and of the highest eminence, ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... need, madame, to pay me this last attention, so worthy of your habits. 'Au revoir, madame!'" And with a profound and mocking reverence the wanton cavalier slowly retreated, leaving Rose to sink, half fainting, into a stone seat by the ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... at the situation in Christian Europe. They have assured all these distant peoples that their faith has built up a shining civilisation in Europe, and now there flash and quiver through the nerves of the world the daily messages of horror, of fierce hatred, of appalling carnage, of the wanton destruction by Christians of Christian temples. The Gospel has, somehow, broken down in Europe, ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... he left the care of the Company's concerns too much to the people who were under him, who were unequal to the trust, and proved the ruin of the factory. Before the fort was half finished, these people began to insult the natives of the country; and, among other wanton acts of folly, they very imprudently chose to search one of the boats belonging to the king, which was carrying a female of rank down the river. This so provoked the Bornean sovereign that he determined upon the utter destruction of the English; for which purpose he collected ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... laughed, and Hortense demanded if I had as much skill with the lyre as with the sword. She had heard that I was much given to chanting vain airs and wanton songs, she said. ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... tortuous and stony pathway in untiring effort to reach its gravitational centre, is a symbol of the Pilgrim's progress, impelled by love to seek God within his heart. The modest daisy by the roadside, and the wanton sunflower in the garden alike seek to image the sun, the god of their worship, a core of seeds and fringe of petals representing their best effort to mimic the flaming disc and far-flung corona of the sun. Man seeks less ardently, and so more ineffectively ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... of the internal slave trade carried on in this country, would shock and disgust the reader to a degree that would almost render him ashamed to acknowledge himself a member of the same community. In unmanly and degrading barbarity, wanton cruelty, and horrible indifference to every human emotion, facts could be produced worthy of association with whatever is recorded of the slave trade in any other form. One of these internal slave traders has built, in a neighboring city, a range of private prisons, fronting ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... That phase of life is for me over. Neither with you nor with any other fair girl shall I again wanton away the flying hours. Life is too precious for that; and the work which falls upon a man's shoulders is too exacting. The Hall of Harmony is for children, Maryanne;—for grown children, perhaps, ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... as, in the circumstances to which I had contrived to reduce myself, I saw nothing better to do. My introduction to a seafaring life was effected pretty much on the lines indicated in the foregoing conversation. The change from the existence of a voluptuary, squandering thousands on the wanton pleasure of the moment, to that of a common sailor, was at first anything but agreeable, and often and bitterly did I curse the follies of the past. However, we learn from experience, and probably ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... and the Shepherd of the Church, who guides you; let this suffice you for your salvation. If evil covetousness cry aught else to you, be ye men, and not silly sheep, so that the Jew among you may not laugh at you. Act not like the lamb, that leaves the milk of his mother, and, simple and wanton, at its own pleasure ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... while pursuing its gigantic pastime, would be sufficient to destroy us. It came to the surface at about the same distance as before, but on the opposite side of the boat, throwing itself half out of the water as it rose: again it commenced lashing the sea violently, as if in the mere wanton display of its terrible strength, until far around, the water was one wide sheet of foam. The calves still gambolled near us, chasing each other about and under the yawl, and we might easily have killed one of them, had we not been deterred by the almost certain consequences of arousing ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... himself, if he thinks proper, can employ either natural causes, or the ministry of good angels, to inflict all sorts of diseases on mankind. And I hope nobody will believe, that the devils have had the power granted them of torturing men at their wanton pleasure. But to say more on this subject seems the less necessary; because two very learned divines of our nation have already treated it in a full and ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead
... their houses, and took the spoil of them, as they would have done of us." After this exploit they returned to the ship and set sail immediately. It does not appear from the journal that the natives had ever offered them any harm or given any provocation for so wanton an act. The writer only asserts that they would have done it if they could. No plea is more commonly used to justify tyranny and cruelty than the supposed bad intentions ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... instruction in the language of gallantry and courtship, specimens are these,—"With your ambrosiac kisses bathe my lips;" "You are a white enchantress, lady, and can enchain me with a smile;" "Midnight would blush at this;" "You walk in artificial clouds and bathe your silken limbs in wanton dalliance." What could Milton do, so far as such a production came within his knowledge, but shake his head and mingle smiles with a frown? Clearly the elder nephew too had slipped the Miltonic restraints. He had not lapsed, however, so decidedly as his brother; and we may partly ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... from the British commander on the American station to be his avowed purpose to employ the force under his direction "in destroying and laying waste such towns and districts upon the coast as may be found assailable," adding to this declaration the insulting pretext that it is in retaliation for a wanton destruction committed by the army of the United States in Upper Canada, when it is notorious that no destruction has been committed, which, notwithstanding the multiplied outrages previously committed by the enemy was not unauthorized, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson
... with a will, and, in a few moments, the strawberry-bed—which was Frank's pride, next to his museum, and on which he had expended a great amount of labor—was almost ruined; and so quietly did they proceed in their work of wanton destruction, that Brave, although a very vigilant dog, was not aroused, and the marauders retraced their steps, and reached the woods ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... covered and overflowed all England, few books were read in our tongue saving certain books of chivalry, as they said, for pastime and pleasure, which, as some say, were made in monasteries by idle monks or wanton canons: as one, for example, Morte Arthure, the whole pleasure of which book standeth in two special points, in open manslaughter and bold bawdry. This is good stuff for wise men to laugh at or honest men to take pleasure at. Yet I know when God's Bible was banished the Court, and Morte Arthure ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... places, indeed, where some straggling bands of Irish made their appearance and demanded food: but it can scarcely be imputed to them as a crime that they did not choose to die of hunger; and there is no evidence that they committed any wanton outrage. In truth they were much less numerous than was commonly supposed; and their spirit was cowed by finding themselves left on a sudden without leaders or provisions, in the midst of a mighty population which felt towards them as men feel towards a drove of wolves. Of all the subjects of James ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Asia to the hardships and dangers of a German war. The death of Theophilus, consular of the province of Syria, who in a time of scarcity had been massacred by the people of Antioch, with the connivance, and almost at the instigation, of Gallus, was justly resented, not only as an act of wanton cruelty, but as a dangerous insult on the supreme majesty of Constantius. Two ministers of illustrious rank, Domitian the Oriental praefect, and Montius, quaestor of the palace, were empowered by a special commission * to visit and reform the state of the East. They were instructed to behave ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... woodmen and farms, and sheep and wains, and hay and turnips, do not necessarily suggest the highest happiness, and that it is not always dignified for an aspiring Poet to be led about helpless through the byeways of sense by those wilful, wanton playfellows, his rhymes. The two factions may be left to fight out their quarrel over the present example, which, by the way, is not taken from the collected edition ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 10, 1892 • Various
... shelter of a mask disdain'd, When Folly triumph'd, and a Nero reign'd, Petronius rose satiric, yet polite, And show'd the glaring monster full in sight; To public mirth exposed the imperial beast, And made his wanton court ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... was different from what Campbell had expected, for Le Succes of fifty guns appeared in sight; and, after a desperate engagement with her, in which Walsingham was severely wounded, and every other officer on board killed or wounded, Walsingham saw that nothing was left but to make a wanton sacrifice of the remainder of his ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... remote from the great centers of our vaunted civilization, where Nature, in a wanton gold-revel of her own, has sprinkled her river beds with the shining dust, hidden it away under ledges, buried it in deep canyons in playful miserliness and salved with its potent glow the time-scars upon the cheeks of her gaunt mountains. You have but to find a tiny bit ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... the 20th of February, but neither before the former date nor after the latter date, in spite even of the most threatening orders from the Palace. This book will indeed have been written in vain if the reader lays it down without having realized that no such wanton interference on the part of their rulers would be tolerated by the Chinese people. But we are wandering away from merry-making ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... I remember, we were at Balbec, I saw him one day make an almost tasteless preparation out of pure black nicotine, which in mere wanton lust he afterwards gave to some of the dwellers by the Caspian to drink. But the fiend would surely never dream of giving to me that browse of hell—to me an aged man, and a thinker, ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... corn upon the rigs, And a gallow built to hang the Whigs, And the right restored where the right should be. Oh, that is the thing that would wanton me." ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... rivalships of the parts would make them checks upon each other, and would frustrate all the tempting advantages which nature has kindly placed within our reach. In a state so insignificant our commerce would be a prey to the wanton intermeddlings of all nations at war with each other; who, having nothing to fear from us, would with little scruple or remorse, supply their wants by depredations on our property as often as it fell in their way. ...
— The Federalist Papers
... drift-wood, trunks of trees, fragments of broken sluicing,—the wash and waste of many a mile,—swept into sight a moment, and were gone. All of decay, wreck, and foulness gathered in the long circuit of mining-camp and settlement, all the dregs and refuse of a crude and wanton civilization, reappeared for an instant, and then were hurried away in the darkness and lost. No wonder that as the wind ruffled the yellow waters the waves seemed to lift their unclean hands toward the rock whereon the fallen man ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... what she might have anticipated, that she could not lead a young man who was in love with her to such a place without this result. Her purpose in so doing was best known to herself. In his mind there was evidently a doubt whether it was wanton cruelty, or a desire for information concerning her protege. He began to wonder, in view of the persistence of her interest in Emmet, whether she had not divined the cause of his late arrival from ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... the dispersion of the Acadians, that terrible and wanton piece of political policy, which resulted in the extinction and denationalizing of a simple and pious people. The fugitive Acadians found their way through a wilderness of forests, suffering and dying as they went, some landing ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... returned the Harvard man. "Our forefathers killed in self-defense. You folks are killing out of wanton greed." ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... world! how fair You speak young hearts! In many a wanton word Of lyric April, each succeeding year, By risen flower, and the returning bird, You ...
— The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... the praises of his schoolmaster Socrates (without all question the prince of philosophers), amongst other discourses to that purpose, said that he resembled the Silenes. Silenes of old were little boxes, like those we now may see in the shops of apothecaries, painted on the outside with wanton toyish figures, as harpies, satyrs, bridled geese, horned hares, saddled ducks, flying goats, thiller harts, and other such-like counterfeited pictures at discretion, to excite people unto laughter, as ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... manifest between Romney's wanton cruelty in his domestic character, and his reputation among his intimates and contemporaries for great kindliness of nature, generosity, and general worth, is remarkable enough. There are many men, however, who appear to the least advantage when ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... ardor and efficiency an undue amount of that spirit of the good housekeeper which makes a home unbearable. Farragut was aided to his wise conclusion by his previous experience in the Essex, where a high state of efficiency was gained without wanton sacrifice of comfort; for Porter, though a man of hasty temper, was ever considerate of his crew. But for the naval officers of that day Farragut throughout his life retained a profound admiration. Talking about them at his dinner-table in New Orleans fifty years later, but a few days before his ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... short——" the while your fond heart yearned To keep them still, reluctant standing by, You saw your little angel, earthward turned, Yet all unknowing, lay his halo by. Soft little threads! They held you with such strength! You knew the way each wanton ringlet fell, You knew each shining tendril's golden length, How oft they've tangled, ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... the sufferings of the people the legislative action of Congress. It is a subject of congratulation that Congress and the country had the virtue and firmness to bear the infliction, that the energies of our people soon found relief from this wanton tyranny in vast importations of the precious metals from almost every part of the world, and that at the close of this tremendous effort to control our Government the bank found itself powerless and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... in his low, deliberate voice. His heavy, round face was deeply flushed; Fortune, the noisy wanton, had flung both arms around his neck. But his slow eyes were continually turned on the slim young girl whom he was teaching to walk beside him ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... as they were finished. Though Saxony is one of the richest and most fertile provinces of Germany, and the vicinity of Leipzig has been remarkable for abundance, yet it cannot appear surprising, that, with such wanton waste, famine, the most dangerous foe to an army, should have at length found its way into all the French camps. Barns, stables, and lofts, were emptied; the fields were laid bare; and the inhabitants fled into the woods and the towns. Bread and other provisions had not been ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)
... little white Noah's Ark houses of the olive farmers and their quaint little Noah's ark cypresses, to the full height of Portofino Kulm, where the whole enchanted coast-line of the Riviera from Genoa to Sestri Levante lay spread out as a jewelled fringe of ocean. Elaine stood hatless while the wanton breeze caressed her glorious hair and caught at her skirts ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... happens to lie before me,—none of them necessary emendations, most of them trivial, unless he had under his eye some original containing those variations, to which he wished his own copy to conform? It is surely wild guessing to attribute corrections like these to a mere wanton itch for altering the text; and yet no other alternative is suggested by the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various
... to have vomited forth its scum. Uncanny beings lurk at the corners. Wild with cognac and absinthe, the unruly mob commits every wanton act which unbridled wickedness can suggest. Good men are powerless, and women exposed to every insult. Public trade is suspended. Robbery and official pillage increase. The creatures of a day give way quickly ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... that a fresh rebellion had been in agitation so late as 1752. LOCKHART. He was executed on June 7, 1753. Gent. Mag. xxiii. 292. Lord Campbell (Lives of the Chancellors, v. 109) says:—'I regard his execution as a wanton atrocity.' Horace Walpole, however, inclined to the belief that Cameron was engaged in a new scheme of rebellion. Walpole's Memoirs ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... this action seemed a wanton cruelty; it was rather the wanton recklessness which belongs to a wild boy accustomed to gratify the impulse of the moment—the recklessness which is not cruelty in the boy, but which prosperity may pamper into cruelty in the man. And scarce had he ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... done for; that much was obvious to the veriest land-lubber. And the second torpedo could have but one purpose—the wanton destruction of so many more helpless women. Besides, it revolted his sense of sport; it was like blowing a sitting bird to pieces with a shot gun. . ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... there was one who looked with disapproving eyes upon so much wanton cruelty, as he marched along silently with his brows knit in disgust. At length, seeing that the guard, not satisfied with the branch, was kicking the prisoners that fell, he could no longer restrain himself but cried out impatiently, "Here, ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... shall," the young man unreservedly agreed—"like a wanton meddling ass!" His candour, his freedom had decidedly a note of their own. "But my conviction, after those moments with your picture, was too strong for me not to speak—and, since you allow it, I face the ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... some mean, unworthy prey, And rests, deep-sorrowing, On the low rock beside the stream. Up to the oak he looks, Looks up to heaven, While in his noble eye there gleams a tear. Then, rustling through the myrtle boughs, behold, There comes a wanton pair of doves, Who settle down, and, nodding, strut O'er the gold sands beside the stream, And gradually approach; Their red-tinged eyes, so full of love, Soon see the inward-sorrowing one. The male, inquisitively social, leaps On ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... of art, Babbling out the very heart, Yet abandoned to thy will, Yet imagining no ill, Yet too innocent to blush; Like the linnet in the bush, To the mother-linnet's note Moduling her slender throat, Chirping forth thy pretty joys; Wanton in the change of toys, Like the linnet green, in May, Flitting to each ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... soldiers, who gave him the name Caligula, because he wore the soldier's leather shoe, or half-boot, (Latin caliga). Caligula was deified, but that did not prevent him from becoming a madman, which seems to be the best way to account for his wanton cruelty and extraordinary caprices.] ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... vigor and manhood?" To be destitute of that which may be described as raw material in the human frame, means that no really vigorous manhood can have place; to burn up the juices of the system in the fires of lust is madness and wanton folly, {418} but it can be done. To divert the currents of life and energy from blood and brain, from memory and muscle, in order to secrete it for the shambles of prostitution, is death to true manhood; but remember, it can be done! The generous liquid ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... but a wanton maiden, The plaything of thy idle hours; But laughing streams with gold are laden, And sweets are ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... that it should be them. Preyer or preyed upon—such was the iron immutable law of life, from man in his highest development to the minutest of insects; and with this law he was but complying, not in wanton cruelty, ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... so strong that it might become a commercial, if not a naval, rival of Italy in the Adriatic. The Italian delegates in private interviews showed great bitterness toward the Slavs, who, they declared, had, as Austrian subjects, waged war against Italy and taken part in the cruel and wanton acts attendant upon the invasion of the northern Italian provinces. They asserted that it was unjust to permit these people, by merely changing their allegiance after defeat, to escape punishment for the outrages which they had committed against Italians and actually to profit ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... It compelled him to labour with Sir John vehemently until that blundering knight consented to wait before exploding his alarms upon Lady Waverton. Even as the first blundering remonstrances had irritated Alison's wanton will into passionate resolution, so this ensuing vacillation and delay gave ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... for granted that the author is a merry fellow, who troubles himself little about the cries, tears and tricks of the lady you call glory, fashion, or public favour, for he knows her to be a wanton who would put up with any violence. He knows that in France her war-cry is Mount Joy! A fine cry indeed, but one which certain writers have disfigured, and which signifies, "Joy it is not of the earth, it is there; seize it, otherwise good-bye." The author has ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... most keenly what I have often before observed. Persons who can claim a certain rank keep themselves coldly aloof from the common people, as though they feared to lose their importance by the contact; whilst wanton idlers, and such as are prone to bad joking, affect to descend to their level, only to make the poor people feel their ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... violently affect the Reputation of Wits, that not a French Journal, Mercury, Farce, or Opera, can escape their Pillaging: yet the utmost they arrive at, is but a sort of Jack-a-lanthorn Wit, that like the Sun-shine which wanton Boys with fragments of Looking-glass reflect in Men's Eyes, dazles the Weak-sighted, and troubles the strong. These are the Muses Black-Guard, that like those of our Camp, tho' they have no share in the Danger or Honour, yet have the greatest in the Plunder; ...
— The Present State of Wit (1711) - In A Letter To A Friend In The Country • John Gay
... about as thick as your arm, your companion, if you have a forester with you, will spring joyfully. With a few blows of his cutlass he will sever it as high up as he can reach, and again below, some three feet down, and, while you are wondering at this seemingly wanton destruction, he lifts the bar on high, throws his head back, and pours down his thirsty throat a pint or more of pure cold water. This hidden treasure is, strange as it may seem, the ascending sap, or rather the ascending pure rain-water which has been taken ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... stood a creature whose dishevelled, rusty hair, blotched and bloated features, wanton, cunning, restless eyes, combined perfectly to form the head of the mythological Harpy. It required little effort of the imagination to believe that her foul, bedraggled dress concealed the "wings and talons of the vulture." Being still unsteady from her night's debauch, ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... and melancholy, I rove to charming Dolly, Whose Sweetness doth so charm me, And wanton Tricks so warm me, That quite dissolv'd in Love, No Trouble then I prove, But am as truly blest Upon her panting Breast, As if to me she brought All for which Caesar fought: For I, like Anthony, With Beauty would be free, Altho' again't ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... when it appears (as is sufficiently and admirably proved by my friend the author of An Enquiry into Happiness) that these men live in a constant opposition to their own nature, and are no less monsters than the most wanton abortions ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... the Master?' Then they answer, 'Fool! A man shall cast a stone into the air For pastime, or for lack of heed,—but He! Will He come fingering of His ended work, Fright it with His approaching face, or snatch One day the rolling wonder from its ring, And hold it quivering, as a wanton child Might take a nestling from its downy bed, And having satisfied a careless wish, Go thrust it back into its place again?' To such I answer, and, that doubt once mine, I am assured that I do speak aright: 'Sirs, the significance of this your doubt Lies in the reason of ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... Edith, 'deed we has, chile—but you needn't look so 'stonish and 'mazed. You can't help of it, chile. An' if de British do come dar and burn de house and heave we-dem into de fire jes' out of wanton, it'll only be two poor, ole, unvaluable niggers burned up. Ole marse know dat well enough—dat's de ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... gathering cloud. Those insolent ladies are revelling in the land from which they have ousted their only brother; they are granting leases not worth a straw; they are riding the high horse; they are bringing up that cub (who set the big dog at me) in every wanton luxury. But wait a bit—wait a bit, my ladies; as sure as I live ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... He answered his own question. Pascherette had proven false to falsity; she had schemed against the schemer; and, in the other tray of the balance she had done these things for love of him, out of a deep and all-powerful ambition to place him, Milo the slave, in the high place of the wanton ingrate who had deserted her people. And the thought hurt him now; he had not yet yielded her the kiss she craved. Even now the little gold-tinted one might be cold in death, denied that small consolation because of ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... The wanton cruelties committed upon these people by the commanders and crews of many of the vessels that have been of late years in the habit of resorting to their shores, are testified to, by too many evidences, to allow us to doubt the enormous extent to which they have been carried; and they are, at the ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... delicious passion from her eyes; Felt the new thrill of young Desire, and press'd The graceful Virgin to his glowing breast.— The conscious Fair betrays her soft alarms, Sinks with warm blush into his closing arms, Yields to his fond caress with wanton play, And sweet, reluctant, ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... by their nearest neighbours, with whom they had long maintained a continued intercourse of kindness and good offices. Nay, even death was the slightest punishment inflicted by these monsters in human form; all the tortures which wanton cruelty could invent, all the lingering pains of body, the anguish of mind, the agonies of despair, could not satiate revenge excited without injury, and cruelly derived from no just cause whatever. Depraved nature, ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... guard you against insults. He told me, that to move you to compliance, he forged that letter, pretending I was ruined; ruined by Him too. The fraud succeeded; and what a trusting wife bestowed in pity, was lavished on a wanton. ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... young ladies," said the head-mistress in that slightly vibrating and authoritative voice of hers. "I have a word or two to say to you all. Miss Good has just brought me a painful story of wanton and cruel mischief. There are fifty girls in this school, who, until lately, lived happily together. There is now one girl among the fifty whose object it is to sow seeds of discord and misery among her companions. Miss Good has told me of three different occasions on which mischief ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... so much, that though they took the greatest pains with the circlet of a crown, or the rim of a crystal cup, in the heart of their picture, they would twist their capitals of columns and towers of churches about in the background in the most wanton way, wherever they liked the lines to go, provided only they left just perspective enough to please ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... solitary life thou true repose, Wherein the wise contemplate heaven aright, In thee no dread of war or worldly foes, In thee no pomp seduceth mortal sight. In thee no wanton cares to win with words, Nor lurking toys which silly ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... questioned. The mother, it is said, died insane, and the time has come when the daughter also is watched with all care lest she harm herself—or her attendants. So I hear—the maid I do not know, but the scarf I can trace. Briefly—the evident place for such a wanton spitfire is the convent. You can easily see the turmoil a woman like that can make as each ship brings adventurers—and she seeks a ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... and thought of the people who conceived it; and this religion of Here, the special religion of Argos, is congruous with what has been here said as to the place of art in the civilisation of the Argives; it is a reflexion of that splendid and wanton old feudal life. For Here is, in her original essence and meaning, equivalent to Demeter—the one living spirit of the earth, divined behind the veil of all its manifold visible energies. But in the development of a common mythological motive the various peoples are subject ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... comrades, scour the plain; and, ere ye strip the slain, First give another stab to make your search secure; Then shake from sleeves and pockets their broadpieces and lockets, The tokens of the wanton, the plunder of ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... morning, and behind them the brown-faced yeoman in his coat and hood of green with a mighty bow in his hand. A group of ecclesiastics light up for us the mediaeval church—the brawny hunt-loving monk, whose bridle jingles as loud and clear as the chapel-bell—the wanton friar, first among the beggars and harpers of the country-side—the poor parson, threadbare, learned, and devout, ("Christ's lore and his apostles twelve he taught, and first he followed it himself")—the summoner with his fiery face—the pardoner with his wallet "bretfull of pardons, come from ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... appeared, attacking me as an impostor, and aspersing the motives of Eveleth in her former marriage, and treating her as a foolish crank or an audacious flirt. The goodness of her life, her self-sacrifice and works of benevolence, counted for no more against these wanton attacks than the absolute inoffensiveness of my own; the writers knew no harm of her, and they knew nothing at all of me; but they devoted us to the execration of their readers simply because we formed apt and ready themes for paragraphs. You may judge of how wild they were in their aim when some ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... commendations, for when they find they are handsom, they are unwholsome; one without ears, not giving time to flatterers, for she that hears her self commended, wavers, and points men out a way to make 'em wicked; one without substance of her self; that woman without the pleasure of her life, that's wanton; though she be young, forgetting it, though fair, making her glass the eyes of honest men, not her own admiration, all her ends obedience, all her hours new blessings, if there ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont
... in Florida and along the Gulf coast to Indian Territory. As late as 1885, the Carolina Paroquets were abundant in the South Atlantic and Gulf States, but owing to their wanton destruction by man, they have been exterminated in the greater portion of their range, and now are rarely seen in any locality, and then only in the most unhabitable swamps and thickets. A reliable account ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... the leaves "Of snow-white lilies; fresher than the meads; "More lofty far than towering alder trees; "Than chrystal clearer; than the wanton kid "More gay; than shells, by ocean's constant waves "Smooth polish'd, smoother; dearer than the shade "In summer's heat; than winter's sun more dear; "More than the apple bright; and fairer far "Than lofty planetrees; clearer than the frost; "More beauteous than the ripen'd ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... to renew the struggle in 1813. He entered upon a campaign which was signalized by acts of barbarity on both sides. His declaration of "war to the death" was answered in kind. Wholesale slaughter of prisoners, indiscriminate pillage, and wanton destruction of property spread terror and desolation throughout the country. Acclaimed "Liberator of Venezuela" and made dictator by the people of Caracas, Bolivar strove in vain to overcome the half-savage ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... judiciously adds, "where so little interest has been felt in the preservation of these relics, it is only surprising that so many of them yet remain in different parts of the kingdom." Among all acts of wanton license, the destruction of a cross is to us the most unaccountable. We can readily refer the defacement of imperial insignia and the spoliation of royal houses to political turbulence engendered by acts of tyrannical misrule; but the mutilation of the cross—the universal ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 563, August 25, 1832 • Various
... do but continue the investigation and send the details to the 'Society for Psychical Research,' when he got down from his horse and walked towards the door of the house. At his approach, as if to rebuke his wanton curiosity, a great blast of snow blew out of the window and got him full in the face. He ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... declared. "It is malicious and wanton brutality, and I fancy I can lay my hands on the fellow who was ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... Constantinople. The annals of those days, which seem to be credible, state that he floated down the Dnieper with ten thousand barges, and spread his sails upon the waves of the Euxine. Entering the Bosporus, he landed on both shores of that beautiful strait, and, with the most wanton barbarity, ravaged the country far and near, massacring the inhabitants, pillaging the towns and committing all ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... for the wanton love of blood, but to gratify revenge for some injury done to himself, or to his tribe; but it was difficult to still the terrible apprehensions that haunted the minds of Louis and Hector. They spent much time in searching the northern shores and the distant islands, in the vain hope ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... men will agree that wanton cruelty, treason to family or the state, falsehood for private gain, breach of faith, are admirable?" strikes the Martian as absurd when viewed in the light of the historical annals of the Church itself. Mr. Belloc's creed must have considered these very vices as virtues, ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... By far the richest part of his property was the 'haven royal' of Youghal, with the thickly-wooded lands on either side of the river Blackwater. He is scarcely to be forgiven for what appears to have been the wanton destruction of the Geraldine Friary of Youghal, built in 1268, which his men pulled down and burned while he was mayor of the town in 1587. Raleigh's Irish residences at this time were his manor-house in Youghal, which still remains, and Lismore Castle, which he rented, from 1587 onwards, of the ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... good as her word; yet engages him to take no notice of it to her Mother, and then as soon as he was a Bed, she'd come to him: Accordingly, after he was a Bed, she comes to Bed to him, as she before had promis'd: And after they had both gratify'd their wanton desires, the Whore professing a great deal of Love to him, and pretending she shou'd never be happy till they were married, Miss Betty all of a sudden pretends to want the Chamber-pot, which she desir'd him to help her to, who feeling ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... they had been in danger of their lives. The argument is gratis dictum: and as Richard loved Hastings and had used his ministry, the probability lies on the other side: and it is more reasonable to believe that Richard acted in self-defence, than that he exercised a wanton, unnecessary, and disgusting cruelty. The collateral circumstances introduced by More do but weaken(17) his account, and take from its probability. I do not mean the silly recapitulation of silly omens which forewarned Hastings ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... motionless. It was a fine shot, for the tiny moving thing was fully thirty yards from them and looked hardly the size of a dollar. Talbot glanced at her with startled admiration. He himself never shot except for food or other necessity, and wanton killing rather annoyed him than otherwise, but here the skill and the correctness of wrist and eye were so obvious that they compelled him to an ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... though it be that of the enemy, and the act, even if necessary, brings its penalty. It begets a spirit of violence, a disregard of human life, a destruction of institutional order. Such is the training of the Greeks before Troy. The wanton attack of Ulysses and his companions upon the city of the Ciconians (Book Ninth) is an indication of the spirit engendered in this long period of violence, among the best and ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... at New Amsterdam in the merry month of June, the sweetest month in all the year; when dan Apollo seems to dance up the transparent firmament—when the robin, the thrush, and a thousand other wanton songsters make the woods to resound with amorous ditties, and the luxurious little bob-lincon revels among the clover blossoms of the meadows—all which happy coincidences persuaded the old dames of New Amsterdam, who were ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... swear he never loved that knew to part. Why part we then? That spring, which but this day Met some sweet river, in his bed can play, And with a dimpled cheek smile at their bliss, Who never know what separation is. The amorous vine with wanton interlaces Clips still the rough elm in her kind embraces: Doves with their doves sit billing in the groves, And woo the lesser birds to sing their loves: Whilst hapless we in griefful absence sit, Yet dare not ask a hand to ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... advantage more than compensated by the loss of Sir Philip Sidney, who, being mortally wounded in the action, was carried off by the soldiers, and soon after died. This person is described by the writers of that age, as the most perfect model of an accomplished gentleman that could be formed even by the wanton imagination of poetry or fiction. Virtuous conduct, polite conversation, heroic valor, and elegant erudition, all concurred to render him the ornament and delight of the English court; and as the credit which he possessed with the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... trees have thus perished near London?—witness the large elms that once stood in Jews' Walk, at Sydenham. Barking the trunks for sheer wanton mischief is undoubtedly the cause in some cases, and it has been suggested that quicksilver has occasionally been inserted in gimlet holes. The mercury is supposed to work up the channels of the sap, ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... cord of trunk, with his other hand pointing up the hill. From the base of the castle a broad blaze rushed, showing window and battlement, arch and tower, as in a flicker of the Northern lights. Then up went all the length of fabric, as a wanton child tosses his Noah's ark. Keep and buttress, tower and arch, mullioned window and battlement, in a fiery furnace leaped on high, like the outburst of a volcano. Then, with a roar that rocked the earth, they broke into a storm ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... disinherit him? 'No, he did not.' Who stopped him? 'Well, he was thinking of it.' To whom did he say so? 'To no one.' Surely," cries Cicero, "this is to abuse the laws and justice and your dignity in the basest and most wanton way, to make charges which he not only cannot but does not even ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... the 1st ed. In the account given of St Helena in the narrative of my former voyage, I find two mistakes. Its inhabitants are far from exercising a wanton cruelty over their slaves, and they have had wheel-carriages and porters' ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... Pierre Garcon says that Bois DesCaut is at Seven Isles on the Qui Appelle with Henderson. Since telling that wanton lie to the Nor'wester he has not had enough to show his face here. A bad lot Bois, and one to be watched ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... Then we were escorted by an army ten thousand strong, then musicians had sung before us and our path was strewn with flowers. And now! Now we came two fugitives from the vengeance of the Teules, I borne in a litter by four tired soldiers, while Otomie, the princess of this people, still clad in her wanton's robe, at which the women mocked, for she had been able to come by no other, tramped at my side, since there were none to carry her, and the inhabitants of the place cursed us as the authors of their woes. Nor did we know if they ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... The speaker's former careless and boisterous manner instantly resumed possession. "You must permit me to speak of a wholly fictitious lady, a creature of my wanton fancy, sir, whom I call Carmen. It will enable me to relieve my burdened soul of some remarks I have long wished to address to your ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... as the weaker Power in North America, Great Britain considers itself entitled to claim the use of the lakes as a military barrier."[394] The declaration of war by the United States was regarded by most Englishmen as a wanton endeavor to overthrow their immemorial right to the services of their seamen, wherever found; and consequently the invasion of Canada had been an iniquitous attempt to effect annexation under cover of an indefensible pretext. To guard against ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... squatter drinks and gambles; his son will drink less, gamble more—though it was not a young man who recently lost L40,000 in a night's sitting at a club in Melbourne—and lead a wanton life; but he will probably have the sense to educate his children thoroughly, instead of taking them away from school at seventeen, as was done with himself; and the grandson will obtain some cultivated tastes which will make a fight for it with those he has inherited. In the ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... 1783 Great Britain agreed to give us the whole West below a certain line, but when the time came for the surrender, she refused to yield the forts south of this line. With the bad faith of wanton power she kept her posts at Oswego, Niagara, Detroit, and Mackinaw, because we were weak and she was strong; and from these points her agents abetted the savages in their war upon the American frontiers. Just before the battle of Fallen Timbers, where Wayne won his victory, ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... words renounce their allegiance to their Creator. Put an instance, then, with respect to any one of these three. Though we should suppose profane swearing, and in general that kind of impiety now mentioned, to mean nothing, yet it implies wanton disregard and irreverence towards an infinite Being our Creator; and is this as suitable to the nature of man as reverence and dutiful submission of heart towards that Almighty Being? Or suppose a man guilty of ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... revel, a portrait of the unhappy man himself who had thus unconsciously left behind him not only a memorial, but a warning. How often had the now silent halls echoed to the brawl of the drunkard, the song of the wanton, the jest of the profane, the laugh of the scorner! It was here, perhaps in this very room, that the dread hand of death had struck him; here he had been suddenly called to account for property misused, a life misspent. ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... times are evil; we servants of the Lord are threatened by that adulterous king and his proud ministers, who swear they will strip us to the shirt and turn us out to starve. I'm but just from London, and, although our enemy Anne Boleyn has lost her wanton head, I tell you the danger is great. Money must be had to stir up rebellion, for who can arm without it, and but little comes from Spain. I am in treaty to sell the Foterell lands for what they will fetch, but as yet can give no title. ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... his alternation of wanton and pious ideas. Without power to resist, he saw himself slipping. "All this is far from clear," he cried, one day, in a rage, when, less apathetic than usual, he forced himself to take stock. "Now, Monsieur l'Abbe, what ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... large Front and Eye sublime declar'd 300 Absolute rule; and Hyacinthin Locks Round from his parted forelock manly hung Clustring, but not beneath his shoulders broad: Shee as a vail down to the slender waste Her unadorned golden tresses wore Dissheveld, but in wanton ringlets wav'd As the Vine curles her tendrils, which impli'd Subjection, but requir'd with gentle sway, And by her yeilded, by him best receivd, Yeilded with coy submission, modest pride, 310 And sweet reluctant amorous ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... it appears to them now for that matter, not warranted either by law or justice. The punishment which that order inflicted on a whole battalion of American soldiers, without trial of any kind seemed unmerited and cruel in the highest degree, and a wanton ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... and threw him to the waves; but the very fragments were melodious and reached the Muses, who buried them where the nightingale still sings "Eurydice." So runs the allegory; even drowned by earthly clamors, slain and torn by wanton hands, the song of Poetry ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry
... describe them as fools, for what will it matter to posterity what their initials or names are; they only rouse the ire of those who follow them and a feeling of disappointment that they had not caught the offenders in their act of wanton mischief and been able to administer some corporal ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... their prisoners, seldom getting the worst of the bargain, no armies—to their lasting honour be it spoken, for no armies were so destitute—were ever less formidable to peaceful citizens, within the border or beyond it, than those of the Confederacy. It was exceedingly seldom that wanton damage was laid to the soldier's charge. The rights of non-combatants were religiously respected, and the farmers of Pennsylvania were treated with the same courtesy and consideration as the planters ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... But my grandmother began a loud lecture upon the idleness of the wives of this age, who, for fear of their shape, forbear suckling their own offspring; and ten nurses were immediately sent for; one was whispered to have a wanton eye, and would soon spoil her milk; another was in a consumption; the third had an ill voice, and would frighten me instead of lulling me to sleep. Such exceptions were made against all but one country milch-wench, to whom I was committed, and put to the breast. This ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... reputation discussing the measures they were going to take, and it was evident that it had become a mania closely resembling insanity. Buchanan's criticism had a rancor and breath of personality in it which had no excuse; it was a savage, wanton attack on the poet which he felt not only as poet and artist but as personal; for, to Rossetti, the two were the silver and golden sides of the shield. Though the morbid state was there, I think that the article of Buchanan had more to do with the intensification ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... By permitting the tree to stand and merely building a staging up to the burl, the latter could have been removed without vital injury to the tree—whereas by destroying the tree the wretches had evidenced all too clearly to Bryce a wanton desire to add insult ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... are not joyously light nor particularly airy, but their occupants could have suffered no extreme physical discomfort; and the thick wooden casing of the interior walls evidences at least the intention of the state to inflict no wanton hardships of ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... green slope before us, glowing warm, Came Alfred, tugging at his mother's arm; Willing she seem'd, but he still led the way, She had not walk'd so fast for many a day; His hand was lifted, and his brow was bare, For now no clust'ring ringlets wanton'd there, He threw them back in anger and in spleen, And shouted "Jennet" o'er the daisied green. Boyish impatience strove with manly grace In ev'ry line and feature of his face; His claim appear'd resistless as his choice, And when he caught the sound of ...
— May Day With The Muses • Robert Bloomfield
... existence concealed conflicts of heart and mind which Sidney himself could not have explained, could not lucidly have described. The moral shock which he experienced at his father's death put an end to the wanton play of his energies, but it could not ripen him before due time; his nature was not of the sterile order common in his world, and through passion, through conflict, through endurance, it had to develop such maturity as fate should permit. Saved from self-indulgence, ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... Jones' representation of our 'standard English', and his book is the most trustworthy evidence at my disposal: but before exhibiting it I would premise that our present fashionable dialect is not to be considered as the wanton local creator of all the faults that Mr. Jones can parade before the eye. Its qualities have come together in various ways, nor are the leading characteristics of recent origin. I am convinced that our so-called standard English sprang actively ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... of that hellishly wanton globe remain a bore. Instead, it spread. That devil's brew ate into and dissolved everything it touched like a stream of boiling water being poured into a loosely-heaped pile of granulated sugar. By the time the ravening sphere had reached ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... down to continue her narrative. I am convinced that nothing would more powerfully preserve youth from irregularity, or guard inexperience from seduction, than a just description of the condition into which the wanton plunges herself; and therefore hope that my letter may be a ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... for miles around having long since been delivered up to brutal destruction, wanton waste, hideous massacre, and a goodly number of the churches of which the pious man was taking so much pains to record the history, were now but anonymous ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... felt by the moral man in the presence of the "brazen" woman lies in the threat to his purposes of respectability and faithfulness; he is angered that this creature can arouse a conflict in him. The bitterness of the "saint" against the wanton originates in the ease with which she tempts him, and his natural conclusion is that the fault lies with her and not with his own passions. The respectable woman inveigles against her more untrammeled sister, not so much through her concern for morality, as through the anger felt ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... abomination of desolation in the holy places of our hearts. We pollute them all—conscience, imagination, memory, will, intellect. How many a man listening to me now has his nature like the facade of some of our cathedrals, with the empty niches and broken statues proclaiming that wanton desecration and destruction have been ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... once with some passage of Holy Writ as 'Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?' And what can I say to that but Amen? Jack is always loving and tender, but he can (I well perceive) see little comfort herein himself; and to do so much as name the thing to Thekla were wanton cruelty, though I do fancy she should be the best comforter. So I must wait on, and cry unto God. It may be that is the very thing He would ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... now. A week ago I did think you half-mad—a poor, ill-used creature, a visionary, a moral woman living immorally; yet, in spite of all, a woman to be loved and pitied. But now I'm beginning to think you're only frail—wanton. Oh, you're not so mad as not to know you're wicked! [Tapping the book forcibly.] And so ...
— The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith • Arthur Wing Pinero
... philosophy"; but it is more obvious still that, whether they like it or not, the drapings grow a trifle dingier every year, and that no one seems to have the courage to tack up something gay. What is much worse, even those bits of wanton color which have rested generations of weary eyes are being rapidly obscured by somber and intricate scroll-work, warranted to oppress and fatigue. The great masterpieces of humor, which have kept men young by laughter, are being tried in the courts of an orthodox ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... vile indeed) I mourn for thy misfortunes, seeing thee An aged outcast, wandering on and on, A beggar with one handmaid for thy stay. Ah! who had e'er imagined she could fall To such a depth of misery as this, To tend in penury thy stricken frame, A virgin ripe for wedlock, but unwed, A prey for any wanton ravisher? Seems it not cruel this reproach I cast On thee and on myself and all the race? Aye, but an open shame cannot be hid. Hide it, O hide it, Oedipus, thou canst. O, by our fathers' gods, consent I pray; Come back to Thebes, come to thy father's home, Bid Athens, as is ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... meteors play, And struggling clouds repel the rising ray. Yet nought disturb'd my unprophetic soul; Resign'd to joy, impatient of control, I seem'd new-born: Creative Hope again Restored the sense of pleasure, and of pain; Tumultuous transport, now no more suppressed, Shone from my eyes, and wanton'd in ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... Zenobia has escaped without harm—its lofty walls and insulated position were its protection. The Long Portico, with its columns, monuments, and inscriptions, remains also untouched by the flames and unprofaned by any violence from the wanton soldiery. The fire has fed upon the poorer quarters of the city, where the buildings were composed in greater proportion of wood, and spared most of the great thorough-fares, principal avenues, and squares of the capital, which, being constructed in the most solid manner ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... sometimes carries his big mittens), "it is my opinion that the flood will recede more rapidly than you think, and that the majority of these people will survive. But I quite agree with your merciful view of the matter. We must be guilty of no wanton destruction. Probably more than nine-tenths of the inhabitants of Mars have perished in the deluge. Even if all the others survived ages would elapse before they could regain ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... the Sun shower on his glancing mail. The estray Winds are wanton with his locks. His mutinous waves whisper each to ...
— The Masque of the Elements • Herman Scheffauer
... [Footnote: Vide Bettio, Lettera, p. 23.] I wish the reader especially to notice that a separate tower or range of apartments was built for this purpose, in order to clear the government of the accusations so constantly made against them, by ignorant or partial historians, of wanton cruelty to prisoners. The stories commonly told respecting the "piombi" of the Ducal Palace are utterly false. Instead of being, as usually reported, small furnaces under the leads of the palace, they were comfortable ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... treading barefoot on the embers; the circle of grunting figures, leaning forward, hatchet and musket in hand, moving slowly around the fire with a shuffling, hopping step; the outer circle of sitting or lying figures, men, women, and children, drunken, wanton, quarrelsome, dreaming of the blood that should be let before the sun had gone; and at one side the little group of old men, beating their drums of wood and skin with a rhythm ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... never intended as a defensive fortress. It stands on the margin of a lovely lake, and considering its delightful situation and its comparative comfort, it is not strange that it was a favorite residence of the Scottish kings. It owes its dismantled condition to the wanton spite of the English dragoons, who, when they retreated from Linlithgow in face of the Highland army in 1746, left the palace ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... had felt at times last year, born of this man's hostility, was gone long since, effaced by a tide of stronger feelings. So his sudden exhumation of the topic as a cause of war now came upon her with the harshest discordance. It seemed almost like a wanton wounding of her, somehow like sheer disloyalty in him. Surely if there were need of articles, this man might leave them to somebody ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... in which the great moralist strips off our mask of hypocrisy and shows the hideous evil that results when a man and a woman degrade the holy sacrament of marriage. That is not love, but a perversion of love. How can God bless a union in which the wife is expected to conduct herself like a wanton or lose her husband? And she loses him anyway, for sensuality in a man inevitably leads him to promiscuousness. I know ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... Frolick, and form, and wanton playfulness, And some unspoken radiant vanity, And some enrapturing bewitching charm, And perfect virgin beauty are your own! Fading like gods' pale images, you seem! Even the bird sometimes bows to your grace! And Nereids wind-footed fan your faces, O ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... time, call for victuals between meals, use him to nothing but dry bread. If he be hungry more than wanton, bread will go down; and if he be not hungry, it is not fit that he should eat. By this you will obtain two good effects. First, that by custom he will come to be in love with bread; for, as I said, our palates and stomachs, too, are pleased with the things we are used to. Another good you will ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... daughter, whome king Edward kept as concubines: for the mother being of noble parentage, sought to satisfie the kings lust, in hope that either he would take hir or hir daughter vnto wife. And therefore perceiuing that Dunstane was sore against such wanton pastime as the [Sidenote: Dunstane banished the realme.] king vsed in their companie, she so wrought, that Dunstane was through hir earnest trauell banished the land. This is also reported, that when he should depart the realme, the diuell was heard ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (6 of 8) - The Sixt Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... with stranger eyes, Could pick no meaning from their parling looks, Nor read the subtle-shining secrecies Writ in the glassy margents of such books: She touch'd no unknown baits, nor fear'd no hooks; Nor could she moralize his wanton sight, More than his eyes were open'd to ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... abandon herself without reserve, to all the promptings of her voluptuous nature. Her appearance, conversation and actions were not without their influence on me, you may be sure; and if ever I envied mortal man, it was that young officer, who could revel at will in the arms of the beautiful wanton ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... entertained concerning it. The pious historian was apprehensive of exposing that incomprehensible mystery to the cavils and objections of unbelievers: and he durst not, "seeing the nature of this book, venture it abroad in so wanton and lewd an age" (Preface to the Life ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... thousand pleasures bring, Which from decrepid age will fly; Sweets that wanton in the bosom of the spring, In ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... "The wanton taste no flesh nor fowl can choose, For which the grape or melon it would lose, Though all th' inhabitants of earth and air Be listed in the glutton's ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... flattering prospect was soon to be overcast. England and France had long been at war; and, at the period of which we are treating, France had become the ruthless bandit of the land, and England the wanton pirate of the sea. Each desired the cooperation of the United States in the war—and each determined, in the event of our refusal to take part in the controversy in its favor, to cripple our commerce ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... which he had been born and bred. So was it with the jury and bystanders; and—most wonderful of all—so was it even with the prisoner. Throughout he seemed fully impressed with the notion that he was being dealt with justly: he saw nothing wanton in his being told by the judge that he was to be punished, not so much as a necessary protection to society (although this was not entirely lost sight of), as because he had not been better born and bred than he was. But this led me to hope that he suffered less than he would ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... themselves a wide range; they were willing to eat almost anything that they could shoot, even blackbirds, which were so abundant and so easy to shoot. But there were some things which they would have thought it not only wanton but wicked to kill, like turtle-doves, which they somehow believed were sacred, nor robins either, because robins were hallowed by poetry, and they kept about the house, and were almost tame, so that it seemed a shame to shoot them. They were very plentiful, and so were the turtle-doves, ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... earthly career. The reader cannot require to be reminded that the personage, whose relegation to St. Helena has formed the topic of so many indignant appeals and contemptuous commentaries, was, after all, the same man, who, by an act of utterly wanton and unnecessary violence, seized Pius VII. and detained him a prisoner for nearly four years, and who, having entrapped Ferdinand VII. to Bayonne, and extorted his abdication by the threat of murder, concluded by locking him up ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... gone from the smoke-house, the flour from the bin, the delicacies from the pantry. These things, though forbidden, are half excused by sympathy with the soldier's craving for variety of food. Yet, as the habit of measuring right by might goes on, pillage becomes wanton and arson is committed to cover the pillage. The best efforts of a provost-marshal with his guard will be useless when superior officers, and especially colonels of regiments, encourage or wink at license. The ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... meant to draw; The George and Garter dangling from that bed, Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red, Great Villiers lies:—alas! how changed from him, That life of pleasure and that soul of whim! Gallant and gay, in Claverdon's proud alcove, The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love, Or, just as gay, at council in a ring Of mimic'd statesmen and their merry King. No wit to flatter left of all his store, No fool to laugh at, which he valued more, Then victor of his health, of fortune, friends, And fame, this ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... experience. Animism developed into mythology, mythology into gnomic philosophy, and this again became differentiated into science, art, philosophy, and theology. In the earlier stages, the instability of men's imaginings and conceptions was kaleidoscopic; but it was no more governed by wanton fickleness and caprice than is the course of modern thought. The human spirit was striving then, as now, to realise worlds vaguely experienced and dimly surmised. The more imperfect expression was continuously yielding place to the less imperfect—the ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... trembling stream, or where it boils Around the stone, or from the hollow'd bank Reverted plays in undulating flow, There throw, nice-judging, the delusive fly; And as you lead it round in artful curve, With eye attentive mark the springing games Straight as above the surface of the flood They wanton rise, or urged by hunger leap, Then fix, with gentle twitch, the barbed hook: Some lightly tossing to the grassy bank, And to the shelving shore slow-dragging some, With various hand proportion'd to their force. ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... matter—there was the man! What a force he might have been—was! What a Samson, when he pulled the whole Irish Party down—got them all on top of him to pull with him. What d'you think he was doing then? Trying to give his Irish nation a soul! It looked like pride, pique, mere wanton destruction; but it was a great idea. And if ever they rise to it—if ever the whole Irish nation puts its back to the wall as Parnell wanted it to do then—shakes off dependence, alliance, conciliation, compromise, it may beat us yet! They were afraid of defeat. That's why we won. A cause or ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... groundless has been proved in many regions of the earth, where wanton destruction of game in former days has resulted in great scarcity or extinction at ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... his royal captive in triumph to Samarkand. An attempt to facilitate his escape, by digging a mine under the tent, provoked the Mongol Emperor to impose a harsher restraint; and in his perpetual marches, an iron cage on a wagon might be invented, not as a wanton insult, but as a rigorous precaution. But the strength of Bajazet's mind and body fainted under the trial, and his premature death might, without injustice, be ascribed to the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... known nothing of Droulde's plans for the escape of Marie Antoinette, they didn't know what the letter-case had contained, and yet they both vaguely felt that the beautiful girl, who stood up so calmly before the loathsome Terrorist, was not a wanton, as she tried to make out, but only misguided, ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... militia officers appointed by the States. The result of these combined causes was that the Governor of Connecticut refused to send militia, declaring that he must "yield obedience to the paramount authority of the Constitution and the laws." The Massachusetts House voted that the "war is a wanton sacrifice of our best interests;" and the Governor of Massachusetts informed the President that since there was no invasion, there was no constitutional reason for sending the militia. New Hampshire took similar ground, ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... my passionate, deathless soul, Was less than his finger-tips; He turned away fro the gold of my love For the dross on a wanton's lips. My faith in his truth is broken— Even truth itself is a lie. I have cursed him!—but I love him, And I'll love ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... lies in one little word! Four lagging winters and four wanton springs End in a word: such is ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... 'Tom Dixon's got charge of my interests, you know, and he sees to it that she has everything she wants.' Malemute Kid laid hand upon his arm and hushed him suddenly. They had stepped without. Overhead, the aurora, a gorgeous wanton, flaunted miracles of color; beneath lay the sleeping town. Far below, ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... Thing, but the Mind that distinguishes us from Jews; they held their Hands from certain Meats, as from unclean Things, that would pollute the Mind; but we, understanding that to the Pure, all Things are pure, yet take away Food from the wanton Flesh, as we do Hay from a pamper'd Horse, that it may be more ready to hearken to the Spirit. We sometimes chastise the immoderate Use of pleasant Things, by the Pain ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... poet's height? What puts a full house in a merry mood? More closely view your patrons of the night! The half are cold, the half are rude. One, the play over, craves a game of cards; Another a wild night in wanton joy would spend. Poor fools the muses' fair regards. Why court for such a paltry end? I tell you, give them more, still more, 'tis all I ask, Thus you will ne'er stray widely from the goal; Your audience seek to mystify, cajole;— ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... was in little better case. Only was the scene here in closer touch with human understanding. Here the terror was of earth, here disaster was of human making. Here the rack of heart was in destruction by wanton fire. Shrieking, hissing, crackling, only insignificant by comparison with the war of the greater elements, flames licked up and devoured with ravening appetites the tinder-like ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... not spared. More than one speaker waxed eloquent over what he declared was wanton waste of the greatest amount of money ever intrusted to an exposition management, which wanton waste had made the Exposition Company bankrupt and again at the doors of the Treasury begging for funds. Those working against the bill triumphantly ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... attacked and captured the Gaspee, and burned the vessel. Abraham Whipple, afterward a commodore in the Continental Navy, and one of the founders of the State of Ohio, led the expedition. The royal authorities were greatly exasperated on hearing of the daring achievement, and Joseph Wanton, Governor of Rhode Island, afterward deposed from office for his loyalty to King George, issued a proclamation ordering diligent search for the perpetrators of the act. The British government offered a reward of $5000 for the leader, but although the people of Providence well knew ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... thy door Entreats with dolorous cry and clamoring, That mendicant who quits thee nevermore; Now winter chills the world, and no birds sing In any woods, yet as in wanton Spring He follows thee; and never will have done, Though nakedly he die, ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... even worse as they left the ruined town behind them and resumed their journey towards Moscow. It seemed that the hatred with which they were regarded by the Russian peasantry was now even more than reciprocated. The destruction they committed was wanton and wholesale; the villages, and even the towns, were burnt down, and the whole country made desolate. It was nothing to them that by so doing they added enormously to the difficulties of their own commissariat; ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... by this will I govern Prussia. I will have no blinded subjects, no superstitious, conscience-stricken, trembling, priest-ridden slaves. My people shall learn to think; thought shall be free as the wanton air in Prussia; no censor or police shall limit her boundary. The thoughts of men should be like the life- giving and beautifying sun, all-nourishing and all-enlightening; calling into existence and fructifying, not only the rich, and rare, and ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... case; should they cause any unknown species to be brought into public view, and thus add a little more to the page of natural history, it will please me much. But should they unfortunately tend to cause a wanton expense of life; should they tempt you to shoot the pretty songster warbling near your door, or destroy the mother as she is sitting on the nest to warm her little ones, or kill the father as he is bringing a mouthful of food for their support—Oh, ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... a thing to say, but let it goe: The Sunne is in the heauen, and the proud day, Attended with the pleasure of the world, Is all too wanton, and too full of gawdes To giue me audience: If the midnight bell Did with his yron tongue, and brazen mouth Sound on into the drowzie race of night, If this same were a Churchyard where we stand, And thou possessed with a thousand ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... enemies turned his comedy into a libel. He has defended himself in his preface from this imputation. It was particularly laid to his charge, that in the characters of Bartoline, an old corrupt lawyer, and his wife Lucinda, a wanton country girl, he intended to ridicule a certain Serjeant M—— and his young wife. It was even said that the comedian mimicked the odd speech of the aforesaid Serjeant, who, having lost all his teeth, uttered his words ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... enough, the Girl not quite so comely. They were both very young, and happened one day to be playing near the looking-glass, which stood on their mother's toilet. The Boy, pleased with the novelty of the thing, viewed himself for some time, and in a wanton, roguish manner observed to the Girl how handsome he was. She resented the insult, and ran immediately to her father, and, with a great deal of aggravation, complained of her brother, particularly for having acted so effeminate a part as to look in a glass, and meddle with things which ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... ruthless, wanton band, Deep in our hearts we guard from scathe Of last year's log a smouldering brand, To light at Yule ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... husbands' mistresses, were reverenced by the people; we find striking contrasts to them in the two queens-regent, Louise of Savoy and Catherine de' Medici, who, in the period of their power, were as unscrupulous and brutal, intriguing and licentious, jealous and revengeful, as the most wanton mistresses who ever controlled a king. In this century, we find two other remarkable types: Marguerite d'Angouleme, the bright star of her time; and her whose name comes instantly to mind when we speak of the Lady of Angouleme—Marguerite ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... Romaine state, And Quirinus, whose strong puissant arme, Did shild the tops and turrets of proud Rome, Do now conspire to wracke the gallant Ship, Euen in the harbor of her wished greatnesse. And her gay streamers, and faire wauering sayles, With which the wanton wind was wont to play, To drowne with Billows of ...
— The Tragedy Of Caesar's Revenge • Anonymous
... suspicious element. Praise has been lavished upon the most questionable characteristics of the old drama. Apologists have been found, not merely for its daring portrayal of human passion, but for its wanton delight in the grotesque and the horrible for its own sake; and some critics have revenged themselves for the straitlaced censures of Puritan morality by praising work in which the author strives to atone for imaginative weakness by a choice of revolting motives. Such adulation ought to ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... the profound irony of the position, a blackness of misery fell upon Katherine. And then, since she was of a strong, undaunted spirit, an immense anger possessed her, a revolt against nature which could work such wanton injury, and against God, who, being all-powerful, could sit by and permit it so to work. All the foundations of faith and reverence were, for the time being, shaken ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... man should be allowed with impunity to make a wanton attack upon such venerable characters as the judges of the land. We award costs and damages to the aggrieved party in the most trifling actions. By what analogy, then, can we refuse the same justice in the most important cases, to the most important personages? If we allow every ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... a wall, not downwards. This habit makes his course appear so uncertain; he may go there, or yonder, or in a third direction, more undecided than a startled snipe. Is there a little vanity in that wanton flight? Is there a little consciousness of the spring-freshened colours of his plumage, and pride in the dainty touch of his wings on the sweet wind? His love is watching his wayward course. He prolongs it. He has but a few yards ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... on the principles of the Church of England, exclusively, and allotting a seventh of the whole territory, for that purpose, to the Episcopalian clergy, with free access, in the meantime, to the colonial treasury-chest. It will scarcely be believed that so wanton an insult as this precious document implied, could have been offered to the common sense of a whole community, even by the late tory administration; or that men could have been found in the nineteenth century to perpetrate ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... so,' had pertinence to Southampton at any period between his father's death in his boyhood and the close of his bachelorhood in 1598. To no other peer of the day are the words exactly applicable. The 'lascivious comment' on his 'wanton sport' which pursues the young friend through the sonnets, and is so adroitly contrived as to add point to the picture of his fascinating youth and beauty, obviously associates itself with the reputation ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... of a sheep.—Levit. xix: 20 to 22, inclusive. Again, there was a law which guarded his people, whether free or bond, from personal violence. If in vindictiveness, a man with an unlawful weapon, maimed his own slave by knocking out his eye, or his tooth, the slave was to be free for this wanton act of personal violence, as a penalty upon the master.—Exod. xxi: 26 to 27, inclusive. But for the same offense, committed against a free person, the offender had to pay an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, as the penalty.—Levit. ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... Hart minor, who blushed scarlet, and whose eyes filled with tears. . . . "The less said about the matter the better," continued the headmaster, "but I confess that it is difficult for me to understand how any one, however young, can be so hardened and so wanton as to behave in the callous and indecent way in which certain of you—I need not mention who—have behaved to-day. You have disgraced the school in the eyes of strangers; you have violated the laws of hospitality and courtesy; you have ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... thirst, I would desert you—think not but I would!— And seek another as I sought you first. But you are mobile as the veering air, And all your charms more changeful than the tide, Wherefore to be inconstant is no care: I have but to continue at your side. So wanton, light and false, my love, are you, I am most faithless ...
— A Few Figs from Thistles • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... E'en so the MASTIFF, or the meaner Cur, At times will from the path of duty err, (A pattern of fidelity by day; By night a murderer, lurking for his prey); And round the pastures or the fold will creep, And, coward-like, attack the peaceful sheep: Alone the wanton mischief he pursues, Alone in reeking blood his jaws imbrues; Chasing amain his fright'ned victims round, Till death in wild confusion strews the ground; Then wearied out, to kennel sneaks away, And licks his guilty paws till ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... with much regret that I heard it proposed to burn Mackey's Mills, and to ravage the country round, in consequence of the attack which had been made on our boats. I opposed the suggestion with all my might. I said that I thought it a wanton destruction of property, that would in no way advance our cause, and would certainly exasperate the sufferers against us. Not only were my counsels disregarded, but several remarks were made hinting pretty broadly ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... Ben!" nodded Brandes in his low, deliberate voice. His heavy, round face was deeply flushed; Fortune, the noisy wanton, had flung both arms around his neck. But his slow eyes were continually turned on the slim young girl whom he was teaching to walk beside him ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... as long as he could and then retreated to the main body, after killing three- thousand of the enemy, just double the number of his original command. On his retreat, the Chileans swarmed into Chorrillos, more intent on plunder and wanton murder than honorable warfare, while the Chilean fleet continued to pour a storm of shot and shell after the retreating fragments of the little command. That night the Chileans broke into the liquor store-houses and soon drunkenness increased their ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... bring with thee Jest and youthful Jollity, Quips, and Cranks, and wanton wiles, Nods and Becks, and wreathed Smiles Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek; Sport that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter holding ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... not fortitude, not patience Were mine, the which the village thought I had In bearing with my wife, while preaching on, Doing the work God chose for me. I loathed her as a termagant, as a wanton. I knew of her adulteries, every one. But even so, if I divorced the woman I must forsake the ministry. Therefore to do God's work and have it crop, I bore with her So lied I to myself So lied I to Spoon River! Yet I tried lecturing, ran for the ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... 8th of July" [Chippewa was fought on the 4th] "to the 23rd of the month, General Brown, with his enormous force, was content to remain without striking a blow, unless an occasional demonstration before Forts George and Mississaga, or the wanton conflagration of the village of St David's, be considered ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... Montigny, a tempest is as harmless as a breath, when that tempest is being hurled against the rock; a breath is even as effectual as is a tempest, when that breath is puffed against the dust. So buzzing blandishments of sighing fops, may blow the frail flowerets from weak, wanton natures; whilst vehement vows of otherwise most honorable men, though urged as strongly as the northern blast, are in vain against the marble front of virtue. I am ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... when the earth began afresh its life in May, And fruit-trees bloomed, and waves would wanton, and the bay Ruffle its wealth of weed, and stranger-birds arrive, And beasts take ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... Genil; those who range the verdant Tartesian meadows; those who indulge their luxurious temper in the delicious pastures of Xerez; the wealthy inhabitants of La Mancha, crowned with golden ears of corn; the ancient offspring of the Goths, cased in iron; those who wanton in the lazy current of Pisuerga; those who feed their numerous flocks in the ample plains where the Guadiana, so celebrated for its hidden course, pursues its wandering race; those who shiver with ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... gone that looked at first so gaudy; 'Tis now no jest to hear young girls talk bawdry. But plots and parties give new matters birth, And state distractions serve you here for mirth. At England's cost poets now purchase fame; While factious heats destroy us, without shame, These wanton Neroes fiddle to the flame; The stage, like old rump-pulpits, is become The scene of news, a furious party's drum: Here poets beat their brains for volunteers, And take fast hold of asses by their ears; Their jingling rhimes for reason here you swallow, Like Orpheus' ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... swung his paddle steadily, throwing into the strokes a wanton exuberance that showed how high his spirits ran. After a time, when they were well out from the shore, he took ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... Flemming, "we will go up to the castle. I must get acquainted with this mirror of owls, this modern Till Eulenspiegel. See what a glorious morning we have! It is truly a wondrous winter! what summer sunshine; what soft Venetian fogs! How the wanton, treacherous air coquets with the old gray-beard trees! Such weather makes the grass and our beards grow apace! But we have an old saying in English, that winter never rots in the sky. So he will come down at last in his old-fashioned, ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... roof tops, reclining on purple and fine linen, looking down on the street below from the thick foliage of her citron boughs and her red Syrian roses, was an Egyptian wanton; and leaning beside her, tossing golden apples in her bosom, was a young centurion of the Roman guard, languid and laughing, with his fair chest bare to the heat, and his armour flung in a pile ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... favor which the gods doth please, If they do feed on smoke, as Lucian says. Therefore the cause that the bright sun doth rest At the low point of the declining west— When his oft-wearied horses breathless pant— Is to refresh himself with this sweet plant, Which wanton Thetis from the west doth bring, To joy her love after his toilsome ring: For 'tis a cordial for an inward smart, As is dictamnum to the wounded hart. It is the sponge that wipes out all our woe; 'Tis like the thorn that doth on Pelion grow, With which ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... to clear the wandering night, But shining suns of true divinity, That make the soul conceive her perfect light! No wanton beauties of humanity Her pretty brows, but beams that clear the sight Of him that seeks the true philosophy! No coral is her lip, no rose her fair, But even that crimson that adorns the sun. No nymph is she, but mistress of the air, By whom my glories are but new begun. But when ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... Absence of our Husbands a long while, mehappen many Years, and then if there be any Slip in us, (as long Vacations will make Lawyers hungry) the World is apt to censure and scandalize us; and brand us with wanton Living and Incontinency; when alas! if they wou'd but consider our Condition, and the mighty Longings we often naturally have for Flesh and Blood, they wou'd not blame ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris
... Taimur. Now, Maitland was a born pantomimist, continually inventing practical jokes; and perhaps to startle me with a false alarm in the very skin of the old Bruin which had so nearly done for him, he had thrown it round him on finishing its cleaning, and so, in mere wanton fun, had crept on deck at the hour of his watch. The head of the bear-skin, and the fog, must have prevented him from ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... musicians had sung before us and our path was strewn with flowers. And now! Now we came two fugitives from the vengeance of the Teules, I borne in a litter by four tired soldiers, while Otomie, the princess of this people, still clad in her wanton's robe, at which the women mocked, for she had been able to come by no other, tramped at my side, since there were none to carry her, and the inhabitants of the place cursed us as the authors of their woes. Nor did we know if they would stop ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... tainted with; and this pride is discovered by mincing words, a made carriage, and an affecting the toys and baubles that Satan, and every lightheaded fool bringeth into the world. As God speaketh of the daughters of Zion, 'they walk with stretched forth necks, and wanton eyes, mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet' (Isa 3:16). A very unhandsome carriage for a people that profess godliness, and that use to come before God to confess their sins, and to bemoan themselves for what they have ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Josephus, always under the spell of the Romans, or writing with a desire to appeal to them, can recognize only material, concrete causes. The deeper spiritual motives of the struggle escape him altogether, as they escaped the Roman procurators. He recounts the wanton insults of a Pontius Pilate, who brought into Jerusalem Roman ensigns with the image of Caesar, and spoiled the sacred treasures of the Korban for the purpose of building aqueducts; and he dwells on the attempt of Gaius to set up his statue in the Temple, ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... I hide in the Shalimar With a wanton princess slender and proud, And we swoon with kisses, swoon till we seem Two streaming peacocks gone in a cloud Of golden dust, with star after star ...
— New Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... wonder that the statesmen whom she outwitted held Elizabeth to be little more than a frivolous woman, or that Philip of Spain wondered how "a wanton" could hold in check the policy of the Escurial. But the Elizabeth whom they saw was far from being all of Elizabeth. Wilfulness and triviality played over the surface of a nature hard as steel, a temper purely intellectual, the ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... to within a few inches of my nose, "I said that I kenned her and her kind well, havin' watched the likes o' her ridden out o' Dawson City on a rail more times than once. I said that she was naethin' but a wanton"—only this was not the word Whinnie used—"a wanton o' Babylon and a temptress o' men and a corrupter o' homes out o' her time and place, bein' naught but a soft shinin' thing that was a mockery to the guid God who made her and a blight to the face o' the open prairie that she was foulin' ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... Joys inspire, Airs for drooping Hope to hear. And again, Now, let the sprightly Violin A louder Strain begin: And now, Let the deep mouth'd Organ blow, Swell it high and Sink it low. Hark! how the Treble and the Base In wanton Fuges each other chase, And swift Divisions run their Airy Race. Thro' all the travers'd Scale they fly, In winding Labyrinths of Harmony, By turns They rise and fall, by ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... of paramount importance," he said. "But I think you may as well know it for your present edification and future guidance. Madam, I am that wicked, wanton, wily fox, that whipper-snapper, ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... scrape acquaintance, and get some familiarity with her neighbours, which increaseth from day to day more and more; nay oftentimes it comes to that height, she's better to be found among her neighbours, then at home in her own family. Here she sees Mistris Wanton playing with her child that is a very pretty Babe. There she sees Mistres Breedwell making ready her Child-bed linnens and getting of her Clouts together. Yonder Mistris Maudlen complains that ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... draweth nearest to the nature of fire. As if we were not told the meaning of those fables far better by the poet himself. For he teacheth us in that of Venus, if we heed it, that light music and wanton songs and discourses which suggest to men obscene fancies debauch their manners, and incline them to an unmanly way of living in luxury and wantonness, of continually haunting the company ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... character, and the minute peculiarities of conduct, are soon obliterated; and it is surely better that caprice, obstinacy, frolick, and folly, however they might delight in the description, should be silently forgotten, than that, by wanton merriment and unseasonable detection, a pang should be given to a widow, a daughter, a brother, or a friend. As the process of these narratives is now bringing me among my contemporaries, I begin to feel myself "walking upon ashes under which the fire is not extinguished," and coming ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... couch in the library; he had thought of it too much since leaving Heliodora yesterday afternoon. It began to nettle him that his grief should be for her merely an amusement. Never having seen the Gothic maiden, whose beauty outshone hers as sunrise outdoes the lighting of a candle, this wanton Greek was capable of despising him in good earnest, and Basil had never been of those who sit easy under scorn. He felt something chafe and grow hot within him, and recalled the days when he, and not Heliodora, had indulged contempt—to ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... seek another as I sought you first. But you are mobile as the veering air, And all your charms more changeful than the tide, Wherefore to be inconstant is no care: I have but to continue at your side. So wanton, light and false, my love, are you, I am most faithless when I most ...
— A Few Figs from Thistles • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... color, and grace and shapeliness of the hills, the capes, the, promontories; and then, the splendor of the sunlight, the dim rich distances, the charm of the water-glimpses! And it was in this paradise that the yellow-liveried convicts were landed, and the Corps-bandits quartered, and the wanton slaughter of the kangaroo-chasing black innocents consummated on that autumn day in May, in the brutish old time. It was all out of keeping with the place, a sort of bringing of heaven and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... that sacred Hindoo tree, with its drooping foliage hanging in clusters round her, in every clasped and sensitive leaf of which a fairy is said to dwell, I fancied she was their queen, and must have dropped from one of the leaves, to gambol and wanton among the flowers below. Running to her, I caught her in my arms, and said, 'I watched your fall, and have you now, dear sprite, and will keep you here!'—pressing her to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... upon our planet, one is apt to think that the scheme of Providence must have been framed with a provision for the complete exclusion of such accidents. To allow of the sudden undoing of all this fair scene, which it has taken thousands of years to bring out in its full proportions, seems like a wanton destruction of valuable property, and we are not disposed to believe that such a thing could be permitted. But we must at the same time remember, that our sense of what is important and consequential has a regard to the earth alone, which ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 - Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852 • Various
... of sentiment might throw her into his power; or possibly he hoped to make my addresses the means of separating her from the real object of her attachment, without contemplating a farther result, and thus the same wanton selfishness which rendered him regardless of every tie of moral feeling towards Theresa, led him to prepare a life of misery and dishonour for his early ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore
... fear our enemies only by sea, and there had their own force of galleys to protect them; who were independent and held in the highest honour by you—to act as these have done, this is not revolt—revolt implies oppression; it is deliberate and wanton aggression; an attempt to ruin us by siding with our bitterest enemies; a worse offence than a war undertaken on their own account in the acquisition of power. The fate of those of their neighbours who had already rebelled and had been subdued was no lesson ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... easy, only too easy, on the surface to feel that if she wanted to be gay and wanton, living for the hour, it was no one's affair but her own. She fought the question out in her mind. She fixed her determination on the young and, in one sense, inexperienced newspaper man whose ambitions pleased her ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... plans for the escape of Marie Antoinette, they didn't know what the letter-case had contained, and yet they both vaguely felt that the beautiful girl, who stood up so calmly before the loathsome Terrorist, was not a wanton, as she tried to make out, but only misguided, mad perhaps—perhaps ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Provost-Marshal's Guard and fatigue-party of Colonel Porter brought up the rear—picking up stragglers; blowing up ammunition that had been left by the way; burning feed and forage; smashing barrels of liquids, of which the apparent wanton waste on the ground would at any other time have almost produced a revolt in the ranks; bending the barrels and throwing into the swamp, of muskets dropped by dead and exhausted soldiers; breaking up and burning ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... Bulgarian hordes. The grisette charms of little tobacconists, milliners, flower-girls, lemonade-sellers, bonbon-sellers, and filles de joie flaunted themselves in the gaslight where the lustrous sorceress eyes of Antonina might have glanced over the Afric Sea, while her wanton's heart, so strangely filled with leonine courage and shameless license, heroism and brutality, cruelty and self-devotion, swelled under the purples of her delicate vest, at the glory of the man she at once ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... the case into his own hands, the hands that were most competent to deal with it. It was only to be expected that with his experience he could see farther than the young man, his nephew. What Mr. Randall saw beyond the scandal of the Divorce Court was a vision of young Mrs. Ransome, wanton with liberty and plunging deeper, splashing as she had not yet splashed, bespattering them all to the farthest limits of her range. The question for Mr. Randall was how to stop her, how to get her out of it, how to bring her to her sober senses before she ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... greater plausibility. No doubt I had been the victim of malicious artifice. Inclination, however, conjured up opposite sentiments, and my fears began to subside. What motive, I asked, could induce a human being to inflict wanton injury? I could not account for his delay; but how numberless were the ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... nature of their marine occupations, their virtue and moderation, are the causes of that vigour and health which they possess. The poverty of their soil has placed them, I hope, beyond the danger of conquest, or the wanton desire of extirpation. Were they to be driven from this spot, the only acquisition of the conquerors would be a few acres of land, inclosed and cultivated; a few houses, and some movables. The genius, ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... strange ship-of-war, far out at sea, There came a sudden tiny puff of smoke— And then a dull strange throb, a whistling hiss, And scarce a score of yards away a shot Ploughed up the turf. None knew, none ever knew From whence it came, whether a perilous jest Of English seamen, or a wanton deed Of Spaniards, or mere accident; but all Her maids in flight were scattered. Bess awoke As from a dream, crying aloud—"'Tis he, 'Tis he that sends this message. He is not dead. I will not pass the porch. Come home with me. 'Twas he that sent that message." Nought availed, ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... not record all the stories of wanton destruction that reached us. I would rather not believe that the Federal Government could be so disgraced by its own soldiers. Dr. Day says they left nothing at all in his house, and carried everything off from Dr. Enders's. He does not believe we have a single article ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... was on his feet again, purple with rage. With uplifted scimitar he sprang toward our host. The old man stepped between. Ja-khaz, with wanton cruelty, brought his steel upon the ancient head, and stretched him upon the floor. For an instant the younger one stood horror-stricken, then snatching from the floor the patriarch's staff—a heavy stick with an iron end—he jumped forward, ...
— The Last American - A Fragment from The Journal of KHAN-LI, Prince of - Dimph-Yoo-Chur and Admiral in the Persian Navy • J. A. Mitchell
... and his myrmidons up to the Stone. Having witnessed, from a secure hiding-place, all that occurred, the two workmen, with great propriety, immediately hurried off to inform the lord of the manor of the wanton act of destruction which ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... precious and unreturning hours over long chronicles of depravity. The murders, the suicides, the executions, the divorces, the criminal trials, are each and all so like one another that it is only a wanton waste of time to read them. The morbid style in which social disorders of all kinds are written up in the sensational press, with staring headlines to attract attention, ought to warn off every healthy mind from their perusal. Every scandal in ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... know what you do? Do you know what you risk? [Is there nothing - nothing! - will make you spare me this idiotic, wanton prosecution?] ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... hear: The changeling King who oft has kneel'd before me, And own'd no other pow'r, now treats me With ill dissembl'd love mix'd with disdain. A newer beauty rules his faithless heart, Which only in variety is blest; Oft have I heard him, when wrapt up in sleep, And wanton fancy rais'd the mimic scene, Call with unusual fondness on Evanthe, While I have lain neglected by his side, Except sometimes in a mistaken rapture He'd clasp me to ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey
... ten paces. After church, he disappeared as quietly as he had entered, and fortunately escaped hearing the comments on his rash act. His appearance was generally considered as an impertinence, attributable only to some wanton fancy, or possibly a bet. One or two thought that the sexton was exceedingly remiss in not turning him out after discovering who he was; and a prominent pew-holder remarked, that if he couldn't take his wife and daughters to that ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... watering-place?" interrupted Masterton; "to the haunt of the idle, the frivolous and wanton—never!" ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... and the "new ground" hill farmer, together, have destroyed many thousands of our beautiful Kentucky forest acres. Much of this one time "nature lover's paradise" is now ugly, barren, and eroded, and too poor to give a living to either man or beast. Wanton destruction of God-given treasure and beauty is a sin and a shame. Thanks to the men of vision and foresight of the U.S.D.A., state agricultural colleges, and our own fraternity of nut tree lovers, this slaughter is coming to a halt at last. Our fellow citizens are being awakened to ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various
... unnoticed in the excitement caused by the novel objects which met their eyes at every step—flowers, such as Rob had never before seen, looking up as if asking to be plucked; butterflies which flapped about so lazily that they could, he felt, easily be caught, only without net or appliances it seemed wanton destruction to capture and mutilate such gorgeously painted objects. There were others too, resembling the hawk-moths in shape, with thick body and long pointed wing, which were constantly being taken for humming-birds, so rapid was their darting flight. As for these latter, they flashed ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... Cockneydom invasion threat? Then let the louns beware, Sir! Scotland, they'll find, is Scotland yet, And for hersel' can fare, Sir. The Thames shall run to join the Tweed, Criffel adorn Thames valley, 'Ere wanton wrath and vulgar greed On Scottish ground shall rally. Fal de ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various
... His father's faith indeed, subtle and even beautiful as it was, was built upon axioms which it seemed to him a kind of puerile perversity to deny. Religion came to him in definite and traditional channels, and to seek it in other directions appeared to him a species of wanton profanity. ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... interior appears to have been invested with a thin plastering, or perhaps, only a wash, which has been painted in various colours in mosaic devices. The altar still remains pretty perfect notwithstanding the ravages of time and wanton depredation. A Roman column still adorns the north side of it, but its corresponding one on the south side has long ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... midnight, when she apologized for keeping us up so late. She is cruelly persecuted by her wicked mother and ungodly neighbors; for she is a shining light, by which the dark deeds of the wicked are reproved; and hence their hatred. When Mar Shimon's attendants come, they treat her with wanton cruelty. Some friends in America had sent her several articles of clothing; but her neighbors came together and tore them in pieces before her eyes. She bore it meekly, and only prayed for them. She expected fresh insults because of our visit, but prayed that ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... lasted, and what exactly came of it, I did not hear. Jorian DeWitt said my father lost his temper, a point contested by Wedderburn and Jennings, for it was unknown of him. Anyhow, he thundered to some effect, inasmuch as he detached those that had gentlemanly feelings from the wanton roysterers, and next day the latter pleaded wine. But they told the story, not without embellishments. The world followed ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... While the heav'n-born Child All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; Nature in awe to Him Had doff'd her gaudy trim, With her great Master so to sympathize: It was no season then for her To wanton with the sun, ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... the performance of all kinds of experiments on living animals by uninstructed students. Against this notion we were first to protest, as being at once cruel and worse than useless; for an experiment performed by bungling fingers is no experiment at all, but wanton cruelty." ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... fault. And now he wants to educate you in the same school. Lucretia Kingsley is correct,—oil and water are more fit to be mated than you and Mr. Spence. You have broken her heart, too, by your wanton conduct, Virginia. Her sympathy for Mr. Spence ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... peculiarly her own. You received from the hands of Hymen only one woman, awkward and innocent; the celibate returns you a dozen of them. A joyful and rapturous husband sees his bed invaded by the giddy and wanton courtesans, of whom we spoke in the Meditation on The First Symptoms. These goddesses come in groups, they smile and sport under the graceful muslin curtains of the nuptial bed. The Phoenician girl flings to you her garlands, gently sways herself to and fro; the Chalcidian woman overcomes you ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... wife: he threw himself between the angry, touching his hat the while with all the ceremony of an usher: he protected the birds from everybody but himself, seeing, I suppose, a great difference between official execution and wanton sport. His mistress telling him one day to put some ferns into his master's particular corner, and adding, "Though, indeed, Robert, he doesn't deserve them, for he wouldn't help me to gather them," "EH, MEM," replies Robert, "BUT I WOULDNAE SAY THAT, FOR I THINK ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the loss of property involved, immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of non-combatants, men, women, and children engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modem history, been deemed innocent and ...
— Why We are at War • Woodrow Wilson
... high in the sky, and the waves reflected its radiance. The liberated vessels scudded this way and that, and the sea birds came flying from the south with joyous cries. The fish lay near the surface and glittered in the sun as they leapt high out of the water, wanton after their long imprisonment under the ice. The gulls, which had been circling out beyond the edge of the ice, came in great flocks toward land to fish ...
— The Treasure • Selma Lagerlof
... ninety years of age, was brought before the governor, and so roughly handled by the populace that he died two days after he was thrown into confinement. The other prisoners were plied with hunger and thirst, and then put to death with wanton and studied cruelty. Two of the sufferers, Blandina, a female, and Ponticus, a lad of fifteen, displayed singular calmness and intrepidity. For several days they were obliged to witness the tortures inflicted on their fellow-disciples, that they might, if possible, be ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... were ever serene; no Thunder-bearing Cloud obscur'd the Sky; the whispering Zephyrs wanton'd in the Leaves, and gently bore along the enchanting Musick of the feather'd Choir: The Sea here knew no Storms, nor threatning Wave, with Mountain swell, menaced the Ships, which safely plough'd the peaceful Bosom of the Deep. AEolus and all his boisterous Sons were banish'd from these happy ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... praises which Funfeng, AEgir's servant, had won for the dexterity with which he waited upon his master's guests, Loki suddenly turned upon him and slew him. At this wanton crime, the gods in fierce wrath drove Loki away once more, threatening him with dire punishment should he ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... at sea at night, of glades opening to show high-roofed huts covered with mats: of canoes decorated with the shining white shells resembling a poached egg; of natives clustering round, eager and excited, seldom otherwise than friendly; though in hitherto unvisited places, or in those where the wanton outrages of sandal-wood traders had excited distrust, caution was necessary, and there was peril enough to give the voyage a full character of heroism and adventure. Bows and poisoned arrows were sometimes brought down—and Dickie insisted ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... scarcely view a boat travelling this liquid road, without raising opposite sensations—pleased to think of its great benefit to the community, and grieved to behold wanton punishment. ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... master, he believed his followers would do the same, until the light of burning barns and out-houses revealed the mischief which had begun to work. Yet, in the sanguinary struggle which followed, it is to be remembered that the excesses which were committed, the wanton waste of life, were on the part of the white residents, who meted out vengeance with an unsparing hand,—not on the part ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... In wanton rage at his defeat, Prince Maurice fired red-hot balls and bars of twisted lead into the town; but no farther attempt was made to capture it, and the following day his army was in full retreat, he having heard that the Earl of Essex with a large force ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... How Jove)—Ver. 584. Donatus remarks here that this was "a very proper piece of furniture for the house of a Courtesan, giving an example of loose and mercenary love, calculated to excite wanton thoughts, and at the same time hinting to the young lover that he must make his way to the bosom of his mistress, like Jupiter to Danae, in a shower of gold. Oh ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... battle! So, from thee, thou sovran of the Shining-Danes, Scyldings'-bulwark, a boon I seek, — and, Friend-of-the-folk, refuse it not, O Warriors'-shield, now I've wandered far, — that I alone with my liegemen here, this hardy band, may Heorot purge! More I hear, that the monster dire, in his wanton mood, of weapons recks not; hence shall I scorn — so Hygelac stay, king of my kindred, kind to me! — brand or buckler to bear in the fight, gold-colored targe: but with gripe alone must I front the fiend and fight for life, foe against foe. Then faith be his in the doom of the Lord whom death ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... magnificent virgin forests I had yet beheld. A small path, on the bank of a little brook conducted us through it. Palms, with their majestic tops, raised themselves proudly above the other trees, which, lovingly interlaced together, formed the most beautiful bowers; orchids grew in wanton luxuriance upon the branches and twigs; creepers and ferns climbed up the trees, mingling with the boughs, and forming thick walls of blossoms and flowers, which displayed the most brilliant colours, and exhaled the ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... recount the destruction and havoc they made here, burning and sinking all the shipping except a Bristol galley, and destroying the fisheries and stages of the poor planters without remorse or compunction; for nothing is so deplorable as power in mean and ignorant hands—it makes men wanton and giddy, unconcerned at the misfortunes they are imposing on their fellow-creatures, and keeps them smiling at the mischiefs that bring themselves no advantage. They are like madmen that cast fire-brands, arrows, and death, and say, Are not ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... very hard for art and industry to perform anything to purpose. I am, in my own nature, not melancholy, but thoughtful; and there is nothing I have more continually entertained myself withal than the imaginations of death, even in the gayest and most wanton time of my age. In the company of ladies, and in the height of mirth, some have perhaps thought me possessed of some jealousy, or meditating upon the uncertainty of some imagined hope, whilst I was entertaining myself with the remembrance of some one surprised ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... sometimes to have been the practice of worthy but imprudent men. There will be no capricious humours, no selfish tempers, no moroseness, no discourtesy, no affected severity of deportment, no peculiarity of language, no indolent neglect, or wanton breach, of the ordinary forms or fashions of society. His reputation is a possession capable of uses too important to be thus sported away; if sacrificed at all, it shall be sacrificed at the call of duty. The world ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... catechism-making, intermingled with scenes of riot and wantonness, which drove old John of Nassau half frantic; with banquetting and guzzling, drinking and devouring, with unchristian flaunting and wastefulness of apparel, with extravagant and wanton dancing, and other lewd abominations; all which, the firm old reformer prophesied, would lead to the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... day but sometimes, one gets a little weary even of the best tricks. Need the author depend quite so much on the printer for his effects? Scenes and passages in a book seem to be standing very near the edge, and the wanton thought occurs to one that a little shove would send them over. In fact, one gets irritable. And then anything bad may ...
— If Winter Don't - A B C D E F Notsomuchinson • Barry Pain
... half wanton, half asleep, One with a fat wide hairless face. He likes love-music that is cheap; Likes women in a crowded place; And wants to ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke
... been discovered to be an absolute wanton, men from any of the clans make a ring round her, she being bound, and tossed from one to the other, and when exhausted is unbound and left by her relations to the men to do as they please to her—the almost inevitable result is death. With this terror before ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... for; that much was obvious to the veriest land-lubber. And the second torpedo could have but one purpose—the wanton destruction of so many more helpless women. Besides, it revolted his sense of sport; it was like blowing a sitting bird to pieces with a shot gun. ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... society. In the softness of its sentiment, its voluptuous verbal melody, and its reiterated descant upon effeminate love-pleasure, it corresponded exactly to the spirit of its age.[185] This was the secret of its success; and this explains its seduction. Not Corisca's wanton blandishments and professed cynicism, but Mirtillo's rapturous dithyrambs on kissing, Dorinda's melting moods of tenderness, and Amarilli's delicate regrets that love must be postponed to honor, justified Bellarmino's censure. Without anywhere transgressing ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... quite as ghastly as anything set forth in the reports from Cuba. And yet every thinking man among us, young and old, turned cold with apprehension when we were threatened with a European interference which would have dishonoured us. That Spain is behaving with wanton brutality would not be to the point, even if the reports were not exaggerated, which they are,—for the matter of that, the Cubans are equally brutal when they find the opportunity. The point is that it is none of our business. The Cubans have rebelled. They must take the consequences, ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... no matter what the issue. Furthermore, I should like to be given charge of the palace, in order to see that his wants are properly provided for. We cannot afford to have our movement discredited at the outset by unnecessary bloodshed or by any wanton outrages." ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... commanded them to take a red cow in memory of the sin they had committed in worshipping a calf. And a cow is mentioned rather than a calf, because it was thus that the Lord was wont to designate the synagogue, according to Osee 4:16: "Israel hath gone astray like a wanton heifer": and this was, perhaps, because they worshipped heifers after the custom of Egypt, according to Osee 10:5: "(They) have worshipped the kine of Bethaven." And in detestation of the sin of idolatry it was sacrificed outside the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... to lament his fate, In amorous ditties, all a summer day, While smooth Adonis, from his native rock Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood Of Thammuz, yearly wounded: the love tale Infected Zion's daughters with like heat; Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led, His eye surveyed the dark idolatries Of alienated Judah.”—Par. ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... much wanton cruelty has been abolished by the extended education of the people. Brutal sports among boys are much less indulged than formerly, and the worrying of domestic animals almost invariably denotes a bad boy, in the worst sense of the phrase, likely to make ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20. No. 568 - 29 Sept 1832 • Various
... huge body; young, healthy trees which had been planted so carefully a few years back, and which he pulled up with his long trunk as though they were little radishes; not to speak of the miles of rice and sugar-cane which he had trodden down in wanton waste and as a means of venting ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... Cupid! Monarch over Kings! Wherefore hast thou feet and wings? Is it to show how swift thou art, When thou would'st wound a tender heart? Thy wings being clipped, and feet held still, Thy bow so many would not kill. It is all one in Venus' wanton school Who highest sits, the wise man or the fool! Fools in love's college Have far more knowledge To read a woman over, Than a neat prating lover. Nay, 'tis confessed ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... in myself. I also am a child, just as old as that other was; I have never yet been beaten. Once my parents were compelled to rebuke me for wanton petulance; and from head to foot I was pervaded through and through by one raving idea: "If they beat me I should take my own life." So I am also infected with the hereditary disease—the awful spirit is holding out his hand over me; captured, accursed, he is taking me with ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... hospitality; to disturb the quiet of your fellow-guests, some of them perhaps exhausted by fatigue, some of them invaded by distemper; to interrupt the king's lieges in their course of journeying upon their lawful occasions? Above all, what motive but wanton barbarity could prompt you to violate the apartment, and terrify the tender hearts of two helpless young ladies, travelling, no doubt, upon some cruel emergency, which compels them, unattended, to encounter in the night the dangers of ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... village, known as Hillet-el-dolape, but it has been entirely destroyed by the governor of Fashoda. After much difficulty, I induced some natives to come to me, with whom I at length made friends: they all joined in accusing the Koordi governor of wanton atrocities. ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... single combat. If Harold were killed, the nation might give the crown to whom they thought good; Harold's death could not make William's claim one jot better. The cause was not personal, but national. The Norman duke had, by a wanton invasion, wronged, not the King only, but every man in England, and every man might claim to help in driving him out. Again, in an ordinary wager of battle, the judgement can be enforced; here, whether William slew Harold or Harold slew William, there ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... a week's march. There were places, indeed, where some straggling bands of Irish made their appearance and demanded food: but it can scarcely be imputed to them as a crime that they did not choose to die of hunger; and there is no evidence that they committed any wanton outrage. In truth they were much less numerous than was commonly supposed; and their spirit was cowed by finding themselves left on a sudden without leaders or provisions, in the midst of a mighty population which felt towards them as men ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... insane or a villain," declared "Crusoe". "I do not know who he is, but if I starve to death, he'll be a wanton murderer. My name is Raymond Flood. I am not a college student. I am a high school student ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield
... life, but he is waiting for us beyond this life. He is waiting beyond this life and this world of wicked war and wanton cruelty and slaughter. And we shall come, some day, his mother and I, to the place where he is waiting for us, and we shall all be as happy there as we were on this earth in the ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... abominable persecution any more than there was for the burning of John Huss. It had not even as much to justify it as had the slaughter of St. Bartholomew, for the Huguenots were politically hostile and dangerous. It was an act of wanton cruelty incited by religious bigotry. I wonder how a woman so kind-hearted, so intelligent, and so politic as Madame de Maintenon doubtless was, could have encouraged the King to a measure which undermined his popularity, which cut the sinews of natural strength, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... experience what has occupied my imagination since my childhood, what has always given me the feeling of seductive terror. A foolish apprehension! It will be a wanton game she will play with me, nothing more. She loves me, and she is good, a noble personality, incapable of a breach of faith. But it lies in her hands —if she wants to she can. What a temptation in this doubt, ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... among the nobles; and hence arose the league which, from the colour of its first promoters, was ever called the Grey League; which, from its being the first in the bold attempt to shake off the yoke of wanton tyranny, has ever since retained the pre-eminence in rank before the two other leagues; and which has even given its name to the whole country, whose inhabitants, from the circumstances of their deliverance, pride themselves in the appellation of ...
— Account of the Romansh Language - In a Letter to Sir John Pringle, Bart. P. R. S. • Joseph Planta, Esq. F. R. S.
... III, Sc. 4: Having been menaced with death by the wanton judges, Susanna tells her father, mother, and sister of ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... chair, then a creepie, and one thing after another, to learn from what point to start the barrel. Seeing and recognizing them from above, Mistress Mac Pholp raised a terrible outcry. In the very presence of her drowning husband, such a wanton dissipation of her property roused her to fiercest wrath, for she imagined Gibbie was emptying her house with leisurely revenge. Satisfied at length, he floated out his barrel, and followed with the line in his ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... father; but regain her into your keeping, cast her to infamy and vice—never, never! She is now with no powerless, miserable convict, for whom Law has no respect. She is now no helpless infant without a choice, without a will. She is safe from all, save the wanton, unprofitable effort to disgrace her. O Jasper, Jasper, be human—she is so delicate of frame—she is so sensitive to reproach, so tremulously alive to honour—I am not fit to be near her now. I have been a tricksome, shifty vagrant, and, innocent though I be, the felon's brand is on me! ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... juries and sought to get his victims hanged. It may be regarded as a cunning and cowardly attempt to shift part of the odium on to the Government. Certainly the prestige of the Cabinet now fell to zero. Ministers were held responsible for Braxfield's wanton vagaries, and were accused of luring English democrats into the meshes of the Scottish law. This last charge is absurd. As we have seen, the London police sought to stop Margarot, Sinclair, and ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... of the facts progressed by stages from the vague and erroneous to the correct and precise. Before he was fully awake, he mistook the bell for a tom-tom; then, more fully aroused, he knew the bell. Ourselves he first saw as mere wanton intruders, then as cheerful friends who wished him no ill; finally he saw us in our true character as investigators ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... her cheeks, tossing about her golden curls in wanton sport. It was so pleasant to sit there in the dreamy silence watching the white fleecy clouds, the birds, and the flowers, it was little wonder the swift-winged moments flew heedlessly by. Slowly the white lids drooped ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... I begged to know what he had heard. He was very unwilling to tell me, but it came out at last that Dermot and Harold—being, he feared, in an improperly excited condition—had insisted on going to the den with the keeper, and had irritated the animal by wanton mischief, and he was convinced that this could not have taken place ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... large that, in order that it might be handled at all, powder had to be used to blast it in pieces. The tree was knotty, and according to the lumbermen, of little value, and might as well have been left. What excuse is there for the wanton destruction of a noble tree like this one? It must have stood from five thousand to six thousand years. It was a mighty tree at the beginning of the Christian era, and was growing, a strong tree, when our ancestors were the rudest savages in the ...
— The Western United States - A Geographical Reader • Harold Wellman Fairbanks
... I'm not to blame, For cleanly dress and spruce attire Preserve alive love's wanton flame And ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... what they think they can consume. If something is by chance left over, it goes to satisfy the hunger of the humbler creatures of prey. In a state of nature, where wild creatures prey upon wild creatures, such a thing as wanton, wholesale and utterly ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... absence had barred the vistas or left them clear. At first he had affected her as a scarabaeus affects the rose. She knew of him, and that was all. When he spoke, she thought of other things. And as the blind remain unawakened by the day, he never saw that where the wanton had been the saint had come. To him she was a book of ivory bound in gold, whose contents he longed to possess; she was a book, but one from which whole chapters had been torn, the preface destroyed; and when his increasing insistence ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... rule in Pennsylvania is that contributory negligence prevents recovery. This rule, it is true, does not apply where the defendant is guilty of "negligence so wanton and gross as to be evidence of voluntary injury"; Wynn vs. Allord, 5 W. & S. 525; McKnight vs. Ratcliff, 44 Pa. 156. There is, however, nothing in the testimony to indicate that the defendant's motorman did anything wanton. Coming down a steep hill, he ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... meaner knights of the "revolver and bowie knife," greater than card sharper, fugitive bravo, or sly wanton, giant schemers appeared, who throw, yet, dark shadows over the ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... which the politics of that period in America had offered many examples. It may seem incredible, but it contained no word of slavery, but recited in dignified terms how the South had been driven to separation by "wanton aggression on the part of others," and after it had "vainly endeavoured to secure tranquillity." The new Southern Congress now resolved to take over the forts and other property in the seceded States that had belonged to the Union, and the first Confederate general, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... thus I free Myself from all ensuing heats and fires Of love: all sports, delights, and jolly games, That shepherds hold full dear, thus put I off. Now no more shall these smooth brows be begirt With youthful coronals, and lead the dance. No more the company of fresh fair maids And wanton shepherds be to me delightful: Nor the shrill pleasing sound of merry pipes Under some shady dell, when the cool wind Plays on the leaves: all be far away, Since thou art far away, by whose dear side How often have I sat, crowned with fresh flowers For summer's ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the Priapeia (XXVI) that cymbals and castanets were the special accompaniment in antiquity of wanton songs and dances: "cymbala, cum crotalis, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... settled near the bank, than they were seized upon by a Fisherman, (who was lying in wait for them,) and completely plucked of their feathers, an operation to which they very quietly submitted, and were then suffered to depart. Upon inquiring his motive for what appeared to me a wanton act of cruelty, he told me his intention was to stuff his bed with the feathers; 'or,' added he, 'if you vill, to feather my nest.' Being myself an admirer of a soft bed, I saw no reason why I should not employ myself in the same way; but ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various
... courtesy between the combatants impossible. It is a bad thing that men should hate each other; but it is far worse that they should contract the habit of cutting one another's throats without hatred. War is never lenient, but where it is wanton; when men are compelled to fight in selfdefence, they must hate and avenge: this may be bad; but it is human nature; it is the clay as it came from ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and Timur betrayed a design of leading his royal captive in triumph to Samarkand. An attempt to facilitate his escape, by digging a mine under the tent, provoked the Mongol Emperor to impose a harsher restraint; and in his perpetual marches, an iron cage on a wagon might be invented, not as a wanton insult, but as a rigorous precaution. But the strength of Bajazet's mind and body fainted under the trial, and his premature death might, without injustice, be ascribed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... his face no more, His faithful dog shall tell his joy to each, With that mute eloquence which passes speech.— And see, the master but returns to die! Yet who shall bid the watchful servant fly? The blasts of heav'n, the drenching dews of earth, The wanton insults of unfeeling mirth, These, when to guard Misfortune's sacred grave, Will firm Fidelity exult to brave. Led by what chart, transports the timid dove The wreaths of conquest, or the vows of love? Say, thro' the clouds what compass points her flight? Monarchs have gaz'd, ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... from his chair with a forcible oath. Jeff, too, was on his feet. There was a frantic clatter beyond the screen of creeper. A string of hoarse invective in a human voice. The hammering of horses' hoofs and the sound of tin being battered in a wanton riot. Dug broke into a great laugh as he thrust his ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... hides 'twere hard to say; whether on the hill-side, golden with bracken, or in the spray of the sea, or on the bluff headland, or by the breezy links—in all these I seek her. Sometimes I spy her afar off; but the wanton comes and goes. Yet I am persuaded I shall presently find her, and bring her home rejoicing to them that ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... throne—by insulting and cruel search of American vessels upon the high seas, was rendering inevitable the declaration of war by Congress,—a war of humiliation upon our part by the disgraceful surrender of Hull at Detroit and the wanton burning of our Capitol, but crowned with honor by the naval victories of Lawrence, Decatur, and Perry, and eventually terminated by the capture of the British army at New Orleans. As an object lesson of the marvels of the closing ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... it, but keep the bill to its passage through both Houses of Congress. I know you would if you could see the destitution of instruction, and the poverty which cant pay for it, on the Consecrated peninsula of Jas Town, York Town, and Williamsburg. Ah! tear down every parapet of War— cruel War, wanton war call it if you will—but for the Past, for Piety's sake, for Learning and Moral's sake let Old Wm & Mary stand a Beacon Light for the guide of ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... done so in her grief for the death of Attis, but really perhaps for the same reason which induced the women of Harran to abstain from eating anything ground in a mill while they wept for Tammuz. To partake of bread or flour at such a season might have been deemed a wanton profanation of the bruised and broken body of the god. Or the fast may possibly have been a preparation for a ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... forgotten. I will not close this narrative without mentioning an act of bravery performed by a lone woman which stopped the vulgar and inhuman searching of women in our section of the city. The most atrocious and unpardonable act of the mob was the wanton disregard for womanhood. Lizzie Smith was the first woman to make a firm and stubborn stand against the proceeding in the southern section. It was near the noon hour when Lizzie, homeward bound, reached the corner of Orange and Third streets. A block away she saw a woman ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... savages might induce them to submit to terms of peace while there was yet a remnant to be saved; but they were now as little inclined to parley as tigers brought to bay, nor was the temper of the colonists a whit less deadly, though it did not vent itself in inflicting torture or in merely wanton orgies of cruelty. ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... Judge of all the earth do right?' And what can I say to that but Amen? Jack is always loving and tender, but he can (I well perceive) see little comfort herein himself; and to do so much as name the thing to Thekla were wanton cruelty, though I do fancy she should be the best comforter. So I must wait on, and cry unto God. It may be that is the very thing He would have ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... sickly countenance, and his sunk and exhausted frame so strongly attest. As his enthusiasm was such as to require no artificial stimulus, this severe system could only have been a piece of cool and wanton barbarity. He already began to show much promise of excellence, when a circumstance occurred which not only served to confirm these early prognostications, but to rouse him to exert all his energies. This was no other than ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 490, Saturday, May 21, 1831 • Various
... should be concealed under the mask of gaiety is neither very new nor very strange: the reign of our Charles the Second was equally famous for plots, perjuries, and cruel chastisements, as for wanton levity and indecent frolics: but here at Venice there are no unpermitted frolics; her rulers love to see her gay and cheerful; they are the fathers of their country, and if they indulge, take care not to ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... Kruger decamped from Pretoria; but it is beyond all controversy that many of that Government's officials favoured the proposal to wreck, as far as dynamite could, both the machinery and mines in mere wanton revenge on the hated Outlanders that mainly owned them. That policy was thwarted by the swiftfootedness of the troops, and by the tactfulness of Commandant Krause, through whose arranging Johannesburg was peacefully surrendered; but who now, by some strange irony of fate, lies ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... could there be found on record a murderer, whose cruel act might compare with his? What fiend more wanton in his mischief, what damned soul more worthy of perdition! But he was not reserved for this agony of self-reproach. He sent for medical assistance; the hours passed, spun by suspense into ages; the darkness ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... her eyes to judge by he might have doubted if it was indeed Elizabeth, but he knew her by the gesture of her hand, by the grace of a wanton little curl that floated over her ear as she moved her head. Something was said to her, and she turned smiling tolerantly to the man beside her, a little man in foolish raiment knobbed and spiked like some odd reptile with pneumatic ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... folly,' said the Duchess. 'We hold not Catholic tenets on merit in abstaining, but rather go by St. Paul's advice that the younger widows should marry, rather than wax wanton. And, to tell you the truth, Maitre Gardon, this daughter of yours does seem to ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... they had even become aware that they were in the presence of an armed vessel of the enemy, and the lives of non-combatants, passengers and crew, have been sacrificed wholesale, in a manner which the Government of the United States cannot but regard as wanton and without the slightest color of justification. No limit of any kind has in fact been set to the indiscriminate pursuit and destruction of merchantmen of all kinds and nationalities within the waters, constantly extending in area, where these operations ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... Morality: Is she moral? Does she mean to be harmless? Is she not untamable Old Nature? And when once on an equal footing with her lordly half, would not the spangled beauty, in a turn, like the realistic transformation-trick of a pantomime, show herself to be that wanton old thing—the empress of disorderliness? You have to recollect, as the Conservative acutely suggests, that her timidities, at present urging her to support Establishments, pertain to her state of dependence. The party views of Conservatism are, must be, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... spoke of the "wanton barbarity with which the Federal Government has allowed its officers to wage the war, as though they sought to emulate the ravages of Attila and Genghis-Khan. . . And these things were done not for military objects which would afford some excuse for them, but out of such sheer wanton malice that ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... handed over to the government of subordinates, as though some supremely noble monarch should be trodden under foot by rustic heels. Any seamster or cobbler or tailor or artificer of any trade keeps us shut up in prison for the luxurious and wanton ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... to hit anybody, I whom you've so often reprimanded for being too friendly. But the meekest lamb, a lamb dripping with milk and honey, would turn into a lion if its polite approaches were met with such wanton rudeness. I was so indignantly certain that these people, any of them, policemen or policed, would have answered the same question with the most extravagant politeness if I had been an officer, or with an officer. They ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... the lyre and the flute. The eminent divine was guided in this matter by the same process of illogical reasoning of which, later, the Puritans were guilty when they banished music from the churches. In view of the fact that music was used to heighten the charms of wanton Roman festivities or Pagan rites, St. Jerome condemned the art itself, ignorant of the fact that music can never be immoral in itself, but only through evil associations. St. Augustine took a different view ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... you will obey my orders, nor wait upon me," replied Newton. "All I request is, that you will lay aside your wanton animosity, and exert yourself to save your life. For what you have already attempted against me, may God forgive you, as I do! For what you may hereafter attempt, you will find me prepared. Now ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... she grew older she was becoming wiser. She realized what an awful price she was paying for her fun. She knew that, with the sacrifice of her chastity, she had surrendered everything a self-respecting woman holds dear, all for what—a few glittering trinkets! In what was she better than a common wanton? And what would her end be, but the end of all women of her kind? When her youth had passed and her beauty had faded, her admirers would grow cold and indifferent. Abandoned by all, friendless and homeless, she would go ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... peace with all. So, tell Lautaro—his ingenuous mind Perhaps may grieve, if late I seemed unkind:— Hear my heart speak, though far from virtue's way Ambition's lure hath led my steps astray, 40 No wanton exercise of barbarous power Harrows my shrinking conscience at this hour. If hasty passions oft my spirit fire, They flash a moment and the next expire; Lautaro knows it. There is somewhat more: I would not, here—here, on this distant shore (Should they, the Indian ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... In one of her aspects she was identified with the moon, the personification of coldness and chastity, and in her statues or on her sacred pillars she was represented with the crescent or cow-horns of the Egyptian Hathor; but in her other aspect she appeared as the amorous and wanton goddess in whom the Greeks recognised the popular concept of Aphrodite. Tradition tells us how, one spring morning, she caught sight of and desired the youthful god known by the title of Adoni, or "My Lord." We scarce know what ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... more, to the farthest limits of the kingdom am I persuaded the same spirit spreads, and possesses and fills every soul. The attempt of Aurelian to control us in our affairs, to dictate to us concerning the limits of our empire so far removed, is felt to be a wanton freak of despotic power, which, if it be not withstood in its first encroachment, may proceed to other acts less tolerable still, and which may leave us scarcely our name as a distinct people—and that covered with shame. Although a Roman by descent, I advocate not Roman intolerance. ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... artillery, which had hitherto kept up an incessant uproar, now ceased its thundering. On both sides there was still a vigilant guard kept up; the sentinels bristled the walls of Baza with their lances, and the guards patrolled the Christian camp, but there was no sallying forth to skirmish nor any wanton violence or carnage.* ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... and yours this morning. I think nothing can possibly have passed more properly, or more satisfactorily, and I derive the highest pleasure from it. It is no doubt a painful thing to be reduced to this course, but whatever be the objections to it, surely those are alone answerable for them whose wanton intemperance of abuse places men under the necessity of thus acting, in self-defence. The Duke of Bedford's disavowal, in the conclusion of the business, seems to have been manly and unequivocal, and the only real atonement ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... here were ever serene; no Thunder-bearing Cloud obscur'd the Sky; the whispering Zephyrs wanton'd in the Leaves, and gently bore along the enchanting Musick of the feather'd Choir: The Sea here knew no Storms, nor threatning Wave, with Mountain swell, menaced the Ships, which safely plough'd the peaceful Bosom ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... the years went on increasing opportunity of gratifying all his meanest tastes and finding always around him the ready homage which accords its applause to the most ignoble caprices and the most wanton self-indulgence. The reign of George the Fourth saw great deeds and great men; it could have seen few men in all his realm less deserving a word of praise than George ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... "a sweet word." No doubt this was a bold tone for Franklin to take, and perhaps it was rather cool in him to ask for Canada and Nova Scotia; but he knew that almost every member of the Whig ministry had publicly expressed the opinion that the war against America was an unjust and wanton war; and being, moreover, a shrewd hand at a bargain, he began by setting his terms high. Oswald doubtless looked at the matter very much from Franklin's point of view, for on the suggestion of the cession of Canada he expressed neither ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... exhibited toward Astraea, recognizing in it the elements of a tenderness which circumstances had stunted, as nature had stunted his person, I could not help feeling that his malice, now that it could avail him nothing except the gratification of a wanton revenge, fully justified henceforth any reprisals opportunity might enable me to make. It plucked out all commiseration, and obliterated the injury (if injury there were) of which ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... pleasedly on Starr's shy, protective regard for her, instead of watching the peaks in fear and trembling lest another bad, un-uplifted Mexican should be watching a chance to send another bullet zipping down into the Basin on its mission of wanton wickedness. ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... of this proud city were at an end. Richberta herself, whose wanton act had raised the sand-bank, had her ships wrecked there one by one, and was reduced to begging for bread in the city whose wealthiest inhabitant she had once been. Then, perhaps, she could appreciate the words of the old traveller, that bread was ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... both laughed, and Hortense demanded if I had as much skill with the lyre as with the sword. She had heard that I was much given to chanting vain airs and wanton songs, she said. ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... speculations of that truly original genius, usually fastens with peculiar eagerness upon his weakest points—have gone on imitating him in this abuse of language, until there is now some difficulty in restoring the word to its original signification. A more wanton alteration in the meaning of a word is rarely to be met with; for the expression general name, the exact equivalent of which exists in all languages I am acquainted with, was already available for ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... road, residing in houses, almost complete with furniture. A few of the villagers had courageously remained behind, taking cover in their cellars while the fighting and shelling took place above their heads. A good deal of wanton destruction had been carried out by the retiring Hun, but on the whole the countryside presented a normal appearance, a most welcome sight to eyes wearied with the scenes of devastation, and an important factor also in keeping up ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... departure. The guest may stay and enjoy the wife's society as long as he lists, whilst the husband has no shame in the matter, but indeed considers it an honour. And all the men of this province are made wittols of by their wives in this way.[NOTE 3] The women themselves are fair and wanton. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... that same dream caught old Lanciotto's reins, Bent in a weary huddle on his steed, In darkling haste along the blindfold lanes, Making a clattering halt in all that speed:— 'Fool! fool!' he cried, 'O dotard fool, indeed, So ho! they wanton while the old man rides,' And on the night flashed pictures of the deed. 'Come!'—and he dug his charger's panting sides, And all the homeward dark tore by in ...
— English Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... would seem that temperance is not only about desires and pleasures. For Tully says (De Invent. Rhet. ii, 54) that "temperance is reason's firm and moderate mastery of lust and other wanton emotions of the mind." Now all the passions of the soul are called emotions of the mind. Therefore it seems that temperance is not only about desires ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown: Say to her, I do but wanton in the South, But in the North long since ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... bank, dropped back into their path, and lay there motionless. It was a fine shot, for the tiny moving thing was fully thirty yards from them and looked hardly the size of a dollar. Talbot glanced at her with startled admiration. He himself never shot except for food or other necessity, and wanton killing rather annoyed him than otherwise, but here the skill and the correctness of wrist and eye were so obvious that they compelled ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... licentious proud, Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround; They, who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth, And wanton, often cruel, riot waste; Ah! little think they, while they dance along, How many feel, this very moment, death And all the sad variety of pain. How many sink in the devouring flood, Or more devouring flame; how many bleed, By shameful variance betwixt man and man. How ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... said the head-mistress in that slightly vibrating and authoritative voice of hers. "I have a word or two to say to you all. Miss Good has just brought me a painful story of wanton and cruel mischief. There are fifty girls in this school, who, until lately, lived happily together. There is now one girl among the fifty whose object it is to sow seeds of discord and misery among her companions. Miss Good has told me of three different occasions on which mischief has ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... were more romantic mysteries than in any other city. Still, she had feared. And besides she longed to see him. So she had unbent and thought herself soon after somewhat reckless; it was a little wanton and unfair to bring him back. But she was not a saint; she was a woman; and ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... him; which she not only promis'd, but was as good as her word; yet engages him to take no notice of it to her Mother, and then as soon as he was a Bed, she'd come to him: Accordingly, after he was a Bed, she comes to Bed to him, as she before had promis'd: And after they had both gratify'd their wanton desires, the Whore professing a great deal of Love to him, and pretending she shou'd never be happy till they were married, Miss Betty all of a sudden pretends to want the Chamber-pot, which she desir'd him to help her to, who feeling about for it for sometime, cou'd'nt find it; upon ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... it to us," said the one with the dagger. "For it was the vengeance of Heaven we were about to execute. Know that this is our sister, whom we have discovered to be a wanton creature, that must bring shame upon our learned house and into our God-fearing town. Whereupon we and her husband held a secret Beth-Din, and resolved, according to the spirit of our ancient Law, that this plague-spot must ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... manner peculiarly her own. You received from the hands of Hymen only one woman, awkward and innocent; the celibate returns you a dozen of them. A joyful and rapturous husband sees his bed invaded by the giddy and wanton courtesans, of whom we spoke in the Meditation on The First Symptoms. These goddesses come in groups, they smile and sport under the graceful muslin curtains of the nuptial bed. The Phoenician girl flings to you her garlands, gently sways herself to and fro; the Chalcidian ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... to live a scrambling, rakish course of life himself, he had not the least idea of the extent of Lord Glenvarloch's mental sufferings, and thought of his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick of a wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his tutor. With the appearance of the place, too, he was familiar—but on his companion it produced a ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... sea! the calm is o'er; The wanton water leaps in sport, And rattles down the pebbly shore; The dolphin wheels, the sea-cows snort, And unseen Mermaids' pearly song Comes bubbling up, the weeds among. Fling broad the sail, dip deep the oar: To sea, to sea! the calm ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... you, mother, has it been the feeling of a moment? Ah! you ever loved him, when his name was never breathed by those lips. You loved him when you deemed he had forgotten you; when you pictured him to yourself in all the pride of health and genius, wanton and daring; and now, now that he comes to you penitent, perhaps dying, more like a remorseful spirit than a breathing being, and humbles himself before you, and appeals only to your mercy, ah! my mother, you cannot reject, you could not reject him, even if you were alone, even ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... thought, no purpose, no fancy; all had been swept up in a heap and destroyed in the short space of half an hour. Everything in her life had to be reconstructed, made-over to suit the new order. She could no longer harbour vengeful thoughts concerning her father, she could no longer charge him with the wanton destruction of her ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... smoke, as Lucian says. Therefore the cause that the bright sun doth rest At the low point of the declining west— When his oft-wearied horses breathless pant— Is to refresh himself with this sweet plant, Which wanton Thetis from the west doth bring, To joy her love after his toilsome ring: For 'tis a cordial for an inward smart, As is dictamnum to the wounded hart. It is the sponge that wipes out all our woe; 'Tis like the thorn that doth on Pelion grow, With which whoe'er his frosty limbs anoints, Shall feel ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... leave barracks, when you go a-shopping, Without an escort loaded up with lead; Always maintain a desultory popping At anyone who wags a wanton head; If, as he passes, some low boy should whistle With nose in air and shameless chin out-thrust, Making your scandalised moustaches bristle— Reduce the dog ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... Reason and understanding are represented as the voluntary slaves of the senses. Hence we shall find that the very principle of Comedy necessarily occasioned that which in Aristophanes has given so much offence; namely, his frequent allusions to the base necessities of the body, the wanton pictures of animal desire, which, in spite of all the restraints imposed on it by morality and decency, is always breaking loose before one can be aware of it. If we reflect a moment, we shall find that even in the present day, on our own stage, the ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... under the mask of gaiety is neither very new nor very strange: the reign of our Charles the Second was equally famous for plots, perjuries, and cruel chastisements, as for wanton levity and indecent frolics: but here at Venice there are no unpermitted frolics; her rulers love to see her gay and cheerful; they are the fathers of their country, and if they indulge, take care ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... ask passionately why a unique feature of the coast was allowed to be obliterated in blood. True sportsmen would unanimously rejoice in the permanent preservation of birds elegant and swift of flight, not very good to eat, and which visit us at a time when inhospitality is a wanton crime. ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... on reflection, that it has not the look of a wicked and hardened sportiveness, in thee, for the sake of a wanton humour only, (since it can answer no end that thou proposest to thyself, but the direct contrary,) to hunt from place to place a poor lady, who, like a harmless deer, that has already a barbed shaft in her breast, seeks only a refuge from thee ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... nil nisi bonum" always appeared to me to savour more of female weakness than of manly reason. He that has too much feeling to speak ill of the dead, who, if they cannot defend themselves, are at least ignorant of his abuse, will not hesitate by the most wanton calumny to destroy the quiet, the reputation, the fortune of the living. Yet censure is not heard beneath the tomb, any more than praise. "De mortuis nil nisi verum—De vivis nil nisi bonum" would approach much ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... views given in Chapter XXVI. (see p. 360), man is an irresponsible being. He does not know the difference between right and wrong, between good and evil. Therefore it is according to their opinion unjust and cruel to punish criminals. "The Christian regards the hooligan, the thief, the wanton, and the drunkard as men and women who have done wrong. But the humanist regards them as men and women who have been wronged."[883] "Human law, like divine law, is based upon the false idea that men know what is right and what ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... has kneel'd before me, And own'd no other pow'r, now treats me With ill dissembl'd love mix'd with disdain. A newer beauty rules his faithless heart, Which only in variety is blest; Oft have I heard him, when wrapt up in sleep, And wanton fancy rais'd the mimic scene, Call with unusual fondness on Evanthe, While I have lain neglected by his side, Except sometimes in a mistaken rapture He'd clasp me to ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey
... discredit Esther's statement, to blacken her character; he would impute false motives to her or make a convincing case against her sanity, perhaps both. The very notion made him boil with rage. The cold-blooded infamy of the plot to do away with his father was as nothing compared with the wanton brutality of the attempt on Esther's life. To think of this fresh and lovely body, so near to him now that he could feel the throbbing of her heart, dismembered, defiled in the work of annihilation, filled him with unspeakable ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... held them, while Ellen swayed forward for all the world as if she would sink in upon the deep full breast of this wanton whom she had hated! Then the spell broke, they fell apart with a rush, Lola swung out and went down the steps, while Ellen obediently followed Cleve into Baston's store, where she sat on a nail keg and ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... with mischief, keen with curiosity; a look now supercilious, now softly submissive; all the varieties of expression caught in susceptible moments, and stored by a too faithful memory. Her hair, her lips, her neck, grew present to him, and lured his fancy with a wanton seduction. In self-defence—pathetic stratagem of intellectual man at issue with the flesh—he fell back upon the idealism which ever strives to endow a fair woman with a beautiful soul; he endeavoured to forget her body in contemplation of the spiritual excellencies that might lurk behind ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... writing she revealed all; with the liveliness, the noise, the emphatic gestures of a Spaniard, entering truly or falsely into a hundred impure details. She frightened, amused, wheedled her judges, drawing them after her like fools. To this corrupt, wanton, crazy girl, they entrusted the right of searching about the bodies of girls and boys, for the spot whereon Satan had set his mark. This spot discovered itself by a certain numbness, by the fact that you might stick ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... adoration was mingled with audacity, persistence, and aptitude for any crime. The character of his mistress gave him but little hope. Though profoundly wounded by her husband's infidelities, insulted in her pride by the presence of his wanton favorites under her own roof, and assailed by the importunities of the most brilliant profligates in Rome, she held a haughty course, above suspicion, free from taint or stain, Marcello could do nothing but sigh at a distance and ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... more than the cherries bright, A richer dye has graced them; They charm th' admiring gazer's sight, And sweetly tempt to taste them; Her smile is as the evening mild, When feather'd pairs are courting, And little lambkins wanton wild, In ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... barbarity, the sons of Africa were in possession of all the mild enjoyments of peace—all the pleasing delights of uninterrupted harmony—and all the diffusive blessings of profound tranquility. Boundless must be the punishment, which irritated providence will inflict on those whose wanton cruelty has prompted them to destroy this fair arrangement of nature—this flowery prospect of human felicity. Engulphed in the dark abyss of never ending misery, they shall in bitterness atone for the stab ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... before him, a glorious bird of paradise. The wanton display of a maddening curve of slender ankle, through the slash of the clinging gown imparted just the needed allurement to stamp her as a Vestal of the temple of Madness. The cunning simplicity ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... was too unequal to continue long; La Tour soon entered the house a conqueror, secured all who were in it as prisoners, and took possession of the few munitions which had been stored there. He then ordered the building to be set on fire, and the soldiers, with wanton cruelty, killed all the domestic animals which were grazing around it. Neither party sustained any loss; two or three only were wounded, and those, with the prisoners, were sent back, under a sufficient guard, to the boats; ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... father sternly. "You only encourage him in his wanton mischief, and no one takes any heed how he ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... which sat the ladies, and on the second, their slaves behind them, but without any distinction of rank in their dress, all being in a state of Nature; that is, in plain English, stark naked, without any beauty or defect concealed. Yet there was not the least wanton smile or immodest gesture among them. They walked and moved with the same majestic grace which Milton describes of our general mother. I am here convinced of the truth of a reflection I had often made, that if it was the fashion to go naked, the face would be hardly observed." (Letters and Works, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the Greek shut up the windows of his house, determined to deprive his oppressors of their expected perquisite; and so the dead Jew remained exposed his full time. Few excepting those of the true faith ventured to approach the spot, fearful that the Mohamedan authorities would, in their wanton propensities to heap insults upon the Giaours, oblige some one of them to carry the carcass to the place of burial; and thus the horrid and disgusting object was left abandoned to itself, and this had given an opportunity to the kabobchi, ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... station wherein nature, or to speak more properly, the all-wise Creator has placed it. I imagine man has a right to use the animal race for his own preservation, perhaps for his convenience, but certainly not to treat them with wanton cruelty, and as it is not in his power to give them any thing so valuable as their liberty, it is, in my opinion, criminal to enslave them in order to procure ourselves a vain amusement, if we have so little feeling as to find ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... grandchildren were still with her, but all their entreaties were unavailing; and I became satisfied that she would starve herself to death, if not allowed to burn, by which the family would be disgraced, her miseries prolonged, and I myself rendered liable to be charged with a wanton abuse of authority, for no prohibition of the kind I had issued had as yet received the formal sanction ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... upon the wife's belief of an absolute unconditional fidelity to the husband;' by which bold assertion he strikes at the root, digs the foundation, and removes the basis upon which the happiness of a married state is built. As for his personal reflections, I would gladly know who are those 'wanton wives' he speaks of? who are those ladies of high stations that he so boldly traduces in his sermon? It is pretty plain who these aspersions are aimed at, for which he deserves the pillory, or ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... sun! See, see, he shakes His big red hands at me in wanton fun! A glorious image that! it might be Blake's; As in my critical capacity I took occasion to remark elsewhere, When heaping praise On this exceptionally happy phrase, Although I made it up myself. But I and Blake, ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... thought of it too much since leaving Heliodora yesterday afternoon. It began to nettle him that his grief should be for her merely an amusement. Never having seen the Gothic maiden, whose beauty outshone hers as sunrise outdoes the lighting of a candle, this wanton Greek was capable of despising him in good earnest, and Basil had never been of those who sit easy under scorn. He felt something chafe and grow hot within him, and recalled the days when he, and not Heliodora, had indulged contempt—to his mind a much ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... small time the good woman begins to scrape acquaintance, and get some familiarity with her neighbours, which increaseth from day to day more and more; nay oftentimes it comes to that height, she's better to be found among her neighbours, then at home in her own family. Here she sees Mistris Wanton playing with her child that is a very pretty Babe. There she sees Mistres Breedwell making ready her Child-bed linnens and getting of her Clouts together. Yonder Mistris Maudlen complains that she doth not prove with child; ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... reason unknown the thief had transferred its contents to some other bag—perhaps his own—and then had discarded the original one, in wanton humor ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... fool to others. And well in common speech are such practisers so termed, the grounds of that practice being so vain, and the effect so unhappy. The heart of fools, saith the wise man, is in the house of mirth; meaning, it seems, especially such hurtfully wanton mirth: for it is (as he further telleth us) the property of fools to delight in doing harm ("It is as sport to a fool to do mischief"). Is it not in earnest most palpable folly, for so mean ends ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... manner of living was entirely altered between the brother whelps. Jowler was sent into a plentiful kitchen, where he quickly became the favourite of the servants, who diverted themselves with his little tricks and wanton gambols, and rewarded him with great quantities of pot-liquor and broken victuals; by which means, as he was stuffing from morning to night, he increased considerably in size, and grew sleek and comely; he was, indeed, rather unwieldy, ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... very possible, as a contemporary tradition informs us, that Wolsey was instigated to this by personal feelings. His arrogant and wanton proceedings, offensive by their excesses, and withal showing all the priestly love of power, were hateful to the inmost soul of the pure and earnest Queen. She is said to have once reproached him with them, and to have even repelled his unbecoming behaviour with a threatening word, and ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... we had run every conceivable kind of risk, and had, by our own courage and cunning, surmounted every obstacle the wit of man could compass. All this was absurd enough and annoying enough, but the introduction of Miss Rossano's name into the narrative looked altogether wanton and unwarranted, and, I dare say, now that I can recall the whole thing in cool blood, that I was more disturbed and angry than I need have been. Brunow took what I had to say with imperturbable good-humor, and ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... straight and simple relations with her. I asked myself despairingly, "What am I to do?" In foolish dreams I imagined her now as my mistress and now as my wife, but rejected both ideas with disgust. To make her a wanton woman would be dreadful. It would be murder. To turn her into a fine lady, the wife of Dmitri Andreich Olenin, like a Cossack woman here who is married to one of our officers, would be still worse. Now could ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... Grainger says in the introduction to his Tibullus: "Verbal translations are always inelegant, because always destitute of beauty of idiom and language; for by their fidelity to an author's words, they become treacherous to his reputation; on the other hand, a too wanton departure from the letter often varies the sense and alters the manner. The translator chose the middle way, and meant neither to tread on the heels of Tibullus nor yet to lose sight of him."[430] The preface to Fawkes' Theocritus harks back to Dryden: "A too faithful translation, Mr. Dryden ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... her words are fine and memorable. As, for one instance, after Greatheart's discourse on redemption. "O Mercy, that thy father and mother were here; yea, and Mrs. Timorous also. Nay, I wish with all my heart now that here was Madam Wanton, too. Surely, surely, their hearts would be affected, nor could the fear of the one, nor the powerful lusts of the other, prevail with them to go home again, and to refuse to become good pilgrims." ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... life thou true repose, Wherein the wise contemplate heaven aright, In thee no dread of war or worldly foes, In thee no pomp seduceth mortal sight. In thee no wanton cares to win with words, Nor lurking toys which silly ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... their modest appetites, Averse from Venus, fly the nuptial rights; No lust enervates their heroic mind, Nor wastes their strength on wanton womankind, But in their mouths reside their genial powers, They gather children ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
... any rate, if not a cause; yet she had not perhaps altogether announced herself as straining so hard at the cord. It was familiar, it was beautiful to Mrs. Stringham that she had arrears to make up, the chances that had lapsed for her through the wanton ways of forefathers fond of Paris, but not of its higher sides, and fond almost of nothing else; but the vagueness, the openness, the eagerness without point and the interest without pause—all a part of the charm of her oddity as at first ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... When wanton gales breathe through the shade, And shake the blooms, and steal their sweets, And swell the song of ev'ry glade, I range ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiv, 26): "We must be far from supposing that offspring could not be begotten without concupiscence. All the bodily members would have been equally moved by the will, without ardent or wanton incentive, with calmness ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... in Foster's mind that he could hope for no mercy where such wanton cruelty was not even deemed worthy of notice by the bystanders; but the sound of a familiar voice put all ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... the Dwarf, "they are better than your ordinary business; better to exercise idle and wanton cruelty on mute fishes than on your fellow-creatures. Yet why should I say so? Why should not the whole human herd butt, gore, and gorge upon each other, till all are extirpated but one huge and over-fed Behemoth, and he, when ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... observant eye, to mark the commodities and nationalities by the way. The scene is an epitome of the world. Here crouches a Chinese mendicant, there glides an Italian image-vender; a Swedish sailor is hard pressed by a smoking Cuban, and a Hungarian officer is flanked by a French loiterer; here leers a wanton, there moans a waif; now passes an Irish funeral procession, and again long files of Teutonic "Turners"; the wistful eyes of a beggar stare at the piles of gold in the money-changer's show-window; a sister of charity walks beside a Jewish Rabbi; then comes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... with Sir H. Nicolas that the lines in question are "a wanton interpolation," I think Mr. Hannah was perfectly justified in contenting himself with this acknowledgment of ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 179. Saturday, April 2, 1853. • Various
... that he was too grossly ignorant to perform, intelligently, the duties of the soldier; that his provocation had been so great as a slave, that when once armed, and conscious of his power as a soldier, he would abuse it by acts of revenge and wanton cruelty. ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... having seen your brother, who is at Montreal, but I am told is expected to-day. I have spent my time however very agreably. I know not what the winter may be, but I am enchanted with the beauty of this country in summer; bold, picturesque, romantic, nature reigns here in all her wanton luxuriance, adorned by a thousand wild graces which mock the cultivated beauties of Europe. The scenery about the town is infinitely lovely; the prospect extensive, and diversified by a variety of hills, woods, rivers, cascades, intermingled with smiling farms and cottages, ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... The organ, in whose tones the ocean rolled, The crypts, of mighty shades the dwelling places, The Virgin's gentle hands, the Saints' pure faces, All, even the pardoning hands of Christ the Lord Were struck and broken by the wanton sword Of ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... "lustful, wanton, loose; a person who excites lustful emotions in others." Let us study this with careful thought. The world today advertises the fact that this or that will give "sexual appeal." This is lasciviousness. ...
— The Key To Peace • A. Marie Miles
... therefore, to acquire that great and uncommon talent of hating with good-breeding and loving with prudence; to make no quarrel irreconcilable by silly and unnecessary indications of anger; and no friendship dangerous, in case it breaks, by a wanton, indiscreet, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... under him, he snatched out his sword and thrust it through the unfortunate lord. The barbarism of the times is most shockingly displayed in the brutal manner in which he treats the dead body; but for the honour of the Danish prince, we must suppose that it was not merely a wanton act, but done the more decidedly to convince the king, when the strange situation of the corpse was seen, how absolutely he must be divested of reason. Being assured he was now alone with his mother, in a most ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 281, November 3, 1827 • Various
... enormous heart of London joys to beat To the measures of his rough, majestic song: The lewd, perennial, overmastering spell That keeps the rolling universe ensphered And life and all for which life lives to long Wanton and wondrous and for ...
— The Song of the Sword - and Other Verses • W. E. Henley
... shade anywhere—that is, outside the houses. For the place had grown up on the crests of the bald, green rollers of the Western plains as though its original seedling had been tossed there by the wanton summer breezes, and ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... overpowered; whereupon I begged to know what he had heard. He was very unwilling to tell me, but it came out at last that Dermot and Harold—being, he feared, in an improperly excited condition—had insisted on going to the den with the keeper, and had irritated the animal by wanton mischief, and he was convinced that this could not have ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... whose blood Is very snow-broth; one who never feels The wanton stings and motions of the sense, But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge With profits of the mind, study and fast."—Lucio, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 82, May 24, 1851 • Various
... imprecation are modes of invoking vengeance or retribution from a superhuman power upon the person against whom they are uttered. Anathema is a solemn ecclesiastical condemnation of a person or of a proposition. Curse may be just and authoritative; as, the curse of God; or, it may be wanton and powerless: "so the curse causeless shall not come," Prov. xxvi, 2. Execration expresses most of personal bitterness and hatred; imprecation refers especially to the coming of the desired evil upon the person against whom it is uttered. Malediction ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... when the barbarians, who were advancing slowly, because they feared an attack in the unfavourable ground which they were traversing, arrived within fifteen miles from the station of Nice, which was the aim of their march, the emperor, with wanton impetuosity, resolved on attacking them instantly, because those who had been sent forward to reconnoitre (what led to such a mistake is unknown) affirmed that their entire body did not ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... laughed, and the lurking echoes clasped the music of that laughter in their wanton arms and ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... subject of congratulation that Congress and the country had the virtue and firmness to bear the infliction, that the energies of our people soon found relief from this wanton tyranny in vast importations of the precious metals from almost every part of the world, and that at the close of this tremendous effort to control our Government the bank found itself powerless and no longer able to loan out its surplus means. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... crab" is to roast a wild apple in the fire in order to throw it hissing hot into a bowl of nutbrown ale, into which had been put a toast with some spice and sugar. Puck describes one of his wanton pranks: ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... passage through both Houses of Congress. I know you would if you could see the destitution of instruction, and the poverty which cant pay for it, on the Consecrated peninsula of Jas Town, York Town, and Williamsburg. Ah! tear down every parapet of War— cruel War, wanton war call it if you will—but for the Past, for Piety's sake, for Learning and Moral's sake let Old Wm & Mary stand a Beacon Light for the guide ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... For all the fortunes of my life hereafter, Yon little tree, yon blooming Apricocke; How I would spread and fling my wanton armes In at her window! I would bring her fruit Fit for ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... terrified and distressed woman from the comfortable abode which had formerly cost her and her deceased husband so many years of toil to erect and furnish, and having, to add to the wrong, either injured or destroyed the greater part of her little stock of goods, by the wanton or careless manner in which they had been removed, this brutal officer next proceeded to the barn, and by virtue of his copias for costs, seized the cow and oxen, the last remaining property of ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... Noah's Ark houses of the olive farmers and their quaint little Noah's ark cypresses, to the full height of Portofino Kulm, where the whole enchanted coast-line of the Riviera from Genoa to Sestri Levante lay spread out as a jewelled fringe of ocean. Elaine stood hatless while the wanton breeze caressed her glorious hair and caught at ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... and appraising their goods? The variety of the forms of privilege does not sanction injustice. The faith of Jupiter, the proprietor, [13] proves no more against the equality of citizens, than do the mysteries of Venus, the wanton, ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... he murmured, sighing: "Perchance I lose what most is dear; But better there, struck down and dying, Than be a man and wanton here!" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... presentations of a certain phase of life which nations in their onward course sooner or later assume. In the individual, how well we know that a sober moderation of action, an appropriate gravity of demeanour, belong to the mature period of life; a change from the wanton wilfulness of youth, which may be ushered in, or its beginning marked, by many accidental incidents: in one perhaps by domestic bereavements, in another by the loss of fortune, in a third by ill health. We are correct enough in imputing to ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... lost—I suppose irrevocably—the whipping boy and the court jester. What a pity that they cannot be revived! The whipping boy, a device to put princes on their honor to be neither negligent nor wanton in the fulfilment of their duties; and the jester to break us of our too self-conscious airs and exhibit to us our follies. See what we have done instead! When our growing sense of priggish decorum and our dishonest ceremoniousness ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... recent incident in war-stricken Europe. It was only a few months ago and during the terrible campaign in Eastern Poland, even while shells were bursting and men were dying, that the Central Powers stopt, as it were, in the mad rush of wanton destruction, to re-establish and reorganize the old University of Warsaw. More than that, they added to the old institution two new faculties, or colleges, as ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... me with harshness and severity? No,—never. I have often wondered why he manifested such unusual and wanton disregard of my feelings then, that one, only time. It is no matter now. It is a single blot on ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... in the reign of Nero is immediately traceable to the accusation brought against the Christians by the emperor, that they had caused the terrible fire at Rome, which there seems little doubt was in reality the result of his own wanton wickedness, whilst that under Domitian appears to have been connected with the conversion of some of the members of his own family, his cousin Flavius Clemens being the first martyr ...
— A Key to the Knowledge of Church History (Ancient) • John Henry Blunt
... reasons to remain in the garrison after it had been removed elsewhere, he enjoyed enviable esteem from his superiors and the hatred and dislike of all others. Though inclined to court after the manner of the pillager who has captured a city, his boisterous addresses pleased the wanton matrons and, more naturally, the facile Cythereans of the music ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... baseball players, the prominence afforded to sporting events in the newspapers, the number of "world's records" made in the United States, and the tremendous excitement over inter-university football matches and international yacht-races, it may seem wanton to assert that the love of sport is not by any means so genuine or so universal in the United States as in Great Britain; and yet I am not at all sure that such a statement would not be absolutely true. By true "love of sport" I understand the enjoyment that arises from either practising or seeing ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... should have dared to unbolt the door, or to withdraw the bars. What was she, that she should be trusted to open or to close the house? And there came upon him some idea of wanton and improper conduct. Why was she there at that hour? Must it be that he should put her again from the shelter of ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... in Rhode Island. The Governor of that little colony called Massachusetts "our avowed enemy, always trying to defame us." [Footnote: Governor Wanton to the Agent of Rhode Island, 20 Dec. 1745, in Colony Records of Rhode Island, V.] There was a grudge between the neighbors, due partly to notorious ill-treatment by the Massachusetts Puritans of Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island, and partly to one of those boundary ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... considers that it has gained the best ground, or finds it can surprise the other, the attack is made. They advance at once to close quarters, and the slaughter is consequently great, though the battle may be short. The prisoners of either sex are seldom spared, but slain on the spot with wanton cruelty. The dead are scalped, and he is considered the bravest person who bears the greatest number of scalps from the field. These are afterwards attached to his war dress, and worn as proofs of his prowess. ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... power Imprinted in each herb and flower; And smell'st the breath of great-eyed kine, Sweet as the blossoms of the vine. Here thou behold'st thy large sleek neat Unto the dewlaps up in meat; And, as thou look'st, the wanton steer, The heifer, cow, and ox, draw near, To make a pleasing pastime there. These seen, thou go'st to view thy flocks Of sheep, safe from the wolf and fox; And find'st their bellies there as full Of short sweet grass, as backs ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... the broad enclosure was a scene of heedless neglect, a riot of unrestrained and wanton growth, where should have been decorous and orderly beauty. It was a sight to bring tears to a gardener's eyes, but it had a certain untamed charm of its own, for all that. The very riot of it, the wanton prodigality of ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... The beginning of a story in one of More's English works shows how such travel was regarded—as at least unwise, and perhaps extravagant: 'Now was there a young gentleman which had married a merchant's wife. And having a little wanton money which him thought burned out the bottom of his purse, in the first year of his wedding he took his wife with him and went over the sea, for none other errand but to see Flanders and France, and ride out one summer in those countries.' But in the company of pilgrims there was some security, ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... a tail, and that it was from this appendage Eve was fashioned. Other Jewish traditions tell us that Eve was made from "the thirteenth rib of the right side" (Targ. Jonath.), and that "she was not drawn out by the head, lest she should be vain; nor by the eyes, lest she should be wanton; nor from the mouth, lest she should be given to garrulity; nor by the ears, lest she should be an eavesdropper; nor by the hands, lest she should be intermeddling; nor by the feet, lest she be a gadder; nor by the heart, for fear she should be jealous; but she ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... said. "'Tis a wanton wastrel, and he well deserves the pillory. But, Rebecca, I've a mind to see what observance these people will give the varlet. Last time I saw one pilloried, alas! they slew him with shards and paving-stones. This fellow is liker to be pelted ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... spicy land of my birth," sang the Canary bird; "I will sing of thy dark-green bowers, of the calm bays where the pendent boughs kiss the surface of the water; I will sing of the rejoicing of all my brothers and sisters where the cactus grows in wanton luxuriance." ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... river. It is probable that he would have remained neutral during the remainder of the war, had it not been for one of those border outrages, which lawless and unprincipled white men but too often commit upon the Indians, under pretence of self defence or retaliation, often a mere pretext for wanton bloodshed and murder. Previous to joining Colonel Dixon, Black Hawk had visited the lodge of an old friend, whose son he had adopted and taught to hunt. He was anxious that this youth should go with him and his ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... street, With aching eyes and tottering knees intent, Loose leathery neck and worm-like lip outstretched, Fix long the ken upon one form, so swift Through the gay vestures fluttering on the bank, And through the bright-eyed waters dancing round, Wove they their wanton wiles and disappeared. Meantime, with pomp august and solemn, borne On four white camels tinkling plates of gold, Heralds before and Ethiop slaves behind, Each with the signs of office in his hand, ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... The benevolent heart feels for the woes of others, and even compassionates their weakness and wickedness. It will desire, therefore, as much as possible, to hide them from the public gaze, unless the good of others should require their exposure; and even then, will not do it with wanton feelings. But these remarks apply with much greater force to the practice of Christians speaking of one another's faults. Where is the heart that would not revolt at the idea of brothers and sisters scanning ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... man, six feet four inches tall, of unusual muscular strength. His strength was one of the fixed conditions of his development. It delivered him from all fear of his fellows. He had plenty of peculiarities. He was ugly, awkward; he lacked the wanton appetites of the average sensual man. And these peculiarities without his great strength as his warrant might have brought him into ridicule. As it was, whatever his peculiarities, in a society like that of Pigeon Creek, the man who could beat all competitors, wrestling ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... aristocratical. There certainly is an aristocracy in England; and we are afraid that their power is greater than it ought to be. They have power enough to keep up the game-laws and corn-laws; but they have not power enough to subject the bodies of men of the lowest class to wanton outrage at their pleasure. Suppose that they were to make a law that any gentleman of two thousand a-year might have a day-labourer or a pauper flogged with a cat-of-nine-tails whenever the whim might take him. It is quite ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of the man who carried the greenstone blade, we worked our way for about one hundred yards through the leafy maze before attempting to search for it, and that search proved a long and tiresome one. It is impossible to describe the network of wanton vegetation through which we struggled during the hot afternoon. Every kind of shrub and tree was woven into an ungodly tangle by the crawling, leaping vines that shut out the sky and made it impossible to see a person standing only ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... reprobate that wanton severity of discipline in which the substance is sacrificed to the form, in which unavoidable and trivial offences are punished as deliberate and serious crimes, and the spirit of the soldier is entirely disregarded, while the motion of his limbs, cut of his whiskers, and the buttons ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... I, too, feel in myself. I also am a child, just as old as that other was; I have never yet been beaten. Once my parents were compelled to rebuke me for wanton petulance; and from head to foot I was pervaded through and through by one raving idea: "If they beat me I should take my own life." So I am also infected with the hereditary disease—the awful spirit is holding out his hand ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
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