"Wont" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that morning, Parson Babbage, who had risen early, after his wont, was standing on the Vicarage doorstep to respire the first breath of the pale day, when he heard the garden gate unlatched and saw Young ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... hangs listlessly by her side, she barely touches rather than holds a bunch of feathers, evidently gathered to adorn her person, and which she forgets in the contemplation of the story of the Cross. The artist supposes she has found this crucifix, which the early Catholic missionaries were wont to attach to the forest trees, and having heard from some of these zealous teachers an exposition of Christ's mission, the better life has already begun to dawn in her soul, and her whole aspect tells that this ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... schooner nor my wife. I have been the prey of feelings which you only can imagine. When I turned from the grave of my boy I deemed myself no longer vulnerable. Misfortune had no more a blow for me. I was wrong. It is true, I no longer feel, I never shall feel as I was wont; but I have been taught that there was still one being in whom I was inexpressibly interested. I have in vain endeavoured to build upon the hope of long passage. Thirty days are decisive. My wife is either captured or lost. What a destiny is mine! and ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... created for himself a retreat, the solitude of which was insured by a thick and lofty hedge planted about it. To this citadel, the sanctity of which he protected with a fury at times half insane, he was wont to retire in the fair weather of all seasons, with whatever books he could procure. In the companionship of these he passed happy, pleasant, and fruitful hours. His youthful patriotism had been intensified by the hatred he now ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... of fancy, Robert Louis Stevenson sent to a congenial spirit the imaginary intelligence that a well-known firm of London publishers had, after their wont, "declined with thanks" six undiscovered tragedies, one romantic comedy, a fragment of a journal extending over six years, and an unfinished autobiography reaching up to the first performance of King John by "that venerable but still respected writer, William ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... usual, retired to his study, intimating that he was going to be very busy, but that he would see Mr Chadwick if he called. On entering this sacred room he carefully opened the paper case on which he was wont to compose his favourite sermons, and spread on it a fair sheet of paper and one partly written on; he then placed his inkstand, looked at his pen, and folded his blotting paper; having done so, he got up again from his seat, stood with his back to ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... have sworn that the thing I saw was the sprawled figure of a human being. Miss La Rue was on deck with us. I turned and asked her to go below. Without a word she did as I bade. Then I stripped, and as I did so, Nobs looked questioningly at me. He had been wont at home to enter the surf with me, and evidently he ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... other way I neither ought to resist, nor can; but as to retiring and deserting the Church, this is not like me; and for this reason, lest I seem to do so from dread of some heavier punishment. Ye yourselves know that it is my wont to submit to our rulers, but not to make concessions to them; to present myself readily to legal punishment, and not to fear what ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... wont on such occasions, I assembled together all the great electricians, scientific sun-attractors, mathematicians, oculists, opticians, and the heads of science generally; and, after many years, my own particular ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... he had had the pleasure of serving with me. I do not now remember that I ever spoke to him again. He did not come to the Senate Chamber very often afterward. I have thought since that this unwonted expression of deep feeling from a gentleman not wont to wear his heart upon his sleeve toward his political opponent, and a man with whom he so often disagreed, was due to a premonition, of which he was perhaps unconscious, that the end of his life ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... I turn'd mine eyes, And, by the moonbeam, shook to see A stern and stalwart ghaist arise, Attir'd as Minstrels wont to be. ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... the ladies round about us. Look at that charming creature in a pink bonnet and a dress of the pattern of a Kilmarnock snuff-box: a stalwart Irish gentleman in a green coat and bushy red whiskers is whispering something very agreeable into her ear, as is the wont of gentlemen of his nation; for her dark eyes kindle, her red lips open and give an opportunity to a dozen beautiful pearly teeth to display themselves, and glance brightly in the sun; while round the teeth and the lips a number of lovely dimples make their appearance, and her whole countenance ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... his orange jacket with green sleeves. They were firmly convinced that he reflected enormous credit upon them, and their hearts swelled with joy at the thought of the envy they no doubt inspired. This conviction gave rise indeed to terrible quarrels, in which each of the three owners was wont to accuse the others of monopolizing ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... and sitting with them to keep them company. When free, she would come and see her cousins in the garden, and have, at odd times, a chat with them, so having, during daylight no leisure to speak of, she was wont, of a night, to ply her needle by lamplight, and only retire to sleep after the third ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... these shadows thrown across the lawn From the elms and yews? They were not wont to reach Beyond ...
— Household Gods • Aleister Crowley
... he made several uses, according as he perceived which way every man's particular talent lay.' This statesman—Thomas Dun was his name—drew up for the use of his comrades a stringent and stately code, and he was wont to deliver an address to all novices concerning the art and mystery of robbing upon the highway. Under auspices so brilliant, thievery could not but flourish, and when the Stuarts sat upon the throne it was already lifted above the level of ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... superseding the orders of the British Government. The contemplation of such a step was staggering. But would it be wisdom? That decided, it should go through, for Sir George did not bind himself by forms or consequences. Never being an official, than which no truer word could be writ, he was wont to give ready hostage to his official fortunes. India was to ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... Mr. Fielding this morning, and consulted him about the expediency of your remaining here, as you wont live with us. We wish the place kept up;—it is a curioso in its way—an antique with all its appurtenances; and I do not know any one more in keeping with it, than ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... Park, and from a good distance saw His Majesty going to feed the ducks, with a dozen spaniels, I daresay going after him, and a couple of gentlemen with him, but no guards at all. The King walked much more slowly that day than was his wont—I suppose because of the sore on his heel. But I did not go near enough for him to see me; for I would trouble him now no further than I need. All this time—or at least now and again—I wondered a little as to whether I was right ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... we find them, in spite of their fanatical hatred of the Germans (which we honor and respect) chivalrous antagonists, who in their wrath of battle are certainly quite our peers; and in them, we find, there is far more force and will for victory than we were in the beginning wont to believe. They die for their fatherland, and their final reason for fighting is after all an ideal one, the faith in the glory and greatness of a super-individual, the self-sacrifice to a whole that is higher than the personal. ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... the confidence of almost all his mates. K. K. was one of the most remarkable chaps, who, while engaging in the customary rough and tumble sports of boys with red blood in their veins, still seemed able to keep himself always tidy and neat. No one ever knew how he did it, and a few were wont to call him a "sissy," but K. K. was far from that. Only one boy attending Scranton High could really come under such a name, and he was Reggie Van Alstyne, who had always ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... nor the next, did Mrs. Grey speak of the past, and all things went on as they were wont to do. But on the third day, when the first course was gone, a dish that had been in the green-house room was put near her. It was just in the same state in which Ruth had left it. Ruth could not bear the sight of it, so she got up and ran ...
— The Book of One Syllable • Esther Bakewell
... thither, my son," replied the Bishop, unruffled. "Curb your impatience. We of the Cloister are wont to move slowly, with measured tread—each step a careful following up of the step which went before—not with the leaps and bounds and capers of the laity. In due time we ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... has come," she said, her heart beating faster than its wont. "It is an important letter. How slow ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... relating to damaged fences, loss of poultry or, rarely, 'wire offences.' There is no better known figure in Gloucestershire than that of Colonel Henry on his hack, one of his own breeding by the way, which carries him on his long rides; he is wont to say that in dealing with a grievance 'one visit is worth a dozen letters.' His geniality, and the painstaking care with which he investigates every matter to which his attention is called, dissipate at their beginning many difficulties which, handled with ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... what new Pity now invades And takes Possession of my Breast? Unfaithful Traytor, I'd be thy Death, but that my Heart wont ...
— Amadigi di Gaula - Amadis of Gaul • Nicola Francesco Haym
... had settled on Archie's mind lifted abruptly. For an instant he was enabled to think about a hundred times more quickly than was his leisurely wont. Good fortune had brought him to within easy reach of the electric-light switch. He snapped it back, and was in darkness. Then, diving silently and swiftly to the floor, he wriggled under the bed. ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... that of bearing testimony against this outrageous attempt. It is indeed a consolation that my almost extinguished voice has been on this occasion raised in defense of liberty, of justice, and of our country." Of the war with Mexico, he was wont to say, "that it was the only blot upon the escutcheon of the United States." Aged as he was, he would not rest until he had made his last appeal for peace with Mexico. He also prepared supplementary essays on war expenses: the first of these was published in 1847, ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... he said, "that I can't conceive my entering a room without everybody hearing it. No, I can't indeed," he laughed boisterously. "You tell anybody that I crossed a room without your hearing it, and they won't believe you. No, they wont." ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... front that seems so cold, And the voice that is wont to storm, We are certain to find, a big, broad mind And a heart that is soft and warm. And he carries his woes in a lordly way, As only the great souls can: And it makes us glad when in truth we say, We are ...
— The Englishman and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... ostler was wont to say in subsequent repetitions of the story: "Thanks be to God, the reins was rotten!" But for this it is highly probable that Miss Fitzroy's speculation would have collapsed abruptly with broken knees, possibly with a broken neck. Having galloped ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... Rouse Memnon's mother from her Tithon's bed That she may thy career with roses spread: The nightingales thy coming eachwhere sing: Make an eternal spring! Give life to this dark world which lieth dead; Spread forth thy golden hair In larger locks than thou wast wont before, And emperor-like decore With diadem of pearl thy temples fair: Chase hence the ugly night Which serves but to make dear ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... very sociably together. Others were sewing and quilting in rooms set apart for that purpose. There was no appearance of wretchedness or misery in this ward; nothing that associated with it the terrible idea of madness I had been wont to entertain—for these poor creatures looked healthy and cheerful, nay, almost happy, as if they had given the world and all its cares the go-by. There was one thin, eccentric looking woman in middle life, who came forward to receive us with ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... her wont, and wished Tabea happiness, but intimated that Daniel was a bold man to undertake to subdue the Hofcavalier. Sister Persida's woman's heart was set all a-flutter, and she quite forgot that she was trying to be a nun, and that ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... Pendleton was wont to say with her facile sympathy. "So hard for her to have to take strangers into her home. I believe she was left without anything at her husband's death; mighty hard for ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... in Regent Street, and stopped, as was their wont, before a photographer's window where portraits of celebrities were exposed to view. Paul loved this window, bad loved it from the moment of discovery, a couple of years before. It was a Temple of Fame. The fact of your portrait being exhibited, with your style and title printed below, marked ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... incapable of intellectual pleasures; he had his court minstrels and poets. The famous Aurelio Brandolini, who died in 1497, was wont to improvise to the strains of the lute during banquets in the Vatican and in Lucretia's palace. Caesar's favorite, Serafino of Aquila, the Petrarch of his age, who died in Rome in the year 1500, still a young man, aspired to ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... so: he's a northern man, you see—comes from where sea-coal's cheaper than here, and they are wont to pile ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... ridiculed. [To avoid [2]] this they fly into the other Extream, and grow Tyrants that they may seem Masters. Because an uncontroulable Command of their own Actions is a certain Sign of entire Dominion, they wont so much as recede from the Government even in one Muscle, of their Faces. A kind Look they believe would be fawning, and a civil Answer yielding the Superiority. To this must we attribute an Austerity they betray in every Action: What but this can put a Man out of Humour in his Wife's Company, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... was a very pretty old lady, and was very well aware of the fact, having been told so during seventy years. "The Lord made me pleasant to look at," she was wont to say, "and it is a great privilege, my dear; but it is also a responsibility." She had lovely, rippling silver hair, and soft blue eyes, and a complexion like a girl's. She had put on to-day, for the first time, her summer costume,—a skirt and jacket of striped white ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... favourite, too, is the Devil, our old friend from the Miracles! 'My husband, Timothy Tattle, God rest his poor soul!' says good Gossip Tattle, 'was wont to say, there was no play without a fool and a devil in 't; he was for the devil still, God bless him! The devil for his money, would he say, I would fain see the devil.' And Gossip Mirth adds a description of the Devil as she knew him: 'As fine a gentleman of his inches ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... although they had never before exchanged a word, the youth obeyed the call of one so respected. Niccolo asked him who his father was. He answered, 'Messer Andrea de' Pazzi.' When he was further asked what his pursuit was, Piero replied, as young people are wont to do, 'I enjoy myself' ('attendo a darmi buon tempo'). Niccolo said to him, 'As son of such a father, and so fair to look upon, it is a shame that thou knowest nothing of the Latin language, which would be so great an ornament ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... hands in Rajputana there pass with it, as well as the rats and cobras and the mongoose, those beggars who were wont to plague the former owner. That is a custom so based on ancient logic that the English, who appreciate conservatism, have not even ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... observes his biographer, Mr. Jerrold, "he was wont to stroll unnoticed, with his faithful dog at his heels, from this house to the news-vendor's stall by the Burlington Arcade, to get the latest news from revolutionary France; now he was the guest of the English ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... Mulberry Street find themselves face to face with some problem other than the trivial, every-day theft, burglary or murder, as the case may be, they are wont to rise up and run around in a circle. The case of Red Haney and the diamonds, blared to the world at large in the newspapers of Sunday morning, immediately precipitated a circular parade, while Haney, the objective center, snored along ...
— The Diamond Master • Jacques Futrelle
... rising into a sitting posture on the top of the cabin skylight, where he had been taking his usual afternoon siesta instead of putting himself to the trouble of going below and turning into his bunk, as was his usual wont after luncheon. "A fit! Wa-al I guess I'm on. I allers likes to hitch in with a muss!" and, so saying, the lanky American was soon scrambling down the poop-ladder and making his way forward, followed by all the remainder of the passengers—Mrs Major Negus, of course, going to look after her ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... to her eyes, and she was seized with a longing desire for his presence, for an opportunity to pour out her love and gratitude, and have him clasp her to his heart with tenderest caresses, as was his wont. ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... Him, have only shewn Himself to His disciples hurriedly, in secret, and on rare occasions, spending the greater part of His time in some one or other of the secret places of resort, in which He had been wont to live apart from the Apostles ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... each, those features that always wore a smile for her both asleep and awake. Suddenly she felt her hair rise on her head and her eyes stared wildly; illusion or reality, she saw Crispin standing by the fireplace, there where he was wont to sit and prattle to her, but now he said nothing as he gazed at her with those large, thoughtful ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... Prussia, when a new soldier appeared on the parade, was wont to ask him, "How old are you?—how long have you been in my service?—have you received your pay and clothing?" A young Frenchman who had volunteered into the service, being informed by his officer of the questions which the monarch would ask, took care ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... at last to escape these gloomy thoughts. Alves followed him without a word. He did not offer her his arm, as he was wont to do when they walked out here beyond the paths where people came. She respected his mood, and falling a step behind, followed the winding road that led around the ruined Court of Honor to the esplanade. As they gained the road by a little footpath in the sandy bank, a victoria ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... is in connection with Le Mans, scarcely eighty miles away and so little known, that it ought really to be studied and considered; which as a matter of fact it seldom is. The city is hardly in keeping with what we are wont to associate with the environment of a great cathedral, though this of itself in no way detracts from its charms. The weekly cattle-market takes place almost before its very doors, and the battery of hotels ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... fervour of the Scots, and the cities of Glasgow and Perth made demonstrations of attachment of which the royal lady might well be proud. On the 15th of August the court reached Balmoral, and entered upon those happy and private recreations which the royal family were wont to enjoy at their delightful Highland home. On the 29th of September the court was once ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... gave a start. About what was he thinking so gloomily? It was not his wont to frown like that and keep his eyes lowered. And he did not jump over the ditch that separated the field from the road, as he generally did in order to reach the farm gate more quickly; it looked almost as though his footsteps lagged, as he deliberately ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... here and there a spoonbill and flamingo, are seen amongst them. The pelicans go farther out to sea, but return at sundown to the courada-trees. The humming-birds are chiefly to be found near the flowers at which each of the species of the genus is wont to feed. The pie, the gallinaceous, the columbine and passerine tribes resort to the fruit- ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... reproof to the Moslem for supposing that the creed of those who had killed his sons could be his. As he spoke he opened his eyes wide with the look of those hard, opaquely-glittering stones which his ancestors had been wont to set for eyes in their portrait statues. But he suddenly closed them ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... been wont to dine and sup in dignified publicity, seated on the sigma, in the room which had seen so many festivals, together with her male relatives and any guest who might be at the villa; in her presence, no man permitted himself the recumbent attitude, which indeed had ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... Mr. Britling's house than in any other. There was a legend that she had "drawn out" his mind, and that she had "stood up" for him against his father. She had certainly contradicted quite a number of those unfavourable comments that fathers are wont to make about their sons. Though certainly she contradicted everything. And Mr. Britling hated to think of her knocking about alone in boarding-houses and hydropathic establishments with only the ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... weariness of his pose and the vibration in his deep voice. She was stirred and interested as she had never been. This dear brother of hers was not wont to care very much. In the past it had always been the women who had sighed and longed and he who had been amused and pleased. She could not remember a single occasion in the last ten years when he had seemed to suffer, although she had seen him apparently devoted ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... Wanderobo Dog came around they would edge away, which gave the former a certain sense of importance because it was flattering to have a number of grown-up men fear him so much. Then there were a number of the porters who were Mohammedans of a sort, but these were wont to say, "O, what is a creed ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... inexplicable character which I have ever studied has been that of my friend Peterkin, whose eccentricities I have never been able fully to understand or account for. I have observed that, on first awaking in the mornings, he has been wont to exhibit several of his most eccentric and peculiar traits, so I resolved to feign myself asleep ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... doubtless unconnected with the purchase of land, and was simply a treaty of amity and friendship, in confirmation of one previously held, by Penn's direction, by Markham, on the same spot; that being a place which the Indians were wont to use for this purpose. It is probable that the treaty was held on the last of November, 1682; that the Delawares, the Mingos, and other Susquehanna tribes formed a large assembly on the occasion; that written minutes of the conference were made, ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... known, sometimes flies like a bird, sometimes crawls like a worm; but man is wont to be particularly happy when he does not even notice whether it passes quickly or slowly. It was in that way Arkady and Bazarov spent a fortnight at Madame Odintsov's. The good order she had established in her ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... your old friend and neighbor, Piso, late a dweller upon the Coelian hill, who am now basking in the warm skies of Palmyra, and, notwithstanding all the splendor and luxury by which I am surrounded, longing to be once more in Rome, by the side of my Curtius, and with him discoursing, as we have been wont to do, of the acts and policy ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... whereof, helde this History. An honourable woman with childe, vnto whome Jupiter shewed himselfe (as he was wont With Iuno) in thunder and lightning: insomuch, as shee fell all to ashes, out of the which was taken vp ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... fault, but his misfortune," the lady was wont to remark, "that he's like dirt beside her. He can't help his birth, and his dragging-up, and his disreputable trade, or business, or whatever he likes to call it; he can't help never having had a father nor mother to speak of, and not a lady or gentleman belonging to the family ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... reputation of divers honest and learned are the question; when a name so full of authority, antiquity, and all great mark, is, through their insolence, become the lowest scorn of the age; and those men subject to the petulancy of every vernaculous orator, that were wont to be the care of kings and ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... appear, Not tricked and flounced, as she was wont With the Attic boy to hunt, But kerchiefed in a comely cloud. II ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... him in an agony of desperate love, adjuring him to tell her the truth as to that Other: whether he did not see that she was different from his own Milly, whether it were possible that he could love that mysterious being as he loved her, his true, loving wife. Ian, who had been wont to hold stern doctrines as to the paramount obligation of truthfulness, perjured himself again and again, and hoped the Recording Angel dropped the customary tear. But, however deep the perjury, before long he was sure to find himself ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... wooden headpiece that bore the name of the unhappy President Miraflores. From this window when the rains forbade the open, and from the green and shady slopes of Goodwin's fruitful lands when the skies were smiling, his wife was wont to look upon that grave with a gentle sadness that was now scarcely a mar ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... of Big Pete's description of how the Wild Hunter was wont to sit with his long legs dangling from some rock while he smoked one of those unprocurable cigars, and when I realized that the figure before me was fully sixty feet tall, I must confess to experiencing a ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... scaffold. Error, it might be,—but the error of men who believed themselves the defenders of a just cause. Nor did I, Queen Margaret, lend myself wholly to my kinsman's quarrel, nor share one scheme that went to the dethronement of King Henry, until—pardon, if I speak bluntly; it is my wont, and would be more so now, but for thy fair face and woman's form, which awe me more than if confronting the frown of Coeur de Lion, or the First Great Edward—pardon me, I say, if I speak bluntly, and aver that I was not King Henry's foe until false ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a third person in the play, by no means so passive an actor as Laura was wont to ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... spoke softly, as he always spoke when sentiment entrapped him. His native turn of thought found vent at these odd times and made him infinitely interesting. The slight satire that was ordinarily wont to twist his smile was smoothed away, and a certain sadness stole into its place; his green eyes lost their keenness of observation and looked into a space obscure to others. In these rare moments he was essentially of his race ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... honours, conducting father and daughter into the drawing-room, where obvious traces of the old ladies remained, and thence into his own sitting-room, smelling pleasantly of Russia leather, and recalling that into which Nuttie had been wont, before her schooldays, to climb by the window, and become entranced by the illustrations of a wonderful old edition of ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Saturday afternoon, when the doctor had finished writing his prescriptions, his last circuit for the day being taken, he threw himself back in his arm-chair, as he was wont, and began to speak of the things of GOD. He was a truly Christian man, and many seasons of very happy spiritual fellowship we had together. I was busily watching, at the time, a pan in which a decoction was boiling that required a good deal of attention. It was indeed fortunate for ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... both these men spell and pronounce the word alike. The ignorant man has only the faintest glimmering of the scholar's meaning of the word when he speaks or writes it. Still the word is in common use, and people who use it are wont to think that their conception of its meaning is universal. If the boor could follow the expansion of the word as it is invested with greater and greater content, he would, in time, understand Aristotle, Shakespeare, Gladstone, and ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... and we think we have a tolerably clear notion of the causes of General McClellan's disasters. He can compose a good campaign beforehand, but he cannot improvise one out of the events of the moment, as is the wont of great generals. Occasion seldom offers her forelock twice to the grasp of the same man, and yet General McClellan, by the admission of the Rebels themselves, had Richmond at his ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... 25 Edw. III, Stat. 2, c. 1, states that the servants had paid no regard to the ordinance regulating wages, 'but to their ease and singular covetise do withdraw themselves unless they have livery and wages to the double or treble of that they were wont to take'. Accordingly, it was again laid down that they were to take liveries and wages as before the Black Death, and 'where wheat was wont to be given they shall take for the bushel 10d. (6s. 8d. a quarter),[116] or wheat at the will ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... as I had unloaded Doctor and hobbled him, I went to a tree hard by, on which I could see the mark of a blaze, and towards which I thought I could see a line of wood ashes running. There I found a hole in which some bird had evidently been wont to build, and surmised correctly that it must be the one in which my father had hidden his box of sovereigns. There was no box in the hole now, and I began to feel that I was at last within measureable distance of Erewhon ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... go on, I go alone," Barebone had once said to Dormer Colville. The words, spoken in the heat of a quarrel, stuck in the memory of both, as such are wont to do. Perhaps, in moments of anger or disillusionment—when we find that neither self nor friend is what we thought—the heart tears itself away from the grip of the cooler, calmer brain and speaks untrammelled. And such speeches are apt to linger ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... which there is not only a Shinto shelf but a Buddhist shrine—where the name plates of the dead for several generations are treasured—cannot but feel that, when all allowances are made for the dulling influences of use and wont, the plan is a means of taking the minds of the household beyond the daily round. The fact that there is a certain familiarity with the things of the shrine and of the Shinto shelf, just as there is a certain freedom at the public shrines and in the temple, does not ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... eighteenth centuries the American colonies, from Massachusetts to South Carolina, were at intervals subject to visitations of pirates, who were wont to appear suddenly upon the coasts, to pillage a settlement or attack trading vessels and as suddenly to take flight to their strongholds. Captain Kidd was long celebrated in prose and verse, and only within a few years have credulous people ceased ...
— Captain Richard Ingle - The Maryland • Edward Ingle
... know, is wont to Image to us the minds and fortunes of noble persons: and to pourtray these exactly, Heroic Rhyme is nearest Nature; as being the noblest kind of ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... "Chorus Sancti Viti, or St. Vitus' dance; the lascivious dance, Paracelsus calls it, because they that are taken with it can do nothing but dance till they be dead or cured. It is so called for that the parties so troubled were wont to go to St. Vitus for help; and, after they had danced there awhile, they were certainly freed. 'Tis strange to hear how long they will dance, and in what manner, over stools, forms, and tables. One in red clothes they cannot abide. Musick above all things they love; and therefore magistrates ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... secret defiance she was able to luxuriate—since he was still in the office, not gone from her forever!—till five o'clock, when the detached young men of offices are wont to face another evening of lonely irrelevancy, and desperately begin to reach ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... in nothing more (we follow as we were wont the manuscript of Peter Pattieson) than in the rapid conveyance of intelligence and communication betwixt one part of Scotland and another. It is not above twenty or thirty years, according to the evidence of many credible witnesses now alive, since a little miserable ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... should be without them. Before I had the Pleasure of being admitted a Member of your Society [Mr. Davies here means the Society for promoting religious Knowledge among the Poor, which was first begun in London in August, 1750] the Negroes were wont frequently to come to me, with such moving Accounts of their Necessities in this Respect, that I could not help supplying them with Books to the utmost of my small Ability; and when I distributed those among them, which my Friends with you sent over, I had Reason to think that I never did an Action ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... in name alone, most of the lower caste-men are practically polytheists, and this means that they are at bottom dualists. They are wont to worship assiduously but one of ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... shown I see it all again, the oaks, the glade, the tiny house of white, the small pleasant fire. Here again is the little table, and here is the evening meal. The table is still spread for two. A double portion is served as was wont before. Yet why? For all is not the same. At this table there is but one form now. The younger man is there, although now he has grown gray and stooped. Year unto year, day unto day, the beads have slipped along the string. Once young, now old, ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... a good girl," said the child to herself, "and God wont send the angels down to take care of me to-night. I played going to meeting with my dolls last Sunday, and Miss Thusa says that was breaking the commandments. I'll say my prayers over again, and ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... afternoon," he said, and reached the sidewalk as Miss Fraenkel crossed the street. He lifted his hat absently and passed on, and she, pausing for a moment, gave him one of those swift and searching glances with which her countrywomen are wont to appraise us. She came ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... broke the banks on each side, were to me full of strange interest. I tried to enter into the impressions and thoughts of my unhappy friend. Those evening meetings on the edge of the coombe, where his lady-love had been wont to find him, had, no doubt, initiated Mademoiselle de Villenoix into the secrets of that vast and lofty spirit, as I had learned them ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... good little lady presently ascended to the third floor, where she entered her daughter's room without knocking, according to her wont. However, Carlisle had been ready for ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... appearance of the Broom-Squire in the public house. Sometimes he himself became the object of attack, but usually he succeeded in setting others by the ears and in himself escaping unmolested. But on one of the former occasions he had lost two front teeth, and through the gap thus formed he was wont to ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... race which remains; the calm acquiescence in the law of life which is also the law of death, and the desire that life and death alike may have their ordinary place and period, not breaking use and wont; all this is implied here rather than expressed, in words so simple and straightforward that they seem to have fallen by accident, as it were, into verse. Thus too in another epigram the dying wife's last words are praise to the gods ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... whispered back to him in anxus axents and told him, that I guessed if funeral expenses wuz added to that 5 cents it wouldn't come so cheap, and sez I, "you wont live through many more glasses, and you'll see you wont. Why," sez I, "you are a ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... friends? Shall pangs not fasten upon thee, Like a woman's in travail? And if thou say in thine heart, 22 Why fall on me these? For the mass of thy guilt stripped are thy skirts, Ravished thy limbs! Can the Ethiop change his skin, 23 Or the leopard his spots? Then also may ye do good Who are wont to do evil. As the passing chaff I strew them 24 To the wind of the desert. This is thy lot, the share I mete thee— 25 Rede of the Lord— Because Me thou hast wholly forgotten And trusted in fraud. So thy skirts I draw over thy face, 26 Thy shame is exposed. Thine adulteries, thy neighings, 27 ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... at the Tuileries. The Emperor, as was his wont, began the conversation, and kept it nearly all to himself during the rest of the audience. He did not affect to disguise either his past ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... her apparaile, She is not wont to great travaile, And whan she kempt is fetously, And well arraied and richely. Then hath shee done all her journee, Gentyll and faire indede ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... night shall see Again us two, While howls the tempest higher, Sit warmly by the fire And dream and plan, as we Were wont to do. ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was the similar example of old Mr. Feathertop. He didn't exactly collect things; he repudiated the name. He was wont to say, "Don't call me a collector, I'm not. I simply pick things up. Just where I happen to be, Rome, Warsaw, Bucharest, anywhere"—and it is to be noted what fine places these are to happen to be. And to think that Mr. Rasselyer-Brown would never put his foot outside of the United ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... delightfully in a large and lofty hall, formerly used (said Rattray) as a court-room. The old judgment seat stood back against the wall, and our table was the one at which the justices had been wont to sit. Then the chamber had been low-ceiled; now it ran to the roof, and we ate our dinner beneath a square of fading autumn sky, with I wondered how many ghosts looking down on us from the oaken ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... truth and when they had told him the direction in which the two were traveling, Lu-don guessed that they were on their way to Ja-lur to join Ja-don, a contingency that he felt must be prevented at any cost. As was his wont in the stress of emergency, he called Pan-sat into consultation and for long the two sat in close conference. When they arose a plan had been developed. Pan-sat went immediately to his own quarters where he removed the headdress ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... way she had been wont to advise Donald, "I think you should go straight to your sister, and take counsel with her as to what you should do. I will lend you money enough for what ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... up with pride and hastily answered that if any one craved news of him he had best apply to Mistress Ursula Tetzel, inasmuch as she was ever wont to have a keen ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... bow-window of the parlor, and stand there. The Raven, though a comfortable, old established, and respectable inn, could boast only of casements for its upper windows, and they are not convenient to deliver speeches from. He was wont, therefore to take his seat on the bow-window, and, that was not altogether convenient either, for it was but narrow, and he hardly dared move an arm or a leg for fear of pitching over on the upturned faces. Mr. Drake let himself down also, to support him on one side, and the ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... again; "But, O Lord of hosts, that triest the righteous, and seest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them; for unto thee have I opened my cause" (Jer 20:12). Seest thou here, how saints of old were wont to do? how they did, not only in a general way, entreat Christ to plead their cause, but in a particular way, go to him and reveal, or open their ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... unjust God, himself the origin of sin Anarchy which was deemed inseparable from a non-regal form Anatomical study of what has ceased to exist And thus this gentle and heroic spirit took its flight Are wont to hang their piety on the bell-rope Argument is exhausted and either action or compromise begins Arminianism Artillery As logical as men in their cups are prone to be As if they were free will not make them free As neat a deception by telling the truth As lieve see ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... fib; you've whipped that into me and you can't rub it out," he was wont to say, with vivid recollection of the past tingling in the chubby portions of ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... pepper, horseradish and tomato mixtures with which we are wont to dress raw oysters, preferring to get the full coppery taste peculiar to their home product, but the American oyster, even these artists of the culinary department agree, requires a dressing to bring out the flavor. As for ...
— Twenty-four Little French Dinners and How to Cook and Serve Them • Cora Moore
... across a whole morning's work; "that man is a presumptuous fool who, here in Florence, here where those others have lived and died, dares to stand before an easel and imagine that he can paint—and I have been that man!" He was wont to grow noisy and loquacious over his failures—not moody and dumb, ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... thoughtful and deep-flowing, less dashing and free; he spoke in a lower key; his laugh was less loud but far sweeter and more thrilling; his eyes had grown larger, darker, deeper, and sometimes they were shadowed with a soft and tender mist, not wont to overspread them before. The angel of Love had touched him, and opened a new and living spring in his heart. Boiling and bubbling in its hidden recess, an ethereal vapor mounted up and mantled those blazing orbs in a dim and dreamy veil. A charmed wand ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... in answer to an attack by the Romish theologian Ambrosius Catharinus. He based his opinion on the prophecies of the Old and New Testament, on which Christian men and Christian communities, sore pressed in the battle with the powers of darkness, had been wont ere then to rely, in the sure hope of the approaching victory of God. Luther referred in particular to the vision of Daniel (chap. viii.), where he states that after the four great Kingdoms of the World, the last of which Luther takes ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... Araucanians, from the Ethiopians to the Dacotahs, rites of honor have been paid to the dead, various offerings have been placed at their graves. The Vedas enjoin the offering of a cake to the ghosts of ancestors back to the third generation. The Greeks were wont to pour wine, oil, milk, and blood into canals made in the graves of their dead. The early Christians adopted these "Feasts of the Dead" as Augustine and Tertullian call them from the heathen, and Celebrated them over the graves of their martyrs and ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... was due to leave in ten minutes, and the platform at Victoria Station (how changed since then!) showed that scene of discreet and haughty excitement which it was wont to exhibit about nine o'clock every evening in those days. The weather was wild. It had been wet all day, and the rain came smashing down, driven by the great gusts of a genuine westerly gale. Consequently there were fewer passengers than usual, ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... and flowers the dancing light in the eyes went down a little; and Polly, growing more silent and pale, moved around with a little droop to the small figure that had only been wont to fly through the wide halls and spacious rooms ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... it chanced one morn when all the court, Green-suited, but with plumes that mock'd the May, Had been, their wont, a-maying" ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch |
