"Changeable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... laughing with merry softness, her whole person so alert and elastic with exuberant life and enjoyment, that grandmamma was as happy in watching her as if she had been her own daughter, and stroked down the broad flounces of her changeable silk, and admired her black lace, as if she felt the whole family exalted by ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that war experience he went through, Perk—they say once a man was gassed pretty badly over there, he'd always prove to be a queer fish—changeable, nervous and apt to do all manner ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... uncertain — Writing is all a lottery — I have been a loser by the works of the greatest men of the age — I could mention particulars, and name names; but don't choose it — The taste of the town is so changeable. Then there have been so many letters upon travels lately published — What between Smollett's, Sharp's, Derrick's, Thicknesse's, Baltimore's, and Baretti's, together with Shandy's Sentimental Travels, the public seems to be cloyed with that kind of entertainment — Nevertheless, ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... dangerous mare, Judge, and she's as delicate and changeable as a girl. I'd hate to leave ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The New York Idea • Langdon Mitchell
... the grass in front of his moccasins—tiny dried blades of yellow grass, and underneath them he saw the dark traceries of their shadows. Each had its own little shadow—its soul—its changeable thing—its other life—just as he himself was cut blue-black beside himself on the sandstone. There were millions of these grass-blades, and each one shivered in the wind, maundering to itself in the chorus, which made the prairie sigh, and all for fear of a big ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington
... Time, sincere Posterity Always new born, yet no man knows thy birth, The arbitress of pure Sincerity, Yet, changeable, (like Proteus on the earth) Sometime in plenty, sometime joined with dearth. Always to come, yet always present here, Whom all run ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 475 - Vol. XVII, No. 475. Saturday, February 5, 1831 • Various
... I got your welcome letter this morning. I have been coughing all this time, but I hope I shall improve. I came out at the very worst time of year, and the weather has been (of course) 'unprecedentedly' bad and changeable. But when it IS fine it is quite celestial; so clear, so dry, so light. Then comes a cloud over Table Mountain, like the sugar on a wedding-cake, which tumbles down in splendid waterfalls, and vanishes unaccountably halfway; and then you run indoors and shut doors and windows, or it portends ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... what did I tell you! Here is the very dress of the picture-lady, this queer, changeable silk, these big sleeves, and the velvet sewed on in a funny criss-cross pattern! ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... nature to hum and buzz. Herzberg, you understand that if a ruler should listen to the praises or discontent of his subjects, he would soon be a lost man, and would not know his own mind. The people are changeable as the weather; to-morrow they crush under their feet what to-day they bore aloft, and praise one day what they stone the next. Do not talk to me about the people! I know this childish, foolish mass, and he is lost ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... too many do, under the prophet's curse, "Woe to them who call good evil, and evil good; who put sweet for bitter, and bitter for sweet," and fancy, like Ezekiel's Jews, that God's ways are unequal; that is, unlike each other, changeable, arbitrary, and capricious, doing one thing at one time, and another at another. No. It is sinful man who is changeable; it is sinful man who is arbitrary. But The Lord is not a man, that He should lie or repent; for He is the only-begotten Son, and therefore the express ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... replied Mr. George. "It was such a complicated case that you could not decide it either way. The question was like a piece of changeable silk. You could make it look green or brown, just according to the way you looked at it. When you come to read the history you will ...
— Rollo in Scotland • Jacob Abbott
... "Adrien is very changeable," Vermont said reflectively, "one can never count on his movements; following him is like wild duck shooting, down the river on Monday, and up the Fens on Tuesday. I'm sorry I missed him, though, for I have several ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... similar to L. lagenula, contractile but tough. The contractile vacuole is terminal, the proboscis is short, slightly raised and separated from the body by a deep cleft; the buccal cilia are inserted part way up on the proboscis. Form changeable, from short, sac-like to elongate and ...
— Marine Protozoa from Woods Hole - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission 21:415-468, 1901 • Gary N. Galkins
... her just now, and then she seemed to me quite calm; but behind all her moods something lies hidden which it is impossible for me to fathom; and then she is so changeable, so capricious—she varies ...
— The Lady From The Sea • Henrik Ibsen
... Venture made St. John's it was still early enough in the spring of the year for small craft to be at sea. When she was ready to depart on the return voyage to Ruddy Cove, the days were days of changeable weather, of wind and snow, of fog and rain, of unseasonable intervals of quiet sunshine. The predictions of the wiseacres were not to be trusted; and, at any rate, every forecast was made with a wag of the head that implied ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... climate will be short. It is changeable beyond any other I ever heard of; but no phenomena sufficiently accurate to reckon upon, are found to indicate the approach of alteration. Indeed, for the first eighteen months that we lived in the country, changes were supposed to take place ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... view about us the forms are stable and do not easily change, but in the world around us which is perceptible only by the spiritual sight, we may say that there is in reality no form, but that all is life. At least the forms are so changeable that the metamorphosis recounted in fairy stories is discounted there to an amazing degree, and therefore we have the surprising revelations of mediums and other untrained clairvoyants who, though they may be perfectly honest, are deceived by illusions of form which is evanescent, because ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... worth while to dwell thus fully upon this episode because it illustrates how misleading it really is to talk of "Germany" and the "German" attitude. There is every kind of German attitude. The Kaiser is an unstable and changeable character. His ministers do not necessarily agree with him, and he does not always get his way. As a consequence of discussion and persuasion the German opposition, on this occasion, was overcome. There was nothing, in fact, fixed and final ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson
... dogma informs us that this always-existing Being is unchangeable and independent. One unavoidable inference from which is that Deity is itself immoveable, as well as unconnected with the universe—for a moveable Being must be a changeable Being by the very fact of its motion; while an independent Being must be motiveless, as it is evident all motives result from our relationship to things external; but an independent Being can have no relations, and consequently ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... he would be a lovely bird. He could even change himself to look like a dry old stump or a beautiful tree. Sometimes he would be like a little half-frozen rabbit; then he would be a mighty magician, and often a little snake. He was just as changeable in his disposition as in his outward appearance. Sometimes he was doing the best things imaginable for his uncles, the Indian people, and at other times he was full of mischief and trickery. But on the whole he was a friend, and although quick-tempered and fiery ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... dominant, all-excluding thought. The child's thought changes every moment; but while it possesses him, he acts upon it with such ardor that others give way before him, fascinated by the ingenuity, the persistence of a strong desire. Woman is less changeable, but to call her capricious is a stupid insult. Whenever she acts, she is always swayed by one dominant passion; and wonderful it is to see how she makes that passion the very ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac
... on my heart in deeper lines than any camera or kodak could do it. But I had a handkerchief pin that looked like him, I bought it to the World's Fair, it wuz took of Columbus. You know Columbus wuz a changeable lookin' critter in his pictures, if he looked like all on 'em he must have been fitty, and Miss Columbus must have had a hard time to git along with him. This looked like Josiah, only with more hair, but I held my thumb over the top, and I could almost hear ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... months of palpitating negotiations with the adorable Mrs. Glamorys, the poet, in a moment of dejection, penned the prose apophthegm, 'It is of no use trying to change a changeable person.' ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... is more easily granted than in the Old, in the matter of certain forbidden works, on account of their necessity, because the figure pertains to the protestation of truth, which it is unlawful to omit even in small things; while works, considered in themselves, are changeable in point of place ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... brilliant names." She was very kind, extremely soft-hearted, and always overwhelming her companions with attentions and regards. Mademoiselle Avrillon, her reader, says: "I do not believe that there ever lived a woman with a better character, or with a less changeable disposition." She never dared to utter a word of blame or reproach. "If one of her ladies," said Constant, the Emperor's valet de chambre, "ever gave her cause for dissatisfaction, the only punishment she inflicted was to maintain absolute ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... thrown into the bay, so that there might be no stench, which my natives declared would be enough to spoil any future shooting in this locality. This same afternoon we moved our camp to a new marsh, but the wind was changeable, and ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... forms of life is changeable, impermanent, unenduring. Only the informing Principle of nature endures. Nature is many, and is marked by separation. The informing Principle is One, and is marked by unity. By overcoming the senses and the selfishness within, which is the overcoming of nature, man emerges ...
— The Way of Peace • James Allen
... question of letters, not hearts. You will find a warm welcome at Skerryvore from both the lightkeepers; and, indeed, we never tell ourselves one of our financial fairy tales, but a run to Davos is a prime feature. I am not changeable in friendship; and I think I can promise you you have a pair of trusty well- wishers and friends in Bournemouth: whether they write or not is but a small thing; the flag may not be waved, ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... their old sins, because they fail to make their calling sure by good works. Therefore, it comes about that, as Paul says, they run uncertainly, beating the air. Their hearts are unstable and wavering before God, and they are changeable and fickle in all their ways, James 1, 8. Since they are aimless and inconstant at heart, this will appear likewise as inconstancy in regard to works and doctrines. They undertake now this and now that; they cannot be quiet nor refrain from ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... those unfaithful supporters of the royal cause who "welcomed" the members of the Society when it appeared to be prospering, but "parted" from them in adversity, probably referring ironically to those lukewarm and changeable Dissenters who veered about, for and against, as Cromwell favoured or contemned them. Such could always be had wherever there were "three sixpence-under the thumb"; but "poverty" ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... chair so all over bejointed, behinged, and bepadded, everyway so elastic, springy, and docile to the airiest touch, that in some one of its endlessly-changeable accommodations of back, seat, footboard, and arms, the most restless body, the body most racked, nay, I had almost added the most tormented conscience must, somehow and somewhere, find rest. Believing ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... render our reading slow and uncertain. Yet it is conspicuously noticeable that those caves showing the most delicately fragile and wonderfully varied forms of decoration are those traversed by the most sweeping and changeable, or even reversible, currents of air; which might lead to the conclusion that the moisture is sprayed or converted into a light, misty vapor, and then deposited in exactly the same manner as the beautiful frost-work at Niagara: ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... the pack-horse, perhaps better than aught else, served to restore his faculties. He found it easy now to climb down the jagged face of the bluffs of the river bank, whence the snow had vanished, for in the changeable southern climate a sudden thaw had begun in the earlier hours and now the warm sun was setting all the trees and eaves adrip. As he stood below the cliff on the sandy slope whence the snow had slipped down into the river, ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... south-east monsoon, and yet we had not had even half a day's south-east wind since we left Waigiou. Contrary winds, squalls, and currents drifted us about the rest of the day at their pleasure. The night was equally squally and changeable, and kept us hard at work taking in and making sail, and ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... had reason to wish that I should talk much with his countrymen, as it gave me a higher opinion both of him and of them. Thuanus[113] has justly said, "Sunt mobilia Corsorum ingenia. The dispositions of the Corsicans are changeable." Yet after ten years, their attachment to Paoli is as strong as at the first. Nay, they have an enthusiastick admiration of him. "Questo grand' uomo mandato per Dio a liberare la patria. This great man whom God hath sent to free ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... that I love you, and I often believe that you love me. But how can I count on you? I am your mistress, alas! but you are not my lover. It is for you that Shakespeare has written these sad words: 'Make thy doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is a very opal.' And I, Octave," she added, pointing to her mourning costume, "I am reduced to a single color, and I shall not change it for ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... The summers are so warm there, however, that except in particularly favorable seasons but little seed forms. Several excellent early varieties have originated on Long Island, and there is reason to believe that hot, changeable climates, though unprofitable for the growing of seed, are particularly favorable for the production and maintenance of early sorts able ...
— The Cauliflower • A. A. Crozier
... beautiful of today must be a composite woman because the colored man of today is many sided. They call woman a "creature of moods" but most men may easily be called susceptible and changeable creatures, when it comes to the attractions of the ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... England. The tiniest little town in Seine et Marne has its promenades, that is to say, an open green space and avenues with benches for the convenience of passers-by. We cannot, certainly, sit out of doors as much as our French neighbours in consequence of our more changeable climate, but might not pleasant public squares and gardens, with bands playing gratuitously on certain evenings in the week in country towns, entice customers from the public-house? The traveller is shown the handsome private residences of rich Meldois, where in the second week of September, ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... a very unusual thing to find one who merely out of regard to his virtue, and for his being esteemed a singularly good man, was raised up to so great a dignity, degenerate into corruption and vice. And if such a thing should fall out, for man is a changeable creature, yet there being few priests, and these having no authority but what rises out of the respect that is paid them, nothing of great consequence to the public can proceed from the indemnity that ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... up to the Dardanelles, the Tigre encountered changeable weather; the sails had often to be shifted. When he was on watch, Edgar always went aloft with his friend Wilkinson and took his place beside him, listened to the orders that he gave, and watched him at work. ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... reasons Bismarck would have preferred the Russian alliance, among others the traditional dynastic friendship between the two countries and the fact that no natural political or religious causes of conflict existed between them; while a union with Austria was less reliable, owing to the changeable nature of her public opinion, the heterogeneousness of her Magyar, Slav, and Catholic populations, and the loss of influence by the German element with the governing body. On the other hand, however, an alliance with Austria would ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... "Are women ever so changeable as men, then? Papa consented; he agreed; he had some of my feeling; I saw it. That was yesterday. And at night! He spoke to each of us at night in a different tone from usual. With me he was hardly affectionate. But when you advise me to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the hearts of heroes, appeared now for a moment to overshadow the great mind of Gustavus Adolphus. "If we decide upon battle," said he, "the stake will be nothing less than a crown and two electorates. Fortune is changeable, and the inscrutable decrees of Heaven may, for our sins, give the victory to our enemies. My kingdom, it is true, even after the loss of my life and my army, would still have a hope left. Far removed from the scene of action, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... apparent coherence and relevancy Sinnet continued, but his voice was not so even as before. "Em'ly was a girl that wasn't twice alike. She was changeable. First it was one, then it was another, and she didn't seem to be able to fix her mind. But that didn't prevent her leadin' men on. She wasn't changeable, though, about her father. She was to him what your boy was to you. There she was like you, ready to give everything ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... and well-formed; large in size, but shapely, hair brown with gray in it; in all the face a look of great power, reserved, but ready to act; eyes of changeable color, that took the shade of the emotion that chanced to come and look out of them; when unoccupied, cold, gray, and meaningless as a window-pane behind which no face is; and over all the countenance the look of ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... in her full array, I will warrant that she will deceive every body, and that she will blind the counsellors and the warriors, and all the officers, secular and ecclesiastical, and will draw them hither in multitudes presently, by means of her mask of changeable hue." And ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... Atheism. This act so increased his hatred for despotic authority that he almost immediately married Harriet Westbrook, a beautiful school girl of sixteen, to relieve her from the tyranny of her father who wanted her to return to school. Shelley was then only nineteen and very changeable. He would make such a sudden departure from a place where he had vowed "to live forever," that specially invited guests sometimes came to find him gone. He soon fell in love with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, the brilliant ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... self-sacrifice, to heroic labors for lasting results! Time is turned into a day, the mind knows only momentary impressions, the weary way of art is made as short as a turnpike, and the products of genius last only about as long as any mood of the weather. Bleak and changeable March will rule the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... proceeds from 'pride of self' throughout; and as I am a conqueror amid conquerors, so he who conquers self is one with me. He who little cares to conquer self, is but a foolish master; beauty, or earthly things, family renown and such things, all are utterly inconstant, and what is changeable can give no rest of interval. If in the end the law of entire destruction is exacted, what use is there in indolence and pride? Covetous desire is the greatest source of sorrow, appearing as a friend in secret 'tis our enemy. As a fierce fire excited from within a house, so ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... on this part of the voyage, except changeable winds, "busters," and rough seas. The 12th of December, however, was an exceptional day, with a fine coast wind, northeast. The Spray early in the morning passed Twofold Bay and later Cape Bundooro ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... the cause of Suzanna's listlessness, spoke no word. She wondered why the child had lost interest in the festival, indeed in all things pertaining to the occasion. It was difficult, she finally decided, to know how to cope with a child so complex, so changeable. She determined to treat the new mood with indifference, as being the most potent method. So she asked of Suzanna the performance of daily duties just as usual. When she discovered Suzanna gazing at her, Maizie close ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... all places, but were simply adapted to a particular state of circumstances, and were alterable when that state was altered: in short, whatever institutions the apostles changed were shown to be essentially changeable; otherwise their early institution was defective, which cannot be conceived. And thus it may well be that the early church may have altered, in some points, the first institutions of the apostles, and may have been guided by God's Spirit in doing so; but the error consists in believing that the now ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... keep society from reverting to a more or less barbarous state,—to supply a fixed and equable money-measure; and the majority of the governments have selected gold and silver as the best. As seemingly less changeable in quantity and value than anything else, as imperishable, as portable, as divisible, as both convenient and safe, the precious metals challenge superiority over every other product; and accordingly every contract and every debt is resolvable into gold and silver. From this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... which case the intervening parties must be fully prepared to use force. Neither condition had arrived and strict neutrality was the wise course. Disraeli also approved strict neutrality but caustically referred to Gladstone's Newcastle speech and sharply attacked the Cabinet's uncertain and changeable policy—merely a party speech. Russell upheld the Government's decision but went out of his way to assert that the entire subjugation of the South would be a calamity to the United States itself, since it would require an unending use of force to hold the South in submission[853]. ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... although professing to reverence the same teachers. It is easy to argue the other way, but it can only be done by setting aside as non-essential differences of great practical importance. Europeans are ready enough to admit that Buddhism is changeable and easily corrupted but it is not singular in that respect[31]. I doubt if Lhasa and Tantrism are further from the teaching of Gotama than the Papacy, the Inquisition, and the religion of the German Emperor, from the ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... there is a God, he would be less displeased with atheists than with those who accepted him in the guise of Jehovah. As Plutarch said, "I had rather men should say of me that there neither is nor ever was such a one as Plutarch, than they should say 'There was a Plutarch, an unsteady, changeable, easily provokable and revengeful man.' " Shaftesbury's significance is that he built up a positive theory of morals, and although it had no philosophical depth, his influence on French and German thinkers of ...
— A History of Freedom of Thought • John Bagnell Bury
... I had not faced the king's displeasure and had not refused to go until Brandon was safely out of his trouble. It was hard for me to believe that I had left such a matter to two foolish girls, one of them as changeable as the wind, and the other completely under her control. I could but think of the difference between myself and Brandon, and well knew, had I been in his place, he would have liberated me or stormed the very walls ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... name mentioned once or twice in connection with hers," she said, "but I did not know that his attentions had shifted completely from Helen Harley. Men are indeed changeable creatures." ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... not been able to learn who the bride o' Preston really was; but we have frequently heard the saying applied to young women, who are capricious and changeable. ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... solitude, its fantastic savageness, is either appalling or repulsive. To them it is tiresome and monotonous. The vast plains of Kansas and Nebraska are monotonous even in the agricultural green of summer. Not so to me the desert. It is as changeable in its lights and colors as the ocean. It is even in its general features of sameness never long the same. If you traverse it on foot or on horseback, there is ever some minor novelty. And on the swift train, if you draw down the curtain against the glare, or turn to your book, ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... this changeable man, who was a strange compound of a trapper and a gentleman, led the way to the principal dwelling-house, and, throwing open the door, ushered his guests into the reception hall of ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... in ethics a Christian; Orator apt at the rhine-stone rhythm of Ingersoll. Carnivorous, avenger, believer and pagan. Continent, promiscuous, changeable, treacherous, vain, Proud, with the pride that makes struggle a thing for laughter; With heart cored out by the worm of theatric despair. Wearing the coat of indifference to hide the shame of defeat; I, child of the abolitionist idealism— A sort of Brand in a birth of half-and-half. ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... I knew when my youth was in prime, Like a dream that's half ended, are o'er; And the faces I knew in that changeable time Are met with the living no more. I have lived to see friends that I loved pass away With the pleasures their company gave: I have lived to see love, with my Susan, decay, And the grass ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... that the bathing season had commenced at the school, notwithstanding the fact that the weather was so changeable as to be one night as cold as October, and the next morning as hot as July. But I have not yet described the bathing-place, and, perhaps, I should have done so at the commencement of the story, as it accounts for the somewhat singular ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... auspices of these doctrines have come to such a pass that many sanction this as a law in civil jurisprudence, to wit, that sedition may rightly be raised. For the idea prevails that princes are really nothing but delegates to express the popular will; and so necessarily all things become alike, are changeable at the popular nod, and a certain fear of public disturbance is forever hanging over ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... letter written to Fattucci in 1523: "About two years have elapsed since I returned from Carrara, whither I had gone to purchase marbles for the tombs of the Cardinal." The letter is curious in several respects, because it shows how changeable through many months Giulio remained about the scheme; at one time bidding Michelangelo prepare plans and models, at another refusing to listen to any proposals; then warming up again, and saying that, if he lived long enough, he meant ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... or a dungeon can be ignorant. Let us bear with patience, or enjoy in quiet, elementary changes, whether for the better or the worse, as they are never secrets.' BURNEY. In The Idler, No. II, Johnson shews that 'an Englishman's notice of the weather is the natural consequence of changeable skies and uncertain seasons... In our island every man goes to sleep unable to guess whether he shall behold in the morning a bright or cloudy atmosphere, whether his rest shall be lulled by a shower, or broken by a tempest. We therefore rejoice mutually at good weather, as ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... right, than the style of Hooker or Bacon to Tom Brown or Sir Roger L'Estrange. Doubtless, if what is peculiar to each were omitted in each, the result must needs be the same. Further, that the poet, who uses an illogical diction, or a style fitted to excite only the low and changeable pleasure of wonder by means of groundless novelty, substitutes a language of folly and vanity, not for that of the rustic, but for that of good ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... cure any so? Ros. Yes one, and in this manner. Hee was to imagine me his Loue, his Mistris: and I set him euerie day to woe me. At which time would I, being but a moonish youth, greeue, be effeminate, changeable, longing, and liking, proud, fantastical, apish, shallow, inconstant, ful of teares, full of smiles; for euerie passion something, and for no passion truly any thing, as boyes and women are for the ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... by the most trifling causes. A word will grieve them like some real misfortune. Their impulses are not lacking in intellectual control, but are followed by action with excessive rapidity. Although of such changeable disposition, they are subject to fixed ideas, to which they cling with a kind of cataleptic intensity. A woman will be dumb or motionless for months, on the pretext that speech or motion would injure her. But this is the only form of constancy they ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... means of clusters of gas-jets at intervals in the long ceiling and along the walls. The announcement of the items of attraction appearing on the stage was made by changeable sliding cards in framework at the sides of the stage; to the left the name of the scena was exhibited, that of ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... livest, and in whom nothing dies: for before the foundation of the worlds, and before all that can be called "before," Thou art, and art God and Lord of all which Thou hast created: in Thee abide, fixed for ever, the first causes of all things unabiding; and of all things changeable, the springs abide in Thee unchangeable: and in Thee live the eternal reasons of all things unreasoning and temporal. Say, Lord, to me, Thy suppliant; say, all-pitying, to me, Thy pitiable one; say, did my infancy succeed another age of mine ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... used to say, "My son is lazy; his temper is Polonese—hasty and changeable; he has no tastes; he cares nothing for hunting, for women, or for good living; perhaps he imagines that if he were in my place he would be happy; at first, he would make great changes, create everything anew, as it were. In a short time he would be as tired of the rank of King as he ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 2 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... shining down gloriously through the dewy elm-arches of Springdale. The green turf on either side of the wide streets was mottled and flecked with vivid flashes and glimmers of emerald, like the sheen of a changeable silk, as here and there long arrows of sunlight darted down through the ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... and heal the sick, never rightly could have been severed in twain, because they are only different sides of one Whole. By what authority is one part declared binding through ages and the other ignored? Who will assert that God is changeable, so that any divinely bestowed boon to one age could be withdrawn from a subsequent one? The direct assurance of the Christ, that "these signs shall follow them that believe," is perpetual in its scope, because "them that believe" are ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... the contest, in relation to Protection and Free Trade, have been more or less favorable to all parties. This has been an effect, in part, of the changeable character of our legislation; and, in part, of the occurrence of events in Europe, over which our legislators had no control. The manufaturing States, while protection lasted, succeeded in placing their establishments upon a comparatively permanent basis; and, by engaging ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... subject to the "blues," or other forms of depressed feeling? Are your moods very changeable, or rather constant? What kind of a disposition do you think you have? How did you come by it; that is, in how far is it due to hereditary temperament, and in how far to your ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... But you and I are men that have real power. Yet there is a truth that you and I can confess to each other. Men's hearts grow quickly discontented. Listen. The leaders of men are carried forward in the hands of their followers; and common men's minds are unsteady, their desires changeable, and their thoughts not to be trusted. You are a great chief they say. Do not forget that I am a chief, too, and a leader of ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... and I hain't never said you ain't as pooty a cretur as walks the airth: but I wish you wan't so awful changeable.' ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... funny. When it assumes an aspect of virtuous indignation, the tears immediately spring to their eyes, and they go about saying what a shame it is. They remind you of Professor Anderson and his Inexhaustible Bottle. Like Paddy Byrne's barometer, they are "stuck fast at Changeable." They are always on the move. Like Virgil's lady, they are varium et mutabile. Like Shakespeare's gentlemen, they are Deceivers ever, One foot on shore and one foot on sea, To one thing constant never. Every morning ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... fine weather could not last much longer. They had not only been favored in this respect, but for several days before leaving home equally charming skies had spanned them. And so, in accordance with the laws of our changeable climate, a disagreeable turn was ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... gentleness, and so each act as the supplement of the other, and each also, it must be confessed, gave advice pretty nearly contradictory to his fellow's if occasion should require, "without the danger," as their writers have it, "of seeming changeable and inconsistent." ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... to our own Massachusetts, which some will have is school-mad. What do you find? Here, in a climate proverbially changeable and rigorous,—here, where mental and moral excitements rise to fever-heat,—here, where churches adorn every landscape, and school-houses greet us at every corner, and lyceums are established in every village,—here, where newspapers circulate by the hundred thousand, and magazines for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... embraces, possesses, lulls to sleep the ships with white sails. He is all things to all oceans; he is like a poet seated upon a throne—magnificent, simple, barbarous, pensive, generous, impulsive, changeable, unfathomable— but when you understand him, always the same. Some of his sunsets are like pageants devised for the delight of the multitude, when all the gems of the royal treasure-house are displayed above the sea. Others are like the opening of his royal confidence, tinged with ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... a word to be said against us except that which referred to the feelings of the young and old. Feelings are changeable, I told them at that great and glorious meeting which we had at Gladstonopolis, and though naturally governed only by instinct, would be taught at last to comply with reason. I had lately read how feelings had been allowed in England to stand in the way of the great work of cremation. A ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... a system? How large, how difficult to understand! So vast, so complicated, so full of contradictions, so various and changeable, that its very immensity is our refuge! We say, It is impossible to do justice to such a system; therefore do not ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... view from our drill field. The mountains are never twice the same, and the lake is quite as changeable; they vary their aspect every hour from morning to evening. We are lucky just now in our full moon, to light us about the unaccustomed streets. In contrast are the ugly tents, which yet have a romantic interest ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... the spirit of consecration, which is to be the life-long spirit of her son. He surely intimates that the child's character begins with, and depends upon, that of the mother. A ray of light and encouragement dawns upon us. True, we are fickle and changeable, and subject to vicissitude; but He, our God, is far above all these shifting scenes, and all the varying circumstances of this mortal life are under his control, and he can turn the hearts of men as He will; His counsel ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... not so, there is no more reason that we should continue any imperfections which may be supposed to have characterised Shakespeare's stage mounting than that we should have Juliet played by a young man, or give up the advantage of changeable scenery. A great work of dramatic art should not merely be made expressive of modern passion by means of the actor, but should be presented to us in the form most suitable to the modern spirit. Racine produced his Roman plays in Louis Quatorze ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... Ambassadors with a hundred servants all apparelled in changeable colours; the most of them in silks; the Ambassadors themselves (for at home in their own country they were noble men) in cloth of gold, with great chains of gold, with gold hanging at their ears, with gold rings upon their fingers, ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... different from experience. Experience must be based on the permanent facts of nature. But a glance at the prevalent modes of treatment of any two successive generations will show that there is a changeable as well as a permanent element in the art of healing; not merely changeable as diseases vary, or as new remedies are introduced, but changeable by the going out of fashion of special remedies, by the decadence of a popular theory from which their fitness was deduced, ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... rubbing shoulders—noisy self-interest side by side with introspective revery, where stray priests nodded in among the traders,—many-peopled India surged in miniature between the four hot walls and through the passage to the overflowing street; changeable and unexplainable, in ever-moving flux, but more conservative in spite of it than the very rocks she rests on—India who is sister to Aholibah and mother ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... vestiges of some of those vineyards remain to this day. They were usually placed on the south side of a hill, in a light dry soil, having the surface covered with sand; the vines being trained near the ground. But with such inclement and changeable springs, and long protracted winters, as have been experienced of late, even such frost as is seen at this moment (24th of April,) vines as standards in the open air, would be destroyed; or, at least, no dependence could be placed upon them ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 281, November 3, 1827 • Various
... of man; no stunted unbelieving callousness, no reckless surrender to blind Force, no opiate delusion; but the harmonious adjustment of Necessity and Accident, of what is changeable and what is unchangeable in our destiny; the calm supremacy of the spirit over its circumstances; the dim aim of every human soul, the full attainment of only a chosen few. It comes not unsought to any; but the wise are ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... Tenaz—and that the Y is nothing but a rebus or picture of a tenaz or pair of pincers, and indeed the Y's are very like pincers. In this opinion she is upheld by the carving of the tenacious ivy round each word, and the fact that Dom Manoel was not really tenacious at all, but rather changeable, makes it all the more likely that he would adopt ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... is nothing if not changeable; fancy not art guides her mind. What to-day types beauty, is by her own voice to-morrow voted indecent and absurd. Thus we find in the period extending from 1870 to 1875 an entirely new but none ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... Miss Debby; "and Mrs. Nicolas wondered how upon earth the Pelby Smiths could afford to give a party at all. She concluded that you would have to live on bacon and potatoes for the remainder of the season, to retrieve the cost, and would have to turn that changeable silk of yours the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... natural flair for all that was first-rate, original, or strange. As she was quite independent in mind, and always took her own line, she had become an arbiter, a leader of taste. What she liked soon became liked in London and Paris throughout a large circle. Unfortunately, she was changeable and apt to be governed by personal feeling in matters connected with art. When she cast away an artist she generally cast away his art with him. If it was first-rate she did not condemn it as bad. She contented herself with saying that she was ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... "His changeable humors, his irregularities, his caprices, his total disregard of everything and body, save the fancy in his head, prevented him from doing well in the world. The evils and sufferings that poverty brought upon him, soured his nature, and ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... Terabon floated out into the main river current and ran with the stream. They were passing through the famous, changeable channels among the great sandbars from Island No. 34 down to Hopefield Bend. They rounded Dean Island Bend in the darkness, for they had floated all day and far into the night, driven by an ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... summer afternoons, when the mill-sails were idle, and Mrs. Lake was dozing from the heat, he betook himself to the water-meads to sketch. In the mill itself he made countless studies. Not only of the ever-changing heavens, and of the monotonous sweeps of the great plains, whose aspect is more changeable than one might think, but studies on the various floors of the mill, and in the roundhouse, where old meal- bins and swollen sacks looked picturesque in the dim light falling from above, in which also the circular stones, the shaft, and the very hoppers, ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing |
