"Wanton" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not fortitude, not patience Were mine, the which the village thought I had In bearing with my wife, while preaching on, Doing the work God chose for me. I loathed her as a termagant, as a wanton. I knew of her adulteries, every one. But even so, if I divorced the woman I must forsake the ministry. Therefore to do God's work and have it crop, I bore with her So lied I to myself So lied I to Spoon River! Yet I tried lecturing, ran for the ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... 8th of July" [Chippewa was fought on the 4th] "to the 23rd of the month, General Brown, with his enormous force, was content to remain without striking a blow, unless an occasional demonstration before Forts George and Mississaga, or the wanton conflagration of the village of St David's, be considered ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... Montigny, a tempest is as harmless as a breath, when that tempest is being hurled against the rock; a breath is even as effectual as is a tempest, when that breath is puffed against the dust. So buzzing blandishments of sighing fops, may blow the frail flowerets from weak, wanton natures; whilst vehement vows of otherwise most honorable men, though urged as strongly as the northern blast, are in vain against the marble front of virtue. I am ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... when the earth began afresh its life in May, And fruit-trees bloomed, and waves would wanton, and the bay Ruffle its wealth of weed, and stranger-birds arrive, And beasts take ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... Genil; those who range the verdant Tartesian meadows; those who indulge their luxurious temper in the delicious pastures of Xerez; the wealthy inhabitants of La Mancha, crowned with golden ears of corn; the ancient offspring of the Goths, cased in iron; those who wanton in the lazy current of Pisuerga; those who feed their numerous flocks in the ample plains where the Guadiana, so celebrated for its hidden course, pursues its wandering race; those who shiver with ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... gone that looked at first so gaudy; 'Tis now no jest to hear young girls talk bawdry. But plots and parties give new matters birth, And state distractions serve you here for mirth. At England's cost poets now purchase fame; While factious heats destroy us, without shame, These wanton Neroes fiddle to the flame; The stage, like old rump-pulpits, is become The scene of news, a furious party's drum: Here poets beat their brains for volunteers, And take fast hold of asses by their ears; Their jingling rhimes for reason here you swallow, Like Orpheus' ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... swung his paddle steadily, throwing into the strokes a wanton exuberance that showed how high his spirits ran. After a time, when they were well out from the shore, he took ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... Flemming, "we will go up to the castle. I must get acquainted with this mirror of owls, this modern Till Eulenspiegel. See what a glorious morning we have! It is truly a wondrous winter! what summer sunshine; what soft Venetian fogs! How the wanton, treacherous air coquets with the old gray-beard trees! Such weather makes the grass and our beards grow apace! But we have an old saying in English, that winter never rots in the sky. So he will come down at last in his old-fashioned, ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... saints—the sanctity of the temple known as the "meeting-house" was desecrated by proceedings more in keeping with the shrine of Venus—and the inspired writings themselves were used as the medium of amatory and wanton flirtation by the defendant in his sacred capacity ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... roof tops, reclining on purple and fine linen, looking down on the street below from the thick foliage of her citron boughs and her red Syrian roses, was an Egyptian wanton; and leaning beside her, tossing golden apples in her bosom, was a young centurion of the Roman guard, languid and laughing, with his fair chest bare to the heat, and his armour flung in a pile ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... favor which the gods doth please, If they do feed on smoke, as Lucian says. Therefore the cause that the bright sun doth rest At the low point of the declining west— When his oft-wearied horses breathless pant— Is to refresh himself with this sweet plant, Which wanton Thetis from the west doth bring, To joy her love after his toilsome ring: For 'tis a cordial for an inward smart, As is dictamnum to the wounded hart. It is the sponge that wipes out all our woe; 'Tis like the thorn that doth on Pelion grow, With which ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... to clear the wandering night, But shining suns of true divinity, That make the soul conceive her perfect light! No wanton beauties of humanity Her pretty brows, but beams that clear the sight Of him that seeks the true philosophy! No coral is her lip, no rose her fair, But even that crimson that adorns the sun. No nymph is she, but mistress of the air, By whom my glories are but new begun. But when ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... Absence of our Husbands a long while, mehappen many Years, and then if there be any Slip in us, (as long Vacations will make Lawyers hungry) the World is apt to censure and scandalize us; and brand us with wanton Living and Incontinency; when alas! if they wou'd but consider our Condition, and the mighty Longings we often naturally have for Flesh and Blood, they wou'd not blame ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris
... Taimur. Now, Maitland was a born pantomimist, continually inventing practical jokes; and perhaps to startle me with a false alarm in the very skin of the old Bruin which had so nearly done for him, he had thrown it round him on finishing its cleaning, and so, in mere wanton fun, had crept on deck at the hour of his watch. The head of the bear-skin, and the fog, must have prevented him from ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... musicians had sung before us and our path was strewn with flowers. And now! Now we came two fugitives from the vengeance of the Teules, I borne in a litter by four tired soldiers, while Otomie, the princess of this people, still clad in her wanton's robe, at which the women mocked, for she had been able to come by no other, tramped at my side, since there were none to carry her, and the inhabitants of the place cursed us as the authors of their woes. Nor did we know if they would stop ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... tainted with; and this pride is discovered by mincing words, a made carriage, and an affecting the toys and baubles that Satan, and every lightheaded fool bringeth into the world. As God speaketh of the daughters of Zion, 'they walk with stretched forth necks, and wanton eyes, mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet' (Isa 3:16). A very unhandsome carriage for a people that profess godliness, and that use to come before God to confess their sins, and to bemoan themselves for what they have ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Josephus, always under the spell of the Romans, or writing with a desire to appeal to them, can recognize only material, concrete causes. The deeper spiritual motives of the struggle escape him altogether, as they escaped the Roman procurators. He recounts the wanton insults of a Pontius Pilate, who brought into Jerusalem Roman ensigns with the image of Caesar, and spoiled the sacred treasures of the Korban for the purpose of building aqueducts; and he dwells on the attempt of Gaius to set up his statue in the Temple, ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... I hide in the Shalimar With a wanton princess slender and proud, And we swoon with kisses, swoon till we seem Two streaming peacocks gone in a cloud Of golden dust, with star after star ...
— New Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... wonder that the statesmen whom she outwitted held Elizabeth to be little more than a frivolous woman, or that Philip of Spain wondered how "a wanton" could hold in check the policy of the Escurial. But the Elizabeth whom they saw was far from being all of Elizabeth. Wilfulness and triviality played over the surface of a nature hard as steel, a temper purely intellectual, the ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... to within a few inches of my nose, "I said that I kenned her and her kind well, havin' watched the likes o' her ridden out o' Dawson City on a rail more times than once. I said that she was naethin' but a wanton"—only this was not the word Whinnie used—"a wanton o' Babylon and a temptress o' men and a corrupter o' homes out o' her time and place, bein' naught but a soft shinin' thing that was a mockery to the guid God who made her and a blight to the face o' the open prairie that she was foulin' ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... Joys inspire, Airs for drooping Hope to hear. And again, Now, let the sprightly Violin A louder Strain begin: And now, Let the deep mouth'd Organ blow, Swell it high and Sink it low. Hark! how the Treble and the Base In wanton Fuges each other chase, And swift Divisions run their Airy Race. Thro' all the travers'd Scale they fly, In winding Labyrinths of Harmony, By turns They rise and fall, by ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... of paramount importance," he said. "But I think you may as well know it for your present edification and future guidance. Madam, I am that wicked, wanton, wily fox, that whipper-snapper, ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... scrape acquaintance, and get some familiarity with her neighbours, which increaseth from day to day more and more; nay oftentimes it comes to that height, she's better to be found among her neighbours, then at home in her own family. Here she sees Mistris Wanton playing with her child that is a very pretty Babe. There she sees Mistres Breedwell making ready her Child-bed linnens and getting of her Clouts together. Yonder Mistris Maudlen complains that ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... draweth nearest to the nature of fire. As if we were not told the meaning of those fables far better by the poet himself. For he teacheth us in that of Venus, if we heed it, that light music and wanton songs and discourses which suggest to men obscene fancies debauch their manners, and incline them to an unmanly way of living in luxury and wantonness, of continually haunting the company ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... character, and the minute peculiarities of conduct, are soon obliterated; and it is surely better that caprice, obstinacy, frolick, and folly, however they might delight in the description, should be silently forgotten, than that, by wanton merriment and unseasonable detection, a pang should be given to a widow, a daughter, a brother, or a friend. As the process of these narratives is now bringing me among my contemporaries, I begin to feel myself "walking upon ashes under which the fire is not extinguished," and coming ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... couch in the library; he had thought of it too much since leaving Heliodora yesterday afternoon. It began to nettle him that his grief should be for her merely an amusement. Never having seen the Gothic maiden, whose beauty outshone hers as sunrise outdoes the lighting of a candle, this wanton Greek was capable of despising him in good earnest, and Basil had never been of those who sit easy under scorn. He felt something chafe and grow hot within him, and recalled the days when he, and not Heliodora, had indulged contempt—to ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... in the belief that Benedict was an enemy of the Church, went so far as to try to kill him. And once a few pious persons in Rome induced a company of wanton women to go out to Benedict's monastery and disport themselves through his beautiful grounds. This was done with two purposes in view; one was to work the direct downfall of the Benedictines, with the aid of the trulls, and the other was to create a scandal among the visitors, who would carry ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... seek another as I sought you first. But you are mobile as the veering air, And all your charms more changeful than the tide, Wherefore to be inconstant is no care: I have but to continue at your side. So wanton, light and false, my love, are you, I am most faithless when I most ...
— A Few Figs from Thistles • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... color, and grace and shapeliness of the hills, the capes, the, promontories; and then, the splendor of the sunlight, the dim rich distances, the charm of the water-glimpses! And it was in this paradise that the yellow-liveried convicts were landed, and the Corps-bandits quartered, and the wanton slaughter of the kangaroo-chasing black innocents consummated on that autumn day in May, in the brutish old time. It was all out of keeping with the place, a sort of bringing of heaven and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... that sacred Hindoo tree, with its drooping foliage hanging in clusters round her, in every clasped and sensitive leaf of which a fairy is said to dwell, I fancied she was their queen, and must have dropped from one of the leaves, to gambol and wanton among the flowers below. Running to her, I caught her in my arms, and said, 'I watched your fall, and have you now, dear sprite, and will keep you here!'—pressing her to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... upon our planet, one is apt to think that the scheme of Providence must have been framed with a provision for the complete exclusion of such accidents. To allow of the sudden undoing of all this fair scene, which it has taken thousands of years to bring out in its full proportions, seems like a wanton destruction of valuable property, and we are not disposed to believe that such a thing could be permitted. But we must at the same time remember, that our sense of what is important and consequential has a regard to the earth alone, which ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 - Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852 • Various
... of sentiment might throw her into his power; or possibly he hoped to make my addresses the means of separating her from the real object of her attachment, without contemplating a farther result, and thus the same wanton selfishness which rendered him regardless of every tie of moral feeling towards Theresa, led him to prepare a life of misery and dishonour for his early ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore
... fear our enemies only by sea, and there had their own force of galleys to protect them; who were independent and held in the highest honour by you—to act as these have done, this is not revolt—revolt implies oppression; it is deliberate and wanton aggression; an attempt to ruin us by siding with our bitterest enemies; a worse offence than a war undertaken on their own account in the acquisition of power. The fate of those of their neighbours who had already rebelled and had been subdued was no lesson ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... easy, only too easy, on the surface to feel that if she wanted to be gay and wanton, living for the hour, it was no one's affair but her own. She fought the question out in her mind. She fixed her determination on the young and, in one sense, inexperienced newspaper man whose ambitions pleased her ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... plans for the escape of Marie Antoinette, they didn't know what the letter-case had contained, and yet they both vaguely felt that the beautiful girl, who stood up so calmly before the loathsome Terrorist, was not a wanton, as she tried to make out, but only misguided, mad perhaps—perhaps ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Provost-Marshal's Guard and fatigue-party of Colonel Porter brought up the rear—picking up stragglers; blowing up ammunition that had been left by the way; burning feed and forage; smashing barrels of liquids, of which the apparent wanton waste on the ground would at any other time have almost produced a revolt in the ranks; bending the barrels and throwing into the swamp, of muskets dropped by dead and exhausted soldiers; breaking up and burning ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... Bulgarian hordes. The grisette charms of little tobacconists, milliners, flower-girls, lemonade-sellers, bonbon-sellers, and filles de joie flaunted themselves in the gaslight where the lustrous sorceress eyes of Antonina might have glanced over the Afric Sea, while her wanton's heart, so strangely filled with leonine courage and shameless license, heroism and brutality, cruelty and self-devotion, swelled under the purples of her delicate vest, at the glory of the man she at once ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... the case into his own hands, the hands that were most competent to deal with it. It was only to be expected that with his experience he could see farther than the young man, his nephew. What Mr. Randall saw beyond the scandal of the Divorce Court was a vision of young Mrs. Ransome, wanton with liberty and plunging deeper, splashing as she had not yet splashed, bespattering them all to the farthest limits of her range. The question for Mr. Randall was how to stop her, how to get her out of it, how to bring her to her sober senses before she ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... greater plausibility. No doubt I had been the victim of malicious artifice. Inclination, however, conjured up opposite sentiments, and my fears began to subside. What motive, I asked, could induce a human being to inflict wanton injury? I could not account for his delay; but how numberless were the ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... nature of their marine occupations, their virtue and moderation, are the causes of that vigour and health which they possess. The poverty of their soil has placed them, I hope, beyond the danger of conquest, or the wanton desire of extirpation. Were they to be driven from this spot, the only acquisition of the conquerors would be a few acres of land, inclosed and cultivated; a few houses, and some movables. The genius, ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... strange ship-of-war, far out at sea, There came a sudden tiny puff of smoke— And then a dull strange throb, a whistling hiss, And scarce a score of yards away a shot Ploughed up the turf. None knew, none ever knew From whence it came, whether a perilous jest Of English seamen, or a wanton deed Of Spaniards, or mere accident; but all Her maids in flight were scattered. Bess awoke As from a dream, crying aloud—"'Tis he, 'Tis he that sends this message. He is not dead. I will not pass the porch. Come home with me. 'Twas he that sent that message." Nought availed, ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... not record all the stories of wanton destruction that reached us. I would rather not believe that the Federal Government could be so disgraced by its own soldiers. Dr. Day says they left nothing at all in his house, and carried everything off from Dr. Enders's. He does not believe we have a single article ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... was on his feet again, purple with rage. With uplifted scimitar he sprang toward our host. The old man stepped between. Ja-khaz, with wanton cruelty, brought his steel upon the ancient head, and stretched him upon the floor. For an instant the younger one stood horror-stricken, then snatching from the floor the patriarch's staff—a heavy stick with an iron end—he jumped forward, ...
— The Last American - A Fragment from The Journal of KHAN-LI, Prince of - Dimph-Yoo-Chur and Admiral in the Persian Navy • J. A. Mitchell
... and his myrmidons up to the Stone. Having witnessed, from a secure hiding-place, all that occurred, the two workmen, with great propriety, immediately hurried off to inform the lord of the manor of the wanton act of destruction which ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... precious and unreturning hours over long chronicles of depravity. The murders, the suicides, the executions, the divorces, the criminal trials, are each and all so like one another that it is only a wanton waste of time to read them. The morbid style in which social disorders of all kinds are written up in the sensational press, with staring headlines to attract attention, ought to warn off every healthy mind from their perusal. Every scandal in ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... know what you do? Do you know what you risk? [Is there nothing - nothing! - will make you spare me this idiotic, wanton prosecution?] ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... hear: The changeling King who oft has kneel'd before me, And own'd no other pow'r, now treats me With ill dissembl'd love mix'd with disdain. A newer beauty rules his faithless heart, Which only in variety is blest; Oft have I heard him, when wrapt up in sleep, And wanton fancy rais'd the mimic scene, Call with unusual fondness on Evanthe, While I have lain neglected by his side, Except sometimes in a mistaken rapture He'd clasp me to ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey
... ten paces. After church, he disappeared as quietly as he had entered, and fortunately escaped hearing the comments on his rash act. His appearance was generally considered as an impertinence, attributable only to some wanton fancy, or possibly a bet. One or two thought that the sexton was exceedingly remiss in not turning him out after discovering who he was; and a prominent pew-holder remarked, that if he couldn't take his wife and daughters to that ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... watering-place?" interrupted Masterton; "to the haunt of the idle, the frivolous and wanton—never!" ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... and the "new ground" hill farmer, together, have destroyed many thousands of our beautiful Kentucky forest acres. Much of this one time "nature lover's paradise" is now ugly, barren, and eroded, and too poor to give a living to either man or beast. Wanton destruction of God-given treasure and beauty is a sin and a shame. Thanks to the men of vision and foresight of the U.S.D.A., state agricultural colleges, and our own fraternity of nut tree lovers, this slaughter is coming to a halt at last. Our fellow citizens are being awakened to ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various
... unnoticed in the excitement caused by the novel objects which met their eyes at every step—flowers, such as Rob had never before seen, looking up as if asking to be plucked; butterflies which flapped about so lazily that they could, he felt, easily be caught, only without net or appliances it seemed wanton destruction to capture and mutilate such gorgeously painted objects. There were others too, resembling the hawk-moths in shape, with thick body and long pointed wing, which were constantly being taken for humming-birds, so rapid was their darting flight. As for these latter, they flashed ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... Cockneydom invasion threat? Then let the louns beware, Sir! Scotland, they'll find, is Scotland yet, And for hersel' can fare, Sir. The Thames shall run to join the Tweed, Criffel adorn Thames valley, 'Ere wanton wrath and vulgar greed On Scottish ground shall rally. Fal de ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various
... His father's faith indeed, subtle and even beautiful as it was, was built upon axioms which it seemed to him a kind of puerile perversity to deny. Religion came to him in definite and traditional channels, and to seek it in other directions appeared to him a species of wanton profanity. ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... interior appears to have been invested with a thin plastering, or perhaps, only a wash, which has been painted in various colours in mosaic devices. The altar still remains pretty perfect notwithstanding the ravages of time and wanton depredation. A Roman column still adorns the north side of it, but its corresponding one on the south side has long ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... midnight, when she apologized for keeping us up so late. She is cruelly persecuted by her wicked mother and ungodly neighbors; for she is a shining light, by which the dark deeds of the wicked are reproved; and hence their hatred. When Mar Shimon's attendants come, they treat her with wanton cruelty. Some friends in America had sent her several articles of clothing; but her neighbors came together and tore them in pieces before her eyes. She bore it meekly, and only prayed for them. She expected fresh insults because of our visit, but prayed that ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... lasted, and what exactly came of it, I did not hear. Jorian DeWitt said my father lost his temper, a point contested by Wedderburn and Jennings, for it was unknown of him. Anyhow, he thundered to some effect, inasmuch as he detached those that had gentlemanly feelings from the wanton roysterers, and next day the latter pleaded wine. But they told the story, not without embellishments. The world followed ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... While the heav'n-born Child All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; Nature in awe to Him Had doff'd her gaudy trim, With her great Master so to sympathize: It was no season then for her To wanton with the sun, ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... the performance of all kinds of experiments on living animals by uninstructed students. Against this notion we were first to protest, as being at once cruel and worse than useless; for an experiment performed by bungling fingers is no experiment at all, but wanton cruelty." ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... fault. And now he wants to educate you in the same school. Lucretia Kingsley is correct,—oil and water are more fit to be mated than you and Mr. Spence. You have broken her heart, too, by your wanton conduct, Virginia. Her sympathy for Mr. Spence ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... peculiarly her own. You received from the hands of Hymen only one woman, awkward and innocent; the celibate returns you a dozen of them. A joyful and rapturous husband sees his bed invaded by the giddy and wanton courtesans, of whom we spoke in the Meditation on The First Symptoms. These goddesses come in groups, they smile and sport under the graceful muslin curtains of the nuptial bed. The Phoenician girl flings to you her garlands, gently sways herself to and fro; the Chalcidian woman overcomes you ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... wife: he threw himself between the angry, touching his hat the while with all the ceremony of an usher: he protected the birds from everybody but himself, seeing, I suppose, a great difference between official execution and wanton sport. His mistress telling him one day to put some ferns into his master's particular corner, and adding, "Though, indeed, Robert, he doesn't deserve them, for he wouldn't help me to gather them," "EH, MEM," replies Robert, "BUT I WOULDNAE SAY THAT, FOR I THINK ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the loss of property involved, immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of non-combatants, men, women, and children engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modem history, been deemed innocent and ...
— Why We are at War • Woodrow Wilson
... high in the sky, and the waves reflected its radiance. The liberated vessels scudded this way and that, and the sea birds came flying from the south with joyous cries. The fish lay near the surface and glittered in the sun as they leapt high out of the water, wanton after their long imprisonment under the ice. The gulls, which had been circling out beyond the edge of the ice, came in great flocks toward land to fish ...
— The Treasure • Selma Lagerlof
... ninety years of age, was brought before the governor, and so roughly handled by the populace that he died two days after he was thrown into confinement. The other prisoners were plied with hunger and thirst, and then put to death with wanton and studied cruelty. Two of the sufferers, Blandina, a female, and Ponticus, a lad of fifteen, displayed singular calmness and intrepidity. For several days they were obliged to witness the tortures inflicted on their fellow-disciples, that they might, if possible, be ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... were ever serene; no Thunder-bearing Cloud obscur'd the Sky; the whispering Zephyrs wanton'd in the Leaves, and gently bore along the enchanting Musick of the feather'd Choir: The Sea here knew no Storms, nor threatning Wave, with Mountain swell, menaced the Ships, which safely plough'd the peaceful Bosom of the Deep. AEolus and all his boisterous Sons were banish'd from these happy ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... praises which Funfeng, AEgir's servant, had won for the dexterity with which he waited upon his master's guests, Loki suddenly turned upon him and slew him. At this wanton crime, the gods in fierce wrath drove Loki away once more, threatening him with dire punishment should he ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... at sea at night, of glades opening to show high-roofed huts covered with mats: of canoes decorated with the shining white shells resembling a poached egg; of natives clustering round, eager and excited, seldom otherwise than friendly; though in hitherto unvisited places, or in those where the wanton outrages of sandal-wood traders had excited distrust, caution was necessary, and there was peril enough to give the voyage a full character of heroism and adventure. Bows and poisoned arrows were sometimes brought down—and Dickie insisted ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... scarcely view a boat travelling this liquid road, without raising opposite sensations—pleased to think of its great benefit to the community, and grieved to behold wanton punishment. ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... master, he believed his followers would do the same, until the light of burning barns and out-houses revealed the mischief which had begun to work. Yet, in the sanguinary struggle which followed, it is to be remembered that the excesses which were committed, the wanton waste of life, were on the part of the white residents, who meted out vengeance with an unsparing hand,—not on the part ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... In wanton rage at his defeat, Prince Maurice fired red-hot balls and bars of twisted lead into the town; but no farther attempt was made to capture it, and the following day his army was in full retreat, he having heard that the Earl of Essex with a large force ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... How Jove)—Ver. 584. Donatus remarks here that this was "a very proper piece of furniture for the house of a Courtesan, giving an example of loose and mercenary love, calculated to excite wanton thoughts, and at the same time hinting to the young lover that he must make his way to the bosom of his mistress, like Jupiter to Danae, in a shower of gold. Oh ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... battle! So, from thee, thou sovran of the Shining-Danes, Scyldings'-bulwark, a boon I seek, — and, Friend-of-the-folk, refuse it not, O Warriors'-shield, now I've wandered far, — that I alone with my liegemen here, this hardy band, may Heorot purge! More I hear, that the monster dire, in his wanton mood, of weapons recks not; hence shall I scorn — so Hygelac stay, king of my kindred, kind to me! — brand or buckler to bear in the fight, gold-colored targe: but with gripe alone must I front the fiend and fight for life, foe against foe. Then faith be his in the doom of the Lord whom death ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... magnificent virgin forests I had yet beheld. A small path, on the bank of a little brook conducted us through it. Palms, with their majestic tops, raised themselves proudly above the other trees, which, lovingly interlaced together, formed the most beautiful bowers; orchids grew in wanton luxuriance upon the branches and twigs; creepers and ferns climbed up the trees, mingling with the boughs, and forming thick walls of blossoms and flowers, which displayed the most brilliant colours, and exhaled the ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... recount the destruction and havoc they made here, burning and sinking all the shipping except a Bristol galley, and destroying the fisheries and stages of the poor planters without remorse or compunction; for nothing is so deplorable as power in mean and ignorant hands—it makes men wanton and giddy, unconcerned at the misfortunes they are imposing on their fellow-creatures, and keeps them smiling at the mischiefs that bring themselves no advantage. They are like madmen that cast fire-brands, arrows, and death, and say, Are not ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... accurate copy. But I don't think you will get much out of it. Depend upon it, it is mere nonsense, a wanton scribble. I must be going now, Dyson. No, no more; that stuff of ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... judiciously adds, "where so little interest has been felt in the preservation of these relics, it is only surprising that so many of them yet remain in different parts of the kingdom." Among all acts of wanton license, the destruction of a cross is to us the most unaccountable. We can readily refer the defacement of imperial insignia and the spoliation of royal houses to political turbulence engendered ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 563, August 25, 1832 • Various
... very hard for art and industry to perform anything to purpose. I am, in my own nature, not melancholy, but thoughtful; and there is nothing I have more continually entertained myself withal than the imaginations of death, even in the gayest and most wanton time of my age. In the company of ladies, and in the height of mirth, some have perhaps thought me possessed of some jealousy, or meditating upon the uncertainty of some imagined hope, whilst I was entertaining myself with the remembrance of some one surprised ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... sometimes to have been the practice of worthy but imprudent men. There will be no capricious humours, no selfish tempers, no moroseness, no discourtesy, no affected severity of deportment, no peculiarity of language, no indolent neglect, or wanton breach, of the ordinary forms or fashions of society. His reputation is a possession capable of uses too important to be thus sported away; if sacrificed at all, it shall be sacrificed at the call of duty. The world ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... catechism-making, intermingled with scenes of riot and wantonness, which drove old John of Nassau half frantic; with banquetting and guzzling, drinking and devouring, with unchristian flaunting and wastefulness of apparel, with extravagant and wanton dancing, and other lewd abominations; all which, the firm old reformer prophesied, would lead to the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... day but sometimes, one gets a little weary even of the best tricks. Need the author depend quite so much on the printer for his effects? Scenes and passages in a book seem to be standing very near the edge, and the wanton thought occurs to one that a little shove would send them over. In fact, one gets irritable. And then anything bad may ...
— If Winter Don't - A B C D E F Notsomuchinson • Barry Pain
... half wanton, half asleep, One with a fat wide hairless face. He likes love-music that is cheap; Likes women in a crowded place; And wants to ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke
... been discovered to be an absolute wanton, men from any of the clans make a ring round her, she being bound, and tossed from one to the other, and when exhausted is unbound and left by her relations to the men to do as they please to her—the almost inevitable result is death. With this terror before ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... for; that much was obvious to the veriest land-lubber. And the second torpedo could have but one purpose—the wanton destruction of so many more helpless women. Besides, it revolted his sense of sport; it was like blowing a sitting bird to pieces with a shot gun. ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... society. In the softness of its sentiment, its voluptuous verbal melody, and its reiterated descant upon effeminate love-pleasure, it corresponded exactly to the spirit of its age.[185] This was the secret of its success; and this explains its seduction. Not Corisca's wanton blandishments and professed cynicism, but Mirtillo's rapturous dithyrambs on kissing, Dorinda's melting moods of tenderness, and Amarilli's delicate regrets that love must be postponed to honor, justified Bellarmino's censure. Without anywhere transgressing ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... quite as ghastly as anything set forth in the reports from Cuba. And yet every thinking man among us, young and old, turned cold with apprehension when we were threatened with a European interference which would have dishonoured us. That Spain is behaving with wanton brutality would not be to the point, even if the reports were not exaggerated, which they are,—for the matter of that, the Cubans are equally brutal when they find the opportunity. The point is that it is none of our business. The Cubans have rebelled. They must take the consequences, ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... no matter what the issue. Furthermore, I should like to be given charge of the palace, in order to see that his wants are properly provided for. We cannot afford to have our movement discredited at the outset by unnecessary bloodshed or by any wanton outrages." ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... commanded them to take a red cow in memory of the sin they had committed in worshipping a calf. And a cow is mentioned rather than a calf, because it was thus that the Lord was wont to designate the synagogue, according to Osee 4:16: "Israel hath gone astray like a wanton heifer": and this was, perhaps, because they worshipped heifers after the custom of Egypt, according to Osee 10:5: "(They) have worshipped the kine of Bethaven." And in detestation of the sin of idolatry it was sacrificed outside the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... to lament his fate, In amorous ditties, all a summer day, While smooth Adonis, from his native rock Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood Of Thammuz, yearly wounded: the love tale Infected Zion's daughters with like heat; Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led, His eye surveyed the dark idolatries Of alienated Judah.”—Par. ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... much wanton cruelty has been abolished by the extended education of the people. Brutal sports among boys are much less indulged than formerly, and the worrying of domestic animals almost invariably denotes a bad boy, in the worst sense of the phrase, likely to make ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20. No. 568 - 29 Sept 1832 • Various
... huge body; young, healthy trees which had been planted so carefully a few years back, and which he pulled up with his long trunk as though they were little radishes; not to speak of the miles of rice and sugar-cane which he had trodden down in wanton waste and as a means of venting ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... Cupid! Monarch over Kings! Wherefore hast thou feet and wings? Is it to show how swift thou art, When thou would'st wound a tender heart? Thy wings being clipped, and feet held still, Thy bow so many would not kill. It is all one in Venus' wanton school Who highest sits, the wise man or the fool! Fools in love's college Have far more knowledge To read a woman over, Than a neat prating lover. Nay, 'tis confessed ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... in myself. I also am a child, just as old as that other was; I have never yet been beaten. Once my parents were compelled to rebuke me for wanton petulance; and from head to foot I was pervaded through and through by one raving idea: "If they beat me I should take my own life." So I am also infected with the hereditary disease—the awful spirit is holding out his hand over me; captured, accursed, he is taking me with ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... hospitality; to disturb the quiet of your fellow-guests, some of them perhaps exhausted by fatigue, some of them invaded by distemper; to interrupt the king's lieges in their course of journeying upon their lawful occasions? Above all, what motive but wanton barbarity could prompt you to violate the apartment, and terrify the tender hearts of two helpless young ladies, travelling, no doubt, upon some cruel emergency, which compels them, unattended, to encounter in the night the dangers of ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... village, known as Hillet-el-dolape, but it has been entirely destroyed by the governor of Fashoda. After much difficulty, I induced some natives to come to me, with whom I at length made friends: they all joined in accusing the Koordi governor of wanton atrocities. ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... single combat. If Harold were killed, the nation might give the crown to whom they thought good; Harold's death could not make William's claim one jot better. The cause was not personal, but national. The Norman duke had, by a wanton invasion, wronged, not the King only, but every man in England, and every man might claim to help in driving him out. Again, in an ordinary wager of battle, the judgement can be enforced; here, whether William slew Harold or Harold slew William, there ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... a week's march. There were places, indeed, where some straggling bands of Irish made their appearance and demanded food: but it can scarcely be imputed to them as a crime that they did not choose to die of hunger; and there is no evidence that they committed any wanton outrage. In truth they were much less numerous than was commonly supposed; and their spirit was cowed by finding themselves left on a sudden without leaders or provisions, in the midst of a mighty population which felt towards them as men ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... insane or a villain," declared "Crusoe". "I do not know who he is, but if I starve to death, he'll be a wanton murderer. My name is Raymond Flood. I am not a college student. I am a high school student ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield
... life, but he is waiting for us beyond this life. He is waiting beyond this life and this world of wicked war and wanton cruelty and slaughter. And we shall come, some day, his mother and I, to the place where he is waiting for us, and we shall all be as happy there as we were on this earth in the ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... abominable persecution any more than there was for the burning of John Huss. It had not even as much to justify it as had the slaughter of St. Bartholomew, for the Huguenots were politically hostile and dangerous. It was an act of wanton cruelty incited by religious bigotry. I wonder how a woman so kind-hearted, so intelligent, and so politic as Madame de Maintenon doubtless was, could have encouraged the King to a measure which undermined his popularity, which cut the sinews of natural strength, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... peaceably, but I have lately experienced so many instances of your most bare-faced and wanton oppression, to my prejudice, that there's no longer a doubt with me what course I must be under the disagreeable necessity to take, that I may obtain redress and do justice to myself and family. I shall expect your immediate answer for my ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... experience what has occupied my imagination since my childhood, what has always given me the feeling of seductive terror. A foolish apprehension! It will be a wanton game she will play with me, nothing more. She loves me, and she is good, a noble personality, incapable of a breach of faith. But it lies in her hands —if she wants to she can. What a temptation in this doubt, ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... among the nobles; and hence arose the league which, from the colour of its first promoters, was ever called the Grey League; which, from its being the first in the bold attempt to shake off the yoke of wanton tyranny, has ever since retained the pre-eminence in rank before the two other leagues; and which has even given its name to the whole country, whose inhabitants, from the circumstances of their deliverance, pride themselves in the appellation of ...
— Account of the Romansh Language - In a Letter to Sir John Pringle, Bart. P. R. S. • Joseph Planta, Esq. F. R. S.
... III, Sc. 4: Having been menaced with death by the wanton judges, Susanna tells her father, mother, and sister of ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... chair, then a creepie, and one thing after another, to learn from what point to start the barrel. Seeing and recognizing them from above, Mistress Mac Pholp raised a terrible outcry. In the very presence of her drowning husband, such a wanton dissipation of her property roused her to fiercest wrath, for she imagined Gibbie was emptying her house with leisurely revenge. Satisfied at length, he floated out his barrel, and followed with the line in his ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... father; but regain her into your keeping, cast her to infamy and vice—never, never! She is now with no powerless, miserable convict, for whom Law has no respect. She is now no helpless infant without a choice, without a will. She is safe from all, save the wanton, unprofitable effort to disgrace her. O Jasper, Jasper, be human—she is so delicate of frame—she is so sensitive to reproach, so tremulously alive to honour—I am not fit to be near her now. I have been a tricksome, shifty vagrant, and, innocent though I be, the felon's brand is on me! ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... juries and sought to get his victims hanged. It may be regarded as a cunning and cowardly attempt to shift part of the odium on to the Government. Certainly the prestige of the Cabinet now fell to zero. Ministers were held responsible for Braxfield's wanton vagaries, and were accused of luring English democrats into the meshes of the Scottish law. This last charge is absurd. As we have seen, the London police sought to stop Margarot, Sinclair, and ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... of the facts progressed by stages from the vague and erroneous to the correct and precise. Before he was fully awake, he mistook the bell for a tom-tom; then, more fully aroused, he knew the bell. Ourselves he first saw as mere wanton intruders, then as cheerful friends who wished him no ill; finally he saw us in our true character as investigators ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... her cheeks, tossing about her golden curls in wanton sport. It was so pleasant to sit there in the dreamy silence watching the white fleecy clouds, the birds, and the flowers, it was little wonder the swift-winged moments flew heedlessly by. Slowly the white lids drooped ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... I begged to know what he had heard. He was very unwilling to tell me, but it came out at last that Dermot and Harold—being, he feared, in an improperly excited condition—had insisted on going to the den with the keeper, and had irritated the animal by wanton mischief, and he was convinced that this could not have taken place ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... large that, in order that it might be handled at all, powder had to be used to blast it in pieces. The tree was knotty, and according to the lumbermen, of little value, and might as well have been left. What excuse is there for the wanton destruction of a noble tree like this one? It must have stood from five thousand to six thousand years. It was a mighty tree at the beginning of the Christian era, and was growing, a strong tree, when our ancestors were the rudest savages in the ...
— The Western United States - A Geographical Reader • Harold Wellman Fairbanks
... I'm not to blame, For cleanly dress and spruce attire Preserve alive love's wanton flame And ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... what they think they can consume. If something is by chance left over, it goes to satisfy the hunger of the humbler creatures of prey. In a state of nature, where wild creatures prey upon wild creatures, such a thing as wanton, wholesale and utterly ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... absence had barred the vistas or left them clear. At first he had affected her as a scarabaeus affects the rose. She knew of him, and that was all. When he spoke, she thought of other things. And as the blind remain unawakened by the day, he never saw that where the wanton had been the saint had come. To him she was a book of ivory bound in gold, whose contents he longed to possess; she was a book, but one from which whole chapters had been torn, the preface destroyed; and when his increasing insistence ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... rule in Pennsylvania is that contributory negligence prevents recovery. This rule, it is true, does not apply where the defendant is guilty of "negligence so wanton and gross as to be evidence of voluntary injury"; Wynn vs. Allord, 5 W. & S. 525; McKnight vs. Ratcliff, 44 Pa. 156. There is, however, nothing in the testimony to indicate that the defendant's motorman did anything wanton. Coming down a steep hill, he ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... meaner knights of the "revolver and bowie knife," greater than card sharper, fugitive bravo, or sly wanton, giant schemers appeared, who throw, yet, dark shadows over the ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... which the politics of that period in America had offered many examples. It may seem incredible, but it contained no word of slavery, but recited in dignified terms how the South had been driven to separation by "wanton aggression on the part of others," and after it had "vainly endeavoured to secure tranquillity." The new Southern Congress now resolved to take over the forts and other property in the seceded States that had belonged to the Union, and the first Confederate general, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... thus I free Myself from all ensuing heats and fires Of love: all sports, delights, and jolly games, That shepherds hold full dear, thus put I off. Now no more shall these smooth brows be begirt With youthful coronals, and lead the dance. No more the company of fresh fair maids And wanton shepherds be to me delightful: Nor the shrill pleasing sound of merry pipes Under some shady dell, when the cool wind Plays on the leaves: all be far away, Since thou art far away, by whose dear side How often have I sat, crowned with fresh flowers For summer's ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the Priapeia (XXVI) that cymbals and castanets were the special accompaniment in antiquity of wanton songs and dances: "cymbala, cum crotalis, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... settled near the bank, than they were seized upon by a Fisherman, (who was lying in wait for them,) and completely plucked of their feathers, an operation to which they very quietly submitted, and were then suffered to depart. Upon inquiring his motive for what appeared to me a wanton act of cruelty, he told me his intention was to stuff his bed with the feathers; 'or,' added he, 'if you vill, to feather my nest.' Being myself an admirer of a soft bed, I saw no reason why I should not employ myself in the same way; but ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various
... courtesy between the combatants impossible. It is a bad thing that men should hate each other; but it is far worse that they should contract the habit of cutting one another's throats without hatred. War is never lenient, but where it is wanton; when men are compelled to fight in selfdefence, they must hate and avenge: this may be bad; but it is human nature; it is the clay as it came from ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and Timur betrayed a design of leading his royal captive in triumph to Samarkand. An attempt to facilitate his escape, by digging a mine under the tent, provoked the Mongol Emperor to impose a harsher restraint; and in his perpetual marches, an iron cage on a wagon might be invented, not as a wanton insult, but as a rigorous precaution. But the strength of Bajazet's mind and body fainted under the trial, and his premature death might, without injustice, be ascribed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... his face no more, His faithful dog shall tell his joy to each, With that mute eloquence which passes speech.— And see, the master but returns to die! Yet who shall bid the watchful servant fly? The blasts of heav'n, the drenching dews of earth, The wanton insults of unfeeling mirth, These, when to guard Misfortune's sacred grave, Will firm Fidelity exult to brave. Led by what chart, transports the timid dove The wreaths of conquest, or the vows of love? Say, thro' the clouds what compass points her flight? Monarchs have gaz'd, ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... The wanton infliction of pain on man or beast is a crime; pity is that so many of those who (as I think rightly) hold this view, seem to forget that the criminality lies in the wantonness and not in the act of inflicting ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... from his chair with a forcible oath. Jeff, too, was on his feet. There was a frantic clatter beyond the screen of creeper. A string of hoarse invective in a human voice. The hammering of horses' hoofs and the sound of tin being battered in a wanton riot. Dug broke into a great laugh as he thrust his ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... hides 'twere hard to say; whether on the hill-side, golden with bracken, or in the spray of the sea, or on the bluff headland, or by the breezy links—in all these I seek her. Sometimes I spy her afar off; but the wanton comes and goes. Yet I am persuaded I shall presently find her, and bring her home rejoicing to them that ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... throne—by insulting and cruel search of American vessels upon the high seas, was rendering inevitable the declaration of war by Congress,—a war of humiliation upon our part by the disgraceful surrender of Hull at Detroit and the wanton burning of our Capitol, but crowned with honor by the naval victories of Lawrence, Decatur, and Perry, and eventually terminated by the capture of the British army at New Orleans. As an object lesson of the marvels of the closing ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... it, but keep the bill to its passage through both Houses of Congress. I know you would if you could see the destitution of instruction, and the poverty which cant pay for it, on the Consecrated peninsula of Jas Town, York Town, and Williamsburg. Ah! tear down every parapet of War— cruel War, wanton war call it if you will—but for the Past, for Piety's sake, for Learning and Moral's sake let Old Wm & Mary stand a Beacon Light for the guide of ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... done so in her grief for the death of Attis, but really perhaps for the same reason which induced the women of Harran to abstain from eating anything ground in a mill while they wept for Tammuz. To partake of bread or flour at such a season might have been deemed a wanton profanation of the bruised and broken body of the god. Or the fast may possibly have been a preparation for a ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... the company of a more refined, licentious sort of people, and taking to all their wanton ways rushed into the opposite extreme from an abhorrence of his father's meanness. At last, being a better man than his corruptors, he was drawn in both directions until he halted midway and led a life, not of vulgar and slavish passion, but of what he deemed moderate indulgence in various ...
— The Republic • Plato
... forgotten. I will not close this narrative without mentioning an act of bravery performed by a lone woman which stopped the vulgar and inhuman searching of women in our section of the city. The most atrocious and unpardonable act of the mob was the wanton disregard for womanhood. Lizzie Smith was the first woman to make a firm and stubborn stand against the proceeding in the southern section. It was near the noon hour when Lizzie, homeward bound, reached the corner of Orange and Third streets. A block away she saw a woman ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... savages might induce them to submit to terms of peace while there was yet a remnant to be saved; but they were now as little inclined to parley as tigers brought to bay, nor was the temper of the colonists a whit less deadly, though it did not vent itself in inflicting torture or in merely wanton orgies of cruelty. ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... Judge of all the earth do right?' And what can I say to that but Amen? Jack is always loving and tender, but he can (I well perceive) see little comfort herein himself; and to do so much as name the thing to Thekla were wanton cruelty, though I do fancy she should be the best comforter. So I must wait on, and cry unto God. It may be that is the very thing He would have ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... sickly countenance, and his sunk and exhausted frame so strongly attest. As his enthusiasm was such as to require no artificial stimulus, this severe system could only have been a piece of cool and wanton barbarity. He already began to show much promise of excellence, when a circumstance occurred which not only served to confirm these early prognostications, but to rouse him to exert all his energies. This was no other than ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 490, Saturday, May 21, 1831 • Various
... should be concealed under the mask of gaiety is neither very new nor very strange: the reign of our Charles the Second was equally famous for plots, perjuries, and cruel chastisements, as for wanton levity and indecent frolics: but here at Venice there are no unpermitted frolics; her rulers love to see her gay and cheerful; they are the fathers of their country, and if they indulge, take care not to ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... Kruger decamped from Pretoria; but it is beyond all controversy that many of that Government's officials favoured the proposal to wreck, as far as dynamite could, both the machinery and mines in mere wanton revenge on the hated Outlanders that mainly owned them. That policy was thwarted by the swiftfootedness of the troops, and by the tactfulness of Commandant Krause, through whose arranging Johannesburg was peacefully surrendered; but who now, by some strange irony of fate, lies ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... could there be found on record a murderer, whose cruel act might compare with his? What fiend more wanton in his mischief, what damned soul more worthy of perdition! But he was not reserved for this agony of self-reproach. He sent for medical assistance; the hours passed, spun by suspense into ages; the darkness ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... her eyes to judge by he might have doubted if it was indeed Elizabeth, but he knew her by the gesture of her hand, by the grace of a wanton little curl that floated over her ear as she moved her head. Something was said to her, and she turned smiling tolerantly to the man beside her, a little man in foolish raiment knobbed and spiked like some odd reptile with pneumatic ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... folly,' said the Duchess. 'We hold not Catholic tenets on merit in abstaining, but rather go by St. Paul's advice that the younger widows should marry, rather than wax wanton. And, to tell you the truth, Maitre Gardon, this daughter of yours does seem to ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... they had even become aware that they were in the presence of an armed vessel of the enemy, and the lives of non-combatants, passengers and crew, have been sacrificed wholesale, in a manner which the Government of the United States cannot but regard as wanton and without the slightest color of justification. No limit of any kind has in fact been set to the indiscriminate pursuit and destruction of merchantmen of all kinds and nationalities within the waters, constantly extending in area, where these operations ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... Morality: Is she moral? Does she mean to be harmless? Is she not untamable Old Nature? And when once on an equal footing with her lordly half, would not the spangled beauty, in a turn, like the realistic transformation-trick of a pantomime, show herself to be that wanton old thing—the empress of disorderliness? You have to recollect, as the Conservative acutely suggests, that her timidities, at present urging her to support Establishments, pertain to her state of dependence. The party views of Conservatism are, must be, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... spoke of the "wanton barbarity with which the Federal Government has allowed its officers to wage the war, as though they sought to emulate the ravages of Attila and Genghis-Khan. . . And these things were done not for military objects which would afford some excuse for them, but out of such sheer wanton malice that ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... handed over to the government of subordinates, as though some supremely noble monarch should be trodden under foot by rustic heels. Any seamster or cobbler or tailor or artificer of any trade keeps us shut up in prison for the luxurious and wanton ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... to hit anybody, I whom you've so often reprimanded for being too friendly. But the meekest lamb, a lamb dripping with milk and honey, would turn into a lion if its polite approaches were met with such wanton rudeness. I was so indignantly certain that these people, any of them, policemen or policed, would have answered the same question with the most extravagant politeness if I had been an officer, or with an officer. They ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley |
