"Self-willed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was, indeed, most dear; but very self-willed and contrary. Her great fault was that she was always busy at something. She would darn, and she would write, and she would read dark-colored books without pictures. When Sara compared her with other mothers ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... was found one day lying dead on the floor of his hut there was a feeling of consternation in the country. The first person who, when looking in at the window as he went by, saw him in this position, took to his heels. He had been so self-willed and peculiar in his lifetime that no one ventured to guess as to how he might wish to have his body disposed of. It was feared that if his wishes were incorrectly interpreted, he would punish them by sending the plague, or having the town swallowed up ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... villages; that so unusual an occurrence would attract attention and provoke inquiry. He urged also upon the king that detachments of troops sent along these solitary roads would excite curiosity, and would inevitably create suspicion. The king, however, self-willed, refused to heed these remonstrances, and persisted in his own plan. He, however, consented to take with him the Marquis d'Agoult, a man of great firmness and energy, to advise and assist in the unforeseen ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... attractions and high natural ability, are visited by waves of emotional fervor for a de-personalization of the self. But in the case of the subject, as Strachey has so well shown, the call was pursued with a self-willed, pitiless, unscrupulous determination, worthy of Satan himself upon the most ferocious evil bent. In its pursuit indeed she became what her latest biographer has called a "woman possessed by a Demon." All necessary, not alone because if she had been meek and ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... that it is easier to live under an absolute monarchy than to announce myself a member of a republic, and assert my prerogatives and defend my privileges—but I confess I have a temper, papa. Lilias says I am very self-willed, and I must grant that she ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... this Ringfield was familiar with, but while Poussette as a sort of accepted "character," a chartered entertainer, was one thing, Poussette as a patron, importunate, slightly quarrelsome, and self-willed, was another. For a few months the arrangement might work well enough, but for the entire winter—he thought of the cold, of the empty church at service time, of the great snowdrifts lasting for weeks and weeks, and more than this too, he thought ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... and Mrs. Carlton had consented to permit the self-willed cousins to remain a week longer at Glen Morris, the good old man led Emily into the library and talked with her for over half an hour, about the meanness and wickedness of lying. I cannot tell you exactly what he said to her, ...
— Jessie Carlton - The Story of a Girl who Fought with Little Impulse, the - Wizard, and Conquered Him • Francis Forrester
... wretched cold. She had been riding all day seeing about a Christmas-tree for the poor children. He urged her to stop and spend the night, but she insisted that she must go on, though it was nearly dark and raining hard, and the roads would have mired a cat (she was always self-willed). Next day he went to see the sick woman, and when he arrived he found her in one bed and Cousin Fanny in another, in the same room. When he had examined the patient, he turned and asked Cousin Fanny what was the ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... to a sovereign of strong personal character. Much romance has gathered round his name. In the cantar de gesta of the Cid he plays the part attributed by medieval poets to the greatest kings, to Charlemagne himself. He is alternately the oppressor and the victim of heroic and self-willed nobles—the idealized types of the patrons for whom the jongleurs and troubadours sang. (For the events of his reign see the article SPAIN: History.) He is the hero of a cantar de gesta which, like all but a ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... him, so that no reasoning, no expostulations could, she thought, change her purpose; and she had much more power of bringing about her purposed design than had her mother. But her mother could be obstinate and self-willed, and would for the time make herself disagreeable. Florence had assured her lover that everything should be told her mother that night before she went to bed. But Mrs. Mountjoy did not wait to be simply told. No sooner were they seated ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... and capable of no postponement. But, as he thought of it, sitting alone on the eve of the girl's coming, he was very uneasy. What was he to do with her if he found her to be one difficult to manage, self-willed, vexatious, or,—worse again,—ill-conditioned as to conduct, and hurtful to his own children? Should it even become imperative upon him to be rid of her, how should riddance be effected? And then what would she think of him and his ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... continued the priest, with a slight cough, "let the thoughtful man picture a father: a desperate, self-willed man, who scorned the laws of God and society—keeping only faith with a miserable subterfuge he called 'honor,' and relying only on his own courage and his knowledge of human weakness. Imagine him cruel and bloody—a gambler by profession, an outlaw among ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... creatures—squealing and squawking and showing their legs! The worst of them bad dreams, the best of them powdered angels! Fleur was not a flapper, not one of those slangy, ill-bred young females. And yet she was frighteningly self-willed, and full of life, and determined to enjoy it. Enjoy! The word brought no puritan terror to Soames; but it brought the terror suited to his temperament. He had always been afraid to enjoy to-day for fear he might not enjoy tomorrow so much. And it was terrifying to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... at a respectable distance from the scene of action. What an excellent caricature might have been made of that good-humoured savant, as he sat on his Rosinante, armed with an enormous double-barrelled gun, loaded but not primed, some time, to no purpose, spurring the self-willed animal, and then spying through an opera-glass at the majestic animals which ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... shoulders and went to obey the order. The obstinacy of this self-willed egotist was surely growing into a monomania, and perhaps it would have been more dangerous to oppose him than to comply with his whim. In a few moments Dr. Cummins re-entered the room, followed by ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... they neither believed nor did. Socrates was executed for corrupting youth and infidelity to the gods; Jesus for proposing to overthrow the government; Luther was to the officials of his time one who taught "a loose, self-willed life, severed from ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... halt. Frederick half rose to leave, but she restrained him with a self-willed, pouting, "No." There was something childlike and honest in that pouting "no" which touched his soul and drew him down on ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... the four hundred thousand honest women whom we have so carefully sifted out from all the European nations, we indulge the belief that there are a certain number, say three hundred thousand, who will be sufficiently self-willed, charming, adorable, and bellicose to raise the ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... which was winged; which dwelt in hope and action, not in hesitation or fear. Anthony says, he was "an affectionate and gallant kind of boy, adventurous and generous, daring to a singular degree." Apt enough withal to be "petulant now and then;" on the whole, "very self-willed;" doubtless not a little discursive in his thoughts and ways, and "difficult ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... And what as living was felt was not then sought 'mongst the dead; Equally clear to every breast was the precept eternal, Equally hidden the source whence it to gladden us sprang; But that happy period has vanished! And self-willed presumption Nature's godlike repose now has forever destroyed. Feelings polluted the voice of the deities echo no longer, In the dishonored breast now is the oracle dumb. Save in the silenter self, the listening soul cannot ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... deeply dipped after all; Mrs. Dalzell had her jointure off it, but he was an only son, and any little wildness or extravagance of youth was likely to be put an end to by marriage. Laura was a somewhat troublesome ward, so passionate and so self-willed that even at school she had carried her point against him by sheer determination over and over again, and he wished heartily to be well freed of her by marriage with a tolerably respectable man. Her ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... popular vote in 1824 revealed not only his personal popularity but the growing power of the democratic elements in the nation, and his defeat in the House of Representatives only strengthened his own and the people's determination to be finally victorious. The untrained, self-willed, passionate frontier soldier came to power in 1828 as the standard bearer of a mighty democratic uprising which was destined before it ran its course to break down oligarchical party organizations, to ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... force of character to make things go his way, without drifting into success by a fortunate turn in tide and wind. He was not a mere day-dreamer, a theorist, a philosopher, a scholar, although he possessed the gifts of each. He was, rather, a man of action—self-willed, self-reliant, independent—as ambitious as Burr without his slippery ways, and as determined as Hamilton with all his ability to criticise an opponent. Clinton relied not more upon men than upon measures, and in the end the one thing that made him superior to all his contemporaries ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... matter to get officers than soldiers. Very few of those appointed made their appearance; one of the captains had been promoted; two declined; Washington found himself left, almost alone, to manage a number of self-willed, undisciplined recruits. Happily he had with him, in the rank of lieutenant, that soldier of fortune, Jacob Van Braam, his old "master of fence," ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... her advice for a little, but presently he forgot, and the ring pricked him so sharply that his finger had a drop of blood on it. This happened again and again, for the prince grew more self-willed and headstrong every day; he had some bad friends, too, who urged him on, in the hope that he would ruin himself and give them a chance to seize the throne. He treated his people carelessly and his servants cruelly, and everything ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... should any editor dare to publish any paper therein prohibited, that editor and that editor's newspaper would assuredly be crumpled up in a manner very disagreeable, if not altogether destructive. Editors of newspapers are self-willed, arrogant, and stiff-necked, a race of men who believe much in themselves and little in anything else, with no feelings of reverence or respect for matters which are august enough to other men;—but an injunction from a Court of ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... knew Eustace and Meg would have called me self-willed, when my mother had once made such a noise about our taking shelter from Broussel's mob at the Maison Darpent; but this was a mere visit of charity and necessity, for it was quite certain that the ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with Bess, her little quarrels and tart replies, her generous, happy, winning, self-willed ways, were as if they had never been, and in their place came resignation, reserve, pride and a little—only ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... and he knows God. This is too good to be grasped, but not too good to be true. The highest is that which needs the highest, the largest that which needs the most; the finest and strongest that which to live must breath essential life, self-willed life, God Himself. It follows that it is not the largest or the strongest nature that will feel a loss the least. An ant will not gather a grain of corn the less that his mother is dead, while a boy will turn from his books and his play and ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... known to relinquish them. Had he settled in his own mind to tie his neckcloth in a particular way, not all the eloquence of Cicero or the tears of O'Neil would have induced him to alter it; and Adelaide, the haughty, self-willed Adelaide, soon found that, of all yokes, the most insupportable is the yoke of an obstinate fool. In the thousand trifling occurances of domestic life (for his Grace was interested in all the minutiae of his establishment), where good sense and good humour on either side would ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... words help us. Think of them when the people rasp you, when the devil pricks you with his fiery darts, when your sensitive, self-willed spirit chafes or frets; let a gentle voice be heard above the strife, whispering, "Keep sweet, keep sweet!" And, if you will but heed it quickly, you will be saved from a thousand falls and ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... noble husband, who is enthusiastically devoted to Prussia—that he could mistake his character so grievously, and prefer such cruel charges against him. He called him—the best, the most intelligent and reliable of all his servants—a seditious man; he charged him with being self-willed, stubborn, and proud, and said he was mischievous and disobedient to the state. Oh, believe me, that accusation is what troubles Stein! The King of Prussia has humbled his pride so deeply and unjustly, that a reconciliation between them is out of the question. Stein lives, thinks, and grieves only ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... we have the sad picture of a character steadily deteriorating. He is growing daily more self-willed and impatient of the restraint of God's commanding will. He is chafing at his position as a viceroy, not an absolute sovereign. He is becoming tyrannical, careless of his subjects' lives, intolerant ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... can easily comprehend the mortification you must have felt in having one so self-willed to deal with," returned the surgeon, glancing his eyes reproachfully at his comrade. "But you should rise superior to such opinions, and pity the ignorance by which they ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... brought up it is very little inclined to seclusion. It never sees a window without wishing to jump out, it would have leaped over the wall twenty times if it had not been prevented, and no secular cat could be more lawless or more self-willed." ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... Petrarch had taken clerical orders and was established as assistant to the secretary of one of the cardinals. Up to his twentieth year Petrarch was self-willed, moody, and subject to fits of melancholy. He knew too much and saw things too clearly to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... Stormy Petrel. They perceived a marvellous change in him. Every trace of recklessness and arrogance had passed away; every stain of passion had been removed; every particle of hardness had been calcined in the flame of trial. All was gentleness, love, and dependence, in the once bright, impetuous, self-willed boy; it seemed as though the lightning of God's anger had shattered and swept away all that was evil in his heart and life, and left all his true excellence, all the royal prerogatives of his character, pure and unscathed. Eric, even in his worst days, ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... what you say. You know quite well you would not give up your son and daughter for all the money in the world. You love Edna all the more because she needs so much care, and you are just as proud of Rex as you can be. Of course he is self-willed and determined, but if you could change him into a weak, undecided creature like the vicar's son, you would be very ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of us reaches back to our first struggles as we emerged from self-willed childhood into a recognition of family obligations. We have all gradually learned to respond to them, and yet most of us have had at least fleeting glimpses of what it might be to disregard them and the elemental claim they make upon us. ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... grew older he became more self-willed and disobedient, and his manner to his mother was often very rude, and his temper to the other ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... hands, whatever he should choose to do; and to go, with his wayward young feet, whithersoever his foolish young nose should choose to lead him; so that, by the time he had walked into his twelfth year, a worse spoilt boy, a vainer boy, a more self-conceited boy, a more self-willed boy than master Sprigg was not to be found in the land—ransack the Paradise from Big Bone Lick to the ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... was jealous. The boy possessed great natural abilities, and in good hands would have turned out something different than a life-long prison drudge. He was handsome, genteel in appearance, an apt scholar, though very self-willed and headstrong, and as he grew up his naturally hot temper became uncontrollable. At an early age he had discovered that by threats of self-injury he could bend his parents to his wishes, but found in his stepfather one who would put up with no nonsense; ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... neither Pitt, nor Fox, nor even Chatham was capable of reaching. There might be seen in Banks's fine bust of him, the cause why Warren Hastings, though he was endowed with many good qualities which endeared him to his friends, was, nevertheless, covetous, self-willed, domineering, unjust, and, in some instances, pitiless, as Governor-General of India. What a contrast to this did the bust of the Marquis of Wellesley, by Nollekens, present. Not only did it indicate that the disposition of that distinguished statesman ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... keystone of his character, both in his relations with his workmen and also in his domestic life. If he were to weaken, no matter what the circumstances, after once taking a determined stand, he would forfeit not only the world's respect, but his own as well. He was as proud and self-willed as she. He had told her that he would never go to her unless she sent for him. If, therefore, she was as proud and determined as he was, they had said good-bye for ever. They would never see each other again. If she did not write, it was ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... Debussy's or of Scarlatini's 17th century tiraliras; or wore spectacles and had to have their front teeth in gold clamps. Just clear-eyed, good-tempered, good-looking, roguish and spontaneously natural and reasonably self-willed children, who adored their parents and did not openly mock at the Elishas ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... heaven, because in music there is no self-will. Music goes on certain laws and rules. Man did not make those laws of music, he has only found them out, and if he be self-willed and break them, there is an end of his music instantly; all he brings out is discord and ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... But its chief value lies elsewhere, and is not merely dramatic. It lies in the fact—in Shakespeare without a parallel—that the sub-plot simply repeats the theme of the main story. Here, as there, we see an old man 'with a white beard.' He, like Lear, is affectionate, unsuspicious, foolish, and self-willed. He, too, wrongs deeply a child who loves him not less for the wrong. He, too, meets with monstrous ingratitude from the child whom he favours, and is tortured and driven to death. This repetition does not simply double the pain with which the tragedy is witnessed: it startles ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... him fairly in the face, almost laughing, but slim and erect in her white tunic, which seemed to protect her person against the liberties of his wit. He, the conqueror, the irresistible, had never met one of that audacious, self-willed race. So he enveloped her in all the magnetic currents of his seductive charm, while around them the murmur of the fete, the flute-like laughter, the rustling of satins and strings of pearls played an accompaniment to that duet of ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... formidable to the temporal power. It was, therefore, in the natural constitution of society that bigoted zeal, which in such times makes a show of public acts of penance, should avail itself of the semblance of religion. But this took place in such a manner that unbridled, self-willed penitence degenerated into luke-warmness, renounced obedience to the hierarchy, and prepared a fearful opposition to the Church, paralyzed as ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... on Self-limited Diseases," the delivery of which many years ago marked the commencement of a new epoch in the movement of the medical mind among us. An hour's reading given to this new lesson of wisdom will turn many a self-willed, proud-hearted medical skeptic into a humble and consistent ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... the parable of the tares] convey, too, the same further lesson, that this fact [the actual intermixture of evil in the visible Church] does not justify self-willed departure from the fellowship of the Church, and impatient leaping over or breaking through the nets, as here it has often been called; but the Lord's separation is patiently to be waited for, which shall ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... condemns that covetous kingly and lordly power of darkness in men, that makes some men seek their freedom in the Earth and deny others that freedom. And the Scriptures do establish this Law, to cast out kingly and lordly self-willed and oppressing power, and to make every Nation in the World a Free Common-wealth. So that you have the Scriptures to protect you in making the Earth a Common Treasury for the comfortable livelihood of your bodies, while you ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... Would he be justified in rejecting, on behalf of Mary, the offer of pecuniary provision which this rich relative seemed so well inclined to make? Or, if he accepted it, would he in truth be studying her interests? Scatcherd was a self-willed, obstinate man—now indeed touched by unwonted tenderness; but he was one to whose lasting tenderness Dr Thorne would be very unwilling to trust his darling. He did resolve, that on the whole he should best discharge his duty, even to her, by keeping her to himself, and rejecting, on her behalf, ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... won't. Look here, Francie, this is not a self-willed freak for our own amusement. The keeping up the Church schools here depends upon what we can raise. I hate bazaars. I hate to have to obtain help for the Church through these people's idle amusement, but you and I have not ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... article for John Lockhart, and one for poor Gillies; but there is something irresistible in contradiction, even when it consists in doing a thing equally laborious, but not the thing you are especially called upon to do. It is a kind of cheating the devil, which a self-willed monster like me is particularly addicted to. Not to make myself worse than I am though, I was full of information about the Russian campaign, which might evaporate unless used, like lime, as soon after it was wrought up as possible. About three, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... And Drusus ran his eye over the whole company, and sought for one friendly look; but he met with only stony glances or dark frowns. There was justice neither in the people nor in the Senate. Their hearts were drunk with a sense of revenge and self-willed passion; and Justice literally weighed out her bounty with ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... they had identified themselves with, and tried to realize on earth, one of the worst falsehoods of that creed—celibacy. Not being founded on the true and only ground of all society, family life, they were merely artificial and self-willed arrangements of man's invention, which could not develop to any higher form. And when the sanctity of marriage was revindicated at the Reformation, the monasteries, having identified themselves with celibacy, naturally fell. They could not partake ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... refined, and of religions feeling. It might be supposed that a child of such parents could not but turn out well. Unhappily for me, they loved me much, but not wisely. I was allowed to have my own way in all things, I was never taught to obey. As I grew up, my self-willed disposition became more and more developed. I could not bear constraint of any sort. Too late they discovered their error. I had received at home some little religious instruction; I even knew something about the contents of the Bible, but its spirit ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... at the chase. He laughed and cried, 'Let the lad go to the city; before a year has passed away he will be home again and the beautiful Lizzie Lindsay with him.' For his old father, too, thought that no maiden could refuse to love his bonny self-willed son. ...
— Stories from the Ballads - Told to the Children • Mary MacGregor
... suddenly took a strange, unbidden turn. If he had only himself to consider! ... well, what then! Was it not just within the bounds of probability that, under the same circumstances, he might be precisely as self-willed and as haughtily opinionated as the friend whose arrogance he deplored, yet ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Tarascon would brighten its monotony, and be sweeter to see and breathe than that everlasting baobab, arbos gigantea, diminutively confined in the mignonette pot. With her childlike eyes, and her broad brow, thoughtful and self-willed, Sonia looked at him, and she, too, dreamed—but who knows what ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... Fred Ramer, self-willed, imperious, extravagant in his habits, greedy and unscrupulous; but he was handsome and masterful, with a compelling magnetism that made us admire him and bound us to him. He had never known what it meant to have a single wish denied him. And with his make-up, he would stop ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... allies of Sparta," says Grote, "especially Corinth and Thebes, not only relented in their hatred of Athens, now she had lost her power, but even sympathized with her suffering exiles, and became disgusted with the self-willed encroachments of Sparta; while the Spartan king, Pausanias, together with some of the ephors, were also jealous of the arbitrary and oppressive conduct of Lysander. He refused to prevent the revival of the democracy. It was in this ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... was different. Pen was a man. It seemed natural somehow that he should be self-willed and should have his own way. And under his waywardness and selfishness, indeed there was a kind and generous heart. O it was hard that such a diamond should be changed away against such a false stone as this. In a word, Laura began to be tired of her admired ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fell out that Pauline Rutter, a niece of De Decker, came at this time to stay with her uncle at Amsterdam, and as I was a frequent visitor at De Decker's house, I often met her. Pauline was proud, dark, and self-willed—the very opposite of what Anna Holstein had been when I married her, and for this reason, perhaps, I liked her the more, since it put an end to all comparison between her and Anna, to whom I ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... as he was familiarly called by those who did not fear him, was a powerful fellow; an amazingly active, vigorous, self-willed fellow, whom it was difficult to resist, and, in some circumstances, quite impossible ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... 1856). She was a pretty girl of "a perfect figure," highly educated, a mathematician, and, by courtesy, a poetess. She had rejected Byron's first offer, but, believing that her cruelty had broken his heart and that he was an altered man, she was now determined on marriage. High-principled, but self-willed and opinionated, she believed that she held her future in her own hands. On her side there was ambition touched with fancy—on his, a wish to be married and some hope perhaps of finding an escape from himself. The marriage took place at ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... he had not done all that in him lay to prevent so disgraceful an alliance. It was in vain that Mrs. Grantly assured him that speaking to Eleanor angrily would only hasten such a crisis and render it certain, if at present there were any doubt. He was angry, self-willed, and sore. The fact that a lady of his household had received a letter from Mr. Slope had wounded his pride in the sorest place, and nothing could ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... loft, but Dr. Carr had given his permission, so all she could do was to invent stories about children who had broken their bones in various dreadful ways, by climbing posts and ladders. But these stories made no impression on any of the children except little Phil, and the self-willed brood kept on their way, and climbed their spiked post as often as ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... what they say. The world, again, are angry with these sayings, sermons, and books, for that by them they are concluded to be persons that are without repentance, and the hope of eternal life. Here again, the carnal world judges that these people are proud, self-willed, pragmatical, contentious, self-conceited, and so unsufferable people. The Christian yet goes on and stands to what he has asserted. Then the poor world at their last shift begins to turn, and overturn the gospel-man's sayings; perverting, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... me quiet, easy, gentle, I may be so, but I am also passionate, determined, and you say selfish; be that as it may, I cannot give up without a very hard struggle, not even then usually. I am unyielding. Persevering and firm, Emily would say, self-willed and obstinate, Grace would ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... deeply corrupting form of self-pleasing: "'Tis what I love determines how I love." Love is his "highest allegiance"; and it becomes ere long an allegiance before which truth, faith, and honour give way, and guidance and control of conscience are swept before the fierce storm of self-willed passion that brooks no interposition between ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... she turned in her chair, and her hands twisted in her lap. Was she not still as stubborn as of old, still as proud and impatient of restraint where her sense of freedom and independence of action were in question, still as self-willed? And was it true, what Carmencita had said—was she giving herself to others and refusing herself to the only one who had the right to claim her, the royal right ...
— How It Happened • Kate Langley Bosher
... Harvey says it is not scarlet fever at all, and he persuaded mother to let him go after you. He always has things his own way, though he brings it about so quietly that nobody would even suspect him of being self-willed. Harvey is a ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... "She's a perverse, self-willed, capricious little puss. She's been too much indulged. She needs to be brought under discipline," said Gerald, angrily whipping off a blossom with his rattan as they walked toward ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... sooner than forgive him! Die, did I say? I'll live these fifty years to plague him. At our last meeting, his impudence had almost put me out of temper—an obstinate, passionate, self-willed boy! This is my return for putting him, at twelve years old, into a marching regiment, and allowing him fifty pounds a year, besides his pay, ever since! But I have done with him—he's anybody's son for me—I never ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... harping on this engagement, which is an engagement and no engagement, and—goodness knows what. I have grave doubts whether she ought to be allowed to return to London in the present state of affairs, but she is so self-willed that she might take it into her head to come up at any moment. The fact is someone ought to speak to Bosinney and ascertain what he means. I'm afraid of this myself, for I should certainly rap him over the knuckles, but I thought that you, knowing him at the Club, might put in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... self-reproach, caused by their own conduct or that of others, made them hard to be pleased—and so the cloud thickened about them, and with all outward means for being happy, loving and beloved, they were a wretched family. James, the eldest, was impetuous and self-willed, but affectionate, generous, and very fond of reading and study, and with gentle and judicious management, would have been the joy and pride of his family, with the domestic and literary tastes so invaluable to every youth, in our day, when temptations of every kind are so rife ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... the story of a schoolmaster, his trials, disappointments, and final victory. It will recall to many a man his experience in teaching pupils, and in managing their opinionated and self-willed parents. The story has the charm which is always found in ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... still formidable to the temporal power. It was therefore in the natural constitution of society that bigoted zeal, which in such times makes a show of public acts of penance, should avail itself of the semblance of religion. But this took place in such a manner, that unbridled, self-willed penitence, degenerated into lukewarmness, renounced obedience to the hierarchy, and prepared a fearful opposition to the Church, paralysed as it ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... in almost the same lordly fashion as the preachers. Of a certain congregation at Norwich Wesley writes, 'I told them in plain terms that they were the most ignorant, self-conceited, self-willed, fickle, untractable, disorderly, disjointed society that I knew in the three kingdoms. And God applied to their hearts, so that many were profited, but I do not find that one was offended.'[727] At one time he had an idea that tea was ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... face, upturned beside her, as she and her horse climbed the steep path; the extraordinary significance, fulness, warmth of the nature behind it; the gradual unveiling of the man's personality, most human, faulty, self-willed, yet perpetually interesting and challenging, whether to the love or hate of the bystander:—these feelings or judgments about her host pulsed through the girl's mind with an energy that she was powerless to arrest. They did not make her happy, but they seemed to quicken and ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... taught, first of all, to respect authority on which all his religious convictions are based. There is a natural tendency in a Protestant, who will have nothing to do with authority in spiritual matters, to bring this state of mind over with him into temporary affairs; being self-willed in greater things, he is fore-inclined to be self-willed in lesser. The Catholic and, for a greater reason, the religious knows less of this temptation; and the better Catholic and religious he is, the farther removed ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... with his grand physical advantages and his good property. There was rivalry enough to excite him, her beauty was sufficient to fire his boyish fancy; and opposition only maddened his headstrong will. A loud, boisterous, self-willed boy, with already strength, courage, and power beyond those of most grown men; his inclination light and unformed, as the attachments of his age usually are, was so backed that he succeeded where failure would have been ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of military organization relied upon throughout the West was that of the volunteer militia. In periods of ordinary Indian warfare the system served its purpose fairly well. Under stern necessity, the self-willed, independence-loving backwoodsmen could be brought to act together for a few weeks or months; but they had little systematic training, and their impatience of restraint prevented the building up of any real discipline. There were periodic musters for company or regimental ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... protest entered in the journals of the house. His lordship began at this time to display an obstructive disposition towards the government with which he had so long acted. He had proved that his exaltation to the office of lord-chancellor had inflated his vanity, and made him so self-willed and crotchetty as to render co-operation with him either in the government of the country, or in conducting bills through ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... many years his senior, professor of all the dead languages ever left unburied, had put a considerable fortune into his hands, and into his brain the dream of a life-work—even the building of a great university in the West. For the Wreams were a stubborn, self-willed, bookish breed, who held that salvation of souls could come only through possession of a college diploma. Young Fenneben had come to Kansas with all his youth and health and money, with high ideals and culture and ambition for success and dreams of honor—and, hidden ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... after prayer, had made a statement to the students in regard to the unpleasant event of the day, in which he represented me as a contumacious offender, one who desired to make all the trouble he could; an obstinate, self-willed fellow, whose example was dangerous to the general peace, and who had refused to be guided by reason and common sense. He told the students that he had even offered to pay for my boat—a concession on his part which had had no effect in softening my obdurate ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... and above all hated his opponent. This relation was rich and childless; and there were not wanting those who predicted that his money would ultimately discharge the mortgages and repair the house of the young representative of the Mordaunt honours. But the old kinsman was obstinate, self-willed, and under the absolute dominion of patrician pride; and it was by no means improbable that the independence of Mordaunt's character would soon create a disunion between them, by clashing against the peculiarities ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... now, of fifteen or sixteen; but at no distant day would seem to become a woman all at once. Her father thought so as he looked at her. She was pretty. Would have been self-willed (he thought in his eminently practical way) but for ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... is true enough; Ingeborg will then be gone. It will be a little hard on me; she is wild and self-willed, but I shall miss her nevertheless,—miss ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... lived with the Judge in the days of Judy's lady grandmother, turned his offended back on this self-willed and unworthy scion of a noble race, and marched into the ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... there is but one valid objection which can be urged against the mode of procedure I advocate, namely this: nothing can be more detrimental to a piece of music than ARBITRARY NUANCES of tempo, etc., such as are likely to be introduced by this or that self-willed and conceited time-beater, for the sake of what he may deem "effective." In that way, certainly, the very existence of our classical music might, in course of time, be undermined. Now, what is to be said or done in the face of so sad a state of things? A sound public opinion ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... but for the moment she had no thought save for her brother. Exultation filled her. She accounted that she had conquered, and she gloried in the power her beauty gave her, a power that had sufficed to melt to water the hard-frozen purposes of this self-willed man. The next instant, however, she was cold again with dismay and newborn terror. He unclasped her arms, he drew back, shaking off the hands she had rested upon his shoulders. His white face—the flush had faded from it again—smiled a ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... Dr. Opimian. Young men are ambitious, self-willed, self-indulgent, easily corrupted by bad example, of which there is always too much. I cannot say much for those of the present day, though it is not absolutely ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... heart forlorn, The pulses of my being beat anew: And even as Life returns upon the drowned, Life's joy rekindling roused a throng of pains— Keen pangs of Love, awakening as a babe 65 Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart; And fears self-willed, that shunned the eye of Hope; And Hope that scarce would know itself from Fear; Sense of past Youth, and Manhood come in vain, And Genius given, and Knowledge won in vain; 70 And all which I had culled in wood-walks wild, And all which patient toil had reared, and all, Commune with thee had ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... repelling aspects, still it would seem that, as the stillest waters commonly conceal the deepest currents, so the powers to awaken extraordinary events are not unfrequently cloaked under a chastened, and sometimes under a cold, exterior. It has often happened, that the most desperate and self-willed men are those whose mien and manners would give reason to expect the mildest and most tractable dispositions; while he who has seemed a lion sometimes proves, in his real nature, to be little better ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... younger son's caressing gentleness, there grew up a certain regard for self; it was latent, it took amiable colours; it had even a certain charm and grace in so sweet a child, but selfishness it was not the less. In this he differed from his brother. Philip was self-willed: Sidney self-loving. A certain timidity of character, endearing perhaps to the anxious heart of a mother, made this fault in the younger boy more likely to take root. For, in bold natures, there is a lavish and uncalculating recklessness ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... do with this self-willed elf? To carry out her father's ideas, and let her nature have unrestrained freedom to develop itself, will be the ruin of her! Unless she is controlled and guided she is just the girl to grow up wild and eccentric, and end in running away with her ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... to speak; but knowing that the self-willed multitude, if enraged, might beat him to death, as almost always happened in such cases, he bowed very low, laid down his staff, and hid himself ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... Benjamin erred in the matter. He was by nature headstrong and independent; and, perhaps, he was more self-willed on account of his success in the business. But, after all allowances are made, James must be regarded as the chief offender in the troubles, and on him the responsibility for it rests in a ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... reasonable to suppose the devil could not understand our Lord. If He be the Son of God, so might Satan argue, He has all the more reason to be proud; and, therefore, it is all the more easy to tempt Him into shewing His pride, into proving Himself a conceited, self-willed, rebellious being—in one word, ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... that you should care one bit for silly, foolish, naughty, self-willed me. Oh, Mr. Dutton, you can't ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mills that is practically controlled by one man, a very able man, but exceedingly self-willed and stubborn. He owns a chain of mills from coast to coast, and the rest of the manufacturers in his line follow his lead in everything. He has fought the Safety First idea from the start—calls it 'one of these new-fangled notions'—will have nothing at all to do with it—and he has held back ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... precepts of the triple Veda. Religion will consist in wasting wealth, In fasting and performing penances At will; the man who owns most property, And lavishly distributes it, will gain Dominion over others; noble rank Will give no claim to lordship; self-willed women Will seek their pleasure, and ambitious men Fix all their hopes on riches gained by fraud. The women will be fickle and desert Their beggared husbands, loving them alone Who give them money. Kings, instead of guarding, Will rob their subjects, and abstract ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... an ardent, impetuous, and self-willed boy, such as the sons of rich and powerful men are very apt to become. They imbibe, by a sort of sympathy, the ambitious and aspiring spirit of their fathers; and as all their childish caprices and passions are generally indulged, they never learn to submit ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... must not be given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre, not a brawler, not covetous, not a novice, not self-willed, not soon angry. See 1 Tim. 3:3-6; ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... Civilization was a hindrance to his business. The wild animals he sought fled from the presence of many men. Though the Indian had penetrated more or less to all these secluded regions, the Indian has enough of the reserve of outdoor life not to disturb any of the animals. It is the imperious, self-willed, noisy white man who drives away the shy ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... A wilful fool must have his way; that was what he thought of your gentleman chauffeur, no doubt. This will give the self-willed young man an excuse to take the boat to Cattaro to-morrow. You will have a run on Dalmar-Kalm's motor (which he has put on board on purpose) this afternoon from Cattaro to Schloss Hrvoya. It will not be serious for Miss Beechy. You can wire, and get her answer that Signorina ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... certain that he would not observe his engagements, if it should be for his interest to violate them. Even if it should be for his interest to observe them, it might well be doubted whether the strongest and clearest interest would induce a man so haughty and self-willed to co-operate heartily with two governments which had always been the objects of his ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... answering,—avoiding her as if she was infected with the plague. When the cold northeast storms came, when the clouds hung low upon the hills, when the wind howled in the woods, when the rain pattered upon the withered leaves, how lonesome the hours! She was haughty and self-willed, friendless and alone; but instead of becoming loyal and behaving like a good, sensible girl, she nursed her pride; and comforted herself by thinking that her great-grandfather Funk was a fine old Virginian gentleman. If a still, small voice whispered that it was mean ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... was a judgment, and that though he everywhere went with the purpose of saving and blessing men, yet that he necessarily was also a judge. The thoughts of many hearts were revealed by his presence. The pure in heart came to him in humility, penitence, and faith. The proud in heart, the self-willed, the self-righteous, turned away from him, and so judged themselves unworthy of receiving his truth. The Galilean peasants, the common people, heard him gladly. The Scribes and Pharisees murmured against him and rejected him. This was really a judgment on both: ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... me to the church door," she returned, decidedly. I was beginning to find out that Carrie could be self-willed sometimes. "I must talk to you, Esther; I must tell you how I hate it. Fancy trying to hammer French and music into those children's heads, when I might—I might—" But here she stopped, actually on the ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... had grown up ignorant, self-willed, and clownish. His ignorance and clownishness had prevented his mingling with the neighboring gentry. In spite of his great fortune he had been unsuccessful in an attempt to gain the hand of the daughter of the parson, and had at length shrunk into the limits of such society as a mere ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... head-strong and self-willed in all they do. They do not seem to know what fear means in any sense—they are dangerous lovers and husbands to trifle with, for they will stop at nothing if their blood is ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... against the Western insurgents should now be with difficulty kept down by sword and carbine, these were signs full of evil omen to the House of Stuart. The warning, however, was lost on the dull, stubborn, self-willed tyrant. He was resolved to transfer to his own Church all the wealthiest and most splendid foundations of England. It was to no purpose that the best and wisest of his Roman Catholic counsellors remonstrated. They represented to him that ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... attempts at work, he was seized with one of those fits of depression which shake the most stubborn pride and cloud the most lucid intellects. Nothing is indeed more terrible than these hidden struggles that sometimes take place between the self-willed artist and his rebellious art. Nothing is more moving than these fits of rage alternating with invocation, in turn supplicating or imperative, addressed to a disdainful or ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... or vespers came in the way. She did all for the best, I am certain, and judged herself far more severely than she did others, but she could not guess how any thing like an admonition or a lecture grated on the proud, self-willed nature that from childhood had been unused to the slightest control. To speak the truth, too, she was not exempt from that failing which brought ruin on the brightest of the angels, and punishment eternal on the Son ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence |
