"Fickle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... might have been Machiavelli's motto. Or he might have said "the more I see of men the better I like dogs." He is remorseless in seeing only that men are ungrateful, fickle, deceivers, greedy of gain, run-aways before peril, readier to pay back injury than kindness. "Worst of all they take middle paths." Upon these, his observations, he proceeds to tell a story of a State and he tells it icily. He lays bare the foulness of man. He doesn't lecture, ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... marry this gentleman?" asked Sinang, with her jolly eyes full of tears. "I knew that you were discreet, but I did not think you so fickle." ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... must come, and that before long. The slaves will unquestionably be freed, and the only question for us is how to soften the blow. There is no doubt that our slaves, both at the Orangery and at the other plantations, are contented and happy; but you know how fickle and easily led the negroes are, and in the excitement of finding them selves free and able to go where they please, you may be sure that the greater number will wander away. My proposal is, that ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... I try'd each fickle art, Importunate and vain; And while his passion touch'd my heart, I ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... of a wise man to arrest the impulse of kindly feeling, as we check a carriage in its course, that, as we use only horses that have been tried, so we may avail ourselves of friendships in which the characters of our friends have been somehow put to the test. Some readily show how fickle their friendship is in paltry pecuniary matters; others, whom a slight consideration of that kind cannot influence, betray themselves when a large amount is involved. But if some can be found who think it mean to prefer money to friendship, where shall ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... read of faithlessness and perfidy will seem tame to you when compared with that conduct which you are doomed to meet from me. We must part, and for ever. We have seen each other for the last time. It is bootless even to ask the cause. Believe that I am fickle, false, heartless,—that a whim has changed me, if you will. My resolve is unalterable. We meet no more even as friends. I do not ask you either to forgive or to remember me. Look on me as one wholly unworthy even of resentment! Do not think that I write this ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Robin, first a rose and then a moon, A rose that breaks at a breath and falls to your feet, The fickle moon—Oh, hide me from the world; For there they say love goes by the same law! Let me be outlawed then. I cannot change. Sweetheart, sweetheart, Prince John will hunt me down! Prince John—Queen Elinor ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... But youth is fickle and the reservation was far. So, when the rain was over next morning, she ran to the barn, bridled her horse, climbed from the manger to his back, and, lying flat to escape the top casing of the door, went out of the stable toward the Swede shanty at a run. Down deep ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... How fickle is Dame Fortune! Jealous of the reputation of this noble Venetian, the patricians, whose advice, during the war, he had consistently declined to follow; refused to make him a Doge of the City. It was thought that the election of the bravest captain of the day might be dangerous ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... for Spring; on his fickle wing Let the blossoms and buds be borne; He woos them amain with his treacherous rain, And he scatters them ere the morn. An inconstant elf, he knows not himself, Nor his own changing mind an hour, He'll smile in your face, and, with wry grimace, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... this name there was doubtless an allusion to the goddess FORTUNA of the ancients, whose office it was to dispense riches and poverty, pleasures and pains, blessings and calamities They had experienced good and evil at her fickle hand. They had entered the harbor in peril and fear, but nevertheless in safety. They had suffered by the attack of the savages, but fortunately had escaped utter annihilation, which they might well have feared. It had been to them eminently the port of hazard or chance. Vide ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... now wax Unconstant, wavering, fickle, unstaid? With nought can she me tax: I ne'er recanted what I once said. I now do see, as nature fades, And all her works decay, So women all, wives, widows, maids, From ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... Fickle Eleanor! Where was the promise that she would make no choice for herself without her father's approval? She had chosen, and now demanded his acquiescence. "Oh, Papa, isn't he good? Isn't he noble? Isn't he religious, high-minded, everything that a good man ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... town that did not admit of the stack going under, and as this was built of bricks, there was a great crash and instant stoppage. Trevithick and Jones were of the old-fashioned school of men who did not believe in impossibilities. The fickle crowd, too, who had hurrahed like mad, hung back and said 'It won't do'; but these heroes, the advance-guard of a race who had done more to make England famous than battles by land or sea, sprang to the ground and worked like Britons, never ceasing until ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... equivalent to faithless forgetfulness. He thought that he had just grounds for this decision in the account he had heard of Kinraid's behaviour to Annie Coulson; to the other nameless young girl, her successor in his fickle heart; in the ribald talk of the sailors in the Newcastle public-house. It would be well for Sylvia if she could forget as quickly; and, to promote this oblivion, the name of her lover should never be brought up, either in praise or blame. And Philip would ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... he himselfe went to Bridgenorth, [Sidenote: Bridgenorth besieged.] which he enuironed about with a mightie armie made out of all parts of his realme: so that what with gifts, large promises, and fearefull threatnings, at the last he allured to his side the fickle Welchmen, and in such wise wan them, that they abandoned the earle, and tooke part against him. [Sidenote: An. Reg. 3.] Wherevpon the king within 30. daies subdued all the townes and castels (which he held) out of his hands, [Sidenote: The earle ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (3 of 12) - Henrie I. • Raphael Holinshed
... to submit to the honours paid me; at the same time I could not tell at what moment the feelings of the fickle mob might change, and perhaps they might carry me to the lanterne instead of the man I had rescued. I made the best of my position, and kept bowing to the mob right and left, expressing my admiration for France and Frenchmen in the most ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... Dreadfuls, a plainer and better gospel than any of those iridescent ethical paradoxes that the fashionable change as often as their bonnets. It may be a very limited aim in morality to shoot a 'many-faced and fickle traitor,' but at least it is a better aim than to be a many-faced and fickle traitor, which is a simple summary of a good many modern systems from Mr. d'Annunzio's downwards. So long as the coarse and thin ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... connection is cited the old history of a discourse between Vasudeva and the celestial sage Narada. On a certain occasion Vasudeva said, 'Neither an illiterate and foolish friend, nor a learned friend of fickle soul, deserves, O Narada, to know one's secret counsels. Relying on thy friendship for me, I shall say something to thee, O sage! O thou that canst go to heaven at thy pleasure, one should speak to another if one be convinced of the intelligence ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... that the meal which makes a man's mouth water is the best to eat; and that solid foods give solid strength. And if the same dish can make his mouth water nearly every day in the week, how much more fortunate is he than fickle gourmets! ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... to receive letters very well, much better than I love to write them. I make but a poor figure at composition, my head is much too fickle, my thoughts are running after birds' eggs, play and trifles till I get vexed with myself. I have but just entered the 3d volume of Smollett, tho' I had designed to have got it half through by this time. I have determined this week to be more ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... other since his day, would never have given their sanction to the costumes and the acting had they not known that the Madonna approved of them. Why should She now think differently? The Mother of God was not a fickle earthly creature, to change Her mind from ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... Robin redbreast, Cling throo days o' gloom an' care; Soa aw love mi old tried friends best— Fickle hearts ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, First Series - To Which Is Added The Cream Of Wit And Humour From His Popular Writings • John Hartley
... difficult steep ascent, Man the unwearied climber Pauseless and dauntless went. AEons rolled behind him With thunder of far retreat, And still as he strove he conquered And laid his foes at his feet. Inimical powers of nature, Tempest and flood and fire, The spleen of fickle seasons That loved to baulk his desire, The breath of hostile climates, The ravage of blight and dearth, The old unrest that vexes The heart of the moody earth, The genii swift and radiant Sabreing heaven with flame, He, with a keener weapon, The sword of his wit, overcame. Disease and her ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... is the point of view of the Church, which is of a more human nature. This is fallible and fickle, but, though perpetually changing, it will last as long as there are weak human beings. The light of cloudless divine revelation is far too pure and radiant for poor, weak man. But the Church interposes as mediator, to soften and moderate, and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... made a velvety sound on the fallen catkins. A brook followed their path, whispering and chattering, or hiding away under overhanging bushes, and then laughing sharply out into the sunshine again. The wind was fresh and fickle; sometimes twisting the weeds and flowers at the wayside, or sending a dash of last night's raindrops into their faces from the low branches of the trees, and all the while making cloud shadows scud over the fresh-ploughed fields, and up and across ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... captain's voice was low and sweet, and the lady's nature was vain and fickle, and the prospect of marrying an English lord was very enticing, and so it came about that at last she yielded, and she told him how she was expecting young Wallace that very night at seven o'clock, and she promised to put a light in the ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... general of men that "they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowards, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life and children—when the need is far distant; but when it approaches ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen
... the one foundation that is laid. We must lay our affections deep down in the man Christ Jesus. As we see Him in men—and, when we cannot see that, see men in Him—we shall be more stable, less childish, less fickle. We never go deep enough. We skim over {84} life. We must get into its heart. We must never begin an affection which can have an end. For all affection must draw us into God, and God has no end. The moment ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson
... religion has not kept pace with their intellect. Their emotions have overbalanced their reason in this field. Professor H. Levy, of the University of London, tersely remarks: "The assertion of contemporary scientists, who state that the universe is a fickle collection of indeterminate happenings, and a great thought in the Mind of its Architect, a Pure Mathematician, serves merely to divert the activity of the scientific brain from its concentration on the contradictions and confusions of the all too real outward world ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... fickle Sun-God holds the flocks That graze its shores in keeping; No icy kiss of Dian mocks The youth beside it sleeping: Our Christian river loveth most The beautiful and human; The heathen streams of Naiads boast, But ours ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... mind what he says; hearts are fickle and fell. Take care what you say. A false friend may hear it, and after a year or two will repeat it. Hasty speech hurts hearer and speaker. In the beginning, think on the end. You tell a man a secret, and he'll betray it for ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... bound me not in dutie To favour him, then could I tell Hyanthe That he alreadie (with importun'd suite) Hath to the Brunswick Dutchesse vow'd himselfe, That his desires are carelesse and his thoughts Too fickle and imperious for love: But I am ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... said that a presumptuous faction Would crown Aricia and the house of Pallas. I deem'd it right to warn you of this danger. Hippolytus already is prepared To start, and should he show himself at Athens, 'Tis to be fear'd the fickle crowd ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... and the short is, that I was sent to school, where I learned to read and spell, making great progress in the Single and Mother's Carritch. No, what is more, few could fickle me in the Bible, being mostly able to spell it all over, save the second of Ezra and the seventh of Nehemiah, which the Dominie himself could never read through twice in the ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... are only the figments of their own brains, it may be that they will bow to what they will call destiny. "Heaven has declared against us," is an expression that I already hear frequently uttered. It is indeed as impossible to predicate here, as it is in London, what may be the mood of this fickle and impulsive population a week hence. All I can positively say is, that at the present moment they are in "King Cambyses' vein." We ought not to judge a foreign nation by our own standard, but it is impossible not to re-echo Lord Bolingbroke's "poor humanity" a hundred times a day, when one reads ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... is heavy and weary With the weight of a weary soul; The mid-day glare grows dreary, And dreary the midnight scroll. The corn-stalks sigh for the sickle, 'Neath the load of their golden grain; I sigh for a mate more fickle — Thou comest not ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... background of hazy blue mountains, back to a winter as in the Christmas carol about Good King Wenceslaus. All this is theory; in reality the weather here, as elsewhere, is not to be trusted, though, indeed, it is not as fickle as that of our own dear country. Still, the people cling to their theory about the climate of the country, and if perchance the theory does not fit, there is always an "oldest inhabitant" handy to declare the weather quite ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... have it before long. At present, we have another little matter in hand—one which requires extremely delicate handling, but will be successful providing Mademoiselle Gabrielle doesn't change her mind. But women are so often fickle, and the morning brings prudence far too frequently. You'll see some strange happenings to-morrow or the next day. Keep your eyes and ears closed; that's all you have ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... picture which would represent his kingdom, Giotto drew an ass bearing a saddle on which were a crown and sceptre, while at the feet of the ass there was a new saddle with a shining new crown and sceptre, at which the ass was eagerly smelling. By this he intended to show that the Neapolitans were so fickle that they were always looking for a ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... set me at my ease. She explained herself: "Philip is not much liked, poor fellow, in our house. My husband considers him to be weak and vain and fickle. And my daughter agrees with her father. There are times when she is barely civil to Philip. He is too good-natured to complain, but I see it. Tell me, my dear, do ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... clear, and the moon would make its appearance about nine, and might be expected to remain above the horizon until the return of day. This was one side of the picture. The other presented less agreeable points. The climate was so fickle, that the clearness of the skies was not to be depended on, especially with a strong south-west wind—a little gale, in fact; and a change in this particular might be produced at any moment. Then it was certain that floes, and fragments of bergs, would be found near, if not absolutely ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... gibe at mankind's better half—"varium et mutabile semper femina"—might have been written of this fickle shape of rock and ice and vapor. One tries vainly, year after year, to define it in his own mind. The daily, hourly change of distance, size and aspect, tricks which the Indian's mountain {p.018} god plays with the puny creatures swarming more and more about his foot; his days of frank ...
— The Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams
... pondered reverently, The fickle folk began to move away. "It is but one star less for us to see; And what does one star signify?" quoth they: "The heavens are full of them." "But, ah!" said he, "That star was bright while yet she lasted." "Ay!" They answered: "Praise her, Poet, an' ye will: Some are ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... is yours: and for your guide The shepherd of the church let this suffice To save you. When by evil lust entic'd, Remember ye be men, not senseless beasts; Nor let the Jew, who dwelleth in your streets, Hold you in mock'ry. Be not, as the lamb, That, fickle wanton, leaves its mother's milk, To dally with itself ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... a subsequently forwarded letter she did reproach me pathetically with my duplicity, and accused me of being a fickle—by which I was so unspeakably cut up that I abstained from the ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... we drove up to Lauterbrunnen, and I am compelled to say that so completely fickle had we become, that I believe all who had seen this valley before, pronounced it less beautiful than that of Lungern. By the way of proving to you how capricious a thing is taste, I liked the Staubbach better than in the former visit. ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... women? By nature tender, trustful, kind, and fickle, Prone to forgive, and practised in forgetting? Let the fair things but rave their hour at ease, And weep their fill, and wring their pretty hands, Faint between whiles, and swear by every saint They'll ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... carefully adorned like women. They said that the Germans were furious and obscene at their feasts; the Normans vain and boastful; the Poitevins traitors and always adventurers. The Burgundians they considered vulgar and stupid. The Bretons were reputed to be fickle and changeable, and were often reproached for the death of Arthur. The Lombards were called avaricious, vicious and cowardly; the Romans, seditious, turbulent and slanderous; the Sicilians, tyrannical ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... from waking up Ginger just at that moment. A fickle breath of wind pounced upon an outspread newspaper lying on the grass, fluttered it for a moment, and then, getting fairly under the printed sheet, heaved it ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... painter, would have been equally great as a philosopher, a man of science, a poet, or a statesman. It may be so; but the life of Lionardo tends also to illustrate the disadvantage of too wide a grasp and diffusion of genius. Beginning much and finishing little, not because he was idle or fickle, but because his schemes were so colossal and his aims so high, he spent his time in preparation for the attainment of perfect excellence, which eluded him. Lionardo was the pioneer, the teacher of others, rather than the complete fulfiller of his own dreams; and the life of the proud, passionate ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... not fail. The cause will raise up armies; the cause will create navies. The people—the people, if we are true to them, will carry us, and will carry themselves, gloriously through this struggle. I care not how fickle other people have been found. I know the people of these colonies; and I know that resistance to British aggression is deep and settled in their hearts, and cannot be eradicated. Sir, the declaration of independence will inspire ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... delicate enunciation, and the refined tones of her voice; the fragile woman so envied, of such high place and high degree, appeared before the poet as Mme. de Bargeton had appeared to him in Angouleme. His fickle nature prompted him to desire influence in that lofty sphere at once, and the surest way to secure such influence was to possess the woman who exerted it, and then everything would be his. He had succeeded at Angouleme, why should ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... Rostopchin did not bring this about," exclaimed Scharnhorst, "but it was our great friend Stein who did it. God Himself sent Minister von Stein to Russia, that he might stand as an immovable rock by the side of the mild and fickle Alexander, and that his fiery soul might strengthen the fluctuating resolutions of the czar, and inspire him with true faith in, and reliance on, the great cause of the freedom of the European nations, ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... came a plaintive little note from Mrs. Shand. Of course they wished him joy if it were true. But could it be true? Men were very fickle, certainly; but this change seemed to have been very, very sudden! And there was a word or two, prettily written in another hand, on a small slip of paper—'Perhaps you had better send back the book'; and Caldigate, as he read it, thought ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... derned thing's round," was the only thing Ed Higgins could find to say. Ed, as fickle as the wind, was once more deeply in love with Rosalie, having switched from Miss Banks immediately after the visit ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... taste of their objects, which are all sophisticated there, and for the most part overwhelmed with their contraries: here pleasure, methinks, looks like a beautiful, constant, and modest wife; it is there an impudent, fickle, and ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... frame the word but she fought back the sob that rose to her throat, so slim, so flawless, so beautifully moulded it seemed one an artist might have dreamed of. She had loved him better than he knew. Lighthearted deceiver and fickle like all his sex he would never understand what he had meant to her and for an instant there was in the blue eyes a quick stinging of tears. Their eyes were probing her mercilessly but with a brave effort she sparkled ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... vineyard of music or the drama offers his choicest tokay to the public, that fickle coquette may turn to the more ordinary and less succulent concord. And the worker and the public ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... of the AEsir, whom some call the calumniator of the gods, the contriver of all fraud and mischief, and the disgrace of gods and men. His name is Loki or Loptur. He is the son of the giant Farbauti.....Loki is handsome and well made, but of a very fickle mood, and most evil disposition. He surpasses all beings in those arts called Cunning and Perfidy. Many a time has he exposed the gods to very great perils, and often extricated them again ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... greatest astonishment among the assembled spectators; the directors felt confident that their enterprise was now on the eve of success; and George Stephenson rejoiced to think that, in spite of all false prophets and fickle counsellors, the locomotive system was now safe. When the "Rocket," having performed all the conditions of the contest, arrived at the "grand stand" at the close of its day's successful run, Mr. Cropper—one of the directors favourable ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... compelled to make her way round by Piacenza and Turin, where she had left Gambier, with Beppo in attendance on him. Georgiana at once assumed all the duties of head-nurse, and the more resolutely because of her brother's evident moral weakness in sighing for the hand of a fickle girl to smooth his pillow. "When he is stronger you can sit beside him a little," she said to Vittoria, who surrendered her post without a struggle, and rarely saw him, though Laura told her that his frequent exclamation was her name, accompanied ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a great deal of honour to board with us; huffs and dings at such a rate, because we will not spend the little we have left to get him the title and estate of Lord Strutt; and then forsooth, we shall have the honour to be his woollen-drapers.** Besides, Esquire South will be Esquire South still; fickle, proud, and ungrateful. If he behaves himself so when he depends on us for his daily bread, can any man say what he will do when he is got above ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... soon the VAPOUR OF THE WOODS will wander afar, And the fickle moon will fade, and the stars disappear, Then, cheerless will they be, tho' they fairies are, If I, with my ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... toil and hustle in our life of haste and bustle, All that makes our life worth living comes unstriven for and free; Man may weary and importune, but the fickle goddess Fortune Deals him out his pain or pleasure, careless what ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... "rules not only over a fickle, but a gossiping (bavard) people, whom he has prudently forbidden all conversation and writing concerning government of the State. They would soon (accustomed as they are, since the Revolution, to verbal and written ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... landing they were no longer fighting, but amused themselves with stories about women, and in the antechamber, with stories about the court. On the landing d'Artagnan blushed; in the antechamber he trembled. His warm and fickle imagination, which in Gascony had rendered formidable to young chambermaids, and even sometimes their mistresses, had never dreamed, even in moments of delirium, of half the amorous wonders or a quarter of the feats of gallantry which were here set forth in connection ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... was a woman of a very fickle temper, in six months time she began to be tired of Mrs. Manley. She was quarrelsome, loquacious, fierce, excessively fond, or downright rude; when she was disgusted with any person, she never failed to reproach them, with all the bitterness ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... assembling upon Pine Island, a cutter, having proper officers on board, and carrying presents of clothing, arms, and rum, was dispatched upon this business. It reached its place of destination in safety, and the ambassadors found very little difficulty in bringing back the fickle Indians to their wonted reliance upon British support. Several of the chiefs and warriors, indeed, requested and obtained permission to visit our Admiral and General, and to follow the fortunes of our troops; and a very ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... and the very idea that there exists somewhere a packet of letters which would bring serious trouble, if not ruin, upon them and those they love, is a cause of constant grief and worry. I know that there are letters written by one once dear, but now perhaps turned fickle or false, or separated from us forever, from which we feel loath to part; but we must be men and reduce to ashes what would hurt in the very least degree or cast a reflection upon an innocent if ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... surmise. He had determined to save this young fool in spite of his madness, and never had he failed to bring his enterprises to their fore-arranged end. And there was sentiment between all this, sentiment he would not have been ashamed to avow. Upon chance, then, fickle inconstant chance, depended the success of the seven years' labor. If by this time the wine had not loosened their tongues, or if ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... before her; out of them all, the dark torrent of the river showing the swift way to freedom and the great sea? She drew in a full breath, as if close air oppressed her.—A bird flew over her then, high above her head, careering in fickle circles, and at length sailing down out of sight far into other heavens. Flor watched him bitterly; she comprehended Zoe's scorn of her past content;—if only she had wings to spread! But Sarp had told her, that, if she went ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... war. This process for David's case would have yielded perhaps about 1,100,000 fighting men throughout Palestine. But this unwieldy pospolite was far from meeting David's secret anxieties. He had remarked the fickle and insurrectionary state of the people. Even against himself how easy had it been found to organize a sudden rebellion, and to conceal it so prosperously that he and his whole court saved themselves ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... reprisals began to be visited upon the Tories of Cartagena, and their possessions fell, one after another, into the hands of the successful revolutionists, or were seized by former slaves, Don Ignacio found it difficult to meet his royal master's demands. The fickle King, already childish to the verge of imbecility, gave scant thanks in return for the Rincon loyalty, and when at last, stripped of his fortune, deserted by all but the few Tory families who had the courage to remain in Cartagena until the close of the war, Don Ignacio ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... affairs—the appropriation, if it should seem best, of the whole Iberian peninsula. Any tyro in geography could see by a glance at the map that as navigation was in those days—that is, by the propulsion of fickle winds amid the partly known currents of ocean and sea—the command of Gibraltar and Malta meant the control of the Levant, and the British held both places. With Spain in French hands, Gibraltar eventually might be taken, but the case of Malta was far different. In the possession of a seafaring nation ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... elements of the revolution in religious matters. Voltaire laid hold of them, at the precise moment, with that coup d'oeil of strong instinct which sees clearer than genius itself. To an age young, fickle, and unreflecting, he did not present reason under the form of an austere philosophy, but beneath the guise of a facile freedom of ideas and a scoffing irony. He would not have succeeded in making his age think, he did succeed in making it smile. He never ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... Pharisee; "let us hasten: for this generosity in the heathen is unwonted; and fickle-mindedness has ever been an attribute of the worshippers ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... lips of prejudice itself, and that, at least, till age had worn off the first dazzling lustre from your favorite, your sway would have been unlimited and your exultation immeasurable. My good old Dame, hear for your comfort what a foolish, fickle youth has dared to say of your darling Jannette, and that while she is yet in the first blush and bloom of virgin loveliness—'next to painting I love Jannette the best.' Insufferable blasphemy! Hear, O Heavens, and be amazed! Tremble, O ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... attention drawn away from their studies by such nonsense as a children's love affair. Charles Lane was a promising boy to be sure; but he must go through college, and be settled in life before he ought to think of fancying any one. He might become dissipated—such bright boys often did; or fickle—in short, no one knew which rein of his character the future might pull. And Annie—pretty creature—who could not pass a day without some mirthful episode, how ridiculous for a child like her to think of selecting a lover! her mind was not disciplined at all—her taste not pronounced; ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... precious which thou art to lose? And is the present fortune dear unto thee, of whose stay thou art not sure, and whose departure will breed thy grief? And if she can neither be kept at our will, and maketh them miserable whom she at last leaveth, what else is fickle fortune but a token of future calamity? For it is not sufficient to behold that which we have before our eyes; wisdom pondereth the event of things, and this mutability on both sides maketh the threats of fortune ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... too long needed the touch of fresh and holy Earth. Too long has our love of picture and poem, and of all that the glorious impulse to create in beauty achieves, been fickle as the wind; based on discordant fancies and distorted tradition. Symbolism in art, at present means only an arbitrary and puerile substitution of one object or caprice for another. The most successful poetic simile is often as thoroughly conventional, and consequently ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... disagreement between the Governor of the State and Congressman Hardwicke, at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon for the visiting President; finally to a number of things. By the time six weeks had passed, the Beach had dropped completely from the minds of a fickle public. Dalhousie, it seemed, had considerately vanished. Talk ceased. The boat trouble blew over, much as ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... room, for its clean particularity and its huge old four-poster bed spread with a craftily wrought "coverlet" proclaimed a feminine proprietorship. A freshly built fire roared on a generous hearth, giving a sense of space broadening and narrowing with fickle boundaries ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... who in thy power Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his fickle hour; Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st. If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack, As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back, She keeps thee to ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... gentle and good; not easily excited; clever and penetrating, seeing things very clearly in her mind, and expressing herself well and in few but careful words; easily finding a way out of a difficulty, and choosing her line of conduct in the most embarrassing circumstances; light-minded and fickle; unstable, paying no attention if the same thing were said several times over. For this reason," continued the doctor, "I was obliged to alter what I had to say from time to time, keeping her but a short time to one subject, to which, however, I would return ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... ice did not remain long, all melting away as the fickle northwestern weather turned comparatively warm again, and the five once more began to ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... crisis; and when a lounge through the streets became at once useless and inconvenient—when the novelty of being cut by all my noble friends, and of being seduously followed by that generation who, unlike the fickle world, reserve their tipstaff attentions for the day of adversity, had lost its zest, and I was thinking whether time was to be better fought off by a plunge to the bottom of the Thames, or by the muzzle of one of Manton's hair- triggers—I was saved by a plunge into ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 337, October 25, 1828. • Various
... itself and the fickle spring clouds were dripping over the desolate garden. But at the fireside, curled up in the winged chair with her bandaged foot propped comfortably on a foot- stool, Felicia sat through the long afternoon and chattered and laughed and clapped her ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... sunbeams playing upon a brow encircled by eternal snows reflected a sheen of glorious splendor; when, conscious of her immense wealth in coal, minerals, and fisheries, her delightful climate and geographical position, she bid for commercial supremacy. It is said of States, as of women, they are "fickle, coy and hard to please." For, changed and governed from England's Downing Street, "with all its red tape circumlocution," "Tile Barncal," incapacity, and "how-not-to-do-it" ability that attached to that venerable institution, its people were ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... with a decision, vigour, and invariability, seldom found even among philosophers. Of late years he had, in real life, seen striking instances of the treachery of courtiers, and had felt some symptoms of insecurity in the smile of princes. Fortune had been favourable to him—she was fickle—he determined to quit her before she should change. Ambition, it is true, had tempted him—he had risen to her highest pinnacle: he would not be hurled from high—he would descend voluntarily, and with dignity. Lord ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... spot was pregnant with a romance beyond that of mere scenery. It was well, here, to pause awhile and contrast old and new notions of African prosperity. The Romans had the same difficulties to contend with as have the French: a harsh climate, and fickle and faithless natives who "cannot be bridled by threats or kindness." They had the same ambitions; so Strabo tells us that they used every endeavour to make settlers of them and fix them to the soil, and "paid particular attention ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... marrying him so suddenly. But, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, I have never quite made up my mind that Ethel was really fickle. She did it out of pique, or pride, or impulse, or whatever it is that sways women in such cases. She was angry, or indignant—how like fire and ice at once she was when she was angry!—and she was resolved to show me that she could do without me. She would not listen to my explanations; ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... is not destroyed, but is merely converted to another form, and applied to another point. So Purnendu's salaam-force, constant handmaid of the fickle Goddess of Fortune, descended from the shoulder of the father to that of his worthy son; and the youthful head of Nabendu Sekhar began to move up and down, at the doors of high-placed Englishmen, like a ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... had treated with indifference and contempt. And so, Madame Henrietta once more returned to the Louvre, with her heart more swollen with bitter recollections than her daughter's, whose disposition was fickle and forgetful, with triumph and delight. She knew but too well this brilliant reception was paid to the happy mother of a king restored to his throne, a throne second to none in Europe, while the worse than indifferent reception she had before ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... groaning in secret. The ideas of the new philosophers were penetrating and colouring public opinion. They were beginning to talk of the great antique days of Greece, of heroes, and of virtue, and of living and dying like Romans. Fickle fashion was turning her back upon the art of old Boucher, and upon Dresden shepherds and shepherdesses and pleasant landscapes and bosky groves, and was taking up her abode with heroes and amongst ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall
... any other passion, fired his ambition; but it was not the love of notoriety—the fame he courted was not that which should only render his name conspicuous among men, that he might receive the incense of hypocritical flattery, or be pointed at by the fickle multitude—for such, his contempt was supreme; but it was the desire of his heart, and the struggle of his life, to be embalmed in men's memories as the benefactor of his race, to be remembered for his deeds as the great and the good. This was the spontaneous ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... performance carried his trusted friend William along. The glee changed to grief when, within a year—so quickly does the appearance of the chess-board change in "the great game"—Great Britain was once more on the doorstep, and fickle Germany was snuggling close to Young Turkey on the divan in the dimly lighted parlor. Virtuous old Britain professed to be shocked and horrified; he occupied himself with talking scandal about young Germany, when he should have been busy trying to supplant ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... "Sooner shall file or chisel made of lead To the rough diamond various forms impart, Than any stroke, by fickle Fortune sped, Or Love's keen anger, break my constant heart: Sooner return, to Alp, their fountain-head, The troubled streams that from its summit part, Than e'er, for change or chances, good or nought, Shall wander from its way ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... head; but I am told it is easier to bring about a revolution than to invent a graceful hat. Courage in Paris recoils before the thought of appearing in a round felt; and for lack of one day's daring, men stick all their lives to this ridiculous headpiece. And yet Frenchmen are said to be fickle! ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... daft," said Margray, looking after her with a perplexed gaze, and dropping her scissors. "Surely, Mary, you shouldn't tease her as you do. She's worn more in these four weeks than in as many years. You're a fickle changeling!" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... balanced thought the silent grief That sinks the bosom of the fallen chief. With all the joy that laurel crowns bestow, A world reconquer'd and a vanquished foe. Thus thro extremes of life, in every state, Shines the clear soul, beyond all fortune great; While smaller minds, the dupes of fickle chance, Slight woes o'erwhelm and sudden joys entrance. So the full sun, thro all the changing sky, Nor blasts nor overpowers the naked eye; Tho transient splendors, borrowed from his light, Glance on the mirror ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... disease and unnerved by debauchery, and a general or two without energy or vigor. Then he returned and entered on a career of greater popularity than could have been enjoyed by him if the French had never made the fickle race of Naples feel how far more odious is a foreign ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... Collega was left with a mere handful. He complained bitterly afterwards of those who had led him to make the proposal he did, especially of Regulus, who had failed to support him in the proposal that he himself had suggested. But Regulus is a fickle fellow, rash to a degree, yet a great coward ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... closely we have been united hitherto. The present crisis is, of course, life and death to me. I shall win if I can, and if I cannot I will cultivate my garden. I do not care for the leadership of a party which should prove itself so fickle and so careless of national interests as to sacrifice the unity of the Empire to the precipitate impatience of an old man—careless of the future in which he can have no part—and to an uninstructed instinct which will not take the trouble ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... animated with a more vigorous spirit by the soil and air of their own country. [163] I do not reckon among the people of Germany those who occupy the Decumate lands, [164] although inhabiting between the Rhine and Danube. Some of the most fickle of the Gauls, rendered daring through indigence, seized upon this district of uncertain property. Afterwards, our boundary line being advanced, and a chain of fortified posts established, it became a skirt of the empire, and part of the ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... Philosopher is no less successful than as an improviser. He is not one of those fickle hearers whose demands for some new thing are the ruination of literary art. When he finds something beautiful it is a joy to him forever, and its loveliness increases with each repetition. In a classic tale he is quick to resent the slightest change in phraseology. There is a just ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... thou the light from yonder casement streaming? Seest thou the shadow on the window cast? There, lost in thought and poesy's wild dreaming, Waits one to hear Fame's loud but fickle blast. ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... that of one who was determined not to be easily lured away from so comfortable a place until it was time to go to bed. They could see that Bandy-legs was really becoming quite worked up over the queer way a fickle fortune seemed to be showering little adventures on his shoulders, while the rest went ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... we bade adieu to the good people at Fort William, and began our journey along the northern shore of Lake Superior, which is upwards of three hundred miles in diameter. Fortune, however, is proverbially fickle, and she did not belie her character on this particular day. The weather, when we started, was calm and clear, which pleased us much, as we had to make what is called a traverse—that is, to cross from one point of land to another, instead of coasting ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne |
