"Changeable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Adrien is very changeable," Vermont said reflectively, "one can never count on his movements; following him is like wild duck shooting, down the river on Monday, and up the Fens on Tuesday. I'm sorry I missed him, though, for I have several papers which he ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... their dispositions are, for the most part, as changeable in them. No sooner was Western informed of Mr. Allworthy's intention to make Jones his heir than he joined heartily with the uncle in every commendation of the nephew, and became as eager for his daughter's marriage with Jones as he had before been ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... the fact, that the nearer we approached the south, the colder, damper, and less genial it became. It is a mere absurdity to talk of the difference of our climate and that of France, in any part: it is assuredly warmer in England, and not a whit more changeable. ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... week of rheumatic fever. It is not sufficiently recognized that a subacute arthritis, recurring tonsillitis, open and concealed infections in the mouth, and even a condition of the system with acute, changeable and varying joint and muscle pains may all develop a mild endocarditis, even with subsequent valvular lesions. Therefore in all of these conditions the decision can be made only as to how much rest the patient must have or how serious the condition ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.
... the shoes and stockings, a plain georgette blouse of a soft, brownish wood-gray, with a bit of heavy brown silk embroidery decorating the front, and the jacket. The dress was of silky changeable tricolette, the skirt plain. Where a fold lifted and was strongly lighted, it was an exquisite silver-gray; where a shadow fell deeply it was gray-brown. The coat reached half way to the knees. It had a rippling skirt with a row of brown embroidery around it, a deep belt with double ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... so changeable a thing as a wave? Every wave has a type of form, has a characteristic movement and shape; and as it changes it comes into a new position and shape in logical and practically identical sequence of movement. You can only study this by constant watching. You look ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... amount of actual science would ever have produced. The neighbouring barbaric peoples were imbued with the same ideas as the Chaldaens regarding the constitution of the world and the nature of the laws which governed it. They lived likewise in perpetual fear of those invisible beings whose changeable and arbitrary will actuated all visible phenomena; they attributed all the reverses and misfortunes which overtook them to the direct action of these malevolent beings; they believed firmly in the influence of stars on the course of events; ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... "the hearts of women have been as changeable as the waves of the sea. And among the Flowers-in-the-Mist especially there are few who are found faithful. Since the present case concerns a famous singing girl, who knows the whole earth, it is probable that she has some former associate in the regions of the South. She has consequently availed ...
— Eastern Shame Girl • Charles Georges Souli
... man facing eternity. But that was what gave him strength to endure. Somehow he was a part of it all, some atom in that vastness, somehow necessary to an inscrutable purpose, something indestructible in that desolate world of ruin and death and decay, something perishable and changeable and growing under all the fixity of heaven. In that endless, silent hall of desert there was a spirit; and Cameron felt hovering near him what he imagined to be phantoms ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... of finding fault with them for being so capricious and changeable in their plans, says, "I think you are right. Fishes look pretty enough when they are swimming in the brook, but flowers are much prettier to transport and take care of. But first go and fill up the hole you made for the pond with the earth that is in the wheelbarrow; ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... The elder of the two—a tall, slender, middle-aged woman, with a somewhat severe, though delicate face—sat quietly apart, looking on at the rough dances and games with a keen relish of their primitive uncouthness; but the younger, a slight, alert creature, moved here and there, her large, changeable eyes looking larger ...
— Lodusky • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of the same faults again, I consent that you shall abandon me for ever." Saying this, he silently stole out of the room, as if intent upon some extraordinary resolution. His father observed his motions, and smiling, said to Mr Barlow, "What can this portend? This boy is changeable as a weathercock; every blast whirls him round and round upon his centre, nor will he ever fix, I fear, in any direction." "At least," replied Mr Barlow, "you have the greatest reason to rejoice in his present impressions, ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... we were still without a thermometer, and could not ascertain the degrees of temperature. The coruscations of the Aurora were very brilliant almost every evening of the first week, and were generally of the most variable kind. On the 3d they were particularly changeable. The first appearance exhibited three illuminated beams issuing from the horizon in the north, east, and west points, and directed towards the zenith; in a few seconds these disappeared, and a complete circle was displayed, ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... wondered how upon earth the Pelby Smiths could afford to give a party at all. She concluded that you would have to live on bacon and potatoes for the remainder of the season, to retrieve the cost, and would have to turn that changeable silk of yours ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... much of her. I thought she was very intelligent—seemed very much interested when Lieutenant Green was explaining to her what made the drydock dry—but they were all that. Did you say her eyes were gray? I couldn't make out if they were not rather blue after all—large, changeable sort of eyes, long lashes; eyes that look at you seriously and steadily, without the least bit of coquetry or worldliness; eyes expressing simplicity and interest in what you are saying—not in you, but in what you are saying. So few women know how to listen; most women appear to be thinking ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... no matter how clearly the reason of a man tells him that all about him is changeable, and that perfect and matured things and characters upon whose perfection and maturity he reposes for his peace must disappear, his attitude in youth towards those things is one of a complete security as towards things eternal. For the young man, convinced as he is that his ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... How large, how difficult to understand! So vast, so complicated, so full of contradictions, so various and changeable, that its very immensity is our refuge! We say, It is impossible to do justice to such a system; therefore do not demand ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... dazzling brilliancy of the noon-day sun and the noisy insect hum, invested the narrow nave and dim altar with an added charm. The old priest knelt for the briefest instant in reverence to the altar. When he turned there was surprise as well as a gentle reproach in the changeable eyes. ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... the pursuit, disgusted by the lowness of her origin, and knowing upon other terms than marriage He had nothing to hope from such a Dragon of Virtue as She professed herself; Or else, that being naturally capricious and changeable, the remembrance of her charms had been effaced from the Conde's heart by those of some newer Beauty. Whatever was the cause of her losing him, She lamented it sorely. She strove in vain, as She assured every body who was kind enough to listen to her, ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... which, no doubt, you think me very changeable, having said so often that I meant to keep to a scholar's life, and be a professor one day, perhaps, if by any means I could get salt to my porridge. Well, now I am not satisfied with salt to my porridge; ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... sometimes said that our tariff policy ought to be less changeable. Certain it is that our tariff history is full of inconsistencies and irrational fluctuations. But the question of a tariff policy is a thorny one. Manifestly, business should not be forced to accommodate itself to a purely political manipulation of the ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... animal and vegetable, seems in its essence like an effort to accumulate energy and then to let it flow into flexible channels, changeable in shape, at the end of which it will accomplish infinitely varied kinds of work. That is what the vital impetus, passing through matter, would fain do all at once. It would succeed, no doubt, if its power were unlimited, or if some reinforcement could come to it from without. ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... remarked a light from a window in the tower. It was fitful and changeable; commonly feeble and yellowish, as if from a lamp; with an occasional glare of some vivid metallic colour, followed by a dusky glow. A column of dense smoke would now and then rise in the air, and hang like a canopy over the tower. There ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... a thing should be done and rush him headlong into actions that he knows are ill-advised the moment he has time to think them over. In turning around and righting his mistakes he often hears himself called "changeable" and "vacillating." ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... in the Councils of the Government, but in reality that he may be watched the more closely. He also has received a letter in which he is publicly thanked for the services he has rendered. If I were in his place I should be very uneasy, seeing the kind of brother that he was, the most changeable the most jealous, and the most suspicious of men. There is a false ring about this letter to Prince Henry, just as there was in those which the Emperor addressed to Count Waldersee and to Bismarck. Gratitude is a word that William often thinks fit to use, but it is a sentiment that he is careful ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... took sence he wuz bald, and I knew that his picture wuz engraved on my heart in deeper lines than any camera or kodak could do it. But I had a handkerchief pin that looked like him, I bought it to the World's Fair, it wuz took of Columbus. You know Columbus wuz a changeable lookin' critter in his pictures, if he looked like all on 'em he must have been fitty, and Miss Columbus must have had a hard time to git along with him. This looked like Josiah, only with more hair, but I held my thumb over the top, and I could ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... flowers, and waving foliage of the sunny South. The contrast was most agreeable to me in my then tired and overworked condition, and I felt that a few days in that climate would restore my strength more effectually than a stay of several weeks in the changeable and inclement weather of northern Illinois. For sanitary, as well as business reasons, therefore, I had no occasion to regret ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... to the nest from which young genius first spread its wings, personally conducted by my friend, Mr. O'Mara." But his moods were growing more and more uncertain and changeable, now. He bent a baleful glance upon Fat Joe. "Is this—person going to accompany us," offensively he ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... trouble me a good deal. It often itched at nights, and kept me awake; a sudden spasm would shoot through it, and in changeable weather it was full of gout. It was like that for many days. But it did not make me ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... all things here, things changeable, created; Who lowered and put to naught the barbarous color,[5] And, like victorious gambler, took as winnings His foe's prosperity; he, ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... comparative Brightness of the Stars; with an Introductory Account of an Index to Mr. Flamsteed's Observations of the Fixed Stars, contained in the Second Volume of the Historia Coelestis to which are added several useful Results derived from that Index.—Observations of the changeable Brightness of the Satellites of Jupiter, and of the Variation in their apparent Magnitudes; with a Determination of the Time of their rotary Motions on their Axes, to which is added a Measure of the Diameter of the Second Satellite, and an Estimate of the ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... which is not' (sl 35), and 'satya' (true) and 'asatya' (untrue; sl 45), can in no way denote something not to be defined either as being or non-being. By 'that which is not' or 'which is untrue,' we have to understand not what is undefinable, but that which has no true being, in so far as it is changeable and perishable. Of this character is all non-intelligent matter. This also appears from the instance adduced in sl 42: the jar is something perishable, but not a thing devoid of proof or to be sublated by true knowledge. ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... them. In fact, men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth—often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you can not get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable." ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... fainted away Like a mist, and then flew to her waters and lay In love-patience long hours, and sore dazzled her eyes In watching for mine 'gainst the midsummer skies. But now they were heal'd,—O my heart, it still dances When I think of the charm of her changeable glances, And my image how small when it sank in the deep Of her eyes where her soul was,—Alas! now they weep, And none knoweth where. In what stream do her eyes Shed invisible tears? Who beholds where her sighs Flow in eddies, or sees the ascent of the ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... he who conquers self is one with me. He who little cares to conquer self, is but a foolish master; beauty, or earthly things, family renown and such things, all are utterly inconstant, and what is changeable can give no rest of interval. If in the end the law of entire destruction is exacted, what use is there in indolence and pride? Covetous desire is the greatest source of sorrow, appearing as a friend in secret 'tis our enemy. ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... deposit them only under their care, this would be adding wonder to wonder, and instancing in a fresh manner that the methods of Providence are not subjected to any mode or rule, but astonish us in new lights, and in various and changeable appearances. ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... and Mrs. Carlyle happen to be in a milder part of England during this changeable and cold season. Yet, for my own sake, I shall be sorry to see the winter go: with its decided and reasonable balance of daylight and candlelight. I don't know when I shall go to London, perhaps in April. Please to ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... She was as changeable as a little child, and had humors, too, of tenderness and contrition, when she would put her arms round her husband's neck and be-darling him, saying, "I love you! I love you!" and bemoan her contrariness and ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... up at him. All the rebellion and passion had faded out of her eyes now: they were only appealing. What a wild, changeable creature she was with those quick contrasts of temper! wild as the name she bore—Montana—the mountains. Something like that thought came into his mind ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... The fact is that I was at that moment as far from being able to comprehend this lovely but inscrutable woman as when I met her for the first time in the saloon of the City of Cawnpore: her moods were as changeable as the weather: there were occasions when her manner toward me was almost as warm and genial and sympathetic as even a lover could require; while there were others when she appeared animated by a set purpose to impress upon me the conviction that our remarkable adventure together ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... and copy galore before breakfast, and might be able to give idleness a day if I liked. But it is as well reading for Boney as for anything else, and I have a humour to make my amusement useful. Then the day is changeable, with gusts of wind, and I believe a start to the garden will be my best out-of-doors exercise. No thorough hill-expedition in ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... turning red already. The setting sun threw a glorious light through their tinted foliage, and the still bosom of the lake reflected it in a softened, changeable hue of mingled crimson and silver. Flora was standing at the door. I somehow found myself there also; but I talked over my shoulder to ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... side by side at the supper table. Julia was about seventeen years of age and was called very handsome, for there was something peculiarly fascinating in the ever-varying expression of her large black eyes. She was a brunette, but there was on her cheek so rich and changeable a color that one forgot in looking at her, whether she were dark or light. Her disposition was something like her complexion—dark and variable. Her father was a native of South Carolina, and from him she ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... the weather was rather changeable — now overcast, now clear — when we set out at 8 p.m. the night before. We had not far to go before reaching our depot. At 12 midnight we arrived there in the most glorious weather, calm and warm. Now we had the whole of ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... the Dardanelles, the Tigre encountered changeable weather; the sails had often to be shifted. When he was on watch, Edgar always went aloft with his friend Wilkinson and took his place beside him, listened to the orders that he gave, and watched him at work. In a few ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... though the terms had been settled, and the writings drawn. It seems now uncertain whether it will be revived or not. The company have offered to export such goods as we should advise, and we have given them a list of those most wanted. But so changeable are minds here, on occasion of news, good or bad, that one cannot be sure that even this company will proceed. With a universal good will to our cause and country, apparent in all companies, there is mixed a universal apprehension, that we shall be reduced ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... according to the Hawaiian mythology, presides over Kilauea, is, as some say all her sex are, variable, changeable, mutable. What I shall tell you about the appearance of the crater and lake is true of that time; it may not have been correct a week later; it was certainly not true of a month before. We climbed into the deep pit, and then stood upon a vast floor of lava, rough, jammed together, ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... it. But it is not so with that great imitative art, to the power of which all ages, the rudest and the most enlightened, bear witness. Since its first great masterpieces were produced, everything that is changeable in this world has been changed. Civilisation has been gained, lost, gained again. Religions, and languages, and forms of government, and usages of private life, and modes of thinking, all have undergone a succession of revolutions. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... well as the nature and excellency of that power, of which, these are the two grand instruments. From this account, some may begin to think that in treating of grammar we are dealing with something too various and changeable for the understanding to grasp; a dodging Proteus of the imagination, who is ever ready to assume some new shape, and elude the vigilance of the inquirer. But let the reader or student do his part; and, if he please, follow us with attention. We will endeavour, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... time, methinks," he said after a close scrutiny of the newcomer. "It is no easy post on which you have entered, Beric. Nero is changeable in his moods, but you carry your heart in your face, and even he can have no suspicions of you. Take my advice, make friends with no man, for one who stands high in court favour today may be an exile or condemned tomorrow, ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... the second method we are not sure, because more or less than we estimate may boil away. The third stock, being made from bones and pieces of meat left from roasts, and from the trimmings of raw meats, will always be changeable in color, quantity and quality. This is, however, a very important stock, and it should always be kept on hand. No household, even where only a moderate amount of meat is used, should be without a stock-pot. It can be kept on the back of the range or stove while cooking is going on. ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa
... they are so national, they cease to be striking. In England, tempers vary so excessively, that almost every one's faults are peculiar to himself. I take this diversity to proceed partly from our climate, partly from our government: the first is changeable, and makes us queer; the latter permits our queernesses to operate as they please. If one could avoid contracting this queerness, it must certainly be the most entertaining to live in England, where ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... remembered that this was the season of the south-east monsoon, and yet we had not had even half a day's south-east wind since we left Waigiou. Contrary winds, squalls, and currents drifted us about the rest of the day at their pleasure. The night was equally squally and changeable, and kept us hard at work taking in and making sail, and rowing ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... it might seem; for the word that we use so glibly, with so sure a confidence in its stability, has had a long and varied history and has answered to many aliases. When Shakespeare called a man "humorous" he meant that he was changeable and capricious, not that he was given to a facetious turn of thought or to a "sportive" exercise of the imagination. When he talks in "The Taming of the Shrew" of "her mad and head-strong humor" he doesn't mean to imply that Kate is a practical joker. It is interesting to note ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... place; for every place has some advantages, and they are always better worth knowing than the disadvantages. Certainly the weather was depressing, for a thick, dull, persistent rain was falling by the time they reached home. But happily the weather is very changeable; and besides, there was a good fire burning in the room, which their neighbour with the drunken husband had attended to for them; and the tea-things were put out, and the kettle was boiling on the fire. And with a good fire, and tea and bread and butter, things ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... war experience he went through, Perk—they say once a man was gassed pretty badly over there, he'd always prove to be a queer fish—changeable, nervous and apt to do all manner of ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... changed in character and often in actual site, especially upon the flat, and therefore changeable, eastern shores—and that is exactly what you find in similar circumstances throughout the tidal waters of the Continent. There is not the shadow or the trace of any widespread destruction of the Roman towns ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc
... the middle, remaining there in a cluster till they disappear, the weather is to be fair; if they rise at the sides of the cup, adhering to the china, the weather will be rainy. If they rise all over the coffee's surface, and move here and there erratically, changeable conditions are ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara
... some kind of moody and changeable type all sizes, kinds and colors, and if this book could be printed with irregular, up and down and sidling lines—printed for people the way they are going to read it, if the sentences in this chapter could duck under into subterranean passages or could take nice little airy swoops or ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... neighbor of mine supply the type I seek—the old Quaker farmer, who is discontented and changeable in his disposition, having lived in Indiana a while, then in Iowa, then in Indiana again, and who is now in Iowa for the second time. He rents some land which lies just across the railroad, and in summer, when he is ploughing the growing corn, I hear him talking to his horse. He calls her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... did! I ain't got any objections to either color, only it ought to stay put, hadn't it? In a town of the size she's livin' in, a girl with changeable hair is likely to be kind of conspicuous. I tell you! maybe it bleached out in ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... so changeable! so changeable! But I think it is all the same. According to law, only the last ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... March afternoon, ashen and windy, with flocks of small fleecy clouds hurrying across a changeable blue sky, and the vague, roving scents of early spring in the air. After his dinner, which he had taken for more than fifty years precisely at two o'clock, Cyrus had sat down for a peaceful pipe on the back porch before returning to the office. Between the sunken ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... face might be compared to that of a prism, every facet of which reflects a different color. The ardor burning under this changeable surface, which, through some sudden cause, betrayed its presence, was so deeply hidden, however, that it seemed impossible to fathom it completely. Was she a coquette, or simply a fashionable lady, or a devotee? In one word, was she imbued with the most egotistical pride or the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... or strange. As she was quite independent in mind, and always took her own line, she had become an arbiter, a leader of taste. What she liked soon became liked in London and Paris throughout a large circle. Unfortunately, she was changeable and apt to be governed by personal feeling in matters connected with art. When she cast away an artist she generally cast away his art with him. If it was first-rate she did not condemn it as bad. She contented herself with saying that she was "sick of it." And very soon a great ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... forth from its envelope of white linen. It was a very lustrous silk, changeable between rose-color and apple-green, and the delicate hues glanced ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... things!" she sniffed, as she caught Mostyn's eye. "They are voting against me already. They are as changeable as March winds. Look at Mrs. Timmons; she is actually shaking her fist at me. When I speak I always keep my eye on somebody in the crowd. I'll watch that woman to-night, and if I can win her over I may influence ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... as tithe; and the vestiges of some of those vineyards remain to this day. They were usually placed on the south side of a hill, in a light dry soil, having the surface covered with sand; the vines being trained near the ground. But with such inclement and changeable springs, and long protracted winters, as have been experienced of late, even such frost as is seen at this moment (24th of April,) vines as standards in the open air, would be destroyed; or, at least, no dependence could be placed upon them for a crop. But vineyards in the country could neither ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 281, November 3, 1827 • Various
... name may possibly be a corruption of u bynai-iong, i.e. the black moon, the changeable ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... as well for New England as for Judah and Jerusalem: "their cauls and their round tires like moons; the chains and the bracelets and the mufflers; the bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the head bands, and the tablets, and the ear-rings; the rings and nose jewels; the changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping pins; the glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods and the veils." Nor has the day yet come to pass in the nineteenth century when the bravery of the ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... view from our drill field. The mountains are never twice the same, and the lake is quite as changeable; they vary their aspect every hour from morning to evening. We are lucky just now in our full moon, to light us about the unaccustomed streets. In contrast are the ugly tents, which yet have a romantic interest in their possible warlike use, and in their perfect ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... of the changeable crowd in the room. They cheered and applauded it. When he was acquitted they were quite as pleased as if he had been condemned to be beheaded, and put him in a great chair and carried him home ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... I could not only rise superior to my misfortune, but could make that very misfortune the motive of my rise. You told me I was too quick of temper, too morbidly sensitive about the slightest reference to my father's death, too fierce and changeable under undeserved trial and disappointment. This might have been true then; but I am altered now: pride and ambition have been persecuted and starved out of me. An obscure, monotonous life, in which thought and spirit may be laid asleep, never to wake ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... promise nothing to-night; for I wonder how many times you have come to me brimming over with enthusiasm about some new plan, and how often it has collapsed like a bubble in a couple of days! You are such changeable children!" ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... a horse, sate a tall, broad-shouldered young fellow, in a great-coat of bright pea-green, whose variegated lights and shades, from soaking rains and partial dryings, bore sullen testimony to the changeable state of the weather for the last week. Out of this great-coat shot up, to a monstrous height, a head surmounted by a huge cocked hat, one end of which hung over the stem, the other over the stern of the horse: the legs belonging to this head were sheathed in a pair of monstrous boots, technically ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... of man; no stunted unbelieving callousness, no reckless surrender to blind Force, no opiate delusion; but the harmonious adjustment of Necessity and Accident, of what is changeable and what is unchangeable in our destiny; the calm supremacy of the spirit over its circumstances; the dim aim of every human soul, the full attainment of only a chosen few. It comes not unsought to any; but the wise are wise because they think no price too high ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... street railway company, the story would probably be written and printed in great detail. Any slight occurrence that may be in line with a paper's political beliefs would receive an amount of space far out of proportion with its ordinary news worth. News value is a very changeable and indefinite thing, and there are countless reasons why any given story should be of interest to a large number of readers. And the possibility of interesting a large number of readers is the basis ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... time Laura was never more changeable, more puzzling. Her vivacity seemed suddenly to have been trebled, but it was invaded frequently by strange reactions and perversities that drove her friends and ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... lent it a new lustre by their brilliant names." She was very kind, extremely soft-hearted, and always overwhelming her companions with attentions and regards. Mademoiselle Avrillon, her reader, says: "I do not believe that there ever lived a woman with a better character, or with a less changeable disposition." She never dared to utter a word of blame or reproach. "If one of her ladies," said Constant, the Emperor's valet de chambre, "ever gave her cause for dissatisfaction, the only punishment she inflicted was to maintain absolute silence for ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... ready to say, that there is not a God,—as the fool, Psal. xiv. 1. Or, that he is not such a God as his word and works declare him to be—a holy, just, righteous, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God, &c. Or that he is a changeable God, and actually changed, not being the same now which sometime he was. That he hath forgotten to be gracious, and remembereth not his people in adversity; and so is not tender and merciful. That he hath forgotten his promises, and so is ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... altogether exceeded the usual limits, and appeared to delight in inventing the most complicated falsehoods from the mere love of mischief. At times Jack was completely bewildered by his general, so rapid were the changes of plans, so changeable his purposes, so fantastic and eccentric his bearing and utterances. That his military genius was astonishing no one can for a moment question, but it was the genius rather of a knight errant than of the commander ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... property in the hands of a limited number of property owners and the expropriation of the great proletarian mass of mankind, a concentration which is after all no more than a tendency conditional on changing and changeable conventions about property, and it finds its hope of a better future in the outcome of a class conflict between the expropriated Many and the expropriating Few. Both sides are to be equally swayed by self-interest, but the toilers ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... in former times was lodged in Universities, now resides in very great measure in that literary world, as it is called, to which I have been referring. This is not satisfactory, if, as no one can deny, its teaching be so offhand, so ambitious, so changeable. It increases the seriousness of the mischief, that so very large a portion of its writers are anonymous, for irresponsible power never can be any thing but a great evil; and, moreover, that, even when they are known, they can give no ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... the combustion of cultivated plants which have grown upon all varieties of soil, and have obtained correct analyses of these ashes, we shall learn with certainty which of the constituent elements of the plants are constant and which are changeable, and we shall arrive at an exact knowledge of the sum of all the ingredients we withdraw from the ...
— Familiar Letters of Chemistry • Justus Liebig
... nations as for individuals. Indeed, the history of difficulty would be but a history of all the great and good things that have yet been accomplished by men. It is hard to say how much northern nations owe to their encounter with a comparatively rude and changeable climate and an originally sterile soil, which is one of the necessities of their condition,—involving a perennial struggle with difficulties such as the natives of sunnier climes know nothing of. And thus it may be, that though our ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... apartment where the light was clearest. 'I wonder if the boss would miss it, if we should just smell of this here bottle,' said the faithful servitor. Turning it his hand, it flashed brilliant rays on every side. Entangled among these played vivid and beautiful pictures, changeable as auroras, yet perfect, during their brief instant of existence, as the imaginations of Raphael, or the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Presently, she went over to her wardrobe and took out a beautiful shimmery pink shawl. What it was made of I cannot tell, except that it shivered and quivered with little colors like a rainbow. Perhaps it was made of changeable sea-silk. ...
— The Iceberg Express • David Magie Cory
... I had not faced the king's displeasure and had not refused to go until Brandon was safely out of his trouble. It was hard for me to believe that I had left such a matter to two foolish girls, one of them as changeable as the wind, and the other completely under her control. I could but think of the difference between myself and Brandon, and well knew, had I been in his place, he would have liberated me or stormed the very walls of ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... said the peasant. 'But I'm an old man, and I know that people's minds are changeable. I fear that there will come a time when they won't want to give us any glory, either for Alvastra or Vreta or ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... veil, but her high-topped comb sat on her head like a crown, and there was a wonderfully rich stomacher of embroidered lace in the neck of her dress. Such a dress! It shimmered in the sun like a dove's wings, for it was of changeable silk, the costliest affair, Patty thought, that a bride ever wore. It was fastened at the back like a little girl's frock, and the waist was no longer than the ...
— Little Grandmother • Sophie May
... alliance, among others the traditional dynastic friendship between the two countries and the fact that no natural political or religious causes of conflict existed between them; while a union with Austria was less reliable, owing to the changeable nature of her public opinion, the heterogeneousness of her Magyar, Slav, and Catholic populations, and the loss of influence by the German element with the governing body. On the other hand, however, an alliance with Austria would be nothing new, internationally, ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... described as belonging to the malignant class of fairy beings, and he is as wild and capricious in his character as he is changeable in his form. At one time an eagle or an 'ignis fatuus,' at another a horse or a bull, while occasionally he figures as a compound of the calf and goat. When he assumes the form of a horse, his great object, according to a recent writer, seems to be ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... by the most trifling causes. A word will grieve them like some real misfortune. Their impulses are not lacking in intellectual control, but are followed by action with excessive rapidity. Although of such changeable disposition, they are subject to fixed ideas, to which they cling with a kind of cataleptic intensity. A woman will be dumb or motionless for months, on the pretext that speech or motion would injure her. But this is the only form of constancy they ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... wizard, “what do you think about that concertina? and are you sure you would not rather have a flute? No?” says he; “that is well, for I do not like my family to be changeable of purpose. But I begin to think I had better get out of this paltry boat, for my bulk swells to a very unusual degree, and if we are not the more careful, she will presently ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... same hemisphere, who differ in the length of their shadows, they all unite in hatred and contempt for the inhabitants of the opposite side. Those who have the benefit of a moon, that is, who are turned towards the earth, are lively, indolent, and changeable as the face of the luminary on which they pride themselves; while those on the other side are more grave, sedate, and industrious. The first are called the Hilliboos, and the last the Moriboos—or bright nights, and dark nights. And this mutual animosity is the more remarkable, as they often appeared ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... a word to be said against us except that which referred to the feelings of the young and old. Feelings are changeable, I told them at that great and glorious meeting which we had at Gladstonopolis, and though naturally governed only by instinct, would be taught at last to comply with reason. I had lately read how feelings had been allowed in England to stand in the way ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... bright and useful girls as possible. He started with three. He ended with just one. From dawn to dewy eve I tore. It was "Connie, come here!" (Ada, the beadwork forelady.) "Connie, come here!" (The cutter.) "Connie, thread, thread, yes? There's a good girl!" (The beaders.) "Connie, changeable beads, yes? That's the girl!" "Connie, unframe these two skirts quick as you can!" "Connie, never mind finishing those skirts; I got to get this 'special' framed up right away!" "Connie, didn't you finish unframing those skirts?" "Connie, tissue paper, yes? Thanks awfully." ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... Caliban's reasoning proceeds from some personal experience or observation. In this case he reasons from the fish to Setebos. Caliban attributes to Setebos unlimited power to create and control in whatever is comparatively near at hand and changeable. But Caliban had been affected by the mystery of the starry heavens. The remoteness and fixedness of the stars had suggested a quiet, unalterable, passionless force beyond Setebos, who must, therefore, have limitations. He did not make the stars (l. 27), he cannot ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... day we were flying over the ocean. The fluctuous and changeable waves were beneath us, with their multitudinous hues and colors, as light and foam and billows mingled. Far as the eye could reach, they seemed to be climbing over each other forever, like the endless competitions ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... well there is no objection to this in very hot weather. In cold weather, however, it is doubtful if any children are benefited by it, particularly in a changeable climate like that of New York. Many delicate children are certainly injured by such ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt
... perception, that is to say, when using the sense of sight or hearing or some other sense (for the meaning of perceiving through the body is perceiving through the senses)—were we not saying that the soul too is then dragged by the body into the region of the changeable, and wanders and is confused; the world spins round her, and she is like a drunkard, when she ...
— Phaedo - The Last Hours Of Socrates • Plato
... teachers. It is easy to argue the other way, but it can only be done by setting aside as non-essential differences of great practical importance. Europeans are ready enough to admit that Buddhism is changeable and easily corrupted but it is not singular in that respect[31]. I doubt if Lhasa and Tantrism are further from the teaching of Gotama than the Papacy, the Inquisition, and the religion of the German Emperor, from the ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... was appropriating it as her treasure; that she was saying to herself some such words—"Silver and gold have I none, but this is my pearl beyond price; she will be enough for me; she must be so; I will make her so. She and I will waste no more silly tears on hard, changeable men. They are not like us, little daughter; they pass us by, or they love us once with fierce desire; and when satiated or balked, they turn to us again to please their eye, flatter their ear, vary their leisure; to anatomize and torture like other favourites of an ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... "Oh yes. Very changeable weather indeed. It looked quite promising yesterday morning in the town, but it began to rain ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... way to the Ashdales, and on seeing Glory Goldie in all the glow and freshness of her youth he had taken from his pack a piece of dress goods which he tried to induce her parents to buy for her. The cloth was a changeable red, of a texture almost like satin and as costly as it was beautiful. Of course Jan and Katrina could not afford to buy for their girl a dress of that sort, though Jan, at least, would ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... ever so changeable as men, then? Papa consented; he agreed; he had some of my feeling; I saw it. That was yesterday. And at night! He spoke to each of us at night in a different tone from usual. With me he was hardly affectionate. But ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... wanders round and round as if in search of the rocks upon which it once grew. The southern shore of Cuba presents much of special interest to the conchologist in the variety and beauty of the sea-shells that abound upon its beaches. The water is of an exquisite color, a brilliant green, very changeable, like liquid opal. Were an artist truthfully to depict it, he would be called color-mad. Northern skies are never reflected in waters of such fanciful hues. Some beautiful specimens of white corals are found here, but they are not a characteristic ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... for euery foote. Theis men do knowe how to rule all religions vnder a certayn colour of holy concord / but indeede for earthly commoditie / that among whom soeuer they do lyue like vnto a Cameleon they do take vnto themselues their coloure and ceremonies / being mutch more changeable than Protheus / of whom it is but folly to beleaue / that they do passe for ony religion at all. But let vs passe ouer theise vnstable changelinges / and establishe our mynds / that they be not lewse nor waueringe / but being knytte vpp and confirmed in the lorde / they ...
— A Treatise of the Cohabitation Of the Faithful with the Unfaithful • Peter Martyr
... know whether thou'd ever dreamt of it, though I think that's loike eneaf, mind,' retorted John; 'but thou didst it. "Ye're a feeckle, changeable weathercock, lass," says I. "Not feeckle, John," says she. "Yes," says I, "feeckle, dom'd feeckle. Dinnot tell me thou bean't, efther yon chap at schoolmeasther's," says I. "Him!" says she, quite screeching. "Ah! him!" says I. "Why, John," says she—and she ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... together with his perfect taste in dress and the exquisite simplicity of his manners, made him the absolute ideal of what a poet should be. His voice, too, was soft, sweet, and musical, and, like his face, it had the innate charm of tranquillity. His eyes were blue-gray, very bright and brave, changeable under the influence of emotion (as afterward I often saw), but mostly calm, grave, attentive, and gentle. The habitual expression of his face was not that of sadness; and yet it was pensive. Perhaps it may be best described as that of serious and tender thoughtfulness. ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields |
