"Fickle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tell Of ancient deeds, so long forgot; Of feuds, whose memory was not; Of forests, now laid waste and bare; Of towers, which harbour now the hare; Of manners, long since chang'd and gone; Of chiefs, who under their grey stone So long had slept, that fickle Fame Had blotted from her rolls their name, And twin'd round some new minion's head The fading wreath ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... manner. Prussia, indeed, solemnly promised assistance; and in the month of March, 1790, Frederic William even concluded a defensive alliance with Poland. But the friendship of courts is variable, and the favour of monarchs fickle. The King of Prussia had attached himself to the cause of Poland, not from any respect for her rights, but from a spirit of jealousy towards Russia, and in the hopes of obtaining something for himself. He was to have Dantzic and Thorn for his support; and when ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... unprincipled, and fearless, it is not one of the least strange events, connected with a conspiracy the whole of which is strange, and much almost inexplicable, that a man so wise, so sagacious, so deep-sighted, as the arch traitor, should have placed confidence in one so fickle and infirm ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... quarrel begins. Lola and the frightened women withdraw. Turridu bites Alfio's right ear,—a Sicilian form of challenge. The scene closes with the death of the former at Alfio's hands, and Santuzza is avenged; but the fickle Lola has gone her way ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... chief men together and explained that he came as their ally, and not as their foe, and that if they would join with him they should be citizens of the American republic, and treated in all respects on an equality with their comrades. The Creoles, caring little for the British, and rather fickle of nature, accepted the proposition with joy, and with the most enthusiastic loyalty toward Clark. Not only that, but sending messengers to their kinsmen on the Wabash, they persuaded the people of Vincennes likewise to cast off their allegiance to the British ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... this silent coup de main the German fleet many times showed signs of awakening ambition, it did not, after Jutland, dare to thrust even its vanguard far into the open sea. Behind its forts, mines and submarines it waited, growing weaker with the dry-rot of inaction, for the chance that fickle Fortune might place a single unit of the Allied fleet within easy reach of ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... women? By nature tender, trustful, kind, and fickle, Prone to forgive, and practised in forgetting? Let the fair things but rave their hour at ease, And weep their fill, and wring their pretty hands, Faint between whiles, and swear by every saint They'll never, never, never see you more! Then when the larum's hushed, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... blooming as a Hebe. Then his deep anxiety ceased, his pride stung him furiously; he began to think of his own value, and to struggle with all his might against his deep love. Sometimes he would even inveigh against her, and call her a fickle, ungrateful girl, capable of no strong passion but vanity. Many a hard term he applied to her in his sorrowful solitude; but not a word when he had a hearer. He found it hard to rest: he kept dashing up to London and ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... our own; mother and I have felt the rub of hardship before today. The hardest of all was the falling away of those whom we believed to be friends. We learned that the favors of society are as fickle as those of fortune, and that they walk ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... at winning harmony by just concessions from either or both the parties, a court procedure consciously and definitely set to the task of making more marriages successful even when they have developed difficulty of adjustment, rather than one allowed to act as a means of easy separation of even fickle, selfish, and childish people on grounds of ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... he came lately to Bath, where he has been exhibiting himself among the bucks and gamesters of the place. Eastgate followed him hither; but he should not have quitted him for a moment, at his first emerging into life. He ought to have known he was a fantastic, foolish, fickle fellow, who would forget his college-attachments the moment they ceased appealing to his senses. Tom met with a cold reception from his old friend; and was, moreover, informed, that he had promised the living to another man, who had a vote in the county, where he proposed to offer himself a candidate ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... you are wild and coy, Fickle, mysterious, and shy . . . And so we lost you, Love and I! And now, at last, because we find Your golden footprints, Love the boy, Dreams you are near . . . but Love is blind! Yet, surely Sorrow's arms unwind From this tired heart, and dark distress Fades softly . . ...
— The Inn of Dreams • Olive Custance
... ever meet with young women, properly so called. The calling of a crossing-sweeper, so far as it is carried on by females, is almost entirely divided between children or young girls, and women above the age of forty. The children are a very wandering and fickle race, rarely staying for many weeks together in a single spot. This love of change must militate much against their success, as they lose the advantage of the charitable interest they would excite in persons accustomed to meet them regularly in their walks. They are not, however, generally dependent ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various
... pleasant sides of life, and soon in her despair and anger his modest merits took heroic proportions in her eyes. She forgot her past dislike; she thought only of this, the simple good man, contrasted with the showy and fickle-hearted—true metal against glittering tinsel. His very weaknesses seemed homely and venial. He was of her own world, akin to the things which deep down in her soul she knew she must love to the last. It is to the credit of the man's insight that ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... "O fickle, terror-stricken fools!" he exclaimed—"O thankless and disloyal people! What!—ye WILL see me now? ... ye WILL hear me? ... Aye! but who shall answer for your obedience to my words! Nay, is it possible that I, your country's chosen Chief Minstrel, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... way—my nature is of the tropical order, for my mother was born in Corsica, you know. Some of these fair English girls may be fickle, but Pauline Potter is the same as when she knew you in Chicago. But, John Craig, this same love can change to hate; it is but a step between the two, and no magician's wand is needed to ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... being a real true friend to anybody. He may have brains and breeding and plenty of animal desires, but in his heart there is no understanding of what it means to be devoted to a welfare not his own. The same is true no doubt of a great many women, those whose characters are too fickle and unstable to permit of any deep and lasting attachment. Fortunately, even in the case of such men and women, if they marry and have children, some of the joy and meaning of this heart-life is still vouchsafed them. They feel it for their ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... first year her American common-sense tells her that a plunge into the concert field is still dangerous. Accordingly she remains two, or possibly three, more years and at the end if she has worked hard she is convinced that with proper management she may stand some chance of winning that fickle treasure, public favor. ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... autumn's pensive melancholy, sparkled in the sunlight. Snowy bits of cloud raced across the sky, like sails against the blue of the ocean. November leaves, lying thick upon the grass, stirred into life, and for an hour imagined the fickle wind to be a harbinger of spring. Children, with laughter that knew no other cause than the exhilaration of the morning, played and romped, weaving dreams into their lives and their lives into dreams. Invalids ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... the waters The fickle feet may roam, But they find no light so pure and bright As the one fair star of home; The star of tender hearts, lady, That glows in an ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... to inspire affection and bitter rivalry in the hearts of Sergeant Bulter and Chippo Munks is hard to imagine. She was not beautiful or agreeable or even intelligent. And she was certainly fickle and greedy. If Sergeant Bulter persuaded her to accompany him for a walk she was quite likely to return with Chippo; and if Chippo invited her to dine the end of the dinner was usually the signal for her to leave in search of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 5, 1920 • Various
... I know, the odds were in our favour and success seemed assured. Our opponents then presented their case, and still we felt no doubt; but Fortune is a fickle jade and at the last she left us in the lurch. On the eighth day of the proceedings the Chairman announced: "The Committee are of opinion that it is not expedient to proceed with the Bill." This was the coup de grace. No reasons are ever given by a Committee for their decision and the contending ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... we bade adieu to the good people at Fort William, and began our journey along the northern shore of Lake Superior, which is upwards of three hundred miles in diameter. Fortune, however, is proverbially fickle, and she did not belie her character on this particular day. The weather, when we started, was calm and clear, which pleased us much, as we had to make what is called a traverse—that is, to cross from one point of land to another, ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... time a successful book. Why Fortune, the fickle jade, should have taken it into her freakish head to frown, or half frown, on Dickens at this particular juncture, who shall tell? He was wooing her with his very best work, and she turned from him. The ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... against popular platitude, but rather, in a spirit of real earnestness, to point out to the mob how it has been cruel to George. I do not despair of success. I think I shall make converts. The mob is really very fickle ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... temper in argument. He shared in the laxity of morals common to his age; but was a man of deep affections as well as strong passions, fondly attached to his children and friends, while the profound and lasting grief with which he lamented his dead wife amazed his more fickle contemporaries. Singularly refined and sensitive by nature, he shrank instinctively from bloodshed, and had a horror of all violent actions. In this he differed greatly from his elder brother Galeazzo Maria, who was a monster of lust and cruelty, intent only on gratifying ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... the fickle, in two short years repudiated the pension, the portrait of Marat was removed from the Pantheon, and his body taken ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... them. "Come to my hotel, will you not, to-morrow? I may have something to say to you." Thus she passed back into the throng, and into the arms of fickle and repentant Washington, which marveled when she danced, flushed, excited, yet absorbed, with the gallant old general, himself intoxicated by the music and by all this warm talk of freedom, of equality, ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... your cousin told me!" said Otto. "If one will be fortunate with the ladies, one must at least be somewhat frivolous, fond of pleasure, and fickle,—that makes one interesting. Yes, he has made himself acquainted with the world, he ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... apple trees; or when a springlike morning appears, about the time of St. Valentine's Day, and the thrushes are singing love-songs to their mates, and the first brimstone butterfly has dared to leave his winter seclusion for the fickle sunshine, to realize that Spring is coming, and the active work of the farm is about to recommence. There is a superstition that when the master sees the firstling of the flock, if its head is turned towards him, good luck for the ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... mirror of our fickle state Since man on earth unparalleled! The rarer thy example stands, By how much from the top of wondrous glory, Strongest of mortal men, To lowest pitch of abject fortune ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... spot: he thinks the bargain practicable. I am myself, on a more serious review of the lands, much better pleased with them. I won't mention this in writing to any body but you and Ainslie. Don't accuse me of being fickle: I have the two plans of life before me, and I wish to adopt the one most likely to procure me independence. I shall be in Edinburgh next week. I long to see you: your image is omnipresent to me; nay, I am convinced I would soon idolatrise it most seriously; so much do absence and memory ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... witnesses being removed, he says, "With reluctance I say that of my countrymen which is rather disparaging.[93] I do not however come to allege against them any thing as having been committed by them, but to guard against their committing any thing. The minds of our people are far more fickle than I could wish. We have felt that by many disasters; seeing that we are still preserved, not through our own deserts, but through your forbearance. There is now here a great multitude of Volscians. ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... gifts, but of more tranquil and phlegmatic composition. But who is ignorant that there is a class of minds characterized by qualities like those I have mentioned; minds with many bright and even beautiful traits; but aimless and fickle as the butterfly; that settle upon every gayly-colored illusion as it opens into flower, and flutter away to another when the first has dropped its leaves, and stands naked in ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... declared, "thanks to you, you neglectful, ungrateful person! I've heard of fickle men before but I've never met one to come up to ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Simon Bolivar, the Liberator, began to see that the materialization of his lifelong ideal was now no longer a matter of the dim distant future. The struggle had been severe, and the fortunes of war had proved fickle at the beginning. At one period it had seemed that even Nature had fought against the South American cause. At Barquisimeto an earthquake had shattered the barracks of the soldiers of the Independence, and many hundreds of ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... rising from the fickle sea, or Hope descending from a carriage," rejoined his companion, ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... burns out, inspiration runs to seed. Some fine day every artist finds himself sitting face to face with his lump of clay, with his empty canvas, with his sheet of blank paper, waiting in vain for the revelation to be made, for the Muse to descend. He must learn to do without the Muse! When the fickle jade forgets the way to your studio, don't waste any time in tearing your hair and meditating on suicide. Come round and see me, and I will show you how to ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... words was very popular in the 17th century, from which period date cit(izen), mob(ile vulgus), the fickle crowd, and, pun(digrion). We often find the fuller mobile used for mob. The origin of pundigrion is uncertain. It may be an illiterate attempt at Ital. puntiglio, which, like Fr. pointe, was used of a ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... from waking up Ginger just at that moment. A fickle breath of wind pounced upon an outspread newspaper lying on the grass, fluttered it for a moment, and then, getting fairly under the printed sheet, ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... state, however, did not last, for, as the settlers became more firmly fixed in the land, the Indians, fickle and changeable, grew jealous and resented their intrusion, and refused to sell corn, hoping by this means to force ...
— The Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith • E. Boyd Smith
... ourselves on that head. The end must come, and that before long. The slaves will unquestionably be freed, and the only question for us is how to soften the blow. There is no doubt that our slaves, both at the Orangery and at the other plantations, are contented and happy; but you know how fickle and easily led the negroes are, and in the excitement of finding themselves free and able to go where they please, you may be sure that the greater number will wander away. My proposal is that ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... whom I had engineered a good position next to mine in the Life School—when I saw Ewing hugging Fanchette on the stairs, on the very landing sacred to my embraces, I knew that Paragot was right, and that Fanchette was just a fickle, naughty little model like the others. But if Paragot had not taken her measure before my eyes at Fontainebleau and made a figured drawing so to speak of her heart and soul, shewing their exiguous dimensions, I might have cast myself ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... whom some call the calumniator of the gods, the contriver of all fraud and mischief, and the disgrace of gods and men. His name is Loki or Loptur. He is the son of the giant Farbauti.....Loki is handsome and well made, but of a very fickle mood, and most evil disposition. He surpasses all beings in those arts called Cunning and Perfidy. Many a time has he exposed the gods to very great perils, and often extricated them again ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... she has left me. Oh! that she could also have endowed my pen with her graces and her virtue!—Methinks, at least, I hear her say—'That stern muse that looks at you, is History, whose awful duty it is to determine the opinion of posterity. That fickle deity that hovers o'er the globe, is Fame, who condescended to entertain us a moment about you; she brought me thy works, and paved the way for our connection by esteem. Behold that phoenix immortal amidst the flames: it is the symbol ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various
... the rule; in the other two the noun is understood, and should be supplied by the parser. Such terms, if elliptical, are most commonly of the plural number, and refer to the word persons or things understood; as, "The careless and the imprudent, the giddy and the fickle, the ungrateful and the interested, everywhere meet us."—Blair. Here the noun persons is to be six times supplied. "Wherever there is taste, the witty and the humorous make themselves perceived."—Campbell's Rhet., p. 21. Here the author meant, simply, the qualities ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... after our passage through Maurissa Strait that, as we were working to windward against a light and fickle breeze, land was sighted about three points on the weather bow. The time was close upon eight bells in the afternoon watch, and the land sighted was a mere dot of faintest blue showing just clear ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... perhaps even a blind country gentleman was preferable to a lachrymose pianist. Chopin must have heard of the attachment in 1831. Her name almost disappears from his correspondence. Time as well as other nails drove from his memory her image. If she was fickle, he was inconstant, and so let us waste no pity on this episode, over which lakes of tears have been shed and rivers ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... of France, so to speak—boilings on the surface, with which the great personality of the nation if such a word may be used, has little to do, and cares but little for; while she herself, the great race, neither giddy nor fickle, but unusually obstinate, tenacious, and sober, narrow even in the unwavering pursuit of a certain kind of well-being congenial to her—goes steadily on, less susceptible to temporary humiliation than many peoples much less ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... a Souldier firme and sound of heart, and of buxome valour, hath by cruell Fate, and giddie Fortunes furious fickle Wheele, that Goddesse blind, that stands vpon the rolling ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... from the courtier to the carter) is such that no form of apparel liketh us longer than the first garment is in the wearing, if it continue so long, and be not laid aside to receive some other trinket newly devised by the fickle-headed tailors, who covet to have several tricks in cutting, thereby to draw fond customers to more expense of money. For my part, I can tell better how to inveigh against this enormity than describe any certainty of our attire; sithence such is our mutability that to-day there is none ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... a serious matter. I believe, you love me, and I care for you too, and what is more important each of us finds the other interesting. There is no danger that we would soon get bored, but, you know, I am a fickle person, and just for that reason I take marriage seriously. If I assume obligations, I want to be able to meet them. But I am ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... philosopher, a man of science, a poet, or a statesman. It may be so; but the life of Lionardo tends also to illustrate the disadvantage of too wide a grasp and diffusion of genius. Beginning much and finishing little, not because he was idle or fickle, but because his schemes were so colossal and his aims so high, he spent his time in preparation for the attainment of perfect excellence, which eluded him. Lionardo was the pioneer, the teacher of others, rather than the complete fulfiller of his own dreams; and the life of ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... my thumb and sat there silent and without moving for a long time. I was stunned by the clearness of vision the verse had imparted to me. It was illumination. It was like a bolt of God's lightning in the Pit. They would keep Love, the fickle sprite, the forerunner of young life—young life that is ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... quadrupled in a decade, (1870-1880), and Washington equalled the record in the following ten years. California grew faster from 1870 to 1890 than it had done in the gold days, indicating that its development was based on something more lasting than a fickle vein of ore. Meanwhile politicians were fanning the desire of the growing territories to become states, and in 1889 Montana and Washington were admitted, and in the following year Idaho and Wyoming. Of these, Washington alone had a population ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... before Christmas. Claudia deprecated such haste; and Eugene willingly acquiesced in her wish to put off the date of their own union. He thought that being engaged to Claudia was a pleasant state of existence, and why hasten to change it? Besides, as he suggested, they were not people of fickle mind, like Kate and Haddington (for, of course, Claudia had told him of Haddington's proposal to herself—it is believed ladies always do tell these incidents), and could afford to wait. Eugene went to the wedding. He was strongly opposed to such ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... to the brute facts; had precipitated what could only be coaxed. "I die by my own hand," he said. If he had only married Rosalie Zander, who still lived on, loving him! These Russian and Bavarian minxes were neurotic, fickle, shifting as sand; the daughters of Judaea were sane, cheerful, solid. Then he thought of his own sister married to that vulgarian, Friedland. He saw her, a rosy-cheeked girl, sitting at the Passover table, with its picturesque ritual. How ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... "Fate is fickle," Orme returned. "You never know whether she will be your friend or your enemy. But I believe that she is now going to be our friend—for a change. To-morrow I ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... Days that never shall return. Mortal, then, this lesson learn— Struggle not against thy fate, For thy last day hath its date! It is written in the skies, And a guardian angel cries, Dream no more of earthly joys, They are fleeting, fickle toys. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 367 - 25 Apr 1829 • Various
... anticipated,—now below the level of humanity, now far above; a people so unchangeable in its leading features that it may be recognized by portraits drawn two or three thousand years ago, and yet so fickle in its daily opinions and tastes that it becomes at last a mystery to itself, and is as much astonished as strangers at the sight of what it has done; naturally fond of home and routine, yet, when once driven forth and forced to adopt new customs, ready to carry principles ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... their privileges and duties as free men. The work was arduous, for though there was a stronger desire for learning, and a quicker apprehension of religious and moral instruction, among the freedmen than among the refugees, their slave life had made them fickle, untruthful, and to some extent, dishonest and unchaste. Yet the faithful and indefatigable teachers found their labors wonderfully successful, and accomplished a great amount ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... of mucilage), was Mrs. Pennycook's dearest friend and her authority for the knowledge that while all men will bear watching, married men will bear a most minute scrutiny. Mrs. Pennycook knew that as a wife she was approaching the unlovely age when fickle husbands tire and cast about for younger and prettier women. Hence she decided to trim her mental lamps and light the dastard Daniel out ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... the amity which should exist between friendly nations, nor the good name of the honoured and respected dead, in his wolfish hunt for the daily scandal. Nothing was too high-spiced or improbable for him to print. He traded on the supposed gullibility of a fickle public. But, fortunately, in the long run, these staid sheets asserted, such actions recoiled upon the head of him who promulgated them. Sensational journals merited and received the scathing contempt of all honest men. Later on, one of the ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... cold, and the moony smile Which the meteor beam of a starless night Sheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle, Ere the dawning of morn's undoubted light, Is the flame of life so fickle and wan That flits round our steps till ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... Pharisee; "let us hasten: for this generosity in the heathen is unwonted; and fickle-mindedness has ever been an attribute of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the maiden of the star has generally intimated by look, who is likely to be the selected one. Sometimes, however, she is fickle, and when one, encouraged by her expressive glance, has paid her court, she will encourage another and another, and another,—for on these occasions she has full liberty ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... mainland. Just within the mouth of the river lie two small islands, containing together less than three acres. To these, the Plymouth of Liberia, the colonists and their goods were soon transported. But again the fickle natives repented the bargain, and the settlers were long confined to "Perseverance Island," as the spot was aptly named. Space forbids entering on the interesting details of the difficulties they successfully encountered. After a number of thrilling experiences ...
— History of Liberia - Johns Hopkins University Studies In Historical And Political Science • J.H.T. McPherson
... before her; out of them all, the dark torrent of the river showing the swift way to freedom and the great sea? She drew in a full breath, as if close air oppressed her.—A bird flew over her then, high above her head, careering in fickle circles, and at length sailing down out of sight far into other heavens. Flor watched him bitterly; she comprehended Zoe's scorn of her past content;—if only she had wings to spread! But Sarp had told her, that, if she went away, she would one day have wings. None of Sarp's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... show how the intelligence of fashionable people, even the brightest of them, is without value, foundation, or weight; how slight is the basis of their beliefs, how feeble and indifferent is their interest in intellectual things, how fickle ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... clamour, but the murmur of a low voice, such as is wont to arise from the waves of the sea, if one listens at a distance, or like the sound which the end of the thundering {makes} when Jupiter has clashed the black clouds together. A crowd occupies the hall; the fickle vulgar come and go; and a thousand rumours, false mixed with true, wander up and down, and circulate confused words. Of these, some fill the empty ears with conversation; some are carrying elsewhere what is told them; the measure of the fiction is ever on ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... had I been directed only by my own judgement, I should have given the preference to an immediate return to England; but Mrs. D is yet ill, and Mr. D is disposed to continue. In vain have I quoted "how fickle France was branded 'midst the nations of the earth for perfidy and breach of public faith;" in vain have I reasoned upon the injustice of a government that first allured strangers to remain by insidious offers of protection, and now ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... after eating; Belching of wind; Nausea; Vomiting of food; Water brash; Pain in the stomach; Heartburn; Bad taste in the mouth in the morning; Palpitation of the heart; Cankered mouth; loss of flesh; Fickle appetite; depression of spirits; Lack of ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... out to do a thing I have usually run the full course. I am not sure that it is natural perseverance in my case, but fear that I am more often ashamed to be considered fickle. So I sculled on to the Wavecrest ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... we that are Christians could, and would, had it been possible, have pawned ourselves, our souls, and our interest in Christ, for a foul and beastly lust. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, would not suffer it so to be. Now, if we are so fickle and uncertain in our love to ourselves, as to value our salvation at so low and so base a rate, can it be imagined that ever we should, had it been left to our choice, have given the best of what we have for the salvation of our souls? Yet God gave his Son to be the Saviour of the world. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... it is you do: Your quiet, honour, and our friendship too, All for a fickle beauty you forego. Think, and turn back, before it be too late. Behold in me the example of your fate: I am your sea-mark; and, though wrecked and lost, My ruins stand to warn you from ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... vain, unsteadfast state of mortal things! Who trust this world, leans to a brittle stay: Such fickle fruit his flattering bloom forth brings, Ere it be ripe, it falleth to decay." The joy and bliss that late I did possess, In weal at will, with one I loved best, Is turned now into so deep distress, As teacheth me ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... forest have the longest existence. Of all the objects which crown the gray earth, the woods preserved unchanged, throughout the greatest reach of time, their native character. The works of man are ever varying their aspect; his towns and his fields alike reflect the unstable opinions, the fickle wills and fancies of each passing generation; but the forests on his borders remain to-day the same as they were ages of years since. Old as the everlasting hills, during thousands of seasons they have put forth and laid down their verdure in calm obedience ...
— Arbor Day Leaves • N.H. Egleston
... the while, Stanley broke Lennox and Argyle; Though there the western mountaineer Rushed with bare bosom on the spear, And flung the feeble targe aside, And with both hands the broadsword plied. 'Twas vain: but Fortune, on the right, With fickle smile cheered Scotland's fight. Then fell that spotless banner white, The Howard's lion fell; Yet still Lord Marmion's falcon flew With wavering flight, while fiercer grew Around the battle-yell. The Border slogan rent ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... publisher. A letter to Mr. Taylor, dated February, 1825, shows the excited state of the poet at this period. 'I fear,' wrote Clare, 'I shall get nothing ready for you this month; at least I fear so now, but may have fifty subjects ready tomorrow. The muse is a fickle hussy with me; she sometimes stirs me up to madness, and then leaves me as a beggar by the wayside, with no more life than what's mortal, and that nearly extinguished by melancholy forebodings.' Further on he breaks out into the exclamation: 'I wish I could live nearer you; at least ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... nature superior to that of her visitor; on her knitted brow, a sense higher in quality than on his smooth low forehead; on her straight stern lip, less cause for distrust than in the false good-humour which curved his handsome mouth into that smile of the fickle, which, responding to mirth but not to affection, is often lighted and never warmed. It is true that in that set pressure of her lip there might be cruelty, and, still more, the secretiveness which can harbour deceit; and yet, by the nervous workings of that lip, when relieved from such pressure, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... wilt thou see ocean weltering with broken timbers, see the fierce glare of torches and the beach in a riot of flame, if dawn break on thee yet dallying in this land. Up ho! linger no more! Woman is ever a fickle and changing thing.' So spoke he, and ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... monarch, tell us (impartially) like a witness what thou thinkest of the conduct of those who abandon their serving-men thus for giving instruction to them. The hearts of kings are, indeed, very fickle. Granting protection at first, they strike with clubs at last. O prince (Duryodhana), thou regardest thyself as mature in intellect, and, O thou of bad heart, thou regardest me as a child. But consider that he is a child who having first accepted one for a friend, subsequently findeth fault ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... carriage was surrounded by the royal musketeers. A body of light cavalry followed, and the two companies of the Poitou regiment brought up the rear. Thus the people of Paris were shown that the queen had both the will and the power to punish, and the fickle population, who would the day before have shouted in honour of Beaufort, were delighted at seeing that the royal authority was once again paramount in Paris. The other members of the party of Importants either fled or were arrested. The Campions, Beaupuis, and others, succeeded ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... is their birthplace—where their home? Lighter than foam upon the crested wave, Fleeter than shadows of the passing cloud, They are of such fantastic substance made That quick as thought they change their fickle forms— Now grander than the waking vision views, Now stranger than the wildest fancy feigns, And now so grim and terrible they start The hardened conscience from its guilty sleep. In troops they come, trooping they fly away, Waved into being ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... were in Richard's train More known to fame and of higher degree, But none that suited his fickle vein So well as Blondel and Marcadee. Blondel had grown from a minstrel-boy To a very romantic troubadour Whose soul was music, whose song was joy, Whose only motto was Vive l'amour! In lady's bower, in lordly hall, From the king himself to the poorest clown, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... Some fickle creatures boast a soul True as a needle to the pole, Their humour yet so various— They manifest their whole life through The needle's deviations too, Their love ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... heare, yet is she willfull mad, And therefore will not pittie my distresse. Suppose that she coulde pittie me, what then? What helpe can be expected at her hands Whose foote is standing on a rowling stone And minde more mutable then fickle windes? Why waile I, then, wheres hope of no redresse? O, yes, complaining makes my greefe seeme lesse. My late ambition hath distaind my faith, My breach of faith occaisioned bloudie warres, Those bloudie warres haue spent my treasur[i]e, And with my treasur[i]e my peoples blood, And with the ...
— The Spanish Tragedie • Thomas Kyd
... Rostopchin did not bring this about," exclaimed Scharnhorst, "but it was our great friend Stein who did it. God Himself sent Minister von Stein to Russia, that he might stand as an immovable rock by the side of the mild and fickle Alexander, and that his fiery soul might strengthen the fluctuating resolutions of the czar, and inspire him with true faith in, and reliance on, the great cause of the freedom of the European nations, which was now to be decided upon the snowy fields of Russia. We owe it to Stein alone ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... was disabled by two wounds, {138} one in the knee and one in the leg, which hindered him from walking. Still he urged the Hurons to renew the attack. But in vain. From overweening confidence the fickle savages had passed to the other extreme. Nothing could inspire them to another assault. Moreover, Champlain had lost much of his peculiar influence over them. They had fancied that, with him in front, success was sure. Now they saw that he could be wounded, and by Indian weapons, and they ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... That cry, wrung from Wolsey, echoed throughout the Tudor times.[701] Men paid le nouveau Messie a devotion they owed to the old; they rendered unto Caesar the things that were God's. They reaped their reward in riches and pomp and power, but they won no peace of mind. The favour of princes is fickle, and "the wrath of the King is death". So thought Wolsey and Warham and Norfolk. "Is that all?" said More, with prophetic soul, to Norfolk; "then in good faith between your grace and me is but this, that I shall die to-day and you shall ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... to be completely steadfast? This doubt often depressed him, and he expresses it, as an artist expressed his doubt, in artistic forms. Elizabeth, for instance, can only suffer, pray, and die; she saves the fickle and intemperate man by her loyalty, though not for this life. In the path of every true artist, whose lot is cast in these modern days, despair and danger are strewn. He has many means whereby he can attain to honour and might; peace and plenty persistently offer themselves to him, but only ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... disgrace and death without reprieve. Happy are they who are not only subjected to the caprices of Dame Fortune, but held bound to account and be responsible for them, and that to a sovereign as moody and fickle as her humorous ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... his friends pressed near and seized my hand in a vise-like grip. Loud cheers rent the air, for again the fickle public had veered around, the crowd surged to and fro, women wept, and the fervent "Thank God!" that broke from the pallid lips of the young wife rang in my ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... lighted canopy he soliloquizes: "What vigils are those old guards commissioned to keep over this sail? Even if cares of universe now absorb divine solicitude, has there not been, in long ages of the eternal past, ample time to assign watchers over a few afloat on ocean's fickle domain? May not that kindly indulgent Sense, missing no carrion note of clamorous raven-cry, quicken at stress of higher life-forms pulsing with infinite longings of a ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... repeat them often. If I could only say, 'I know'! Alas! I can but say, 'I do not know,' nay, even, 'I do not believe.' If I had not been a fool I should have made him tell me, for I had him over his ears in love with me one day, or I am no judge of a man. But, you know, they are so fickle! And then the Yankee girls are pretty and so clever. Well, they shall not have him if I can help it. When I return there shall be war, if necessary, between France and America. And, Therese, you know I have weapons, and you have done me the honor to say I know ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... The swiftest Winged Minutes take their flight, And thus Gods Love to Mankind did dispence, The sacred Wedlock, which did then commence: Not founded as some Criticks say, by chance; But Heaven it self, did this blest State advance. Not subject to the various Revolutions, Of fickle fading human Institutions. A Married Life was first contriv'd above, To be an Emblem of Eternal Love; And after by Divine indulgence sent, To be the Crown of Man, and Wife's content; Yet black Mouthed Envy Strives with all ...
— The Pleasures of a Single Life, or, The Miseries Of Matrimony • Anonymous
... of mind, what can restore? Death's welcome hour. What gains love's joys most readily? Fickle inconstancy. Its pains what medicine can assuage? Wild frenzy's rage. 'Tis therefore little wisdom, sure, For such a grief to seek a cure, That knows no better remedy Than frenzy, ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... whom we left at Arequipa, had decided, after much deliberation, to evacuate Peru, and pass into Chili. In this territory, beyond the president's jurisdiction, he might find a safe retreat, The fickle people, he thought, would soon weary of their new ruler; and he would then rally in sufficient strength to resume active operations for the recovery of his domain. Such were the calculations of the rebel chieftain. But how was he to effect his object, while ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... unsteady, faithless, fickle beasts, the Liegeois," said the Count, "that they should have combined themselves with this inexorable robber and murderer, to put ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... seemed to flourish, and Mrs Dobbs Broughton should have been delighted. She told Clara, with a very serious air, that she was delighted, bidding Clara, at the same time, to be very cautious, as men were so fickle, and as Conway Dalrymple, though the best fellow in the world, was not, perhaps, altogether free from that common vice of men. Indeed, it might have been surmised, from a word or two which Mrs Broughton allowed to escape, that she considered poor Conway to be more than ordinarily ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... half Christian fatalism. He was of the South, "well toward the Boot Heel, signore," but Love, the master mariner, had driven him out of his course and brought him within fifty miles of Rome to court a fickle beauty of the hills, whose brother had come down for the wood-cutting and was ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... Fortune at your time of life, Although a female moderately fickle, Will hardly leave you (as she's not your wife) For any length of days in such a pickle. To strive, too, with our fate were such a strife As if the corn-sheaf should oppose the sickle: Men are the sport of circumstances, when The circumstances seem ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... on his part, had heard of their sailing, and hasted to get together a great army. It was grievous to see how many a stout knight held by Mordred, ay, even many whom Arthur himself had raised to honour and fortune; for it is the nature of men to be fickle. Thus it was that, when Arthur drew near to Dover, he found Mordred with a mighty host, waiting to oppose his landing. Then there was a great sea-fight, those of Mordred's party going out in boats, great and small, to board King Arthur's ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... of familiar portent had been uttered Beryl lifted a face upon which was reflected the glow of the little mother's. Babe as she was, she knew something of the mother's faith in the fickle god of chance, a faith that helped the little woman over the rough places, that never failed to brighten her deepest gloom. Did she not staunchly believe that someday by a turn of good fortune she and her Danny would know ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... in his Saturday afternoon walks and telling him stories of their youth in the ancient days to mingle with the age-youth in the heart of the dual-souled boy. The green lanes were haunted by memories of broken-hearted lovers: Earl Percy, mourning for the fair and fickle Anne; Essex, calling vainly for the royal ring that was to have saved him; Leicester, the Lucky, a more contented ghost, returning in pleasing reminiscence to the scenes of his earthly triumphs, comfortably oblivious of his ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... sunny green fields, and she never came home again. Nor ever again would she settle down quietly anywhere. She had a strong, clear voice and a taste for music, and this led her to take to singing ballads about the country at markets and fairs. The harder she was thinking about fickle Richard McBirney, the louder and shriller she sang. A very few years of such wandering shrivelled up her plump "pig-beauty," so that in her little sallow, weather-beaten face her own mother would scarcely have recognised pretty Isabella Reid. Then, after a long ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... wept for joy, and cried: "Happy is the man who, staying in his home, finds constant occupation in adjusting his desires to his surroundings. To him the court, the sea, and the land of Fortune are but hearsay. Thou, fickle Dame, flaunting before our eyes dignities and wealth, dost cause us to follow after these allurements to the ends of the earth, only to find them empty shams. Henceforth I wander no more, for here at home a hundred times ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... creature, One of God's simple children that yet know not The Universal Parent, how he sings! As if he wished the firmament of heaven Should listen, and give back to him the voice Of his triumphant constancy and love; The proclamation that he makes, how far His darkness doth transcend our fickle light."[72] ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... life I didn't mean it!' said the repentant captain, hastening after. 'I do love her best—indeed I do—and I don't love you at all! I am not so fickle as that! I merely just for the moment admired you as a sweet little craft, and that's how I came to do it. You know, Miss Garland,' he continued earnestly, and still running after, ''tis like this: when you come ashore after having been shut up in a ship for ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... meant to keep, and for years after sought in every way to break; who that has ever read of this fanatical, heartless, cruel, and despotic Philip II of Spain, or of that wonderful, pure, magnanimous, noblest Dutchman of all, William of Orange, or of that fickle and false Margaret of Parma, the wicked sister in Holland, who lived to execute the will of a wicked brother in Spain, or of those monsters at the head of Spanish armies, Alva, Requesens, and Don Juan; who that has been fired by the sieges of Leyden and Haarlem, by the assassinations concocted in ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... Thales found that he could draw him from his hiding-place by rubbing him with silk and some other substances. When thus rubbed he became attractive, and drew light creatures towards him—not unlike human sparks! He also showed himself to be fickle, for, after holding these light creatures tight for a brief space, he let ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... Alexis from his enamored master. In this respect the name would well fit Florio, who, from his intimacy with the Daniels and their friends, could not but have known the passion of the poet, and the encouragement at one time given him by his fickle mistress. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... premise an abstract "political man" as far divorced from living, breathing, complex reality as the "economic man" of Ricardo. Men, he thought, are always the same, governed by calculable motives of self-interest. In general, he thought, men are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly and covetous, to be ruled partly by an appeal to their greed, but chiefly ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... published by the company. The entire performance excited the greatest astonishment among the assembled spectators; the directors felt confident that their enterprise was now on the eve of success; and George Stephenson rejoiced to think that, in spite of all false prophets and fickle counsellors, the locomotive system was now safe. When the "Rocket," having performed all the conditions of the contest, arrived at the "grand stand" at the close of its day's successful run, Mr. Cropper—one of the directors favourable to the fixed engine system—lifted ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... or choice thee hither brings, "Stay, passenger, and wail the best of kings. "this little stone a great king's heart doth hold, "Who rul'd the fickle French and Polacks bold: "So frail are even the highest earthly things, "Go, passenger, and wail the hap of kings." ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson |
