"Recklessness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... expect from Him in the way of mercy when they have shown none? I tell you candidly, that I think we are better in our present forlorn state upon this rock, than if in that boat. They have taken with them the seeds of discord, of recklessness, and intemperance, in an attempt which requires the greatest prudence, calmness, and unanimity, and I fear there is little chance of their ever being rescued from their dangerous position. It is my opinion, ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... say the recklessness—with which Galileo insisted upon making proselytes of his enemies, served but to alienate them from the truth. Errors thus assailed speedily entrench themselves in general feelings, and become embalmed in the virulence of the passions. ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... Colborne himself. Dr. Chenier and many others—at least seventy, it is said on good authority—were killed, and the former has in the course of time been elevated to the dignity of a national hero and a monument raised in his honour on a public square of the French Canadian quarters of Montreal. Mad recklessness rather than true heroism signalised his action in this unhappy affair, when he led so many of his credulous compatriots to certain death, but at least he gave up his life manfully to a lost cause rather than fly like Papineau who had ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... really get wives in that way, or was it done in recklessness and sport? It seems incredible that any woman could accept such an offer ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... her that he didn't care what he did for her sake; and it was true. Forty-five is the age of recklessness for many men, as if in defiance of the decay and death waiting with open arms in the sinister valley at the bottom of the inevitable hill. Her shrinking form, her downcast eyes, when she had to listen to him, cornered at the end of an empty ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... great and small; and she confirmed Juana's notion that the business of two worlds could be transacted in an hour, by settling her daughter's future happiness in exactly twenty minutes. The poor, weak Catalina, not acting now in any spirit of recklessness, grieving sincerely for the gulf that was opening before her, and yet shrinking effeminately from the momentary shock that would be inflicted by a firm adherence to her duty, clinging to the anodyne of a short delay, allowed herself to be installed as the lover ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... scarcely the sound of a breath audible. The detective hesitated; such luck, such carelessness on the part of criminals seemed almost uncanny; he half suspected some trap. Then he became convinced that this was only the result of recklessness—the fellows felt so safe in this hidden hole in the woods as to neglect all precaution. He stepped cautiously inside, leaving the door ajar for the others to follow. Then they paused—straight ahead a double swinging ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... burn with a continuous madness. The brown face was leaner, the skin drawn tightly across the cheekbones. A slight twist had come to the mouth, which seemed frozen into bitterness. The very carriage of his body and the way he wore his hat advertised a recklessness more intense than had been his ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... as mothers do who feel the contrast their experience opposes to the hopeful recklessness of such talk as this. "We may have a worse winter here," ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... laboratory chimney. Marguerite lived as carefully as a nun; all expenses were cut down. She denied herself ordinary comforts to prepare for the crash. Thanks to Emmanuel, the boys were now advancing in their studies, and their future was at least unclouded. But Balthazar had developed the gambler's recklessness. He sold a forest; he mortgaged his house and silver; he had no more food than a nigger who sells his wife for a glass of brandy in the morning, and weeps over his loss at night. Once Marguerite spoke to her father. She ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... in love; fallen with the fatality of the Lemprieres, and with the fine precipitate sweep of her own genius. And she had let herself go, with the recklessness of a woman unaware of her genius for loving, with the superb innocence, too, of all spontaneous forces. Owen's nature had disarmed her of all subterfuges, all ordinary defences of her sex. They were absurd in dealing with a creature so ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... arraigned, and finite man presumed to pass judgment on the acts of infinite benevolence, until, at length, shocked at his own rebellious feelings,—and startled, nay, terrified, at this the deepest insight he had ever obtained of the natural depravity of his heart, he sank into a chair, and in utter recklessness abandoned himself to the tide of grief which seemed waiting to ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... he had not seen for five years until last night, when he had avoided him in the courtyard of the Boomville Hotel. His first instinct was to retreat, but it was too late. And the spirits had warmed him into temporary recklessness. ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... the lawyer, stopping short, "your recklessness fills me with concern. What! we have been wet through the greater part of the day, and you propose, in cold blood, to go ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stockmen's hut Works with them, toils with them, side by side; As to his past — well, his lips are shut. 'Gentleman once,' say his mates with pride; And the wildest Cornstalk can ne'er outdo In feats of recklessness, Jim Carew. ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... spent every sixpence of your income," said Captain Winstanley. "You have been keeping an Irish household. I can fancy an O'Donoghue or a Knight of Glyn living in this kind of way; but I should hardly have expected such utter riot and recklessness in ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... Parisian hairdresser of Scotch nationality and the name of Angus McNeill. Sir Tancred had far more trouble with the women who fell in love with him; and many women fell in love with him or thought themselves in love with him, for his handsome, melancholy face, his reputation for recklessness, and above all for his cold insensibility to their charm. In ten years of the strenuous, smart life, his name was never coupled with that of any woman. All and each of these made a pet of Tinker, since they found it the surest way to abate his father's coldness. On the other hand ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... throughout the world so that exposure of the disease shall be practically impossible, the only personal safety is in such perfect vaccination that one need not fear an exposure to smallpox through the recklessness of ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... its huge hatpins and ultra-fashionable height, was hideous. She exuded perfumes. Her silk stockings and suede shoes were the only reasonable things about her. The former she was displaying with some recklessness as she leaned ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... approached Roland the next day and spoke in guarded terms about Mrs. Tresham's voice. Roland was easily induced to talk, and the result was an offer which was really—if they had known it—the open door to fortune. But it is the fatality of the unlucky to have the spirit of recklessness in their veins and the weakness of prudence in their hearts. Instead of letting events guide them, they have the presumption to think they can guide events. Roland received the offer coolly, and said he would consult Mrs. Tresham on the matter. But, ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... light of the two smoky lamps he saw a ring of wild faces. Men with shaggy beards and hair all entangled and unkempt, with fierce eyes and lowering glances; women with faces that unsexed them. There were despair and desperation and utter recklessness in the air, in the attitude, in the hearts of these people. And Paul had worked among them for years. The sight would have been heart-breaking had Paul Howard Alexis been the sort of man to admit the possibility of a broken heart. All that he had done had been frustrated by the wall of heartless ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... nobleman of amorous proclivities, who marries Sab[i]na Rosny, a French refugee, in Padua, but leaves her, more from recklessness than wickedness. He comes to England and pays court to Lady Ruby, a rich young widow; but Lady Ruby knows of his marriage to the young French girl, and so hints at it that his lordship, who is no libertine, and has a great regard for his honor, sees that his marriage is known, and ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... appeared to have made up his mind to this demand, and, with the same recklessness with which he had appropriated the money to his own use, he was now ready to restore it, without proposing a condition for his own safety The bills were in his pocket, and seating himself at a table, he made the required endorsement, and ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... wonder and amazement at the cool recklessness of such a proceeding; and, after; in true Malay fashion, discussing with his people for an hour or so the urgency of the case, he also landed, but well escorted and armed, with the intention of going ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... amongst us, but the march forward never ceased, never paused Paget and Hunter were with us now, and the lyddite guns seemed to drive all the fight out of the foe. They would not stand. Paget's artillerymen dashed forward, unlimbered, and loosed on the enemy with a recklessness of personal safety ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... Superb and Venerable had the greatest, and almost the only share. But the conduct of the Admiral, I will venture to say, when all the circumstances are taken into consideration, must be deemed fully equal to anything that has adorned the pages of England's naval history. Instead of the recklessness of despair, to which some might have attributed an attack with crippled ships against a force every way so greatly superior, he manifested a calm and resolute determination. His intentions were expressed with so much clearness that, as I have ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... truth is not always agreeable or timely, candid and frank have often an objectionable sense; "to be candid with you," "to be perfectly frank," are regarded as sure preludes to something disagreeable. Open and unreserved may imply unstudied truthfulness or defiant recklessness; as, open admiration, open robbery. There may be transparent integrity or transparent fraud. Sincere applies to the feelings, as being all that one's ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... questionable points of Parisian society upon our own? Who pass a few years in Europe and return skeptical of republicanism and human improvement, longing and sighing for more sharply emphasized social distinctions? Who squander, with profuse recklessness, the hard-earned fortunes of their sires? Who diligently devote their time to nothing, foolishly and wrongly supposing that a young English nobleman has nothing to do? Who, in fine, evince by their collective conduct, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... accentuation—'Philida, phileridos, pamphilida, florida, flortos'—reveals humour of a finer edge than the mere laughter-raising kind. Against this moderate praise, however, must be set some blame. It has been said before that the play is a by-word for confusion. An extraordinary recklessness rules the introduction of characters, participation in one scene being, apparently, sufficient justification for the inclusion of a fresh character at any stage of the play. As vital an error is the neglect to excite our pity for Delia, round whom the whole story revolves; she is represented ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... years ago, when a young man, haughty and passionate, I had the misfortune to love a girl whose youth and beauty proved my bane, and in a moment of recklessness I married her. In her nature were mingled the qualities of the serpent and the dove. She was my inferior, and I could not own her outwardly nor inwardly as my wife; but, unhappily for the peace of both, I could not rid myself of her. I gave her money, but it availed not; ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... feasting, in the festivals of the Court or in the scarcely veiled debauchery of its devotees. Baron Loewenstern, who moved in its higher ranks, tells of cases of a license almost incredible to those who have not pried among the garbage of the Court of Catharine II. This recklessness, resulting from the tendency of the Muscovite nature, as of the Muscovite climate, to indulge in extremes, begot an imperious need of large supplies of money; and, ground down as were the serfs on the broad domains of the nobles, the resulting revenues ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... data by which to sit in judgment; but it is hardly honest to withhold reports, that seem to be well founded, because they do not flatter the youthful career of a great man. In his own "Henry IV." and "Henry V." Shakespeare shows how the recklessness of youth is not incompatible with sound living and a high standard of morality and common sense ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... and recklessness about his performance that made Simpson, too, start to his feet in amazement, and betrayed even the doctor into letting the pipe slip from between his lips. Hank's face was ghastly, but Cathcart's showed a sudden weakness—a loosening ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... is dangerous," said Philip hastily. "It's made dangerous by the recklessness of the men. Stop, man, what ...
— Son Philip • George Manville Fenn
... was prolonged, but the end could not be doubtful. Mrs. Blake could scold and bluster, but Lottie was determined. The mother was in bondage to Mrs. Grundy: the daughter played the trump card of her utter recklessness and won ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... left, the yelp of the chasing dog accompanying the blazing meteor as it cut odd figures in the darkness, and the shouting laughter of the men encouraging the dogs to new efforts to outdo each other. The intelligence of the dogs in playing the game with apparent recklessness, yet without getting ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... she wondered if he were shocked by her views, but she could not bring herself to ascertain. She went on quickly, with a touch of recklessness— ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... away my little fortune. With recklessness which repeated loss engenders I proposed we scatter the remaining coin in the street, but Skenedonk prudently said we would divide and conceal it in our clothes. I gave the kind valet a handful to keep his heart warm; and our anxieties about our ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... Sedan. A nearly equal fascination is exerted upon us by a book which is the best sort of historical novel, since it is the product of its author's observation, not of his reading—a story that sets vividly before us the political corruption, the financial recklessness, the social turmoil, the public ostentation, the private squalor, that led to the downfall of an empire and almost to that ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... some courtier reins his steed Beside the love-enkindling Gwendolaine, Whose wayward moods do vary as the winds,— Now wooing with her soft, seductive grace; Now fascinating with her stately pride; Anon, bewitching by her recklessness Of wilful daring in some wild caprice Which no one could anticipate or stay. How fair she is to-day! How beautiful! Her hunting-robe is bluer than the sky,— Matching one phase of her great, changeful eyes,— Clasped with twin falcons of unburnished gold, The colour of her brown hair ...
— Under King Constantine • Katrina Trask
... after mine own heart," he said smoothly. "Because I love thee and thy bold eyes and thy dare-devil recklessness, and would make a friend of thee. Why else? Now, then, to-morrow thou shalt bring the girl to me. I am minded for an hour's sport with the tiger-cat. My fingers itch for that lean throat of hers. After, I will give her to thee if it please thee—and then ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... P. (anxious to disclaim any idea of recklessness). Just the time to pick 'em up cheap, if you know what you're about. And you see, we've had the drawing-room done up, and the wife wants something to fill up the space over her writing-table, between the fireplace and one of the windows. She was to have met me here, but she ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 27, 1893 • Various
... advanced there was almost a recklessness sometimes about the way she planned to have a good time every minute; yet in the quiet of her own room there would always come back the yearning that had been awakened in the desert and ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... a most attractive young man, a little reckless, it is true, but then recklessness and youth mix ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... seriously disturbed for the remainder of the twenty-four hours. Not that he was absolutely idle, or averse to business, then; far from it. The difficulty was, he was apt to be altogether too energetic. There was a strange, inflamed, flurried, flighty recklessness of activity about him. He would be incautious in dipping his pen into his inkstand. All his blots upon my documents were dropped there after twelve o'clock, meridian. Indeed, not only would he be reckless, and sadly given to making blots in the afternoon, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... boat, she fell off and gathered way whenever he approached. When at last he laid hold of her rail, after an hour of this fooling, barely strength remained to drag himself on board, where he fell helpless, and waited long before his powers were restored. It is trite to note in such exhibitions of recklessness many of the qualities of the ideal seaman, though not so certainly those of the foreordained commander-in-chief. Pellew was a born ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... Allan said gravely, "indicates a certain amount of recklessness which reflects little credit upon us, ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... very important source lies in the mutual hostility of the animal species and of men. Slothfulness and recklessness mean for the great majority of animals the imminent risk of becoming the prey of some stronger animal. Among tribes of men the ceaseless struggles for supremacy have pricked cowardice into courage, demanded self-control instead of temper, supplanted gluttony and drunkenness by temperance. ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... law-court satisfied public curiosity, and excited indignant clamour. Alma read, and tried to view the proceedings as one for whom they had no personal concern; but her sky darkened, her heart grew heavy. The name of Bennet Frothingham stood for criminal recklessness, for huge rascality; it would be so for years to come. She had no courage to take up her violin; the sound of music grew hateful to her, as if mocking at her ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... kindly and unkindly, intelligently and unintelligently, against his alleged tendency to confuse recognized standards of morality by extenuating lives of recklessness, and often criminality, with a single solitary virtue. He might easily show that he has never written a sermon, that he has never moralized or commented upon the actions of his heroes, that he has never voiced a creed or obtrusively demonstrated an ethical opinion. ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... had been in proportion to the triumphal heights of her careless gaiety. Charles Cheviot had come in while his wife was restoring her; and he had plainly said what no one else would have intimated to the spoilt darling—that the whole accident had been owing to her recklessness, and that he had always expected some fatal consequences ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... than comfort and convenience, we have an expression of the laborious and the lavish spirit of the times,—the right hand gathering with painful, unremitting toil, the left scattering with splendid recklessness. Dress has an appreciable effect upon the mental condition of individuals, whatever their gravity or intelligence. There are few men not far advanced in years, and still fewer women, who do not feel more confidence in themselves, perhaps more ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... terror of his enemies, whom in the conflict he never spared; the delight as well as refuge of his friends, whom he never deserted. Yet, brave as he was, and fierce and reckless when met in the strife of warriors, never did his valour, or his fierceness, or his recklessness of danger, betray him into those excesses of wrath and cruelty, which, after great victories purchased by much blood and loss of dear and valued friends, will often be seen in the camp of the red man of ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... and so far multiplied, as to allow departure from close breeding without change of characteristics, and not improbably the prohibition was even then based more upon moral reasons, or upon man's ignorance or recklessness regarding selection, than ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale
... darkness as to go to sleep in them! Why, too, should he take a bedstead without a mattress, which I believe is the case in this particular supposition of yours, when there were feather-beds unoccupied in other apartments? Moreover, would not this be a still greater height of recklessness in such an individual, should he have a ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... explanations, so it was unjust to pronounce a decision. We earnestly pray that, whether in power or in opposition, the meeting of Parliament will see among our great Conservative statesmen, and their followers throughout the country, including the new adherents whom the rashness and recklessness of our opponents have necessarily gained for us, that solid union of opinion and vigorous co-operation of action, on safe and sound principles of legislation, which can alone terminate the CRISIS ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... not that little by little this spirit of licence, finding a home, imperceptibly penetrates into manners and customs; whence, issuing with greater force, it invades contracts between man and man, and from contracts goes on to laws and constitutions, in utter recklessness, ending at last, Socrates, by an overthrow of all rights, ...
— The Republic • Plato
... The situation was clearing. It was disconcerting, under the circumstances, to be pent in the same room with this heavy-muscled, Indian-like man whom they had robbed. They remembered unpleasantly the many stories of his strength and recklessness. If Letton could only put him off long enough for them to escape into the policed world outside the office door, all would be well; and Daylight showed all the ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... could have waited all day. I couldn't have gone without seeing you, and telling you—" He pauses, as if bewildered at the spectacle of Miss Ramsey's resolute practice with the cigarette, which she now takes from her lips and waves before her face with innocent recklessness. ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... always hitherto worked the social machinery. It must be acknowledged that those who would play this game on the strength of their own private opinion, unconfirmed as yet by any experimental verification, must have a serene confidence in their own wisdom on the one hand, and a recklessness of people's sufferings on the other, which Robespierre and St. Just, hitherto the typical instances of those united attributes, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... fearful amount of this desperate gambling, in which, though money is the ostensible stake and forfeit, human life is the real one. The length to which this rivalry is carried at the south and south west, the multitude of planters who engage in it, and the recklessness of human life exhibited in driving the murderous game to its issue, cannot well be imagined by one who has not lived in the midst of it. Desire of gain is only one of the motives that stimulates them;—the eclat of having ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... my son, his tutor, and my physician in the carriage. On reaching a steep incline, where the brake should be put on, my servants imprudently neglected to do this, and I felt that we were burning the roadway in our descent. Such recklessness made me uneasy, when suddenly twelve horsemen rode headlong at us, and sought to stop the postilions. My six horses were new ones and very fresh; they galloped along at breakneck speed. Our pursuers fired at the coachman, but missed him, and the report of a pistol terrified ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... conquer this, and sit On Me intent. That man alone is wise Who keeps the mastery of himself! If one Ponders on objects of the sense, there springs Attraction; from attraction grows desire, Desire flames to fierce passion, passion breeds Recklessness; then the memory—all betrayed— Lets noble purpose go, and saps the mind, Till purpose, mind, and man are all undone. But, if one deals with objects of the sense Not loving and not hating, making them Serve his free soul, which ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... safety of society, or the welfare of the prisoner, can require the infliction of so much suffering. Criminals are sometimes condemned for very long periods, or for life; and in these cases, I was informed, occasionally manifested great recklessness and carelessness of their existence. I am also not quite convinced that the reformation of prisoners is effected to the extent sometimes inferred from the small number of recommittals. A statistical ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... Calais went to ten per cent. Englishmen began to feel that England was blockaded! We are not so familiar as we ought to be with the interesting record of all these audacious and brilliant enterprises, conducted with dare-devil recklessness by men who would not improbably have been hanged both as pirates and as traitors, had fortune led to their capture at this moment ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... fierce light of passion, a look of wild recklessness, flashed into them. He raised his arms, to catch her to him; then let them fall again, glancing to right and left, as if seeking some way ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... Mrs. Roderick; and we knew afterward what her abstract report had been, in Grandfather Holabird's hearing. Grandfather Holabird knew we did without a good many things; but he had an impression of us, from instances like these, that we were seized with sudden spasms of recklessness at times, and rushed into French embroideries and sets of jewelry. I believe he heard of mother's one handsome black silk, every time she wore it upon semiannual occasions, until he would have said that Mrs. Stephen had a new fifty-dollar dress every six ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... conflict. We shall make no overtures to the House of Lords; we shall accept no compromise. We are not called upon to offer them any dignified means of escape from a situation into which they have been betrayed by the recklessness of some of their supporters. They have no right whatever to interfere in financial business directly or indirectly at any time. That is all we have to say, and for the rest we have a powerful organisation, ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... into the best Parisian circles, but these I generally neglected, preferring the gay fellows for whom I bore commendatory scrawls from my London associates. But probably my best recommendation was my pocket, still tolerably garnished, and the recklessness with which I scattered my cash. I felt myself on the high road to ruin, but my down-hill course had given such impetus to my crazy vehicle, that I despaired of checking it, and shut my eyes to the inevitable smash awaiting me at ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... on account of her spoliations upon American commerce after the settlement of 1803. The matter had been in negotiation ever since 1815, but hitherto in vain. Jackson took it up with zeal, but with his usual apparent recklessness. A treaty had been concluded in 1831, as a final settlement between the two countries, binding France to pay twenty-five million francs and the United States to pay one and one-half million. The first instalment from France became due February 2, 1833, but was not paid. Jackson's message to ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... who could sin in a conservative, prudent way. He seemed utterly unable to rally and be a man in his own strength, and his remorse over his conduct was so great that he sought a refuge in almost continuous excess. The greater the height, the more tremendous the fall, and he had now reached the recklessness of despair. He had many stolid, slouching neighbors in the tenements, who permitted life to be at least endurable for their families because of the intervals between their excesses; but an interval to Mr. Jocelyn was a foretaste of perdition. Nevertheless, if the wretched man, ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... just such children who were not slaves, haven't you? And I think I understand the cause of their misfortunes. Shall I give you an inkling of it? It is because they are so heedless and headlong in their ways, racing and romping about with perfect recklessness. Don't you think now that I am right, little reader, you who cried this very day, because you were always getting into trouble, and getting scolded and punished for it? You who are always tearing your frock and soiling your nice white apron, spilling ...
— Step by Step - or, Tidy's Way to Freedom • The American Tract Society
... fell in love with a girl included in the Chippewa party. "Though he would have died to save her from sorrow, yet he knew that she could never be his wife," for the tribes were ever at war. Here Mrs. Eastman, with the recklessness of a newspaper reporter, puts into an Indian's head a sentiment which no Indian ever dreamt of. All the facts cited in this chapter prove this, and, moreover, the sequel of her own story proves it. After exchanging ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... magazine with cool, methodical regularity, kept changing his position with a restlessness and recklessness puzzling alike to friends and foes. Now he aimed and fired, lying "doggo" behind his favourite stone, while bullets from the enemy's trenches flattened themselves upon it, or buried themselves harmlessly in the dry hot soil. Now he moved from cover, and shot squatting on his heels, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... fitfully. He walked through the water and the mud, with a step rapid, blind, like that of one intoxicated. She took fright and shouted. She called him. But he did not turn his head and made no answer. He fled with alarming recklessness. She ran after him. Her feet were hurt by the stones, and her skirt was heavy with water, but soon she ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... plaything of destiny, but a responsible son of God with enormous possibilities for good or evil, whereas the Oriental has been the victim of benumbing fatalism that has made him indifferent in industry and achievement, though it has given him a greater recklessness in war. It would also be difficult to exaggerate the influence which our radically different estimate of woman has had upon Western civilization. And here we have to consider not only woman's own direct contributions to progress, but ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... regarding her mysterious relative. That that shadowy presence was more or less exaggerated, if not an absolute myth, he more than half suspected, but of the discontent that had produced it, or the recklessness it might provoke, there was no doubt. She might be tempted to some act of folly. He wondered if Mary Rogers knew it. Yet, with his sensitive ideas of loyalty, he would have shrunk from any confidence with Mary regarding her ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... horror, his recklessness lost him his position, and he did not have enough ambition to try and secure another place, but commenced to draw his little hoard from the bank, and his money was disappearing like snow before ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... precipitous city, whom Browning tells us are not counted "till there is a rush of wings, and lo! they are flown," "What was so taking in him, and how is one to analyse that dazzling surface of pleasantry, that changeful, shining humour, wit, wisdom, recklessness, beneath which beat the most kind and tolerant of hearts?" asks Andrew Lang. But not only through the magnetism of his personal presence did he attract even strangers, but through his pen has he held ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson
... characterization may be ventured—the indrawn meditativeness of the Hindu, the fiery imagination of the Arab, the devout and prudential understanding of the Hebrew, the aesthetic subtilty of the Greek, the legal breadth and sensual recklessness of the Roman, the martial frenzy of the Goth, the chivalric and dark pride of the Spaniard, the treacherous blood of the Italian, the mercurial vanity of the Frenchman, the blunt ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... becoming a spoiled child was fully realized. Indulged by his father and neglected by his mother, his every wish gratified as soon as expressed, enjoying unlimited freedom in the use of a vast fortune, Loris developed a disposition in which indolence, recklessness and unprincipled ambition contended for the mastery. The young man was unscrupulous and vindictive and he obeyed no law save that of his own unbridled will. He was a type of a class of Russian aristocrats whose social position and wealth enable them ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... contrary, he drove furiously down the hill; and though, as we afterwards ascertained, by the track of his wheels, he had a yard width of road to spare, he made no use of it. In consequence of this recklessness and his want of skill, the wheel of his coach struck our wheel most violently, drove back our horse and gig some yards, and then sent us all together through a small gap in the wall, with the stones of the wall tumbling ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... folly, he returned, mavellously discomfited, and deservedly censured, to Gertruydenberg. And thus had a most important enterprise; which had nearly been splendidly successful, ended in disaster and disgrace. To the recklessness of the general, to the cupidity which he had himself awakened in his followers, was the failure alone to be attributed. Had he taken possession of the city with a firm grasp at the head of his four ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... length in our daily journals, and aroused much interest and comment. One found its way down into the South, and was commented upon by a Southern editor in true Southern style. Hard words were used with the recklessness that characterizes Southern editors, and often Northern as well. The funny thing about it was, that two gentlemen of the same name, who are both ministers and reside in Boston, were confused in this comment. The one, who had recently ...
— American Missionary, Volume 44, No. 6, June, 1890 • Various
... swamp, hedge, and ditch, with that dare-devil speed and recklessness that won for him the reputation of being the best rider, the hardest seat, and the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... the best of his ability, Carlyle's own injunctions, and he had faithfully portrayed as he knew him the man whom of all others he most revered. He was bewildered, almost dazed, at what seemed to him the perverse and unscrupulous recklessness of his accusers. Anonymous and abusive letters reached him daily; some even of his own friends looked coldly on him. He was a sensitive man, and he felt it deeply. He shrank from going out unless he knew exactly whom he was to meet. But his pride came ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... might have been worse, you know," she said in her quiet soothing way. "You ought to thank God for sparing your life, instead of grumbling at what your own recklessness has produced. However, my dear boy, you'll soon pull round and be yourself again if you will only keep quiet and obey ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the great Italian schools, with a most passionate feeling of the grand, and with an inimitable grace of expression. On the other hand, he betrays, in a thousand places, a settled voluptuousness of temperament, and a capricious recklessness of self-indulgence, which will lead the world to identify him henceforth with his Vathek, as inextricably as it has long since connected Harold with the poet that drew him; and then, that there may be no limit to the inconsistencies of ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... the victory in the end was the righteousness of their cause. They were smarting under a sense of injury, and there is nothing that adds a force to one's blows and a recklessness to one's style of delivering them more ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... of the cape, make for Pacific seas, and complete its tour of the world. It did nothing of the sort and kept moving toward the southernmost regions. So where was it bound? The pole? That was insanity. I was beginning to think that the captain's recklessness more than justified Ned ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... short, 'your recklessness fills me with concern. What! we have been wet through the greater part of the day, and you propose, in cold blood, to go ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... Darragh—or Hal Smith, as he supposed him to be—Quintana took him for what he seemed to be, a well-born young man gone wrong. Europe was full of that kind. To Quintana there was nothing suspicious about Hal Smith. On the contrary, his clever recklessness confirmed that polished bandit's opinion that Smith was a gentleman degenerated into a crook. It takes an educated imagination for a man to do what Smith had done to him. If the common crook has any imagination at all it never ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... shock was over. With the inevitable staring them in the face, the men had achieved something of a gay recklessness. Hilary found some natural recessions under overhanging masses of rocks that would afford protection from the searing power of the rays. To be effective, the fliers would have to land in the valley or ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner
... own ancestors, by declaring that they, with solemnity of form, and force of manner, have invoked the executive power to come to the protection of liberty? Who is he that thus charges them with the insanity, or the recklessness, of putting the lamb beneath the lion's paw? No, Sir. No, Sir. Our security is in our watchfulness of executive power. It was the constitution of this department which was infinitely the most difficult part in the great work of creating our present ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... through the inadequate supply of material to his army by the home authorities. Every fortress which was not strategically abandoned by the French, was won by the skill of the general-in-chief, and the recklessness of life shown by his soldiers, in spite of the want of almost every appliance proper for an army. The sieges which Wellington prosecuted to a successful result "will always reflect immortal honour on the troops engaged, and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... were informed by one of the young women, who was smoking a pipe, and who replied to our questions, scarcely taking the trouble to look up. She was about half white, and her face was singularly expressive of sensuousness and indolent recklessness. ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... manhood, those outbursts of volatility, which, to serious natures, act as safety-valves after prolonged tension of all the powers of the mind. At such moments of levity he is described as almost boyish in recklessness, plunging into any madcap escapade that might be afoot with heedlessness of all consequences. Stories of misadventures, quips and quiddities of every kind, were then his delight, and of these he possessed ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... force prevents the systematic grading of the workers which is afterwards possible, yet individual records are kept, and excellence receives distinction corresponding with the penalties that negligence incurs. It is not, however, policy with us to permit youthful recklessness or indiscretion, when not deeply culpable, to handicap the future careers of young men, and all who have passed through the unclassified grade without serious disgrace have an equal opportunity to choose the life employment they ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... wholeheartedly, and, with the laying aside of his scruples, there was an instant lightening of the heart, a fierce keenness of mind, a contempt for society, a disregard for life beginning with his own. One could have noted it in the recklessness with which he sent Sally up the slope away from the ranch house ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... emotion was gathering around him with the force of a sea like that of which she had already, vividly, spoken. There was damned little of what could be recognized as admissible wisdom in him. Instead of that he was being inundated by a recklessness of desire that reached Savina's desperate indifference to what, however threatening, might overtake her. He couldn't, he hadn't the inclination to, do less. Reaching up, she drew her fingers down his sleeves until they rested in his gripping hands. Her palms clung to his, and then ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... to misery and recklessness, the spirit of industry did not forsake him, nor did his taste or his skill descend with his fortunes. One day's work would have purchased him a week's sustenance, yet he labored every day, and as skilfully and beautifully as ever. A water man was at one time his favorite companion, ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... to Calhoun that there was no danger of the house being searched, and from a window he observed all that was passing without. When he saw the troop ride away, and his own horse led up to the house for the Federal commander, that spirit of recklessness for which he was noted came over him, and without thinking of what the effect might be on those who had, at great risk, so kindly befriended him, he resolved to try to capture his own. With satisfaction he saw the last Yankee depart, leaving the ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... spend, and actually a witty as well as a jovial dog when spending it. His wife had not long given birth to a fine girl, and the mother's bosom bled over the destitution with which her husband's recklessness had now made ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... a mixture of wildness, outflamings of satire on the virtues, witty defiance of the fates, and recklessness of everything save reference to women. Not a word escaped his lips whereby his keenest, most delighted listener could have probed to the heart of his mood. To the loss of his claim was attributed all his pyrotechnics, and no ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... thieves all right; Peter knew it now. And his assurance on this point gave him courage. The strangers would be no safer to deal with, but at least Peter knew now that he had the right on his side. In a sudden burst of impulsive resolution he stepped around and in a spirit of utter recklessness spoke up. His own voice sounded strange ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... a bare half of our journey done when the storm burst, and in a very short time we were reduced to the recklessness which comes of being as wet as you can ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... great deal of betting, and all of the men handled the great roll of bills they wagered with a flippant recklessness which could only be accounted for in Gallegher's mind by temporary mental derangement. Some one pulled a box out into the ring and the master of ceremonies mounted it, and pointed out in forcible language ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... interrupted Spinrobin, drawing sharply away from her, and the same second amazed at the recklessness that had prompted the one ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... evidently going on in her mind. Her eyes were cast down, her little slipper tapped the lawn, and her fingers played nervously with her chatelain. Suddenly, with a sharp, quick gesture which had in it something of ABANDON and recklessness, she held out ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and yet unwilling to own anything was amiss. He scoffed at the idea that his nerves were disorganized; and with the utmost recklessness seemed bent on ruining ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... light of cool recklessness danced in the eyes of the young oilman. "I've a kinda notion they'll drap over and pay us a visit one o' these nights, say in the dark of the moon. If they do—well, we certainly aim to welcome ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... and summer and hope were dead. Tears trembled in the mother's eyes. Poor little Virginia, so young, so inexperienced, and, in spite of her self-will and recklessness, so sweet and ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... till to-morrow," said Dick, and escaped in a jumble of conflicting feelings—smothered pride in his fascinations, honest reprobation of his recklessness, momentary romantic impulses, recurrent prudential recollections, longings to stay, impatience to get rid of the affair, regrets that he had ever met Daisy Medland, pangs at the notion of not meeting her in the future—a very hotch-pot ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... growl, he ordered the lad to follow him into his private cabin. When there, Captain Samson seated himself on a locker, and with a hand on each knee, glared at his prisoner so long and so fiercely from under his shaggy brows, that Watty, in spite of his recklessness, began to feel uneasy. ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... invisible Power, greater than the puny efforts of men, will fight for us. But we ourselves must not decline the burden of responsibility, nor take counsel of unworthy passions. Whatever duty urges us to do or to omit must be done or omitted; and the recklessness with which our adversaries break the laws, or counsel their violation, should afford no example for us. Therefore, let us revere the Declaration of Independence; let us continue to obey the Constitution and the laws; let ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... most remarkable circumstance that so much valuable furniture and perishable articles were saved. One act of recklessness to be regretted was the cutting down of a valuable chandelier which, falling with a heavy crash, was shivered in a ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... with me there's no doubt—and I grew to like her quite well enough to talk nonsense to her. Whether any plot was laid between her and Gordon to entrap me, or whether what happened arose in the recklessness of the moment, I cannot decide to this hour. It was on my twenty-first birthday; I was almost well again; we had what the doctor called a dinner, Gordon a jollification, and Agnes a supper. It was late ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... clue was found to unravel the mystery, though no doubt can exist that the fearful deed was committed by order of the American general. The act has been applauded as one emanating from stern patriotism and self-devotion, but it appears rather to have proceeded from sheer recklessness and bitter hatred to the English. The New Englanders were not destroying their own houses and property, but the houses and property of another people, and a rival colony, regardless of all the fearful ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... that official being seated there in consultation with three or four of his assistants, and as Mr. McKay's voice was as well known to them as to the corps, there was no alternative. The colonel himself "confounded" the young scamp for his recklessness, and directed a report to ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... the rest of the equipment. All these things combined made the King of Naples a being apart, an object of terror and admiration. But what, so to speak, idealized him was his truly chivalrous bravery, often carried to the point of recklessness, as if danger had no existence for him. In truth, this extreme courage was by no means displeasing to the Emperor; and though he perhaps did not always approve of the manner in which it was displayed, his Majesty rarely failed to accord it his praise, especially when he thought necessary ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... care," he said, putting on an air of recklessness. "I ain't going to lead this miserable dog's life in camp any longer, if I have to desert"—lowering his voice to a whisper; "we can desert just as easy as not, Frank, if ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... differing from the judgment of the majority of mankind in regard to familiar things be madness, I suppose I am mad—or too wise. The speculation draws near to hair-splitting. James North, recall your early recklessness, your ruin, and your redemption; bring your mind back to earth. Circumstances have made you what you are, and will shape your destiny for you without your interference. That's ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... assassins might be, they had departed, leaving only the helpless dead behind. No doubt they would come again to remove the bodies, to seek refuge in this hidden hole. But for the moment I was there undiscovered, and must utilize each precious instant for discoveries and escape. Wild recklessness, a desire to break away from those grewsome surroundings, overcame all caution. Swiftly as I dared in the dense blackness I crept forward, feeling the smooth wall with eager fingers, my right hand still nervously gripping the revolver butt. Then I came to the door, similar to the ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... the book she was now reading—the Bride of Lammermoor; in other words, he appeared to her in the light of a romantic character, and the first that had ever come within the circle of her experience. His recklessness of formalities, of all the limits supposed to be set upon the conversation of mere acquaintance, of what she might or might not think of him individually, so long as she would listen to what he had to say for his friend, seemed to her ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford |
