"Self-indulgent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Maynard was a man who got his marriages inextricably entangled. It was not altogether his fault: his first wife should have been more open with him. If she had not been a bigamist, he would not have been a bigamist.... He was a self-indulgent weakling of the most despicable kind; and Mr. Flowerdew has worked out his ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... erred, 'twas in the latter way, from a disposition rather self-indulgent than cruel; and he might have been brought back to much better feelings, had time been given to him to bring his repentance to a ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... discovery. The announcement, however, was not received seriously and he was assured of the impossibility of the wind blowing through a hill of solid rock, and his brother explained to him that he had been too self-indulgent and consequently imagined the whole affair. A protest of total abstinence failed to inspire confidence, but the brother promised to go the next day to see for himself, and did. The hat was again placed over the opening ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... four—the Golden, self-sufficient; the Silver, self-indulgent; the Brazen, warlike; and the Iron, violent; together with the Heroic, nobly aspirant, between the third and fourth. In archeology, three—the Stone Age, the Bronze, and the Iron. In history, the Middle and Dark, between the Ancient and the Modern. In Fichte, five—of Instinct, of Law, of Rebellion, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... her speech brought his head up with a jerk. Instead of colourless harshness, it had a warm fury. It was not that she spoke loudly or on a high key; but it had an unbridled, self-indulgent sound. He got the impression that she put off all censorship from either ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... the moral and social laws of humanity, by neglecting to restrain his appetites, pay his bills, and keep his engagements; but also on every conceited word and look, every gaucherie and rudeness, every self-indulgent moroseness and fastidiousness, as sins against the sacred charge which has been committed to him; and determine with that Jew of old, who, to judge from his letter to Philemon, was one of the most perfect gentlemen ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... would be very nice to go and sit for half-an-hour in the arbour under the roses, while I kill the green fly—the aphides, Mrs Champernowne—which increase and multiply at a rate which is absolutely marvellous. Pickle, my boy, I hope you will never grow up as weak and self-indulgent as your uncle. Fill me ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... how all events conspire to crush an unreal being who is to be the "example" of the story, but how every event, adverse or fortunate, tends to strengthen and expand a high mind, and to break the springs of a selfish or merely weak and self-indulgent nature. ...
— Publisher's Advertising (1872) • Anonymous
... of the new scheme of rationing spread very rapidly. A few days later we heard that Sir Meesly Goormay, the most self-indulgent and incorrigible egotist in the neighbourhood, had introduced a collection of octogenarian aunts to his household, and, when I was performing my afternoon beat, I was just in time to see the butcher's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 11, 1917 • Various
... seemed to eat him. How wonderful he looked (though not fat and self-indulgent like the pictures of the real Wolsey) in his flame-colored robes! He had the silk dyed specially by the dyers to the Cardinal's College in Rome. Seymour Lucas designed the clothes. It was a magnificent production, but not very interesting to me. I played Katherine much better ten years later ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... question of his going out with Baumgartner; but there was an "if." The boy was not used to being very stern with himself; his strongest point was not self-denial. Much of his moral stamina had been expended in nightly tussles for mere breath; he had grit enough there. But his temperament was self-indulgent, and that he triumphed over positive pangs only shows the power of that rival instinct not to accompany the doctor a yard ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... amidst temptation and trial, will find peace and light within him, though all without be storm and darkness; and that in a right understanding and unfaltering performance of duty—not in the pomps and pleasures of a self-indulgent life, lie our ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... La Certe was not far from this corner. At the time the shot was heard, the self-indulgent half-breed was inside, recumbent on his back in the ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... am so sorry that I have disturbed you; excuse me; and let me lie here for half an hour to recover myself. I do not wish to be self-indulgent; but I am exhausted. I ran all the way from Brudenell Hall to Baymouth to get—to see—to see—" His voice broke down with a sob, he covered his face with his hands, and shook as with ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... should, perhaps, grow too fond of them again: while some other people say, that the Fairy gave her back those things which her high station as a princess required, but, that the young lady herself begged her to keep those things which would only have tended to make her vain and self-indulgent. And I am very much disposed myself to think that this account of the matter is ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin
... to the point of showing a part of her thoughts and disclosing the thorn that pressed sharpest on her mind. It was, that she had not pleased her mother by doing her best in the studies she had pursued at school. Matilda had always been a little self-indulgent; did not trouble herself with study; made no effort to reach or keep a good place in her classes. Mrs. Englefield had urged and commanded her in vain. Not obstinately, but with a sort of gay carelessness, Matilda had let these ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner
... recognized to be an anticapitalist sheet. The salary of its editor, though not large, was sufficient to enable him to send his younger brother through college, with the result that David, a little weak, a little self-indulgent, a little—partly through physical causes—disinclined to effort, was now a poet, a classicist and an instructor in a fresh-water college. Ben made him an allowance to enable him to live—the college ...
— The Beauty and the Bolshevist • Alice Duer Miller
... practise, represent the youth of the nation as necessarily vile; but let not the pure thence imagine there is no one pure but himself. There is life in our nation yet, and a future for her yet, none the less that the weak and cowardly and self-indulgent neither enter into the kingdom of God, nor work any salvation in the earth. Cosmo left the university at least as clean ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... and small attentions which flowed at first through the habitude of courtship, he found his sultana no way ready to resign her slave; there were abundance of tears, poutings, and small tempests, there were discontents, pinings, upbraidings. St. Clare was good-natured and self-indulgent, and sought to buy off with presents and flatteries; and when Marie became mother to a beautiful daughter, he really felt awakened, for a ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... to make boots and shoes and was proud of his skill as a cobbler. He gave up field sports because they were cruel, and renounced tobacco, the one luxury of Mazzini, because he held it unhealthy and self-indulgent. Money was so evil a thing in his sight that he would not use it and did not carry it with him. "What makes a man good is having but few wants," he said wisely. There were difficulties in the way of getting rid of all his ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... man like Malbone, self-indulgent rather than selfish, this poor, blind semblance of a moral purpose in Emilia was a great embarrassment. It is a terrible thing for a lover when he detects conscience amidst the armory of weapons used against him, and faces the fact ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... coddle oneself; consult one's own wishes, consult one's own pleasure; look after one's own interest; feather one's nest; take care of number one, have an eye to the main chance, know on which side one's bread is buttered; give an inch and take an ell. Adj. selfish; self-seeking, self-indulgent, self-interested, self- centered; wrapped up in self, wrapt up in self^, centered in self; egotistic, egotistical; egoistical^. illiberal, mean, ungenerous, narrow-minded; mercenary, venal; covetous &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... of Sakuntala after he had obtained his self-indulgent object was quite in accordance with the spirit of a Gandharva marriage. Kalidasa, for dramatic purposes, makes it a result of a saint's curse, which enables him to continue his story interestingly. A poet has a right to such license, ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... type of a canting hypocrite "in the ministry." He calls himself "a vessel," is much admired by his dupes, and pretends to despise the "carnal world," but nevertheless loves dearly its "good things," and is most self-indulgent.—C. Dickens, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... attractions and laid him open to not a few temptations. Too many young men born to shine in social life, to sparkle, it may be, in conversation, perhaps in the lighter walks of literature, become agreeable idlers, self-indulgent, frivolous, incapable of large designs or sustained effort, lose every aspiration and forget every ideal. Our gilded youth want such examples as this of Motley, not a solitary, but a conspicuous one, to teach them how much better is the restlessness ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the name ought infinitely to surpass; our coarse, fallible, self-indulgent sex, in the power to perform ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... wealthy, cultured, with every promising prospect for this world to attract him, made a great self-sacrifice. He chose Poland as a field, and work among the Jews as his mission, refusing to stay at home to rest in the soft nest of self-indulgent and luxurious ease. This choice made on young Muller a deep impression. He was compelled to contrast with it his own course. For the sake of a passionate love for a young woman he had given up the work to which he felt drawn of God, and had become both joyless ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... to those who have a natural tendency to vice. But vice is not a thing which any man loves for its own sake, until his nature has suffered a long process of degradation. It is simply the last result of a habit of luxurious self-indulgence; and the temptation to the self-indulgent, the present world in one form or another, comes upon everybody at times. There are moods when all of us want to break away from the simple life, and feel the splendour of the dazzling lights and the intoxication of the strange scents of the world. To surrender to these has ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... from this most characteristic letter, and, indeed, for dwelling at all upon these closing incidents of the Yorick and Eliza episode, is, that in their striking illustration of the soft, weak, spiritually self-indulgent nature of the man, they assist us, far more than many pages of criticism would do, to understand one particular aspect of his literary idiosyncrasy. The sentimentalist of real life explains the ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... told how Captain Egremont, after a brief service in the Life Guards, had been made to retire, that the old General, whose heir he was, might keep him in attendance on him. Already self-indulgent and extravagant, the idleness of the life he led with the worn-out old roue had deadened his better feelings, and habituated him to dissipation, while his debts, his expensive habits, and his dread ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... condoning smile, "of course he sometimes met with a camarade who enticed him to drink a glass too much, though that was a rare occurrence. Mais que voulez-vous? Human nature was weak; and for her part she really thought that men were weaker than women. Certainly they were more self-indulgent." ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... beautiful, as she stood before him,—all the more valued because she valued herself so highly, all the more coveted because superior to the sordid motives upon which even he had counted as the chief allies in his suit. In the intense longing of a self-indulgent nature he broke out, seizing her hand as he spoke: "O Miss Marian, do not deny me. I know I could make you happy. I would give you everything. Your slightest wish should be law. I would ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... submitting to their law. That is a grief we all feel, a knot we cannot untie. Tasso's is no infrequent case in modern biography. A man of genius, of an ardent temperament, reckless of physical laws, self-indulgent, becomes presently unfortunate, querulous, a "discomfortable cousin," a thorn to ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... days old, when he died, Whittenden; but the tradition has come down to me. If he hadn't been so weak, so totally self-indulgent, he'd have been a genius. Even in the worst of his self-indulgence, he had ten times my mother's logic. If he had had one tenth of her will power, he'd have counted. As it was, though,—utter annihilation. He died, and left no record. My mother helped ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... them, and he reigned over all the country from the Mediterranean Sea even into Persia and the borders of India. He spoke Greek, and believed in both the Greek and Roman gods, for he had spent some time at Rome in his youth; but in his Eastern kingdom he had learnt all the self-indulgent and violent habits to which people in those ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... judge in their prisoner. Paul does not speak to them as a Greek philosopher, anxious to please high personages, might have done, but he goes straight at their sins: he reasons 'of righteousness' with the unjust judge, 'of temperance' with the self-indulgent, sinful pair, 'of the judgment to come' with these two who thought that they could do anything they liked with impunity. Christianity has sometimes to be exceedingly rude in reference to the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... burst of passion, and he kicked out at adjacent chairs and banged the floor. He behaved just as I should have expected a great, fat, self-indulgent man to behave under trying circumstances—that is to say, very badly. He spoke of me and of my great-grandmother with ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... welcome to him. Had his energy been sufficient he would have taken his scene-painting capabilities off to Australia,—or to the farthest shifting of scenes known on the world's stage. But he was an easy, listless, self-indulgent man; and at any moment, let his misery be as keen as might be, a little dinner, a few soft words, and a glass of brandy-and-water would bring him round. The second glass would make him the fondest husband living; but the third would restore to him the memory of all his wrongs, ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... he did not delude himself as he looked back over his life. He had no sentimental regrets for the careless happiness of youth. Is any period of human life so tormented with cares as a self-indulgent youth? He had been a slave to expensive habits, to social traditions, to past follies, ever since he could remember. He had been in debt, in pocket or in conscience, from his schoolboy days to this hour. His tradesmen ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Jane. Freddy is a weak, self-indulgent fool, and is eating his way into the next world. It will be a happy day for you when an apoplectic fit makes you ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... did her father keep such extraordinary hours? She had not the slightest notion that these were the usual arrangements of a journalist's life. She thought that he must be very thoughtless, very self-indulgent, even very wicked. Surely her mother had been more than justified in leaving him. She laid her head upon the pillow, feeling ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... betters; even be respectful To those above thee. Should thy wedded lord Treat thee with harshness, thou must never be Harsh in return, but patient and submissive. Be to thy menials courteous, and to all Placed under thee considerate and kind: Be never self-indulgent, but avoid Excess in pleasure; and, when fortune smiles Be not puffed up. Thus to thy husband's house Wilt thou a blessing prove, ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... cathedral, is a very fine thing indeed—almost, if not quite, in the grand style—according to some, if not according to Mr. Arnold. The figure of the arch-priest Clamousse, both in connection with this scene[522] and others—old, timid, self-indulgent, but not an absolutely bad fellow—is of first-rate subordinate quality. Whether Capdepont himself has not a little too much of that synthetic character which I have discussed elsewhere—whether he is quite a real man, and not ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... To the self-indulgent, the pleasure-loving, the sensual, Spiritualism presents itself under a less subtle disguise than to the more refined and intellectual; in its grosser forms they find that which is in harmony with their inclinations. ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... Gordon of Gight, grandson of James I. of Scotland. After a while her husband rejoined her, but went back to France and died at Valenciennes on the 2nd of August 1791. His wife was not a bad woman, but she was not a good mother. Vain and capricious, passionate and self-indulgent, she mismanaged her son from his infancy, now provoking him by her foolish fondness, and now exciting his contempt by her paroxysms of impotent rage. She neither looked nor spoke like a gentlewoman; but in the conduct of her affairs she was praiseworthy. She hated and avoided debt, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... know. From that hour his work stands out in vivid contrast with the poetic literature from the heart of which it sprang. The long French romances were the product of an age of wealth and ease, of indolent curiosity, of a fanciful and self-indulgent sentiment. Of the great passions which gave life to the Middle Ages, that of religious enthusiasm had degenerated into the conceits of Mariolatry, that of war into the extravagances of Chivalry. Love indeed ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... barracks in those days on which such utter variety of opinion existed as the real character of Lieutenant Sam Waring. As to his habits there was none whatever. He was a bon vivant, a "swell," a lover of all that was sweet and fair and good and gracious in life. Self-indulgent, said everybody; selfish, said some; lazy, said many, who watched him day-dreaming through the haze of cigar-smoke until a drive, a hop, a ride, or an opera-party would call him into action. Slow, said the men, until they saw him catch Mrs. Winslow's ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... has died since then, and I might have married you over and over again; but I was not quite so infatuated. I shall just run across and settle up about this little affair on Wednesday. As you are five miles from the station, as the weather is perfectly awful, as moreover I am a luxurious, self-indulgent baronet and as this story would never get on unless I walked, don't send to meet me. I would ...
— Much Darker Days • Andrew Lang (AKA A. Huge Longway)
... seriousness). You know very well, Candida, that I often blow them up soundly for that. But if there is nothing in their church-going but rest and diversion, why don't they try something more amusing—more self-indulgent? There must be some good in the fact that they prefer St. Dominic's to worse ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... way to do to be safe." God had guided aright. No mistake had been made in the choice. Do you believe God did that, reader? Try such heroic work for yourself, and you will find a miracle-working God who seldom reveals His identity to the self-indulgent. That rescued girl has turned out to be a wonder of grace and of natural gifts, and is pursuing a professional career now, after fine opportunities in training. It is worth while to save such material, even from a slave-pen; such as she enrich the ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... history convinces us that he was an easy-tempered, kind-hearted, yet querulous and self-indulgent man, who had no higher motive or object than to gratify himself. His very ambition aspired not to very lofty altitudes. His utmost wish was to attain a metropolitan pulpit, where he could have added the reputation of ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... related still. An ancestry of wild riders naturally enough bequeathes also those other tendencies which we see in the Tartars, the Cossacks, and our own Indian Centaurs,—and as well, perhaps, in the old-fashioned fox-hunting squire as in any of these. Sharp alternations of violent action and self-indulgent repose; a hard run, and a long revel after it: this is what over-much horse tends to animalize a man into. Such antecedents may have helped to make little Dick Venner a self-willed, capricious boy, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... pleasure-houses, of his millionaire predecessors. It is said of Pedro II. that "he had the wisdom and self-restraint not to increase the taxes, preferring to reduce the expenses of his household to the lowest possible amount." But Dom Carlos was not a man of this kidney. Easy-going and self-indulgent, he had no notion of appearing in forma pauperis among the royalties of Europe, or sacrificing his pleasures to the needs of his country. Even his father, Dom Luis, and his uncle, Dom Pedro, had not lived within ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... the higher revelations of life. It is the aggregation of individual characteristics that makes the sum-total of national character; and though at first retrenchment and economy seemed hideous words to the pleasure-loving, easy-going, self-indulgent souls nursed in the lap of prosperity, there was coming a realization to those who had fought their way valiantly across the yawning gulf, that the hot race for show, the desire to exceed one another, was not ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... I was instantly struck with the incomparable similitude of all that I saw of him to all that I had conceived from his character and his style. In the broad bold forehead, the strong sense—in the relaxed mouth, the self-indulgent and reckless enjoyment—in the quick, small eye under those magnificent black brows, the man of sagacity, of sarcasm, and of humour; and in the grand contour of a countenance and head, which might have been sculptured to take its place among the sages and sovereigns ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... to the humbler walks of life. There, perhaps, less than in any other do they occur. It is in the wealthy, the luxurious, the self-indulgent class ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... have no more time for illness. This is a thing to cure, as a cautery cures—to burn away all idleness and self-indulgent, sick room fancies. See, I am strong, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... North any hope that their visit might revive some lingering desire he still combated to enter once more the world they represented, that hope would have soon died. Whatever effect this episode had upon the solitary,—and he had become so self-indulgent of his sorrow, and so careless of all that came between him and it, as to meet opposition with profound indifference,—the only appreciable result was a greater attraction for the solitude that protected him, and he grew ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... sign, but went on playing pallone in the Piazza Santa Croce. The enemy seized the Florentine fortresses of Sargana, Sarzanello and Pietra Santa. The news sobered the headstrong, self-indulgent prince for the moment, and then craven fear seized his undisciplined mind. In a panic he mounted his horse and, attended only by two officers of the city guard, he galloped ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... was chiefly valuable in what she stimulated others to do, rather than in what she did herself. It was by her that Madame de Longueville was first won to the cause of Port Royal; and we find this ardent brave woman constantly seeking the advice and sympathy of her more timid and self-indulgent, but ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... in harmony with thrones or crowns; they grow too high and climb over, or their soft rosy leaves are crushed. I owe it to my people to keep myself free from all chains and make my reign glorious. I will never give them occasion to say that I have been an idle and self-indulgent savant. I dedicate to Prussia my strength and my life. But here, friend, here in my cloister, which, like the Convent of the Carmelites, shall never be desecrated by a woman's foot; here we will, from time to time, forget ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... clearest of the three. Here we have a selfish, self-indulgent and spendthrift gentleman who has landed himself in serious financial embarrassment, seeking by murder to escape from an importunate and relentless creditor. He has not, apparently, the moral courage ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... clamorous upbraidings if breakfast were late, or his school-outfit of clothes were not ready to the last button, so that he could join the procession of schoolward-bound children, already streaming past his door at a quarter past eight. The most easy-going and self-indulgent mother learned to have at least one meal a day on time; and the children themselves during those eight years of their lives had imbedded in the tissue of their brains and the marrow of their bones that unrebelling habit of bending their backs daily to a regular ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... Recorder of London for stealing a baby, when the judge himself said that there was no imaginable motive for her action but a motherly passion to possess the child. It is the need of a child that makes so many women take to poor miserable, broken-nosed lap-dogs; for they are self-indulgent, and cannot face the troubles and dangers of adopting a child. They would if they might get one of a good family, or from a respectable home; but they dare not take an orphan out of the dirt, lest it should spoil their silken chairs. But that has nothing to do with our argument. What I ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... does not say, "I see that your painting is ugly"; but he does say, "I see that your painting, which you esteem beautiful (and I take your word for it), is bad." In the same way the moralist does not say to the self-indulgent man, "I see that you are not having a good time" (the self-indulgent man is likely to know better); but he says, "I see that it is bad for you to be having this particular kind of good time." In other words, for the moralist ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... with another elaborate bow if Wilhelmine would care to hear his voice. She begged him to let her hear the seraphim sing. The boy caught the note of irony in her phrase; flushing deeply, he laid aside his guitar and would have run away had not Wilhelmine, with her easy self-indulgent kindness of heart to those who did not get in her way, called him back and propitiated him with smiling reassurances. The boy seated himself near her and sang. His voice was deliciously fresh and clear, and Wilhelmine, delightedly, made him sing again and ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... three ambitious and energetic princes, who engage in important wars and labor to extend their dominions at the expense of their neighbors, it will be some time before the degeneracy becomes marked. If, on the other hand, a prince of a quiet temper, self-indulgent, and studious of ease, come to the throne within a short time of the original conquests, the deterioration will be very rapid. In the present instance it happened that the immediate successor of the first conqueror was of a peaceful disposition, unambitious, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... rising,' Joe Atlee felt that there need be no urgency about taking a degree which, when he had got, he should be sorely puzzled to know what to do with. He was a clever, ready-witted, but capricious fellow, fond of pleasure, and self-indulgent to a degree that ill suited his very smallest of fortunes, for his father was a poor man, with a large family, and had already embarrassed himself heavily by the cost of sending his eldest son to the university. Joe's ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... sold the presentations to the benefices which were in their gift, or dishonestly retained the cures of souls in their own hands, careless whether the duties of the parishes could or could not be discharged; and that, finally, the vast majority of the monks themselves were ignorant, self-indulgent, profligate, worthless, dissolute. ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... me hard indeed that you who would succeed, better than any one, in making friends and keeping them, should be condemned to solitude from your poverty. To no one would money bring more happiness, for no one would use it better than you would. For me, with my headlong self-indulgent habits, I am perhaps better without it, but I am convinced it would give you great and noble pleasures. Look out then for success in writing; you ought to care as much for that as you do for going to Heaven. Though the advantages of being employed appear to you now the best part of the ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... mean success or failure to the nation as a whole, mean success or failure in men and boys individually. The boy scouts must war against the same foes and vices that most hurt the nation; and they must try to develop the same virtues that the nation most needs. To be helpless, self-indulgent, or wasteful, will turn the boy into a mighty poor kind of a man, just as the indulgence in such vices by the men of a nation means the ruin of the nation. Let the boy stand stoutly against his enemies both from without ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... Hall, I mentally apostrophise the Christian British people. "Ladies and Gentlemen," I say, "you are Christian in name, but I discern little of Christ in your ideals, your institutions, or your daily lives. You are a mercenary, self-indulgent, frivolous, boastful, blood-guilty mob of heathen. I like you very much, but that is what you are. And it is you—you who call men 'Infidels.' You ridiculous creatures, what do you ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... stood the court: the King, generous-minded but deceived, and jealously attached to the crown servants, impatient of any annoyance, and always declaring a willingness to resign his throne; the Queen, clear-headed and ambitious, but self-indulgent, extravagant, and vicious; Godoy, the Prince of the Peace,—so called from the treaty which he had negotiated at Basel to conclude the French and Spanish revolutionary wars,—the real ruler, soothing the ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... peacock's feathers. When they were gone he should be able to see, at last, whether he was jackdaw or eagle.' And wonder not, reader, at this same strength of will. The very genius, which too often makes its possessor self-indulgent in common matters, from the intense capability of enjoyment which it brings, may also, when once his whole being is stirred into motion by some great object, transform him into ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... her husband's death was overwhelming. Her easy, luxurious, monotonous life had been very sweet to her, but her husband had been the dearest part of her life. She had taken little trouble to express her love for him, quite willing that he should take it for granted. She had been self-indulgent and vain; seeking her own ease, spending money and care on her own adornment; but she had not forgotten to make the Squire's life pleasant to him also. Newly-wedded lovers in the fair honeymoon-stage of existence could ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... in epigram had made him rather apt to quiz his friends. But we are to remember that he was encouraged in this, and that a self-indulgent man is only too liable to have the nicety of his sensitiveness spoiled. Certainly, he had a kind heart and good principles. He would lend any man money, or give any man help,—even to the extent of weakness and imprudence. This was one reason why he died no better ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... utmost kindness, and were vastly entertained by his story of the dismal life upon Bolton Hill, the pursuit of the parson with his white-faced nag, and the subsequent cruise in the sloop Princess. Mrs. Brindlock, a good-natured, self-indulgent woman, was greatly taken with the unaffected country naturalness of the lad, and was agreeably surprised at his very presentable appearance: for Reuben at this date—he may have been thirteen or fourteen—was of good height for his years, with a profusion of light, wavy hair, a thoughtful, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... abruptly answered Mrs. Thrale, who had asked him how he did, 'Ready to become a scoundrel, Madam; with a little more spoiling you will, I think, make me a complete rascal:' he meant, easy to become a capricious and self-indulgent valetudinarian; a character for which I have heard him express great disgust. We lay ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... of one single life. This withdrawal would leave Germany organized entirely with reference to a Court, and there is no trustworthy guarantee that the succeeding Royal Personality may not be something infinitely more vain and aggressive, or something weakly self-indulgent or unpatriotic and morally indifferent. Much has been done in the past of Germany, the infinitely less exacting past, by means of the tutor, the Chamberlain, the Chancellor, the wide-seeing power beyond the throne, who very unselfishly intrigues his monarch in the way ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... have to say about the Ainos till I had been actually among them, and I hope you will have patience to read to the end. Ito is very greedy and self-indulgent, and whimpered very much about coming to Biratori at all,—one would have thought he was going to the stake. He actually borrowed for himself a sleeping mat and futons, and has brought a chicken, onions, potatoes, French beans, Japanese sauce, tea, rice, a kettle, a stew-pan, and a rice-pan, while ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... than self-indulgent years The outflung heart of youth, Than pleasant songs in idle ears ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... The self-indulgent fat woman subscribes to New Thought literature, pays for a course of lectures, and goes forth into the ranks of the unbelievers, proclaiming her power to become a sylph, and to cause others to ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... eating and drinking he was, as far as I observed, abstemious rather than self-indulgent. I repeatedly breakfasted, dined, and supped in his company; and never knew him to partake of any thing stronger in drink than the light wines of France and Germany, and of these in great moderation. I have been with him early and late, unexpectedly ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... women, who are determined, with patience and courage, to overcome the difficulties and trials, which they must certainly encounter on the road to ultimate success. South Africa is a land of promise for them. It is by no means so for the feeble, the self-indulgent, the helplessly dependent class, of whom, unfortunately, we have so large a number in the over-populated Old Country. Cordial co-operation with the self-governing colonies is also absolutely indispensable to ensure success in any national system of colonisation. It is equally ...
— A Winter Tour in South Africa • Frederick Young
... no means an idly self-indulgent reader. She diligently mastered some books that did not particularly interest her, because she believed them to contain information or instruction or ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... nothing of mercy, and nothing of the softness of love. She had no imagination. She was worldly, covetous, and not unfrequently cruel. But she meant to be true and honest, though she often failed in her meaning;—and she had an idea of her duty in life. She was not self-indulgent. She was as hard as an oak post,—but then she was also as trustworthy. No human being liked her;—but she had the good word of a great many human beings. At great cost to her own comfort she had endeavoured to do her duty to ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... increasing manufactures, the teeming soil, the wealth fast accumulating, they would never have made us, after all, a great people. They would have eaten the manhood out of us at last. We were becoming selfish, self-indulgent, sybaritic rapidly. The nation's muscle was softening, its heart was hardening. If we were to become a great nation, we needed more than commerce, more than plenty, more than rapid riches, more than a comfortable, indulgent life. If we were to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... some devout Catholics. The assiduous practice of self-mastery and the most sparing indulgence in the pleasures of sense are the 'philosophic life' which the Greek spirit recommends as the highest. The best Greeks would blame the life of an English clergyman, professor, or philosopher as too self-indulgent; we often forget how frugally and hardily the Greeks lived at all times. But here we have to consider the differences of climate, and the apparent necessity of a rather generous diet for the ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... Crew sighed. The light loom faded a bit, down to a self-indulgent glow. "Hurry back ...
— Has Anyone Here Seen Kelly? • Bryce Walton
... and continuous self-denial. Men discover in the bush that abstention from most of the little comforts and amenities of life not infrequently tends to vigor of body and clarity of mind. This, however, is a fact that has been accepted long ago, for it is not, as a rule, the full-fleshed, self-indulgent man who does anything worth while. Their skin was clear and bronzed, their nerves steady, and, though Grenfell differed from them in these respects, their eyes were very keen, with a snap in the depths of them. They were eyes that could look peril and defeat squarely in the ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... his brother-in-law in a pretty hostile tone. His sister, it appears, has often financed him of late. She must have done. How else could he have got through? Warkworth may be a fine, showy fellow when there's fighting about. In private life he's one of the most self-indulgent dogs alive. And yet he's ashamed of the sister and her husband, and turns his back on them whenever he can. Oh, he's not a person of nice feeling, is Warkworth—but, mark my words, he'll be one of the most ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a pretty blonde; and at fifty her features had not lost all charm, though they were somewhat coarser and less delicate in outline. She was more sentimental than kindhearted; and even at her mature age, she retained the manners of the boarding-school. She was self-indulgent and easily put out, even moved to tears when she was crossed in any of her habits. She was, however, very sweet and agreeable when all her wishes were carried out and none opposed her. Her house was among the pleasantest in the town. She had a considerable fortune, not so much from her own ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... and release the debtor. In selfward duties, then, why may I not, as creditor, release myself as debtor? Why may I not—so long as I violate no obligation to others—be, at my own pleasure, idle or industrious, self-indulgent or abstinent, frivolous or serious? Why, if life seem burdensome to me, may I not relieve myself of the trouble of living? The answer is, that to every object in the universe with which I am brought into relation I owe its fit use, and that no being in the ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... sure I might: I might pour at a guess. But, unhappily (and it may be that there is some philosophy in this for a self-indulgent world), I was not in awe of Judith's fantastic conception of divinity, whatever I thought of my own, by whom, however, I was not conjured. Moreover, I loved my uncle, who had continued to make me happy all my life, ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... her heart and soul. His very weakness of character endeared him the more to her. She was not blind to his faults, but she excused them. His vices, his drinking, cigarette smoking and general shiftlessness were, she argued, the result of bad associates. He was self-indulgent. He made good resolutions and broke them. But he was not really vicious. He had a good heart. With some one to watch him and keep him in the straight path, he would still give a good account of himself to the world. She was confident of that. She recognized many excellent qualities in him. They ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... the next day when, at one o'clock, Elizabeth found herself the first arrival at his house, that he had been very self-indulgent. ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... following Washington's defeat at Long Island and forced evacuation of New York, and indeed of New Jersey, Sir William Howe buried himself in self-indulgent inactivity for six months in New York; while a portion of his army sought quarters and plunder, and committed brutal acts of sensuality, in the chief places of New Jersey. Loyalty seems to have been the prevalent feeling of New Jersey ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... bearers, the home makers, the moral light of the universe as they meet the purpose of God and Nature and seek not to thwart it by unsexing themselves in order that they may keep step with man in ways of self-indulgent dalliance. The adventuress of fiction always comes to grief. But the adventuress in real life—the prudent adventuress who draws the line at adultery—the would-be leader of society without the wealth—the would-be ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... at a tale of wicked injustice, cruel oppression, base slander, or misery inflicted by unbridled indulgence; whose anger flames in behalf of the injured and ruined victims of wrong; to be in some relation unjust, or oppressive, or envious, or self-indulgent, or a careless talker of others. How wonderfully indignant the penurious man often is, at the avarice or want ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... position near the defences. To judge by the sample of the council, I should form very unfavourable expectations of their conduct in action. Macota is lively and active; but, whether from indecision or want of authority, undecided. The Capitan China is lazy and silent; Subtu indolent and self-indulgent; Abong Mia ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... obtrusive and aggressive, its appetites clamouring for supremacy, I pummel it! Paul was not afraid of severe measures where carnality was concerned. He would fast a whole day in order to put the flesh in its place. And so should it be with all the Lord's children. We are too self-indulgent. It is well at times to put the body on the cross, ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... both. Following the aristocratic and holy example of the Bishops of Salzburg for the last eight centuries, the sovereigns of the Continent are told that the air and waters of Hofgastein are the only nenuphar for the over-taxed brain in labour beneath a crown. The self-indulgent sybarite is recommended to Ems, or Wiesbaden, or Aix-la-Chapelle, and the quasi-incurable sensualist to Aix in Savoy, or to Karlsbad in Bohemia. In our own magnificent land Bethesdas abound, in every state, from ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... an obscure English watering-place there lives a queer little old maid—churchy and prim—who does charitable work, gives her opinion very freely concerning the administration of matters parochial, thinks the vicar very self-indulgent and idle—and in her own heart has the abiding conviction that there are none on earth like ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... a brute, unredeemed by any one manly gift; idle, self-indulgent, false, and without a principle. She was a woman greatly gifted, with many virtues, capable of self-sacrifice, industrious, affectionate, and loving truth if not always true herself. And yet such a word as that from this brute sufficed to please her for the moment. She got up and kissed his ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... position, and, suspecting Claudius' displeasure, he withdrew into the wilds of Asia, where he came as near to being an exile as afterwards to being an emperor. He was a strange mixture of good and bad, of luxury and industry, courtesy and arrogance. In leisure he was self-indulgent, but full of vigour on service. His outward behaviour was praiseworthy, though ill was spoken of his private life. However, with those who were under him or near him, and with his colleagues he gained great influence by various devices, and seems to have been the sort of man ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... motive near to her own belongings, she would say an ill-natured word or two. She was mild and forbearing to her inferiors. Her hand was open to the poor. She was devoted to her husband and her children. In no respect was she self-seeking or self-indulgent. But, nevertheless, she appreciated thoroughly the comforts of a good income—for herself and for her children. She liked to see nice-dressed and nice-mannered people about her, preferring those whose fathers and mothers were ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... hardships, and made him apt at expedients; while his intercourse with his cultivated brother, and with the various members of the Fairfax family, had a happy effect in toning up his mind and manners, and counteracting the careless and self-indulgent habitudes ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... chief aim in life was to have things to suit himself. When they ceased to be agreeable, he was ready for a change, without much regard for the means to his ends. He had always foreseen the possibility of the event which had now taken place, but, like all self-indulgent natures, had hoped that he ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... most men who want to do good work, must be content to potter about, and seem lazy and even self-indulgent. And one of the reasons why many men who start as promising writers come to nothing is because they can't be inert, acquiescent, easy-going. I have often thought that a good novel might be written about the wife of a great writer, ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... for it, dragged down volumes of dusty divines, and got up with much pains Paley's "watch" argument. There was some honesty, even perhaps a very little love, in his mistaken endeavors; but he did not recognize that while he himself was unforgiving, unloving, harsh, and self-indulgent, all his arguments for Christianity were of necessity null and void. He argued for the existence of a perfectly loving, good God, all the while treating his son with injustice and tyranny. Of course there could be only one result from a debate between the two. Luke Raeburn with his honesty, ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... certain, because of the very nature of God. It is outlined with keen irony. Amos sees in imagination the long procession of sad captives, and marching in the front ranks, the self-indulgent Sybarites, whose pre-eminence is now only the melancholy prerogative of going first in the fettered train. What has become of their revelry? It is gone, like the imaginary banquets of dreams, and instead of luxurious lolling ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... sanctified by the marriage relation, but unbridled in those who seek above all else their own pleasure, becomes a curse in body and soul. It is not limited to either sex, but men have been more self-indulgent, and have been treated more leniently than erring women. Sexual impurity is wide-spread, but public opinion against it is steadily strengthening, and the tendency is to hold men and women equally responsible. ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... necessity of their giving way to him in some things, is too often exaggerated into their giving way to him in all, and thus rendering him utterly selfish. In the family about whom I am writing, while the rest were almost ascetic in their habits, Branwell was allowed to grow up self-indulgent; but, in early youth, his power of attracting and attaching people was so great, that few came in contact with him who were not so much dazzled by him as to be desirous of gratifying whatever wishes he expressed. Of course, ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... self-indulgent habits of Turkey I had my own private surmises, yet touching Nippers I was well persuaded that whatever might by his faults in other respects, he was, at least, a temperate young man. But indeed, nature herself seemed to have been his vintner, and at his birth charged him so thoroughly ...
— Bartleby, The Scrivener - A Story of Wall-Street • Herman Melville |
