"Self-willed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... those who have defended Bertram on almost every point, still I think the censure which Johnson has passed on the character is much too severe. Bertram is certainly not a pattern hero of romance, but full of faults such as we meet with every day in men of his age and class. He is a bold, ardent, self-willed youth, just dismissed into the world from domestic indulgence, with an excess of aristocratic and military pride, but not without some sense of true honor and generosity. I have lately read a defence of Bertram's character, written with much elegance and plausibility. "The young ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... self-pleasing: "'Tis what I love determines how I love." Love is his "highest allegiance"; and it becomes ere long an allegiance before which truth, faith, and honour give way, and guidance and control of conscience are swept before the fierce storm of self-willed passion that brooks no interposition between itself and ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... there is proof. Ten days ago, when the boy thanked me for pulling him off Bertrand's back, he as much as said he had nothing to pay me with. Now if this lie of a plot against the King were the truth, would not a self-willed boy like the Dauphin, boastful as boys are, proud and galled by the debt he thought he owed me, have hinted that the day would come when he could pay in full, and sooner than some expected? He surely would. His ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... essay. It follows in the same course of thought as the admirable "Discourse on Self-limited Diseases," the delivery of which many years ago marked the commencement of a new epoch in the movement of the medical mind among us. An hour's reading given to this new lesson of wisdom will turn many a self-willed, proud-hearted medical skeptic into a humble and consistent ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... necessities; indeed, the land was deeply mortgaged; and Miss Alison was designed accordingly to be the Master's wife, gladly enough on her side; with how much good-will on his is another matter. She was a comely girl, and in those days very spirited and self-willed; for the old lord having no daughter of his own, and my lady being long dead, she had grown ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of person which he was obliged to maintain while performing the duties of a coxswain to a married captain were not so observable. Besides which, being no longer under discipline, he was almost every night intoxicated; and, being so, was more self-willed and regardless of his wife's injunctions. The consequences were that having received from my father fifty pounds, my mother first locked that up, and then "unlocked her jaw." Disputes were now hourly occurring; and it was "now you're vexed," and "hey ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... happy childhood and golden youth, Victurnien had never met with opposition to his wishes. He had been the king of the house; no one curbed the little prince's will; and naturally he grew up insolent and audacious, selfish as a prince, self-willed as the most high-spirited cardinal of the Middle Ages,—defects of character which any one might guess from his qualities, essentially those ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... come to nothing. And it was this little monster, who looked as fair and as white as a seraph, who had just shattered my first hopes. Huddled up in the cab, an expression of fear on her self-willed looking face and her thin lips compressed, she was gazing at me under her long lashes ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... wild and self-willed child," the old woman continued, fixing her blue eyes on Kenric, "but I loved her well. And on a time — 'tis a full score and four years ago — she disappeared, and we could find her nowhere, until ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... reflectively, "was a very peculiar man, rather obstinate, very self-willed, what people call 'masterful,' and decidedly wrong-headed ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... times" by the faithful and harrowing portraits he has drawn of them? Would he carry us back to the early stages of barbarism, of clanship, of the feudal system as "a consummation devoutly to be wished?" Is he infatuated enough, or does he so dote and drivel over his own slothful and self-willed prejudices, as to believe that he will make a single convert to the beauty of Legitimacy, that is, of lawless power and savage bigotry, when he himself is obliged to apologize for the horrors he describes, and even render his descriptions credible to the modern reader ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... caused by their own conduct or that of others, made them hard to be pleased—and so the cloud thickened about them, and with all outward means for being happy, loving and beloved, they were a wretched family. James, the eldest, was impetuous and self-willed, but affectionate, generous, and very fond of reading and study, and with gentle and judicious management, would have been the joy and pride of his family, with the domestic and literary tastes so invaluable to every youth, in our day, when temptations of every kind are so rife in our cities ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... identified themselves with, and tried to realize on earth, one of the worst falsehoods of that creed—celibacy. Not being founded on the true and only ground of all society, family life, they were merely artificial and self-willed arrangements of man's invention, which could not develop to any higher form. And when the sanctity of marriage was revindicated at the Reformation, the monasteries, having identified themselves with celibacy, naturally fell. They could not partake in the ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... heartfelt pity, promised to hide her "dear child" from every one, which promise, however, did not prevent her, for she was very self-willed, from going, without Jacqueline's knowledge, to see Madame de Talbrun and tell her all that had taken place. She was hurt and amazed at her reception by Giselle, and at her saying, without any offer of help or words of sympathy, ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... cuckoo. Frankly, she did not understand Honor, whose strong, uncontrolled character differed so entirely from her own gentle, clinging, dependent disposition; and whose storms of grief or anger, wild fits of waywardness and equally passionate repentance, and self-willed disobedience, alternating with sudden bursts of reformation, were a constant source of worry and anxiety, and the direct opposite of her ideal of girlhood. Poor Mrs. Fitzgerald would have liked a docile, tractable daughter, who would have been content to sit beside her sofa ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... the pillar letter-box." Then Lady Cantrip felt that she had to deal with a very self-willed young ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... Tennyson's Muse was ever a wild and wilful creature, defiant of rules, and daringly insubordinate to arbitrary forms. It could not, with the witling in the play, cap verses with any man. The moment its tasks were dictated and the form prescribed, that moment there was ground to expect the self-willed jade to play a jade's trick, and leave us with no decent results of inspiration. For odes and sonnets, and other such Procrustean moulds into which poetic thought is at times cast, Tennyson had neither gift ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... had been banished from Paris for the act; and the queen, recollecting how he had formerly refused to withdraw his resignation at her entreaty, felt that she had no reason to expect any great consideration for the opinions or wishes of either herself or the king from one so conceited and self-willed, who would be likely to attribute his re-appointment, not to the king's voluntary choice, but to his necessities: she therefore strongly pressed that the archbishop should be preferred. In an unhappy moment she prevailed;[10] and on the 1st of May, ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... riding; (c) fighting, or single combat. In swimming, one must conquer the yielding liquid material of water by arm and foot movements. The resistance met on account of currents and waves may be very great, but it is still that of a will-less and passive object. But in riding man has to deal with a self-willed being whose vitality calls forth not only his strength but also his intelligence and courage. The exercise is therefore very complicated, and the rider must be able perpetually to individualize it according to the necessity; at the same time, he must give attention not only ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... blessing men, yet that he necessarily was also a judge. The thoughts of many hearts were revealed by his presence. The pure in heart came to him in humility, penitence, and faith. The proud in heart, the self-willed, the self-righteous, turned away from him, and so judged themselves unworthy of receiving his truth. The Galilean peasants, the common people, heard him gladly. The Scribes and Pharisees murmured against him and rejected ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... or an ELEGANT like Brummel to point to an armful of failures in the attempt to achieve a perfect tie. This son of mine, whom I have not seen for these twenty-five years, generously counted, was a self-willed youth, always too ready to utter his unchastised fancies. He, like too many American young people, got the spur when he should have had the rein. He therefore helped to fill the market with that ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... with amazement to this bold speech, first with a frown and then gazing at the two children and the old sailor with evident curiosity. The courtiers were dumb with fear, for no one had ever dared speak in such a manner to their self-willed, cruel King before. His Majesty, however, was somewhat frightened, for cruel people are always cowards, and he feared these mysterious strangers might possess magic powers that would destroy him unless he treated them well. So he commanded ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... the child were not yet, however, at an end. Before her entrance to the convent he had been remarkably good and docile, but now, so completely had his temper been soured by the irritating remarks of injudicious advisers, that he had grown idle, self-willed and absolutely reckless. This was the worst pang of all; she dreaded more than any other misfortune, that of his offending God; the news of his death would have been a light sorrow in comparison. To avert this greatest of evils, she offered herself as a victim to the Almighty, consenting to ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... say. You know quite well you would not give up your son and daughter for all the money in the world. You love Edna all the more because she needs so much care, and you are just as proud of Rex as you can be. Of course he is self-willed and determined, but if you could change him into a weak, undecided creature like the vicar's son, you would be very sorry to ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Gibraltar many years ago. She had been governess in an officer's family on the "Rock" while his regiment had been stationed there. She was nineteen, very pretty, and alone in the world. They had married after five or six weeks' acquaintance, and parted by mutual consent after as many months. She had been self-willed and extravagant, he had nothing but his pay at that time, and she nearly ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... and how cunning you have been," and then she took an inventory of the furniture, all new, but all in keeping with the age of the room. "You have spent far too much on a very self-willed and bad-tempered girl, and all I can do is to make you promise that you will come up here sometimes and let me give you tea in this window-seat, where we can see the ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... decried Sullivan's music in favour of Debussy's or of Scarlatini's 17th century tiraliras; or wore spectacles and had to have their front teeth in gold clamps. Just clear-eyed, good-tempered, good-looking, roguish and spontaneously natural and reasonably self-willed children, who adored their parents and did not openly mock at the Elishas that ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... which hid their selfish political intrigues. There had been a time when Somerset was one of them, and had sought his own advancement as they now did theirs. And the deserted regiment never pardons the deserter. The faction complained that Somerset was proud and self-willed: he worked alone; he acted on his own responsibility; he did not consult his friends. This of course meant in the case of each member of the faction (as such complaints usually do), "He did not consult me." Somerset might truthfully have pleaded in reply that he had not ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... answer; she gave no sign of yielding; but, because she had made no answer, he, self-willed and opinionated man that he was, felt assured that she had no answer to give, and went on to talk as if that one ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... them. Had he settled in his own mind to tie his neckcloth in a particular way, not all the eloquence of Cicero or the tears of O'Neil would have induced him to alter it; and Adelaide, the haughty, self-willed Adelaide, soon found that, of all yokes, the most insupportable is the yoke of an obstinate fool. In the thousand trifling occurances of domestic life (for his Grace was interested in all the minutiae of his establishment), where good sense and good humour on either side would ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... abundance. It was rank and power that he craved. Four men—all with better war records and more experience—stood between him and that coveted star, and two of the four were popular and beloved men. Frost was cold, selfish, intensely self-willed, indomitably persevering, and though "close-fisted," to the scale of a Scotch landlord as a rule, he would loose his purse strings and pay well for services he considered essential. When Frost had a consuming desire he ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... officials treated some of the Basque shepherds with what seemed to be too great severity there were numerous forest fires on the reserve. These men were generally both self-willed and ignorant, and we passed by at this spot a clump of finely growing firs, which had been destroyed by a fire started by a shepherd the ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... oats with the intention of bringing about in him through the satisfaction of all his desires a changed attitude of mind, while in the meantime no great damage should be done to public interests. Surely they must have known that a young and self-willed spirit, when reared in unreproved license and in absolute authority, so far from becoming satiated by the indulgence of its passions is ruined more and more by these very agencies. Indeed, Nero at first gave but simple dinners; his revels, his ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... the window lost in thought and absent-minded. She had seen in Worms the hero before whom the world trembled, and she had really been captivated by the little man's majestic bearing. Herself fond of power, and self-willed, she had been enticed by the prospect of sharing power with the man before whom all and everything bowed; therefore she ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... for a long time between each. Now when the next course of cakes came on she idly brake some bread and tossed a crumb or two into her mouth; in fact she ate less than would satisfy the stomach of a sparrow. I marvelled much to see her so obstinate and self-willed but I said to myself, in mine innocence, "May be she hath not been accustomed to eat with men, and especially she may be too shame faced to eat heartily in presence of her husband: she will in time do ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... all four countries, and an unconsidered trifle of some half-dozen European languages besides? Then there was the English student from Bonn, who had come down to the front accompanied by a terrible brute of a dog, vast, shaggy, self-willed, and dirty; an animal which, so to speak, owned his owner, and was so much the horror and disgust of everybody that on account of him the company of his master—one of the pleasantest fellows alive— was the source of general apprehension. ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... fifty cents in change, but a dollar bill would suit her exactly as well, she said, and secretly exulting in her mastery over the self-willed tyrant, she suffered him to depart, saying to himself as he descended the stair, "Twenty-five dollars for one bedstead. I won't stand it! ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... longing for rest. He continued to work with vigour, but his mind was set on resignation; and the bad relations which had for years existed between him and the directors embittered his last months. No doubt he was impatient and self-willed, inclined to take short cuts through the system of dual control[14] and to justify them by his own single-hearted zeal for the good of the country. But the directors had eyes for all the slight irregularities, ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... and enjoyment, came; and opened with more kindness to Fanny than such self-willed, unmanageable days often volunteer, for soon after breakfast a very friendly note was brought from Mr. Crawford to William, stating that as he found himself obliged to go to London on the morrow for a few days, he could not help trying to procure a companion; ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... unconscious efforts of the audience, who are ever anxious for the ghost to come and something startling to happen. The ladies, in particular, I would point out, press a little hard with their dainty but determined hands, or with their self-willed knees resort to a few sly pushes. When this does not happen, I think it is quite possible that an elemental or some other equally undesirable type of phantasm does actually attend the seance, and, emphasising its arrival by sundry noises, is responsible ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... do you think? Not the same receipt? Now, Martin, put away your conceit. Who will ever know? 'Extract of Nobility'—excellent, since most of them are killed." "But, Monsieur Antoine—" "You are self-willed, Martin. You need a salve For your conscience, do you? Very well, we'll halve The compliments, also the pastes and dentifrices; Send some to the Kings, and some to the Empresses. 'Oil of Bitter Almonds'—the Empress Josephine can have that. 'Oil of Parma Violets' fits the ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... personal popularity but the growing power of the democratic elements in the nation, and his defeat in the House of Representatives only strengthened his own and the people's determination to be finally victorious. The untrained, self-willed, passionate frontier soldier came to power in 1828 as the standard bearer of a mighty democratic uprising which was destined before it ran its course to break down oligarchical party organizations, to liberalize state and local governments, and to turn the stream ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... enemies. The court did not venture at once to strike down one so formidable. A mission was assigned the cardinal at Rome, to remove him from the country. He refused to accept it. The boy-king was growing reckless, passionate, self-willed. He began to feel the power that was in his hand. The cardinal was warned of his danger. He smiled, and said "that, sustained by his ecclesiastical rank, he had nothing ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... courier to Berlin and ordered the Town Council to advise the rich and well-to-do to retire from the city with their portable property, my recommendation was not followed: you yourself excited the Council to disobedience. In your self-willed obstinacy you had the impudent assurance to make your way through a country infested by the enemy; and if my colonel, Von Prittwitz, had not found you in those woods, and brought you to me in the village, your obstinate head would have adorned the lance of some Cossack or other. And what did ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... expressive eyes on hers, which, in her ecstasy of doubt, terror, and perplexity, she cast up towards him, "I have ever remarked that when others called thee girlish and wilful, there lay under that external semblance of youthful and self-willed folly deep feeling and strong sense. In this I will confide, trusting your own fate in your own hands for the space of twenty-four hours, without my interference by ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... of us reaches back to our first struggles as we emerged from self-willed childhood into a recognition of family obligations. We have all gradually learned to respond to them, and yet most of us have had at least fleeting glimpses of what it might be to disregard them and ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... to live under an absolute monarchy than to announce myself a member of a republic, and assert my prerogatives and defend my privileges—but I confess I have a temper, papa. Lilias says I am very self-willed, and I must grant that she is generally in ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... not remember this, how among our turbulent, self-willed gentry, always under arms though they were, no police were ever needed: while the true faith flourished, laws were respected; there was liberty with order and glory along with plenty I In other lands, I hear, the government maintains soldiers and all sorts ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... to be made on this subject, saying he should want about two hundred. He wants to see Paine's answer to Burke's pamphlet on the French Revolution, and requests it may be sent to him. He says that "Paris" has grown to be so lazy and self-willed that John, the coachman, says he has no sort of government of him, as he did nothing that he was told to do, and everything he was not. The General adds that his incapacity as a postilion was such that he had determined ...
— Washington in Domestic Life • Richard Rush
... doubt felt that the two young people were self-willed, obstinate, and contradictory. His daughter wouldn't marry the clergyman because she had been deprived of her property. The clergyman now refused to marry his daughter because it was presumed that her property might be restored to her. As, however, he could not induce Mr Owen to go with him to ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... with the nightgown, slippers, and laced cocked-hat of the rider, a cavalier of no less importance than Dumbiedikes himself. In the energy of his pursuit, he had overcome even the Highland obstinacy of Rory Bean, and compelled that self-willed palfrey to canter the way his rider chose; which Rory, however, performed with all the symptoms of reluctance, turning his head, and accompanying every bound he made in advance with a sidelong motion, which indicated his extreme wish to turn round,—a ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... devil could not understand our Lord. If He be the Son of God, so might Satan argue, He has all the more reason to be proud; and, therefore, it is all the more easy to tempt Him into shewing His pride, into proving Himself a conceited, self-willed, rebellious being—in ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... understand it. See here, says he, I can make it plain, counting his fingers thus: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday—does'nt that make eight days after? and because I would not concede, he parted from me as one that was obstinate and self-willed. Afterwards musing on the subject, I said, this must be the way then to understand it: Count Sunday Twice. If any of them were to be paid for eight days labor, they would detect the error in a moment if their employer should attempt ...
— The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign - 1847 edition • Joseph Bates
... come of it? Are we so credulous to men, and shall not we believe God, who is truth itself, who affirms it so constantly, and obtests us so earnestly? Are we so wise and prudent in lesser things, and shall we be mad, self-willed, and refractory in the greatest things that concern us eternally? Oh! unbelief is that which will condemn the world, the unbelief of this one thing, that the walking after, and minding of the flesh is ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... of an oak tree from an acorn may perhaps be told in dramatic form, but who can tell the history of the obscure workings of yeast, or of the growth of a field of grass? The earliest aviators were self-willed and diverse. As Captain Bertram Dickson remarked, when he was questioned concerning their enrolment for the national service, 'One man is a rich man; another man is an artist, or he is an actor; another man is a mechanic. ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... European fashion. But it was when he first saw a boat so built that it could go with or against the wind, that his strongest instinct was awakened. He would not rest until he had learned how to make and then to manage it. When this strange, passionate, self-willed boy was seventeen years old, he realized that his sister was scheming for the ruin of himself and his mother. In the rupture that followed, the people deserted Sophia and flocked about Peter. He placed his sister in ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... and pictures. She died when I was twelve, and poor Father, who worshiped her, wanted to carry out her plans for me, though he had no special sympathy with them. To make things worse for him, nobody but Mother ever had any control over me; I was spoiled and self-willed and precocious, and I thought the world owed me a good time. Dad's business judgment of human nature saved the situation, he thoroughly understood one thing about me, that I'd keep a bargain if I made it. So we fixed up our little contract; I was ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... years, Clara had undoubtedly been a disagreeable child; and even as a girl, she had not been much gentler; self-willed, hot-tempered, sensitive, she had never got on with her father, whom she despised for his drunkenness and incapacity. He felt this and never forgave her for it. A gift for music showed itself early in her; her ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... soldiers, a black speck settling for an instant upon whiteness, then carried away by a purifying wind. She knew that she would always be subject to such moments so long as she was a human being, that there would always be in her blood something that was self-willed. Otherwise, would she not be already in Paradise? She sat and prayed for strength in the battle of life, that could never be anything else ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... a man so self-willed as Lord Byron (and at that moment in a great passion) any philosophic vigor, it may be worth while, so far as the case concerns Pope, to ponder for one moment upon this invidious comparison, and to expose the fallacy which it conceals. By the term moralist we indicate ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... religions feeling. It might be supposed that a child of such parents could not but turn out well. Unhappily for me, they loved me much, but not wisely. I was allowed to have my own way in all things, I was never taught to obey. As I grew up, my self-willed disposition became more and more developed. I could not bear constraint of any sort. Too late they discovered their error. I had received at home some little religious instruction; I even knew something about the ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... not her present so much I am thinking of as her future. I should like my little Mysa to marry happily. She is a little self-willed, and has been indulged; and although, of course, she would marry as I arrange for her, I would not give her to any one who was not altogether agreeable to her. I fear that should anything happen to me the same consideration might not be paid to her inclinations. However, Jethro, I see no manner ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... other weak men who have self-willed wives. He put off the inevitable day as long as he could, but finally achieved his purpose by strategy. Roger was in his seventeenth year when the news arrived that Sir Henry had died. It was right that James Tichborne should be present at his brother's ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... him; in which, too (probably, from similar champagney reasons), Miss Parkington's unfortunately self-willed nose again assumes a more roseate hue than is becoming to a maiden; in which, too, Mr. Verdant Green being called upon to return thanks for "the ladies" -(toast, proposed in eloquent terms by H. Bouncer, Esq., and drunk "with the usual ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... her head shook: 'and Rose, Rose is, simply self-willed; a "she will" or "she won't" sort of little person. No criterion! Henceforth the world is against us. We have to struggle with it: it does ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and incessant, throwing themselves on the beach with a tremendous boom, and drawing the shingle back with them with an equally tremendous rattle, so impolite and noisy, bent only on showing their strength, reckless, rude, self-willed, and inconsiderate! This purposeless display of force, and this incessant waste of power, and the noisy self-assertion in ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... tone of great feeling; "such a young creature, scarcely sixteen, to take such a step!—I am sure I wish to Heaven her father had never made me her guardian. I confess, I was most exceedingly imprudent, out of regard to her family, to take under my protection such a self-willed, unaccountable, romantic girl. Indeed, my dear," continued Lady Diana Chillingworth, turning to her sister, Lady Frances Somerset, "it was you that misled me. You remember you used to tell me, that Anne ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... horde, and which changed our holy zeal against the enemies of the Cross into remorseless hatred of all mankind. As to the forged seals and signatures you talk of, and the deceptions practised on the Turks, if such there were, they were the self-willed act of our woivodes, and in no ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... has for a little while enjoyed the happiness of that mercy, it not unfrequently appears to his evil and inconstant heart too humiliating a condition to be constantly receiving grace for grace. There is no other radical cure for a proud, self-willed heart than every day and every hour to repeat that act by which we first came to Christ. Pray that you may have more of that childlike spirit which regards the grace of your Lord as a perennial fountain of life. Especially avoid the error ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... horse was going very strong with her. More than once the farmer cautioned her to give him a pull over the plough. And she attempted to obey the order. But the horse was self-willed, and she was light; and in truth the heaviness of the ground would have been nothing to him had he been fairly well ridden. But she allowed him to rush with her through the mud. As she had never yet had an accident she knew nothing of fear, and she was beyond measure excited. She had been ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... answering,—avoiding her as if she was infected with the plague. When the cold northeast storms came, when the clouds hung low upon the hills, when the wind howled in the woods, when the rain pattered upon the withered leaves, how lonesome the hours! She was haughty and self-willed, friendless and alone; but instead of becoming loyal and behaving like a good, sensible girl, she nursed her pride; and comforted herself by thinking that her great-grandfather Funk was a fine old Virginian gentleman. If a still, small voice whispered ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... self-willed ruler of modern times learned this lesson to his cost. Probably no two instances contributed so powerfully to the ultimate downfall of Napoleon as his ruthless assassination under the forms of military law of ...
— The Case of Edith Cavell - A Study of the Rights of Non-Combatants • James M. Beck
... given Mr. Bartlett this assurance had not exaggerated the amiable qualities of the donkey. "Little Brownie," as the children had unanimously and immediately named him, was of equable and even nature. True, as the days went by it was discovered that he was somewhat lazy, also self-willed. If he wanted to stop he would not move again until he wished to, in face of all pleading, urging, or inducements. He refused even to be led, and stood very pleasantly viewing the surrounding landscape till with a sudden jerk he would resume his usual trot. The children finally ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... Oswald Melvin slept. He had slept in it from that boyhood in which the brave woman had opened this sort of shop entirely for his sake. Music was his only talent; he was obviously not to be a genius in the musical world; but it was the only one in which she could foresee the selfish, self-willed child figuring with credit, and her foresight was only equalled by her resource. The business was ripe and ready for him when he grew up. And this was what he was ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... inflexible, opinionated, self-willed, wilful, dogged, intractable, resolute, stubborn, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... also his pipe, and that he might wish to use it in that capacity before their business was closed. At this moment, a tall, lank-sided Pennsylvanian, who was standing among the spectators, and who, perhaps, had no love for the shining tomahawk of the self-willed chief, cautiously approached, and handed him an old, long stemmed, dirty looking earthen pipe, intimating, that if Tecumseh would deliver up the fearful tomahawk, he might smoke the aforesaid pipe. The chief took ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... but on inquiry he found that Moss Tower was not very deeply dipped after all; Mrs. Dalzell had her jointure off it, but he was an only son, and any little wildness or extravagance of youth was likely to be put an end to by marriage. Laura was a somewhat troublesome ward, so passionate and so self-willed that even at school she had carried her point against him by sheer determination over and over again, and he wished heartily to be well freed of her by marriage with a tolerably respectable man. Her fortune he would secure her future husband from making ducks ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... in heaven, because in music there is no self-will. Music goes on certain laws and rules. Man did not make those laws of music, he has only found them out, and if he be self-willed and break them, there is an end of his music instantly; all he brings out is ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... gentleman considerably changed. There were, occasionally, flashes of his former customary, sarcastic pungency; now and again he would rouse himself to be ill-natured, antagonistic, and self-willed. But old age and illness had sadly told upon him; and he was content for the most part to express his humour by little shrugs, shakes of the head, and an irritable manner he had lately acquired of ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... he became more self-willed and disobedient, and his manner to his mother was often very rude and his temper to the other chickens ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... of much help to her husband and was deeply interested in them. She was therefore in many ways well-fitted to undertake the serious responsibilities that devolved upon her, but her good qualities were marred by a self-willed and autocratic temperament, which made her resent any interference with her authority. William Bentinck, who was wont to be insistent with his advice, presuming on the many services he had rendered, the Duke of Brunswick, and the council-pensionary Steyn were all alike distrusted and disliked ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... Think of them when the people rasp you, when the devil pricks you with his fiery darts, when your sensitive, self-willed spirit chafes or frets; let a gentle voice be heard above the strife, whispering, "Keep sweet, keep sweet!" And, if you will but heed it quickly, you will be saved from a thousand falls ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... length induced—in great measure from motives of the purest patriotism, and partly, no doubt, from his strong leaning toward a military career—to accept a position on the staff of the commanding General, Braddock, a soldier of courage and large experience, but, as events afterward proved, a haughty, self-willed, ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... and effective way to rear one stubborn boy I know of. The neighbors and the ladies' aid society often said my mother was cruel with that angel child. But the neighbors did not know what kind of an insect mother was trying to raise. Mother did know. She knew how stubborn and self-willed I was. It came from ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... necessarily make a man idle, nor inquisitiveness of mind irreverent; that shrewdness and cleverness are not incompatible with firm faith in the mysteries of Revelation; that attainment in Literature and Science need not make men conceited, nor above their station, nor restless, nor self-willed. We shall be able to point to you in proof of the power of Catholicism to make out of the staple of great towns exemplary and enlightened Christians, of those classes which, external to Ireland, are the problem and perplexity of patriotic ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... like those of antique statues. I should displease you, I know, if you were not yourself an exception to my rule, when I say that flat waists should have the preference over round ones. The round waist is a sign of strength; but women thus formed are imperious, self-willed, and more voluptuous than tender. On the other hand, women with flat waists are devoted in soul, delicately perceptive, inclined to sadness, more truly woman than the other class. The flat waist is supple and yielding; the round waist is ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... aspect of the place, and its respectable and sober, yet jolly, frequenters. But the cup of coffee did not satisfy their depraved appetites. The struggle to overcome was too much for men of no principle. They were self-willed and reckless. Both said, "What's the use of trying?" and returned ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... to me, I—shall have Christian Science treatment for my child," and there was a ring of something very like defiance in her voice which smote strangely on her brother's ear; for Emelie Seabrook had ever been regarded as one of the gentlest and least self-willed of women. ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... be enforced, and exhorted them to desist. The proclamation was effective in the south, and the opposition died out in North Carolina. Not so in Pennsylvania. There the Scotch-Irish borderers who lived in the western counties were bent on having their way. A brave, self-willed, hotheaded, turbulent people, they were going to have their fight out. They had ridden rough-shod over the Quaker and German government in Pennsylvania before this, and they no doubt thought they could do the same with this new government of the United States. They merely made ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... said Mrs Winn. "There's a great deal of good in Delia, but she is conceited and self-willed, like ...
— Thistle and Rose - A Story for Girls • Amy Walton
... to be known for his irascible temper. It is refreshing to learn that operatic singers of the day, however whimsical and self-willed, were obliged to bend to the imperious genius of this man. In a spirit of ill-timed revolt Cuzzoni declined to sing an air. She had already given him trouble by her insolence and freaks, which at times were unbearable. Handel at last exploded. He flew at the wretched woman and shook her ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... and repelling aspects, still it would seem that, as the stillest waters commonly conceal the deepest currents, so the powers to awaken extraordinary events are not unfrequently cloaked under a chastened, and sometimes under a cold, exterior. It has often happened, that the most desperate and self-willed men are those whose mien and manners would give reason to expect the mildest and most tractable dispositions; while he who has seemed a lion sometimes proves, in his real nature, to be ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... I will be your husband!" And as she shook her head and looked at me sadly, I added: "Oh! I well know that my uncle is self-willed, but I will be more self-willed still; and, since he must be forced to say 'yes,' I will force ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... with a big brain had not made for her a more refined mouth. The upper part of her face was often illuminated; the lower narrowly escaped coarseness; and a head of rusty red hair gave a total impression of strenuous brilliancy, of keen abiding vitality. A self-willed New York girl who had never undergone the chastening influence of discipline or rigorously ordered study—she averred that it would attenuate the individuality of her style; avowedly despising the classics, she was a modern of moderns ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... and you're as keen at that as I. Avice is not only amazingly self-willed, as you intimated a moment since, but she is intensely secretive. When she left me I could get nothing from her whatever. She ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... of Himself, and in essence are, in various fashions, the repetition of this prayer of my text: 'Be ... for Thou art,' that we can expect to have them answered. Much else may call itself prayer, but it is often but petulant and self-willed endeavour to force our wishes upon Him, and no answer will come to that. We are to pray about everything; but we are to pray about nothing, except within the lines which are marked out for us by what God ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... compunctious visitings. A life of crime had steeled her soul against every merciful impression. But she was very apprehensive lest her son, less obdurate in purpose, might relent. Though impotent in character, he was, at times, petulant and self-willed, and in paroxysms of stubbornness spurned his mother's counsels and exerted his own ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... freak of temper, and she chose to be self-willed about it. I hope she will show herself penitent to Sinclair; she can turn him around her little finger if she likes; but sometimes she prefers to quarrel with him. I really think Edna enjoys a regular flare up," finished Richard, laughing. ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... immoderate use of things allowed, or in burning in things unallowed, to that use which is against nature; or are found guilty, raging with heart and tongue against Thee, kicking against the pricks; or when, bursting the pale of human society, they boldly joy in self-willed combinations or divisions, according as they have any object to gain or subject of offence. And these things are done when Thou art forsaken, O Fountain of Life, who art the only and true Creator and Governor of the Universe, and by a self-willed pride, any one false ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... little sphere the benefit of that community in which Providence has cast his lot, that the moral character of a savage is truly to be sought; and who can turn without horror from the Esquimaux, peaceably seated after a day of honest labour with his wife and children in their snow-built hut, to the self-willed and vindictive Indian, wantonly plunging his dagger into the bosom of the helpless woman whom nature bids him ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... know you not that to those who have been initiated, and, as they say in the mysteries, twice born, Prometheus is always unbound, and stands ready to assist them; while to those who are self-willed and conceited of their own opinions, he is removed to an inaccessible distance, and chained in icy fetters on untrodden mountain-peaks, where the vulture ever devours his fair heart, which sympathises continually with the follies ...
— Phaethon • Charles Kingsley
... will have her grandmother's also when she marries. I shall give her one the first year, two the second, and so on." He had stood looking down at the child critically. "She's a Cardew," he said at last. "Which means that she will be obstinate and self-willed." He had paused there, but Grace had not refuted the statement. He had grinned. "As you know," he added. "Is she ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... had known at home. He spoke to me seriously, and warned me against joining the vessel, knowing as he did, the lawless character of her crew. He offered to obtain my discharge if I would come and live with him. His words made a deep impression on my heart, although I was too self-willed to follow his advice. During the voyage, while we were sailing from island to island, those words often and often recurred to my mind. I in vain attempted to drive them from me. When I saw my companions being put to death—expecting to meet the same fate— how earnestly I wished that I had followed ...
— Mary Liddiard - The Missionary's Daughter • W.H.G. Kingston
... is that which severeth faith and repentance, concluding, that the soul shall be saved by grace, though the man was never made sorry for his sins, nor the love of the heart turned therefrom. This is to be self-willed, as Peter has it; and this is a despising the word of the Lord, for that has put repentance and faith together; Mark i. 15. And "because he hath despised the word of the Lord, and hath broken his commandment, that soul shall utterly be cut off: his iniquity shall ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan
... the flushed, determined little face at the window. He was a dogged, self-willed man, and gave way to no one; but he knew when he had met his match. 'What does this mean, Miss Cunningham?' he asked grimly, while Tom Fox stood hesitating in the doorway, and the other servants stood in the background, wondering what would be ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... had taken clerical orders and was established as assistant to the secretary of one of the cardinals. Up to his twentieth year Petrarch was self-willed, moody, and subject to fits of melancholy. He knew too much and saw things too clearly to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... of mills that is practically controlled by one man, a very able man, but exceedingly self-willed and stubborn. He owns a chain of mills from coast to coast, and the rest of the manufacturers in his line follow his lead in everything. He has fought the Safety First idea from the start—calls it ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... agitated at first, soon begin to join the cluster on the comb; while if they are dissatisfied, they will abandon the hive, and nearly all the bees that were originally on the comb, will leave with them. They seem capricious in this matter, and are sometimes so very self-willed, that they refuse to have anything to do with the brood comb, when I can see no good reason why they ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... who are brought up from their cradles in an atmosphere of flattery not being spoiled; but unless they are angels—which is a very exceptional case—it cannot be otherwise. Richard Luscombe was a good fellow in many ways; liberal with his money (indeed, apt to be lavish), and kind-hearted, but self-willed, effeminate, and impulsive. He had also—which was a source of great alarm and grief to his father—a marked taste ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... as to what he should do, for had it been otherwise he would have ordered him to be destroyed as quickly as he would have ordered the execution of any criminal.—But hardened and calloused as he was by power, and self-willed as he was from never being thwarted in his wishes, yet he found it difficult to give the order that should sacrifice the life of one who had so gallantly saved ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... of his right hand. The circumstance showed the powerful influence held over him by the octoroon woman. Strange that she, his slave, cast out from society by her blood and her life, despised, no doubt, by all the world, save by him and a few ignorant blacks, should thus control a proud, self-willed, passionate man, and control him, ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... as he was familiarly called by those who did not fear him, was a powerful fellow; an amazingly active, vigorous, self-willed fellow, whom it was difficult to resist, and, in some circumstances, quite impossible ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... priest, with a slight cough, "let the thoughtful man picture a father: a desperate, self-willed man, who scorned the laws of God and society—keeping only faith with a miserable subterfuge he called 'honor,' and relying only on his own courage and his knowledge of human weakness. Imagine him cruel and bloody—a gambler by profession, ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... of this size, it was a case of every fellow shift for himself, which rule Napoleon followed out with a vengeance. He himself said in later years: "I was self-willed and obstinate, nothing awed me, nothing disconcerted me. I was quarrelsome, exasperating; I feared no one. I gave a blow here and a scratch there. Every one was afraid of me. My brother Joseph was the one with whom I had the most to do. He was beaten, bitten, scolded. I complained ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... knowing nothing as yet of the child-like obedience paid to the King of Borva by his islanders, thought to himself, "Well, you are a very strong and self-willed old gentleman, but if I were you I should not meddle much with that tall keeper with the eagle beak and the gray eyes. I should not like to be a stag, and know that that fellow was watching me somewhere with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... any rate call after her, and beg her to come back," said Huldbrand; and he began to call in the most earnest manner: "Undine! Undine! Pray come back!" The old man shook his head, saying, that all that shouting would help but little, for the knight had no idea how self-willed the little truant was. But still he could not forbear often calling out with him in the dark night: "Undine! Ah! dear Undine, I beg you ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... did not at all resemble Gudbrand. He was self-willed, imperious, passionate, and had no more patience than a dog when you snatch away his bone or a cat when you're trying to strangle her. He would have been insufferable, had not Heaven, in its mercy, given him a wife who was a match for him. She was headstrong, quarrelsome, discontented and ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... managed, that the income was received regularly, that he could have this, and that it would be intensely disagreeable for her to visit New York. He, who had yielded indifferently to all her little exactions, was inexorable, and the proud, self-willed woman found that he had so much law and reason on his side that she ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... earth shall view. But good with ill they also overthrew, Leaving but ruins, wherewith to rebuild Upon the same foundation, and renew Dungeons and thrones, which the same hour refilled, As heretofore, because ambition was self-willed. ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... it is very little inclined to seclusion. It never sees a window without wishing to jump out, it would have leaped over the wall twenty times if it had not been prevented, and no secular cat could be more lawless or more self-willed." ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... a striking characteristic of English Toryism, that it gives way just in time. Every reform has hitherto been granted as it was on the point of being extorted. Official carriages roll over the very spot where Charles I. dropped his self-willed head; Lady Macbeth might wash her hands as soon as the English people their memories of the civil bloodstain. Toryism knows one thing well: that no water-pipes can be made strong enough to withstand the sudden stoppage of a long column of water. They ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... souls. But it may be the same thing. I can't fancy Monny an old soul, can you?—yet she may be, for she's very intelligent, although so self-willed. I think what she's afraid of is getting interested in some wonderful man with Turkish or Egyptian blood, a magnificent creature like you read of in books, you know; then you have to give them up in the last chapter, and send them away ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... don't see what is to come of it. She says nothing, but it is clear that she is harping on this engagement, which is an engagement and no engagement, and—goodness knows what. I have grave doubts whether she ought to be allowed to return to London in the present state of affairs, but she is so self-willed that she might take it into her head to come up at any moment. The fact is someone ought to speak to Bosinney and ascertain what he means. I'm afraid of this myself, for I should certainly rap him over the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Incensed, David said: "Either thou art king and I am the general, or I am king and thou art the general." Joab had no choice but to obey. He selected the tribe of Gad as the first to be counted, because he thought that the Gadites, independent and self-willed, would hinder the execution of the royal order, and David would be forced to give up his plan of taking a census. The Gadites disappointed the expectations of Joab, and he betook himself to the tribe of Dan, hoping that if God's punishment descended, it would strike the idolatrous Danites. ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... is self-willed. He has not yet felt either the cold or the heat of the world. He thinks that all men, great and small, tremble at his sword, and it must needs be that he learn better by experience. However, I will go; I will give ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... her disposition was governed by the most hardened and inveterate cruelty. She never did anything either under persuasion or compulsion, but employed all her self-willed efforts to carry out her resolutions, and no one ventured to intercede in favour of those who fell in her way. Neither length of time, nor fulness of punishment, nor carefully drawn-up prayers, nor the fear of death, nor the ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... signs of scruples and the remedy against them? A. The signs of scruples are chiefly: (1) To be always dissatisfied with our confessions; (2) To be self-willed in deciding what is sinful and what is not. The chief remedy against them is to follow exactly the advice of the confessor without questioning the reason or utility of ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 3 (of 4) • Anonymous
... this, I could see. She is not at all shy, and she still is very fond of planning, or managing things, and people too, for that matter, though of course she is much more sensible now, and not so impatient and self-willed as she used to be. Still, on the whole, she gets on better with Peterkin than with any of us, though she is fond of us, I know, and so are we of her. But Peterkin is just a sort of slave to her, and does everything she asks, and I expect it will ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... found some reason for refusing, but none presented itself, and Bertha was sufficiently self-willed to dispute her authority; it was therefore impolitic ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie |
