"Wont" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of that which displeased him his voice naturally assumed that tone of indignation with which in days of yore he had been wont to denounce the public extravagance of his opponents in the House of Commons. The father paused, but the son could not ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... came Anne Oldfield during that never-to-be-forgotten summer—not, however, as an equal, but as an humble player of the troupe from Drury Lane. They had moved down from London, these happy-go-lucky Bohemians, as they were wont to do each season, among them being the ubiquitous Cibber, the gentlemanly Wilks, and that very talented vagabond, George Powell. Powell it was who liked his brandy not wisely but too well, and who made such passionate love on the stage that Sir John ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... a kind of inward light. No one was ever there when he came in,—no one, that is, save the occasional patient,—but he always found that his papers had assembled themselves in orderly piles on the table where he was wont to throw them; that the table itself had become so glossy that things slipped about or fell off whenever he moved them; and that no matter where he left his pipes, he always found them ranged with exact symmetry on the mantel-shelf. (If he ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards
... Boate for the more Convenient carriage of salt. Thus wee continued workeing, and upon the Fourth day of February instant Capt. Allison and Sundry of his men Dined with us on board said Shipp in a friendly manner, as they were wont to doe, and Some time after Dinner desired the said Commander Tay, with Mr. Edward Tyng the Sup[er]cargoe and James Meeres a passenger, to goe on boarde theire Sloope to Drinke a glasse of Punch with them, which he did, and when we were come on board the said Sloope they ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... going to run away at least by the time you get this we have run away but never mind for wen weve seen the wurld were cumming back we took the pi wich I hope you wont mind as we had no brekfust and I'll bring back the dish we send our best love and I've no more to tell you to-day from ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... performing some ceremony to avert the displeasure of the elves. There is upon the top of Minchmuir, a mountain in Peeblesshire, a spring called the Cheese Well, because, anciently, those who passed that way were wont to throw into it a piece of cheese as an offering to the fairies, ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... the hands were piped down to dinner, the prospect of hot work not at all damping their appetites, though perhaps they got through their meal rather faster than was their wont; when they again hurried on deck to see how things were going on. The two French frigates were approaching. The headmost in a short time fired a bowchaser, but the shot fell short. It served, however, as a ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... stranger's home; Some other hand, less fond, must now thy corn and bed prepare, Thy silky mane, I braided once, must be another's care! The morning sun shall dawn again, but never more with thee Shall I gallop through the desert paths, where we were wont to be; Evening shall darken on the earth, and o'er the sandy plain Some other steed, with slower step, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Rambouillet had not intervened with a negligent air of authority, which sat on him the more gracefully as he held nothing but a riding-switch in his hands. 'Tut, tut! What is this?' he said lightly. 'I am not wont to have my people interfered with, M. Provost, without my leave. You ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... is politic, however, to make few allusions to such a past; nor, if we would create an interest in the characters of our story, is it wise to suggest how Cicero's foot may have stepped on yonder stone, or how Horace was wont to stroll near by, making his footsteps chime with the measure of the ode that was ringing in his mind. The very ghosts of that massive and stately epoch have so much density that the actual people ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Mr. Watson," more graciously than was his wont. "It isn't that I'm afraid of girls, you know; but they may want to insult me, just as their aunt does, and I ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... wounds or other injuries which a man inflicts upon himself by choice, and of his own free will, pain him far less than those inflicted by another. Nevertheless, in the later days of the republic the Romans were wont to entrust this power to a consul instead of to a dictator, using the formula, Videat CONSUL ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... here. Don't bother yourself about him, Herbert; you may be a great diplomatist, and have the politics of the whole country in your pocket, but I wont give my boy into your keeping; he belongs to me alone, and I intend to keep him, ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... as never believing they should be in possibility of advancement, till they see them in possession. So that upon the matter, in a great wit, deformity is an advantage to rising. Kings in ancient times (and at this present in some countries) were wont to put great trust in eunuchs; because they that are envious towards all are more obnoxious and officious, towards one. But yet their trust towards them, hath rather been as to good spials, and good whisperers, than good magistrates and officers. And ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... chief adornment, the feature which makes more impression on the beholder than anything else in Ravenna, was added after Theodoric's death, yet not so long after but that it may be suitably alluded to here as a specimen of the style of decoration which his eyes must have been wont to look upon. About the year 560, after the downfall of the Gothic monarchy, Agnellus, the Catholic Bishop of Ravenna, "reconciled" this church, that is, re-consecrated it for the performance of worship by orthodox priests, and in doing ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... saints and martyrs, above all, of everything that was in any way connected with the foundation, and the history of the several parts of that minster which he loved with all the holy love which men are wont to feel for the country of their birth and for the home of their youth, and, moreover, with a feeling akin to that which made Jacob exclaim, as he rose from his resting-place at Bethel, "This is the house of God, and the gate ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... That wall so bright Is but a snow bank, gleaming white, Your paint wont stick!" Came the reply, "I've done it! 'How ...
— Excelsior • Bret Harte
... William Shakespeare and Anne Whately of Templegrafton, the day previous to that of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway of Stratford, November 28, 1582.[137] It all seems possible to explain. Travelling was inconvenient on November roads; Will set out for the license alone, as bridegrooms were often wont to do, when they could afford the expense of a special license. He might give his own name, and that of his intended wife, at a temporary address. The clerk made an error in the spelling, which might have been corrected; but meanwhile discovered that Shakespeare was under ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... numerous wrecks took place there lay in the fact that the fishermen were wont to visit the rock after every gale, for the purpose of gathering wreckage. It was resolved, therefore, about the beginning of this century, to erect a lighthouse on the Inchcape Rock, and to Mr Robert Stevenson, Engineer ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... out of thy novitiate, doest well, verily, to prate of obedience and doctrines," interrupted Father Gianmaria, less severely than he was wont to treat such breaches of etiquette; for Fra Francesco had deep, spiritual, loving eyes, in which an unuttered wonder sometimes seemed to chide, for all his gentleness; and his ways ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... faith and not by sight,' he said once; 'and by no one so much as by those who are in politics is this necessary.' It is the evidence of things not seen, the eternal principles, the great invisible moral sanctions that men are wont to call the laws of God, which alone supply a safe ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... men carried out to their burial, and to represent funeral solemnities by lamentations and mournful songs. The mutilation, however, of the images of Mercury, most of which, in one night, had their faces all disfigured, terrified many persons who were wont to despise most things of that nature. It was given out that it was done by the Corinthians, for the sake of the Syracusans, who were their colony, in hopes that the Athenians, by such prodigies, might be induced to delay or abandon the war. But the report gained no credit ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the blast; in mingled gyre, Flew leaves and stones; and with a deafening crash Fell the uprooted trees; heaven seemed on fire— Not, as 'tis wont, with intermitting flash, But, like an ocean all of liquid flame, The whole broad arch gave one continuous glare, While through the red light from their prowling came The frighted beasts, and ran, but could ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... in the temple of Nabu at Calah, but beyond this and Ashurbanabal's constant association of Tashmitum with Nabu in the subscript to his tablets, she appears only when the kings of Assyria coming to Babylonia as they were wont to do,[308] in order to perform sacrifices, enumerate the chief gods ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... whiche is wont for the most parte to refuse that Se lhumaine propension, qui seult pour la plus part ...
— An Introductorie for to Lerne to Read, To Pronounce, and to Speke French Trewly • Anonymous
... it as honest a word as trustworthy,— masculize, which is at least intelligible,—and fast, used as college-boys use it in their loose talk, but not with the meaning which sober scholars are wont to give it. With these slight exceptions, the translation appears to us singularly felicitous, notwithstanding the task must have been very difficult, which Dr. Palmer has performed with such ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... "neither among those who are engaged in establishing a state, nor among those carrying on wars, nor among those who are curbed and restrained under the rule of kings, is the desire of distinction in eloquence wont to ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... disposing of her hand. And this silly woman's wealth being chiefly in gold and jewels, we should have had our share. But the bow string has burst, and the arrow failed. Away with her—we will bring her to William with the Beard. By the time he has gorged himself with wassail, as is his wont, he will not know an old Countess from a young one. Away, Rizpah—bear a gallant heart. The bright Aldebaran still influences the destinies of the Children of ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... at last to escape these gloomy thoughts. Alves followed him without a word. He did not offer her his arm, as he was wont to do when they walked out here beyond the paths where people came. She respected his mood, and falling a step behind, followed the winding road that led around the ruined Court of Honor to the esplanade. As they gained the road by a little footpath in the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... him. With passionate imperiousness she made the rest of the household wait upon her bidding as she busied herself in stanching the flow of blood and in picking the splinters from the wound. Jack knew how wont she was, in common with all Samoans, to shrink from disagreeable sights. It touched him to see how love had conquered her repugnance; nor could he resist a smile when she began to tear her little wardrobe into bandages, those ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... said Wade, "and I wont have any other. Now of all men, a lawyer can the least afford to be dishonest; for a taint, a doubt of his honor, ruins him; and there cannot be a more honorable body of men in the world, and never was, than the fair majority of the bar. The habit of contesting in open court, ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... out, as "Antis" are wont to do, that opposing a popular movement was an ungrateful, as well as an unpleasant task. Pamphlets issued by the other side called them a junto of debtors, knaves, and worthless-moneyists. The Anti-Federalist members of the Massachusetts Convention complained that ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... new misfortune could be in store for her. But when morning came, Venus led her to the brink of a river, and, pointing to the wood across the water, said: "Go now to yonder grove where the sheep with the golden fleece are wont to browse. Bring me a golden lock from every one of them, or you must go your ways ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... His delivery, moreover,—he always read his discourses,—was unpleasant, unintelligible, and, above all, was often interrupted by a cough, but more frequently by a hollow, paunch-convulsing laugh, with which he was wont to announce and accompany the biting passages. This singular man I found to be mild and obliging when I began to take lessons of him. I now went to his house daily at six o'clock in the evening, and always experienced a secret pleasure when the outer ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... many a croaking raven Flying about the well-known haven: When Olaf's ship was floating here, They knew that food for them was near; When Olaf's ship lay here wind-bound, Oft screamed the erne o'er Hillar sound, Impatient for the expected prey, And wont to ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... doctor was a man of great erudition, and of varied knowledge, and had a manner, special to himself, of making almost any subject most interesting. Hours flew by, and it was only when aunt entered about five o'clock, to take a cup of tea, as was her wont, that we were aware how time had flown. The doctor praised my knowledge of history, and the pertinency of the questions I had put to him, in a manner highly flattering to me, and I could see that I had risen much in his estimation, quite apart from any erotic influences. ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... next few weeks it is not pathetic to me to look back upon. His sternness melted into a universal complaisance. He laughed and smiled, he paid to my opinions the tribute of the gravest considerations, he indulged— utterly unlike his wont—in shy and furtive caresses. I could express no wish that he did not attempt to fulfill, and the only warning which he cared to give me was one, very gently ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... the few evenings Drummond had spent in the garrisons of Lowell, Bowie, or Stoneman, he had heard mention of a mysterious hiding-place in the Cababi Mountains whither, when pressed by sheriffs' posses, Pasqual Morales had been wont to flee with his chosen followers and there bid defiance to pursuit. And now the young soldier saw at a glance that the chase was heading along a fairly well defined track straight for a dark, frowning gorge in the mountains some three or four miles ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... of the keen attention of his companions, spoke slowly as was his wont when making ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... replied Jones, in the same low, savage tone. 'I wish you had, before that cursed job of yours made me put a bullet in poor Tim. I wish you had; but it is too late. You wont now.' ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... performed all the menial offices, as if the object of them were alive and could feel their import. Each ghostly form took its seat at the banquet-table—now, alas! stripped of the magnificent service with which it was wont to blaze at these high festivals—and the guests drank deep to the illustrious dead. Dancing succeeded the carousal, and the festivities, prolonged to a late hour, were continued night after night by the giddy population, as if their conquerors ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... just as pedlars catch monkeys in the baboon kingdoms, provoking the attentive fools, by their own example, to put on shoes and stockings, till the apes of imitation, trying to do the like, entangle their feet, and so cannot escape upon the boughs of the tree of liberty, on which before they were wont to hop and skip about, and play a thousand ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... and Scholastica did honour to it, while Armelline, contrary to her wont, scarcely touched a thing. Scholastica was charming. She embraced her friend, and told her to be merry with her, as I had become the friend of her betrothed, and she was sure I would do as much for her as I had done for Emilie. She blessed the ball and the chance which ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... such a matter. He promised to inform his questioner upon the morrow. But when he went to bed that night he tried the beard beneath the bedclothes and above without success. Neither way could he get comfort, nor could he, for the life of him, remember how the beard was wont to go. He got no sleep on that night or the next night either, for thinking on the problem thus presented to his mind. On the third day, in a rage, he called a barber and had the beard cut off. Accustomed as he was to such a mass of hair upon his neck, ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... good dame, to whose care I must commit you for the present, as my foreman, John Watkins, is down by the riverside seeing to the proper delivery of divers stores on board a ship which sails with the next tide for Holland. My apprentices, too, are both out, as I must own is their wont. They always make excuses to slip down to the riverside when there is aught doing, and I am far too easy with the varlets. So at present, you see, I ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... after supper, sitting by our fire, my lady (and despite her weariness) was merrier than her wont and very full of plans for the future, deciding for me what furniture I must construct next, as chairs (two) a cupboard with shelves, and where these ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... is startled—and stops short Right in the middle of the thicket; And Peter, wont to whistle loud Whether alone or in a crowd, Is silent as a ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece, And ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... while" it will not only be swallowed up in the ineffable blessedness and glory, but that in some way it is actually helping to work out "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor. iv. 7). Fourth, that though the furnace has been heated seven times hotter than was wont, yet "the Form... like unto the Son of God" is walking with us in the fire; though triumphant enemies have thrust us into the lions' den, yet the angel of the Lord arrived first and locked the lions' jaws; though foes may have formed against us sharp weapons, yet they ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... and every three months the holy communion, till their minister died"; and after that "prayers daily, with an homily on Sundays, two or three years, till more preachers came." The sturdy and terrible resolution of Captain Smith, who in his marches through the wilderness was wont to begin the day with prayer and psalm, and was not unequal to the duty, when it was laid on him, of giving Christian exhortation as well as righteous punishment, and the gentle Christian influence of the Rev. Robert Hunt, were the salt that saved the colony from utterly perishing ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... more eager look, than was its wont, this morning, and she was full of life and energy that was born of her youth ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... from Drewry's Bluff, close in to Richmond. Nor was this all; for it was only now that definite news of the Red River Expedition arrived to confirm Grant's worst suspicions and ruin his second plan of helping Farragut to take Mobile. But, as was his wont, Grant at once took steps to meet the crisis. He ordered Hunter to replace Sigel and go south—straight into the heart of the Valley, asked the navy to move his own base down the Rappahannock from Fredericksburg to Port Royal, and then himself marched ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... in which she thanks him does not escape the notice of the single buffer of an easy temper living idly on his means. He glances at her; clasps his hands behind him, as the wont of such buffers is; and lounges along the echoing Precincts ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... them, I desire with all my heart to repose my weary soul, and to end the time which is allotted to me), through almost all the regions to which our tongue extends I have gone a pilgrim, almost a beggar, displaying against my will the wound of fortune, which is wont often to be imputed unjustly to [the discredit of] him who is wounded. Truly I have been a bark without sail and without rudder, borne to divers ports and bays and shores by that dry wind which grievous poverty breathes forth, and ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... which denotes the absence of any number." The date of Boethius is obviously too early for the supposition of an Arabic origin; but it is doubted whether the figures are of his time, as the copyists of a work in MS. were wont to use the characters of their own age in letters, and might do so in the case ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 27. Saturday, May 4, 1850 • Various
... is well to try to edge out of it by brow-beating me, but thou canst not. I saw you two kissing. When he first came in he went and stood beside thy bed and looked down at it, biting at his beard, as is his wont when he is moved; and then he fell upon his knees, whispering something, and kissed the pillow, over and over, and when he stood up he drew his hand across his eyes, and all for love ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... world to live with the old woman her young and beautiful and very lovely granddaughter. And one day—it was not so long afterward—the very lovely girl, rummaging about the great house, came upon a tall mirror, the mirror that the withered and bitter old woman had long been wont to use and that for all these many lonely years had seen and reflected naught but acrimony and decay and despair and ugliness. And the very lovely girl looked into the mirror—and suddenly cried out. For what the mirror reflected was ...
— A Book Without A Title • George Jean Nathan
... awakened her from the apathy of grief. Suddenly she gave a start and threw back her head. Then she rose from her seat, and, like Maria Theresa, began to pace the apartment. Gradually her face resumed its usual expression, and her demeanor became, as it was wont to be, dignified and graceful. Coming directly up to Madame de Campan, she smiled and gave her hand. "Good Campan," said she, "you have seen me in a moment of weakness, of which I am truly ashamed. Try to forget ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... Kettles, plates, saucepans, cups, coffee, sugar, salt, candles, all came from that mysterious basket which rode on the pack-horse with the baggage. Were I visiting Greece again, I would eschew all these vanities—carry nothing but a Reisesack, or travel-bag, as the Germans are wont to call every variety of knapsack—a shawl, and a copy of Pausanias, and live among the Greeks as the Greeks do; ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... acted the part of the woman in labour went through the gestures which the Greeks were wont to admire in the groves of Venus-Ariadne, near Amathus, where the same ceremony was acted on the second day of the month Gorpioeus, in memory of Ariadne, who died in child-bed. Thus it appears ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... they now dismounted, was one of those little wooden erections in which the hardy pioneers of the fur trade were wont in days of old to establish themselves in the very heart of the Indian country. Such forts may still be seen in precisely similar circumstances, and built in the same manner, at the present day, in the Hudson's Bay territories; with ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... not take his seat at table without first questioning Mlle. Moiseney; knowing nothing, she could give him no information; but she responded indefinitely to his queries with that air of mystery beneath which it was her wont to disguise her ignorance. He resolved to question Antoinette after dinner. She anticipated him, taking him aside and recounting to ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... who also discussed it very much at his ease. Sir Francis Geraldine among his friends in London had been congratulated on his safe but miraculous escape. With a certain number of men he had been wont to discuss the chances of matrimony. Should he die, without having an heir, his title and property would go to his cousin, Captain Geraldine, who was a man some fifteen years younger than himself ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... sitting-room, which looked out upon the harbour, two tallow candles were placed every evening on the table near the sofa, where the Consul was wont to sit; and when there were guests, two more were placed on the toddy-table by ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... how large was the heap of nuts in the barn; and how many oats remained in the bin without plunging her sinewy arm into the depths of it. She carried at the end of a string fastened to the belt of her casaquin, a boatswain's whistle, with which she was wont to summon Mariotte by one, ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... contagious that I was not long in finding that farmers in all directions were beginning to go to their labors with much less food in their stomachs than had been their wont, and in all cases with added ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... with gold. He will have hastened, hard as it was to hurry through such a show, in order to reach at once the far eastern end of the palace where a broad area had been allotted to the United States,—Jonathan, as is his wont, having helped himself largely. Great was the American's disappointment, cutting was the rebuke to his vanity; his country made no show at all. The samples of her industry were not outwardly brilliant. Their excellence lay in ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... to rid herself of one who would naturally interfere with her designs on Aegeus, she took advantage of the fear and jealousies of the old king, and persuaded him to become her accomplice in the premeditated crime. A banquet, according to the wont of those hospitable times, was given to the stranger. The king was at the board, the cup of poison at hand, when Theseus, wishing to prepare his father for the welcome news he had to divulge, drew the sword or cutlass which Aegeus had ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... argument of his watch upon his modesty that he was wont utterly to avoid the unguarded sight of naked persons, lest like David he should be snared by unlawful desire, for David's eyes, as we read, made havoc of his soul. Therefore this prince made a covenant with his eyes that they should never look unchastely ...
— Henry the Sixth - A Reprint of John Blacman's Memoir with Translation and Notes • John Blacman
... bends to the east, the rugged heights about its elbow, Aunty Boone, in those days, was wont to declare, did not offer enough level ground to set a hen on. Small reason was there then to hope that a city, great and gracious, would one day cover those rough ravines and grace those slopes and hilltops in the angle between the Missouri and ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... deliver his lectures at San Demetrio; he still cultivated a small patch of ground with enfeebled arm, composing, for relaxation, poems and rhapsodies at the patriarchal age of 88! They will show you the trees under which he was wont to rest, the sunny views he loved, the very stones on which he sat; they will tell you anecdotes of his poverty—of an indigence such as we can scarcely credit. During the last months he was often thankful for a crust of bread, in exchange for which he would bring a sack of acorns, self-collected, ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... trees only making the road the more picturesque. The brook, at which Willis often sat, still runs on through the grounds as of yore. In the house, everything is remodeled and remodernized. The room from whose windows Willis was wont to look over the Hudson, and where he did most of his charming writing, is now a bedchamber, modern in its every appointment, and suggesting its age only by the high ceiling and curious mantel. Only a few city blocks from "Idlewild" is the house where lived E. P. Roe, the author of so many popular ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... in olden time was wont to begin with the address "Lectori Benevolo"—the indulgence of the reader being thereby invoked and, it was hoped, assured. In that the writer of this at least would have his share, even though neither ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... than was my wont, I came to the tree in question and presently found a roomy cleft where was the frying-pan, sure enough. And now, having made up the fire, I set about cooking my breakfast for the first time in my life and found it no great business, turning the rashers ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... but not angrily, and she soon busied herself about him, doing some little thing for his comfort, as was her wont. But as she did so she could not but remember that she had undertaken to be a spy upon him, to secrete his key, and to search surreptitiously for that which he was supposed to be keeping fraudulently. As she sat by him empty-handed—for ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... discipline, of himself, nor of the respect due to his general; that he had not declined to put himself at the head of the excited multitude, who generally were like to their instigators, lest any other person might step forward, such an excited multitude were wont to elect. That for his own part he would do nothing without the orders of his general; that he also however must carefully see, that he keep the army in obedience. That minds so excited could not ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... the unnatural infidel above referred to charged this to my account. As is my humble wont, I bent my head to the storm, strong in the fearless confidence that France is France, and that, late as we were, the ever-open bar would ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... pertinacity) of temper, which can make no allowance for change of circumstances, and we think we have a tolerably clear notion of the causes of General McClellan's disasters. He can compose a good campaign beforehand, but he cannot improvise one out of the events of the moment, as is the wont of great generals. Occasion seldom offers her forelock twice to the grasp of the same man, and yet General McClellan, by the admission of the Rebels themselves, had Richmond at his ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... begin, good reader, with one of those startling bursts of "illustration," with which our most popular preachers are wont now to astonish and edify their hearers, and after starting with them at the opening of the sermon from the north-pole, the Crystal Palace, or the nearest cabbage-garden, float them safe, upon the gushing stream of oratory, to the safe and well-known shores of doctrinal commonplace, ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... had a digestion as yet unimpaired, and nerves still strong; and when he emerged an hour later and, more soberly dressed than was his wont, proceeded down the High Street towards the Cherwell Bridge, his spirits were at their normal level. The spring sunshine which gilded the pinnacles of Magdalen tower, and shone cool and pleasant on a score of hoary fronts, wrought gaily on him ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... confessed to Dryden that Spenser was his "poetical father." Dryden himself and Cowley, whose practice is so remote from Spenser's, acknowledged their debt to him. The passage from Cowley's essay "On Myself" is familiar: "I remember when I began to read, and to take some pleasure in it, there was wont to lie in my mother's parlour (I know not by what accident, for she herself never read any book but of devotion—but there was wont to lie) Spenser's works. This I happened to fall upon, and was infinitely ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... a good match," they were wont to say, "never! That plain outspokenness is all very well in a man, or even in an old woman, but it's very unbecoming in a girl, and I'm sure it will ruin her prospects." And on the subject of her "prospects" ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... the low horizon. On the other side the hill slopes down in a series of terraces to the crowded streets of the Trastevere, forming a spacious out-door amphitheatre, in which the Arcadian Academy of Rome used to hold its meetings during the summer months, and where St. Filippo Neri was wont to give those half-dramatic musical entertainments which, originating in the oratory of the religious community established by him, are now known throughout the world as oratorios. Between these two ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... distorted imagination of some diseased brain to bring herself to the realization that this same gentle hand that had rescued the robin and the butterfly had struck her down to death—that the kind, earnest voice that had been wont to whisper nothing but words of devotion and eternal love should fling out the vilest and bitterest of oaths at her, because she was not the heiress he had taken her ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... trailing spur Buck Weaver passed from the post-office to the porch, where public opinion was wont to formulate itself while waiting for the mail to be distributed. Here twice a week it had sat for many years, had heard evidence, passed judgment, condemned or acquitted. For at this store the Malpais ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... gentle, beseeching cooing failed to attract, he resorted to bolder methods, flying about the Square, and lingering longer than was his wont among neighboring nests, until he chanced upon a ...
— Chico: the Story of a Homing Pigeon • Lucy M. Blanchard
... imagined and invested him, we ask how we should stand related in conversation and action with such a man, and are uneasy with fear. The same idea exalts conversation with him. We talk better than we are wont. We have the nimblest fancy, a richer memory, and our dumb devil has taken leave for the time. For long hours we can continue a series of sincere, graceful, rich communications, drawn from the oldest, secretest experience, so that they who sit by, of our ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... grand-duke, otherwise Count Duren, he had humble lodgings in No. 7, Rue du Temple, as a fan-painter, plain M. Rudolph. To mask the large sums which on occasion he dispensed in charity, he was wont to give out that he was the agent of wealthy persons who ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... under blinding sun and withering fire, and I suppose it is the veldt that I should describe, as it swims and flickers before wounded eyes. I shut mine to bring it back, but all that comes is the keen brown face of Raffles, still a shade paler than its wont; now bending to sight and fire; now peering to see results, brows raised, eyes widened; anon turning to me with the word to set my tight lips grinning. He was talking all the time, but for my sake, and I knew it. Can you wonder that I could not see an inch beyond him? He was the battle ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... pure pleasures of the rural life" long after many a bright light of his own time had flickered out, and become almost forgotten; even "the sweet, shady side of Pall Mall" had almost disappeared, and with it the princely house whereat he was wont to shine. He died July 11, 1835, in his ninety-third year, of internal ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... between Nikias and Alkibiades had now reached such a pitch, it was decided that the remedy of ostracism must be applied to them. By this from time to time the people of Athens were wont to banish for ten years any citizen whose renown or wealth rendered him dangerous to the state. Great excitement was caused by this measure, as one or the other must be utterly ruined by its application. The Athenians were disgusted by the licentiousness ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... Lean, and look to the matter of his lord's son and see him with his eyes, and, if it might be, take some measure with the threat which lay in the lad's life. Nought he tarried, but set off in an hour's time with no more company than four men-at-arms and an old squire of his, who was wont to do his bidding without question, whether it ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... stripped off by gales before they had a chance to turn golden, their hues could vie with those flaunted by any other trees, but in the summer their dull, uniform green was apt to become monotonous, and Margaret Anstruther was then wont to declare that she could cheerfully have rooted ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... kisses as sheed wont; were she unchast, Surely her breath would like a Stigian mist Or some contagious vapor blast me; but 'Tis sweet as Indian balme, and from her lips Distills[68] a moisture pretious as the Dew The amorous bounty of the wholesome morne Throwes on rose buds; ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... prospects were rather formidable—some fifty men and boys, no other girl or woman. Soon two cold females made their appearance and we shivered together and got acquainted in five minutes, as is wont under the circumstances. One rawboned girl with a crooked nose and frizzled blond hair had been married just two months. She went into immediate details about a party at her sister-in-law's the night before, all ending at a dance hall. The pretty, plump ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... had been wrested by the old jeunes. This he believed and deplored until one day he found himself seated at a restaurant next to a too well-fed man whom, in spite of the ravages of comfortable living, he recognized as one of the jeunes of his own period. This one had been wont to describe himself and three or four others as the Hermits of the New Parnassus. He and his school had talked outside cafes and elsewhere more than solitaries do as a rule; but, then, rules were what ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... at London Tower, Where I was wont to be I never mair should gang frae hame, Till ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... She had often been obliged to leave "Walter to solitary rambles, owing to her aunt's, increasing dependence on her during her long illness, so it happened that she felt some surprise when she saw Walter more moved than was his wont as he eagerly discussed plans ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... little monkey! I believe they brave every danger. I wonder if we shall ever learn anything about her. The Sieur has so much on hand, and men are wont to drop the thread of a pursuit or get it tangled up with other things, so it would be too much of a burthen to ask him. And another year I shall go to Paris myself. If she does not develop too much waywardness, and keeps her good looks, I ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... occasions, was wont to lay aside her book, was virtually a deeper echo of her little daughter, and Johanna only counted in so far as she made and distributed cups of tea at the end of the room. She did not look with favour on the young men who ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... the wont of the dwarflings to seat themselves upon a great crag stone, and from thence to watch the haymakers; but a few mischievous fellows kindled a fire upon the stone, made it red-hot, and swept away embers and ashes. Morning came, and with it the tiny folk, who burned themselves pitiably. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... wedding finery upon her, for she had taken advantage of being dressed up to make two or three visits since the wedding, and so prolong the holiday. The light of the sunset softened her plain features, and gave her a gentler look than was her wont. Was it that, and an air of lonesomeness akin to his own, that made Hanford ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... room, occupied in drawing, and permitting none to see him. Sometimes, however, to pass the time, he drew caricatures of us all, and of the inhabitants of the villa. When he succeeded to his perfect satisfaction, he was wont to indulge in immoderate fits of laughter; and we, who were in the adjoining room, would run in to know his reason, when he showed us his spirited sketches. He drew a caricature of me with a guitar, one of Carmini (the painter), ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner |
