"Wantonly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... anxiety to conciliate the Chinese in view of the separate negotiations in which she was at the same time engaged with China in respect of Manchuria. When the Boxer movement was at its height at the end of June 1900, the Chinese authorities in Manchuria had wantonly "declared war" against Russia, and for a moment a great wave of panic seems to have swept over the Russian administration, civil and military, in the adjoining provinces. The reprisals exercised by the Russians were proportionately fierce. The massacre at Blagovyeshchensk, where 5000 Chinese—men, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... and up again, over a southerly ridge, by beautiful Garland Lane, that she knew only in its summer look, when the wild grape festooned itself wantonly from branch to branch, and sometimes, even, from side to side; and so gave the narrow ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... toward the cross over Vasquez, murdered as wantonly as ever man was murdered for plunder, and could find nothing to say. Whatever the eternal equities of the case may be—and long since I have given up trying to guess what they are—the cold, practical fact remains, that never during our stay on the Porcupine ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... because my career ought to end by my being an unsuccessful suppliant to the individual whom both virtue and nature pointed out to me as my best friend, and whose proffered and parental support I have so wantonly, however thoughtlessly, rejected, I do not regret that this is written. No feeling of false delicacy can prevent me from applying to one to whom I have long ago incurred incalculable obligations, ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... in his breast. His mother he had little known, but his father's precepts and familiar conversation had impressed upon him, from his childhood, a feeling for her of the deepest and most unqualified regard. This feeling was not lessened, though rebuked, by the development so unnecessarily and so wantonly conveyed. It taught a new feeling of distrust for his uncle, whose harsh manner and ungenerous insinuations in the progress of the preceding half-hour, had lost him not a little of the youth's esteem. He felt that the motive of his informer was not less unkind than was the information ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... it was hidden, crying, "Here am I, Lord! do with me what thou wilt!" That he used language with that intimate possession of its meaning possible only to the most vivid thought is doubtless true; but that he wantonly strained it from its ordinary sense, that he found it too poor for his necessities, and accordingly coined new phrases, or that, from haste or carelessness, he violated any of its received proprieties, I do not believe. I have said that it was fortunate for him that he came upon an ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... master into the Cross Roads store. On this occasion also he made himself respected, but unpopular, by killing, with one lightning stroke of a great fore hoof, a huge mongrel mastiff belonging to the storekeeper. The mastiff had sprung out at him wantonly, resenting his peculiar appearance. But the storekeeper had been so aggrieved that Jabe had felt constrained to mollify him with a five-dollar bill. He decided, therefore, that his favourite's value was as a luxury, rather ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... luxury of an ample supply of good water; and foreign engineers are doing or have done the same thing for other Spanish cities, though, in fact, only restoring the ancient supplies first constructed by the quick-witted Moors, and wantonly permitted to crumble into ruin by the Spaniards. They are not sufficiently enterprising or progressive to originate any such scheme for the public good. They even dislike the railroads, though they are compelled to use them; dislike them because they force them to observe punctuality, ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... not be true—it could not be true! Stafford had not written it. It was some cruel jest, a very cruel jest, perpetrated by someone who hated them both, and who wantonly inflicted pain. Yes; that was it! That could be the only explanation. Someone had written in his name; it was a forgery; she would meet Stafford presently, and they would laugh at it together. He ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... may well be admitted in a text never settled by the author, and so long exposed to caprice and ignorance. But nothing shall be imposed, as in the Oxford edition, without notice of the alteration; nor shall conjecture be wantonly or ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... Tradition" does not mean that the Prussian statesmen wantonly do wrong, whether in acts of cruelty or in acts of treason and bad faith. What it means is that, wherever they are met by the dilemma, "Shall I do this, which is to the advantage of my country ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... yet most energetic phenomenon of nature—is in the main wantonly wasted, because we do not use, or take pains to use, suitable language; at the same time, false definitions lead to consequences not merely wasteful but positively harmful. When ideas and facts are falsely defined, they tend to ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... taxed his courage that Big Horse had ventured on the perilous quest. He approached with the strength of heart and singleness of purpose which accompany an Indian warrior who deems the eyes of his nation upon him. When first the brave was discovered thus wantonly, and with no other purpose but the shedding of blood, intruding on the dominions of the spirits, no words can tell the rage which appeared to possess their bosoms. Secure in the knowledge of their power to repel the attacks of every living thing, ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... Death would be awful enough, especially such a death, but that Dulcie should think I had intentionally and consistently deceived her; that she should be made to believe I had never loved her and that I had wantonly taken my life like a common coward, were too fearful to think about. In an access of mad passion I wildly jerked my wrists again and again in vain attempts to get free. My mouth was still gagged, or I should have called loudly in the desperate hope that even in the deserted spot we were in the ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... Laurence, of whole regions wantonly laid waste," said Grandfather. "In the removal of the Acadians, the troops were guilty of no cruelty or outrage, except what was inseparable from ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... ribbons fluttering; delicately tinted long gloves; delicately tinted slippers and silken stockings on her slender, high-arched feet; a few glittering rings on her restless fingers; one blush-pink rose in her hair which, simply arranged, suffered two or three stray rippling locks to wander wantonly across her forehead. ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... One guard was killed and the balance were gagged and tied up to posts in the barracks. The revolters stripped their prisoners of arms, ammunition and what money they had. Next they broke into the commissary, taking a large amount of clothing and provisions and wantonly destroying the rest. They then made their escape on horses belonging to the guards. As soon as their absence was discovered, bloodhounds were put upon the trail which led towards the interior. The dogs were soon completely baffled, however, for the fugitives had evidently ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... everywhere come from "people that have nothing to lose."—Not only do they shake off taxation, but they usurp property, and declare that, being the Nation, whatever belongs to the Nation belongs to them. The forests of Alsace are laid waste, the seignorial as well as communal, and wantonly destroyed with the wastefulness of children or of maniacs. "In many places, to avoid the trouble of removing the woods, they are burnt, and the people content themselves with carrying off the ashes."—After the decrees of August 4th, and in spite of the law which licenses the proprietor only to hunt ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... in a log camp at the carry, and had little fear that his supplies would be molested. It was hardly credible, either, that a man with as extensive property interests as Colonel Ward possessed would dare to destroy wantonly the goods of a railroad company in the strong position of the Poquette road. However, Parker resolved to make a survey at once, in order to put the swampers at work chopping trees and clearing the right ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... exploiting the occupied country by means of regular requisitions for the supply of your own army and the increase of its offensive range. In short, the reform arose from a desire to husband your enemy's resources for your own use instead of wantonly ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... hours the strait-jacket was removed. Whereas just prior to its putting on I had been in a vigorous enough condition to offer stout resistance when wantonly assaulted, now, on coming out of it, I was helpless. When my arms were released from their constricted position, the pain was intense. Every joint had been racked. I had no control over the fingers of either hand, and could ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... peculiar study of Virginia. But there are some important truths connected with this science which she has hitherto overlooked or wantonly disregarded. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... are not your father's son. No Saracinesca that I ever knew would do what you mean to do—would wantonly tarnish the good name of a woman—of a woman who loves him too—and whose only fault is that she ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... While the troops of the United States were on their march a train of baggage wagons, which happened to be unprotected, was attacked and destroyed by a portion of the Mormon forces and the provisions and stores with which the train was laden were wantonly burnt. In short, their present attitude is one of decided and unreserved enmity to the United States and to all their loyal citizens. Their determination to oppose the authority of the Government by military force has not only been expressed ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... be very dreadful to introduce a truculent kitten (and all felines are naturally truculent) into such society. And our blood fairly congeals when we think that perhaps (oh, fearful possibility) that kitten might nose out and wantonly destroy the too lovely butterflies stored away in yonder closet, which we have appropriately named the ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... interests, and the affront given to their friend and ally the Duc de Bellegarde; but when to these real or imagined injuries was superadded the fact that he had publicly boasted of the share which he had gratuitously and wantonly taken in the murder of his father, no wonder that the fiery young man, disregarding alike the royal edicts against duelling and the dictates of humanity, at once resolved to silence the vauntings of the quasi-assassin, or to perish ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... great many of these were picked up nearly every morning by the servants in her rooms, where she had dropped them from her garments, but the Princess would never take any of these precious jewels back again. She did not only drain my father's exchequer most wantonly, but violated many of our sacred laws; in fact, she had only married him for his high station and wealth, and had loved some one else all the time. Such a state of things could, of course, only end in a divorce; fortunately Schesade had no children of her own. There ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... child's mouth: Bessus the Paeonian, being reproached for wantonly pulling down a nest of young sparrows and killing them, replied, that he had reason to do so, seeing that those little birds never ceased falsely to accuse him of the murder of his father. This parricide had till then been concealed ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... exact, definite statement of principles, absolute and apparently immutable. When a man on the street walks up to another and wantonly insults him, the law is, that the insulted party must turn and walk away. If the matter came before a jury they would never convict him for knocking the other down at once. The jury system is ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... and death of the American or hoped that his own guilt would escape attention through the misleading evidence. Lorry held, from his deductions, that the crime had been committed by a fanatic who loved his sovereign too devotedly to see her wedded to Lorenz. Then why should he wantonly cast guilt upon the man who had ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... the dogs ploughed Clancy, haloed by steaming breath; Through peril of open water, through ache of insensate cold; Up rivers wantonly winding in a land affianced to death, Till he came to a cowering cabin on ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... ivory have left not a vestige behind. Those of bronze, once numbered by thousands, went long ago, with few exceptions, into the melting-pot. Even sculptures in marble, though the material was less valuable, have been thrown into the lime-kiln or used as building stone or wantonly mutilated or ruined by neglect. There does not exist to-day a single certified original work by any one of the six greatest sculptors of Greece, except the Hermes of Praxiteles (see page 221). Copies are more plentiful. As nowadays many museums ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... would have been the first, to use her own expressive language, to require God 'particularly to damn' her impertinent sympathizers. As for Mr. Froude, he may yet discover his Nemesis in the spirit of an angry woman whose privacy he has invaded, and whose diary he has most wantonly published. ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... alone, sufficiently improbable. But we are required moreover to believe that the Poles,—instead of execrating this man, who had done them the unpardonable wrong of wantonly disappointing the expectations he had, for his own purposes, excited, thus adding treachery to ingratitude—instead of this, continued to the last as much devoted to him as ever, and even now idolize his memory! ...
— Historic Doubts Relative To Napoleon Buonaparte • Richard Whately
... efficiently organized nations tend to obtain just this character. They are fought for a defensible purpose, and they accomplish a definite result. The penalties of defeat are so disastrous that warfare is no longer wantonly incurred; and it will not be provoked at all by nations, such as Italy or France, who have less to gain from victory than they have to lose from defeat. Moreover, the cost of existing armaments is so crushing that an ever increasing motive exists in favor of their ultimate reduction. This motive ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... bubbled up in his eyes, and rippled about his face. He was a child, a cruel child, who springs a carefully-prepared surprise on a comrade, and dwells wantonly on the effect. ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... father's directions, resumed my civilian dress, as had also Mr Laffan, who was, I should have said, at this time safe in our house. There was, however, much probability that the Spanish soldiers, on entering to plunder the house, might wantonly kill ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... sport. That her father's cupidity and ambition made him sanction the imposture, in her bitterness she never doubted. No! Lover, friend, father—all had been false to her, and the only kindness she had received was from the men she had wantonly insulted. Poor little Blossom! indeed, a most premature Blossom; I fear a most unthankful Blossom, sitting there shivering in the first chill wind of adversity, rocking backward and forward, with the skirt of her dimity short-gown over her shoulders, ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... these sayings Paul gives us to understand that all creation is to attain a perfection far beyond its present state where with us it must be subject to tyrants. These tyrants wantonly abuse our characters, our bodies, our property rights, just as the devil abuses our souls. But we must suffer our lot, remembering that mankind is captive on earth in the kingdom of the devil, and all creation with it. The earth must submit to be trodden and to be cultivated by many ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... all mankind in all virtue, as became the children and disciples of the gods. Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded of your State in our histories; but one of them exceeds all the rest in greatness and valor; for these histories tell of a mighty power which was aggressing wantonly against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city put an end. This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable; and there was an island situated in front ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... of South Carolina, by his bad management, had most wantonly provoked the Over-hill Indians into this condition of hostility. His foolish and unnecessary interference and cruelty had converted these usually peaceful neighbors into sufficient hostility to make it easy for French emissaries to obtain their active ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... revolution ... in the minds of men, I mean that our Great Gargantua, or Lama Babak (for I know not which Title is the properest) begins to be no longer consider'd as an infallible Divinity—and that those who have been sacrificed or near sacrific'd on his altar, begin to be esteem'd as wantonly and foolishly offer'd up." Lee very quickly found his mistake, for the editor of the paper which contained his attack was compelled by a committee of citizens to publish an acknowledgment that in printing it "I have transgressed against truth, justice and my duty as a good citizen," and, as Washington ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... glint in the ferocious eyes flashing in the moonlight, were identical with the expression and carriage of the man who was her master. Then it had been admiration without fear, and she had hesitated at wantonly destroying so perfect a thing, until the quick pressure of her shikari's fingers on her arm brought her back to facts and reminded her that the "perfect thing" was reported to have eaten a woman the previous week. And now it was fear with a reluctant ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... elsewhere, that if there was anything particularly annoying to John Jr., it was a sick or crying woman, and now, when he so often found Mabel indisposed or weeping, he grew more morose and fault-finding, sometimes wantonly accusing her of trying to provoke him, when, in fact, she had used every means in her power to conciliate him. Again, conscience-smitten, he would lay her aching head upon his bosom, and tenderly bathing her throbbing ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... been wantonly kindled in different places by the buccaneers were making such headway that Morgan instantly saw that especial efforts would be needed to prevent the complete destruction of the town. He wanted La Guayra for his base of supplies for the present, and with tremendous energy, ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... This, however, was an advantage probably, rather than a loss to the boy, as Brazenbeard was an extremely coarse, cruel, and unprincipled man. He once killed one of his slaves for not drinking as much as he ordered him. Riding one day in his chariot through a village, he drove wantonly and purposely over a boy, and killed him on the spot. He defrauded all who dealt with him, and was repeatedly prosecuted for the worst of crimes. He treated his wife with great brutality. As has already been said, he received the announcement of the birth of his ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... began to entreat the Council to lay aside all warlike preparations, not wantonly to disturb the internal peace, whilst danger threatened from without, not to carry bloodshed into the rural districts, where so many innocent people were yet living, not to destroy the ripening harvest, the only hope of the poor, of ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... day news was flashed all over the country that a party of railway engineers, led by a mad deputy sheriff had wantonly fired on a party of travelers who had had the misfortune to get upon the building railway's right ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... is a year old, now (the season fit) into the Field, and let him range, [obediently.] If he wantonly babble or causelesly open, correct him by biting soundly the Roots of his Ears, or Lashing. Assoon as you find he approaches the Haunt of the Partridge, known by his Whining, and willing, but not daring, ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... but in the absence of princes its forecourt is merely a desert of grey stone granules. When His Royal Highness arrived it was a garden of an almost brilliant abundance. There were green lawns, great beds packed wantonly with the brightest flowers, while trees, palms and flowering shrubs crowded the square in luxuriance. A marvel of a garden. A realist policeman, after his first gasp, bent down to examine the green of the lawn, and rose with a Kipps expression on his face and ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... convention with the Austro-Hungarian empire, the stipulations of which have never been authoritatively disclosed. There is reason to believe that one clause obliged the Roumanian Government to come to the support of the Habsburg Monarchy with all its military resources in case that empire should be wantonly attacked by another Power. Whether this instrument, which was never laid before the Roumanian legislature for ratification, is deemed to have been vitiated by the lack of this indispensable sanction, or is assumed to have terminated with the decease ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... it does not become us to be prodigal of life in any form, nor wantonly to seek its extinction, yet where any species of animals are found to be really noxious or annoying, the good of man requires that they should be destroyed. Houses are sometimes so infested with ants, that they are not to be endured. In this case, sprinkle the places ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... course, and tried to dwell much on this argument of rational dependence:—"Surely, if there be constant attachment on each side, our hearts must understand each other ere long. We are not boy and girl, to be captiously irritable, misled by every moment's inadvertence, and wantonly playing with our own happiness." And yet, a few minutes afterwards, she felt as if their being in company with each other, under their present circumstances, could only be exposing them to inadvertencies and misconstructions of ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... impious dancing, determined for the whole world that throughout the Churches a public fast should be proclaimed.... Let us therefore fast, beloved brethren, on those days.... For he who on the Kalends shows any civility to foolish men who are wantonly sporting, is undoubtedly a partaker of ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... claims to powers heretofore unknown and unheard of. It affects alarm for the public freedom, when nothing endangers that freedom so much as its own unparalleled pretences. This, even, is not all. It manifestly seeks to inflame the poor against the rich; it wantonly attacks whole classes of the people, for the purpose of turning against them the prejudices and the resentment of other classes. It is a state paper which finds no topic too exciting for its use, no passion to inflammable for its address ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... likewise, this practice is in full swing and force to the greatest extent, where one openly defrauds another with bad merchandise, false measures, weights, coins, and by nimbleness and queer finances or dexterous tricks takes advantage of him; likewise, when one overcharges a person in a trade and wantonly drives a hard bargain, skins and distresses him. And who can recount or think of all these things? To sum up, this is the commonest craft and the largest guild on earth, and if we regard the world throughout all conditions of life, it is nothing ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... the outfit returning, and a gala week we spent, as no less than half a dozen buffalo robes were secured before reaching Fort Griffin. Deer and turkey were plentiful, and it was with difficulty that I restrained the boys from killing wantonly, as they were young fellows whose very blood yearned for the chase or any diverting excitement. We reached the ranch on the Clear Fork during the second week in January, and those of the outfit who had no regular homes were made welcome guests until work opened in ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... not my business to reform the world; and writing in October, when so many of the idealists who felt with Parsifal in his remorse about the duck-shooting episode are applying the lesson by wantonly slaughtering every harmless creature they can hit, it would be superfluous to point out in any detail how very wrong and absurd is the world's estimate of the Bayreuth performance. In fact, were it my object to assist in the destruction of Bayreuth, no better plan could be found than ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... of the funds of the province should be diverted now from much more useful purposes to make good losses sustained by individuals in the rebellion," but he believed that "a great deal of property was cruelly and wantonly destroyed" in Lower Canada, and that "this government, after what their predecessors had done, and with Papineau in the rear, could not have helped taking up this question." He saw clearly that it was impossible to dissolve a parliament just elected by the people, and in ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... with the murderer, who wantonly embrues his hands in the blood of his fellow. So far as he has violated the laws of his country, he is a subject for public execution, and has nothing to hope for, at the tribunal of human justice. His misery, whether it arise from ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... aggravating, is, that the adventure it celebrates never occurred. If it were a good anecdote, that seeming demerit would be its chiefest virtue, for creative power belongs to greatness; but what ought to be done to a man who would wantonly contrive so flat a one as this? If I were to suggest what ought to be done to him, I should be called extravagant—but what does the sixteenth ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the repugnance he must always feel to come in collision with Congress, may fail to exercise it in cases where the preservation of the Constitution from infraction, or the public good, may demand it than that he will ever exercise it unnecessarily or wantonly. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... may expect," said Jack bitterly. "The man who will wantonly kill a poor brute for sport will think little of murdering a fellow-creature. Now, boys, we have but one ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... wasn't alone," wantonly adds Pepin, whose eye is in quest of other targets among ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... That the natives wantonly destroy the game in years of deep snow is true enough; but the snow fell to as great a depth before the advent of the whites as after, and the Indians were as prone to slaughter the animals then as now; yet game of every description abounded and want was unknown. To what cause then are ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... I nearly lost my life for the rashness. Nay, Signor, nay!—touch not your sword so meaningly, as if you fancied I intimated a threat; far from me such presumption. I have learned sufficient caution, believe me, in the wars, not wantonly to draw against me a blade which I have ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... he was concerned in bringing Mrs. Rubelle to Blackwater Park, it was his misfortune and not his fault, when that foreign person was base enough to assist a deception planned and carried out by the master of the house. I protest, in the interests of morality, against blame being gratuitously and wantonly attached to the ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... be mentioned here. Speculating wantonly on sacred subjects, and jesting about them, offend us at first; and we turn away: but if in an evil hour we are seduced by the cleverness or wit of a writer or speaker, to listen to his impieties, who can say where we shall stop? ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... particular circumstances of the case which we are discussing. Nothing is easier than to write a treatise proving that it is lawful to resist extreme tyranny. Nothing is easier than to write a treatise setting forth the wickedness of wantonly bringing on a great society the miseries inseparable from revolution, the bloodshed, the spoliation, the anarchy. Both treatises may contain much that is true; but neither will enable us to decide whether a particular insurrection is or is not justifiable without a close examination ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of it, so strange and new, I see marks of a wisdom beyond that of any human fabricator. A human inventor would scarcely have conceived such a system; and could he have conceived it, would not have dared to publish it. It would have been in his judgment to have wantonly forfeited the favor of the world. The author of Christianity, with a divine boldness, makes his perfect man, in the purity and beauty of his character, the counterpart of a perfect woman. The virtues upon which former teachers ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... our utter undoing, unless the Queen's Highness be good unto us; and for my part I went not forth against her Majesty, notwithstanding I was commanded, nor liked those doings.'—'No, but with your writings you will set us together by the ears,' saith the Earl of Arundel.—'He hath spent his living wantonly,' saith Bourne, 'and now saith he hath spent it in the King's service; which I am sorry for: he is come of a worshipful house in Worcestershire.' [Note 4]—'It is untruly said of you,' said I, 'that I have spent my living wantonly. I never consumed ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... and architecture," said Lynde. "They are mostly collections of square or oblong boxes, painted white. I wish we had just one village composed exclusively of rosy-tiled houses, with staircases wantonly running up on the outside, and hooded windows, and airy balconies hanging out here and there where you don't expect them. I would almost overlook the total lack of drainage which seems to go along with these carved eaves and gables, touched ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... untold. All law centers around this point—what shall men be allowed to do? And so we find statutes to punish "strolling play actors," "players on fiddles," "disturbers of the public conscience," "persons who dance wantonly," "blasphemers," and in England there were, in the year 1800, thirty-seven offenses that were legally punishable by death. What expression is right and what is not, is simply a matter of opinion. One religious ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... advantage that, while the Letters to Archdeacon Singleton, though not an avowed recantation, are in the nature of a palinode—always an awkward thing—Plymley is frankly and confidently, not to say wantonly, aggressive. These Letters, ten in number, were written just after the fall of the mainly Whig Ministry of 'All the Talents,' to which Sydney had been indebted for his preferment of Foston, and which lost its position not least owing to its intended support ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... doglike from pure affection. It would seem weary work even for canal-boating. It takes weeks to toil up what it once took only hours to float down. As we sped past the return convoys, we seemed sad profligates, thus wantonly to be squandering such dearly-won vantage of position. The stream which meant money to them was, like money, hard ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... that, by the less intelligent classes of the South, Abraham Lincoln, by nature the most kindly of men, was regarded as a monster wantonly warring upon liberty. He stood for the personification of tyrannic power. Each Union soldier ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... reasonable time limit, though it may have tended to obscure the connection of the intrigue, could not have insured in spite of its many real merits so absolute a doom for the much maltreated play, a sentence which seems to have wantonly precluded any revival. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... regarding the misery of the country, and the moral degradation of his subjects, were removed effectually by all that he witnessed in a recent expedition into the interior—miserable hovels, uncultivated fields, magnificent forests wantonly destroyed, were the sights which met him at every turn. At length some restrictions have been placed on the wilful abuse of the greatest source of wealth which the country possesses. Nor are they premature, for ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... In pursuance of what had been planned by the villain Oliver and his employers, these deluded men were immediately made prisoners, and committed to Derby Gaol; upon a charge of high treason. Unfortunately, one Jeremiah Brandreth, who was at the head of those rioters, very wantonly fired a shot at random through the back window of a farm-house, where the inmates had refused to admit them, or to deliver them any arms, which the rioters, scarcely one hundred in number, had demanded. It so happened that a boy was killed by this random shot, which gave a colouring to the proceedings ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... who have deeply studied the secrets of nature, seeing but now these clouds curling wantonly round the bosom of the hill, I was filled with mysterious longings at the sight, longings I know nothing of but that they spring from the region of my loins, and that, like the infant Hercules, they showed their ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... words, indeed, nephew Richard," said my uncle, "and I draw from them that you have yet to hear of your beating an honest schoolmaster without other provocation than that he was a loyal servant to the King, and wantonly injuring the children of his school." He drew from his pocket a copy of that Gazette Mr. Carvel held in his hand, and added ironically: "Here, then, are news which will doubtless surprise you, sir. And knowing you for a peaceful ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... (1504),[25] is vertus for virtuous. Thomas Fuller called volume vollum, I suspect, for he spells it volumne. However, per contra, Yankees habitually say colume for column. Indeed, to prove that our ancestors brought their pronunciation with them from the Old Country, and have not wantonly debased their mother tongue, I need only to cite the words scriptur, Israll, athists, and cherfulness from Governor Bradford's 'History.' So the good man wrote them, and so the good descendants of his fellow-exiles still pronounce them. Brampton Gurdon writes shet in ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... committed by British soldiers, and described with every detail calculated to arouse the passionate resentment of the colonial Dutch. There is only one way in which the reader can be brought to understand the wantonly false and wholly disgraceful character of these libels. It is to place before his eyes the literal translation of two examples, printed in Dutch in The Worcester Advertiser of November 23rd, 1900; that is to say, in anticipation ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... was mine—and I hold myself most to blame. In two more days the doctor told me she couldn't live. I shall never forgive him! In six hours she was dead. I think I went quite mad. I know I really felt as if I had wantonly murdered her; and I still feel I was myself largely responsible. She was the dearest little creature! I am so sorry you never saw her. "I love my mamma best, and God next," she kept on saying all that last day. One wondered and wondered what thought was in her little ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... these Causes: This restraint they continued by a Vote at their meeting in May,3 & untill the Trials should be over . . . plaud; as it discovered a Sense of Justice; as well as the greatest Humanity4 towards those men who had wantonly lit the hearts Blood of citizens like Water upon Ground. A Temper far from vindictive; calm and moderate, at a time, when if ever they might have been expected to be off their Guard: And yet, so barbarous & cruel, so infamously mean & base were the Enemies of this Town, who ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... cruelties and murders" (such is the language of Collins) perpetrated by the white people. This Russell was himself notorious for skill in their torture—the subject of his boast. The government declared that persons who wantonly fired on the natives, or murdered them "in cold blood," should suffer the last ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... me sayin' it, Farmer; but was it soberly or pleasantly, honest creed or light lips, down-right or random, 'out o' the heart the mouth speaketh' or wantonly and in round figgers, as it might happen to a man filled with meat ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... High Churchmen from Laud to Sheldon, and to speak of the ejected ministers, Calamy, Baxter, Gouge, Howe, and others, as schismatics, factionists, fanatics, or Pharisees:—thus to flatter some half-dozen dead Bishops, wantonly depriving our present Church of the authority of perhaps the largest collective number of learned and zealous, discreet and holy, ministers that one age and one Church was ever blest with; and whose authority in every considerable point is in favor of our Church, and against the present Dissenters ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... wantonly destroy property. He works faithfully, wastes nothing, and makes the best use of his {16} opportunities. He saves his money so that he may pay his own way, be generous to those in need, and ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... understanding to the untamed spirit. And yet ... What did he know of her, whom he thought he knew so well? She had flirted with a young drunkard, fraternized with a low crank, inextricably involved herself in the scandals of a suicide. Taxed with these things, she was wantonly rebellious, contemptuously indifferent to his wishes. Lovely and wild she stood there. And ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... ale degraded into plebeian dough! Indeed, Sir, we have no right to lessen wantonly the amount ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... happiness in this world. The ferocious Iroquois would send their war parties, hundreds of miles through the wilderness, to make unprovoked attacks upon these unwarlike people. They would rob them of their harvests, wantonly burn their wigwams, kill and scalp men, women, and children, and carry off captives to torture and burn at the stake, ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... the subjugation of the last remaining independent chieftain, Cotubanama, lord of Higuey, in the extreme eastern part of the island, was undertaken. Near this province a Spaniard wantonly set his hound upon one of the principal natives, and the Indian was torn to pieces, whereupon the chief, indignant at his friend's death, caused a boatload of Spaniards to be killed, thus giving Ovando a welcome excuse for the invasion. Four hundred Spaniards dealt death and desolation ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... Wantonly destructive, the cubs gave way to their ferocious and bloodthirsty nature, and, as they grew stronger, they would sometimes kill three or four cows at a time—calves, pigs, anything, in fact, ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... England were now stripped of everything of value, and left as ruins. (See map opposite.) The beautiful windowes of stained glass were wantonly broken; the images of the saints were cast down from their niches; the chimes of bells were melted and cast into cannon; while the valuable libraries were torn up and sold to grocers and soap boilers for ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... merry Yule at Jargeau, going bravely clad, and dancing all night long with the merriest. Only the wan face of the Maid (that in time of war had been so gallant and glad) came between me and my pleasures. Not that she was wilfully and wantonly sad, yet now and again we could mark in her face the great and loving pity that possessed her for France. Now I would be half angered with her, but again far more wroth with myself, who could thus lightly think ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... to curb his enthusiasms and to rid himself of certain prejudices he will be wantonly seeking trouble. Rebellion (GRANT RICHARDS) is in some respects a more thoughtful and promising book than Interlude, but it is marred by what can only be called the same narrow point of view. With everybody ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... see a newspaper, but even if we did I could not come anywhere near appreciating or correctly estimating the tempest you have been buffeting your way through—only the man who is in it can do that—but I have tried not to burden you thoughtlessly or wantonly. I have been overwrought & unsettled in mind by apprehensions, & that is a thing that is not helpable when one is in a strange land & sees his resources melt down to a two months' supply & can't see any sure daylight beyond. The bloody machine offers ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... with herself for having spoken in so trifling a manner. The frigid politeness of her brother's speech, too, had not escaped her notice. It seemed to her now, that she had been wantonly rude. She hastened, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... other two. He could not guess, of course, that the two jaloks were hunting with me; but he doubtless thought that after they had finished the lidi they would make after the human prey—the beasts are notorious killers, often slaying wantonly. ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... me that nothing was to be gained by an appeal to you. You would die, and I would be no better off than before. It was I who took the chance. When I spoke to you on the couch that night, I—oh, don't you see? Don't you see that I wantonly, cruelly, selfishly risked ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... generous tradition of Rome: in that triumph he displayed pictures of the tragic deaths of Cato and other Roman chiefs, which disgusted even the populace; he sported with the curule offices, the immemorial objects of republican reverence, so wantonly that he might almost as well have given a consulship to his horse; he flooded the Senate with soldiers and barbarians; he forced a Roman knight to appear upon the stage: at last, craving, as natures destitute of a high controlling principle do crave, for the form as well as the substance ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... but now the destruction by the hand of the enemy was complete; it had been organised with the greatest care to make impossible military and civil occupation. In the suburbs the fruit trees had been felled; children's toys and all manner of debris, wantonly destroyed, lay about the streets. The Battalion was billeted in the remains of the barracks, and was joined during the evening and night by the ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... Imperial establishment would take due care that no systematically, and in its view gratuitously, uneconomical methods should continue in the ordinary conduct of their industry. Among other considerations of weight in this connection is the fact that a contented, well-fed, and not wantonly over-worked populace is a valuable asset in such a case. Similarly, by contraries, as an asset in usufruct to such an alien power, a large, wealthy, spendthrift, body of gentlefolk, held in high esteem by the common people, ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... open, and defenseless towns, such as Scarborough, Yarmouth, and Whitby, have been deliberately and wantonly bombarded by German ships of war, causing in some cases considerable loss of civilian life, ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... and that riveted them around the necks of the people who had roved for thousands of years in the unrestrained liberty of the boundless forests in far-away Africa? As well might the seducer blacken the name and reputation of the fair and spotless maiden he has cruelly and wantonly seduced. Go far enough back and it is more than probable that you will find the taint of slavery in your line and its blot upon your escutcheon. The proud Saxon became the slave to the Norman, and yet to-day millions are proud ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... and three hours later tore it up and wrote another and more diplomatic one. Mrs. Merrill, though not by any means of the same importance as Mrs. Duncan, was not a person to be wantonly offended, and might—knowing nothing about the monster—in the goodness of her heart have taken the girl into her house. Had it been otherwise, surely Mrs. Merrill would not have had the effrontery! She would give ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... admirable of men, and certainly, of all the great sages, the most unfortunate. Whenever his fortune hangs in the balance, he is attacked and prostrated by cruel disease; and notwithstanding the efforts of his genius, his bravery, his moral beauty, day after day he is wantonly betrayed or falls victim to gratuitous injustice; and at the age of thirty-two he dies, at the very moment when recognition is at last awaiting his work. So too there is the terrible story of Lesurques,[1] in which we see a thousand coincidences that ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... bludgeon blows, no awkward carnage. The death-stab should be given clean, with scientific skill and swiftness, and the blow once given, she would retire to her own room and let her victim find what solace she could in solitude. Norma was not wantonly cruel; she could impale a foe, but she had no desire to witness his contortions. After a death-scene she shrank from the grewsomeness of burial; she preferred a decent drop-curtain and ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... concerned to oppose the progress of the Turks. Arms were the patrimony of the Scythians and Sarmatians; and these nations might appear equal to the contest, could they point, against the common foe, those swords that were so wantonly drawn in bloody and domestic quarrels. But the same spirit was adverse to concord and obedience: a poor country and a limited monarch are incapable of maintaining a standing force; and the loose bodies of Polish and Hungarian horse were not armed with ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... abandoned to their lust; the towns and villages were given up to pillage; the wretched natives were parcelled out like slaves, to toil for their conquerors in the mines; the flocks were scattered, and wantonly destroyed, the granaries were dissipated; the beautiful contrivances for the more perfect culture of the soil were suffered to fall into decay; the paradise was converted into a desert. Instead of profiting by the ancient forms ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... stilly died together; then, such a sweetness and such plaintiveness, such inwreathing orisons curled up in that rosy air, that it almost seemed as if far over from the deep green convent valleys of the Manilla isles, the Spanish land-breeze, wantonly turned sailor, had gone to sea, freighted with these vesper hymns. Soothed again, but only soothed to deeper gloom, Ahab, who had sterned off from the whale, sat intently watching his final wanings from the now tranquil boat. ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... annexation of Genoa obliterated the anger of the Czar at Pitt's insistence on the retention of Malta; and if Pitt's high-handed conduct forced Spain to declare against England, yet, on the other hand, Napoleon wantonly challenged Austria and Russia to a conflict. The first events of the war showed a similar balance. On 20th October the French Emperor compelled the Austrian commander, General Mack, to surrender at or near Ulm in Swabia with ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... until I begin to think that he must be an evil wizard, and master of this remote, barren, swampy, ravine-pitted region—that he it is who originally planted the town in this uncomfortable, clayey hollow, and has thrown the houses into heaps, and entangled the streets, and wantonly created the town's unaccountably rude and rough and deadly existence, and addled men's brains with disconnected nonsense, and consumed their hearts with a fear of life. Yes, it comes to me that it must be he who, during the long six months of winter, causes cruel ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... man!" said Edward, giving him his hand and holding him fast: "you may earn a maintenance here, and may lay the foundations of your fortune hereafter: do not a second time thus wantonly trifle away your master's confidence and mine. We took you in, when you came to us without a character, without any recommendation, almost without a name: Herr Balthasar departed for your sake from all his rules, which till then had always been inviolable; I have in a manner pledged myself for ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... wed with me.]—In Aeschylus and Sophocles Electra is unmarried. This story of her peasant husband is found only in Euripides, but is not likely to have been wantonly invented by him. It was no doubt an existing legend—an [Greek: on logos], to use the phrase attributed to Euripides in the Frogs (l. 1052). He may have chosen to adopt it for several reasons. First, to marry Electra to a peasant was a likely step for Aegisthus to take, since ...
— The Electra of Euripides • Euripides
... unavailing slaughter. The calm verdict of history finds much ground of extenuation for the revolt of 1776; but for the American declaration of war in 1812, little or none. A reckless Democratic majority wantonly invaded the country of an unoffending neighbouring people, to seduce them from their lawful allegiance and annex their territory. The long and costly conflict was alike bloody and barren. The Americans ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... In the first place that would be a very unkind thing to do. Nobody likes being told of their mistakes, especially when they're as full of bounce and self-confidence as this fellow Billing. It's not right to be maliciously and wantonly unkind, Major, even to dumb animals; and I can't imagine anything more cruel than to tell Billing that he's made a mistake. In the next place, why on earth should we miss the chance of getting a statue in Ballymoy? We haven't got one at present, and a good ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... thy force acknowledged, or thy operations discerned! How wantonly dost thou deceive mankind under different disguises! Sometimes thou dost wear the face of pity, sometimes of generosity: nay, thou hast the assurance even to put on those glorious ornaments which belong only to heroic virtue. Thou odious, deformed monster! whom priests have railed ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... paid dearly for "peeping," and discovers that while gratifying his curiosity, his "pocket-book has slipped off with two hundred pounds in it." Williams was a satirist of the old school, and the allusions made by some of the vendors render this otherwise interesting satire wantonly coarse and indelicate. Attached to this rare and curious production is the ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... as he rattled down to Broadway's store and back, was that Cap'n Sproul and Hiram Look had attacked him with murderous intent, and that after he had bravely fought them off they had wantonly grabbed Mr. Dependence Crymble, jabbed him down a hole in the ground and kicked ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... showers in unregulated alternation, seemed symbolical of life,—that life of which every tender blade of grass, every venturesome flower thrusting its head above the sod, seemed to speak. There was health and strength in the gentle breeze which wantonly played with the budding leaves of the great trees, already putting forth little evangels of that splendid foliage with which they decked themselves in the full glory of summer. That merry wind which swept through the open boat-house at the end of the ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... had been plentiful in the district, and provided good food for the aborigines when the latter organised their big hunting parties. But as the country was taken up as cattle runs, hundreds of the great birds were wantonly shot by white men for the mere pleasure of killing, and all the months we lived in the district we did not see ...
— "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific - 1901 • Louis Becke
... the order of knighthood, and hath to-day righted the greatest wrong and grievance that ever injustice conceived and cruelty perpetrated: who hath to-day plucked the rod from the hand of yonder ruthless oppressor so wantonly lashing that tender child." ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... come to judgment upon a subject of which he knows so little that it is worse than nothing. I have reason to believe that he has a profound respect for one of you, and, being a bachelor, such exalted notions of your sex in general that he would not wantonly misjudge the humblest individual of it. His remark was but the fruit of such sheer innocence with regard to your charming sisterhood, that he has yet to learn that there is not a single member of it, who confesses to less than seventy years, to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... commenced a curious duett. Wilfrid merely wished to terminate his sentence; Mrs. Chump wantonly sought to prevent him. Each was burdened with serious matter; but they might have struck hands here, had not this petty accidental ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... eyes, and ye look wantonly towards the sufferers. Hath not your lust just disguised itself and taken the name ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche |
